A Classical Sculpture? Or A Renaissance Forgery?
Michelangelo supervised the excavation of an ancient Greek sculpture — but did he also bury it?
Francesco da Sangallo was 12 years old when his father brought him to a Roman vineyard. The year was 1506 and the vineyard’s owner had made a startling discovery: ancient statues buried beneath the earth.
“The first time I was in Rome when I was very young,” Sangallo later wrote, “the pope was told about the discovery of some very beautiful statues in a vineyard near Santa Maria Maggiore.”
Pope Julius II, an admirer of classical art, asked Francesco’s father, the architect Giuliano Sangallo, to unearth the sculptures.
“Since Michelangelo Buonarotti was always to be found at our house,” Francesco Sangallo explained, “my father wanted him to come along too.”
That’s how the artist Michelangelo found himself in a Roman vineyard in 1506, watching as men dug out a massive marble sculpture. Young Francesco remembered the moment his father identified the sculpture. Giuliano declared, “That is the Laocoön, which Pliny mentions.”
On that day in the vineyard, the past came to life. “They dug the hole wider so that they could pull the statue out,” Sangallo explained. “As soon as it was visible everyone started to draw, all the while discoursing on ancient things, chatting about the [ancient statues] in Florence.”
But was Laocoön and His Sons truly an ancient statue? Or was it a forgery?
One man present during the excavation had a history of sculpting works, burying them, and passing them off as classical sculptures once they were unearthed: Michelangelo.
Best known for his sculpture of David and the Sistine Chapel today, Michelangelo had a side career as a forger in the Renaissance.
During the Renaissance, artists would prefer for their sculptures to be mistaken as antiques rather than identified as their own works. Renaissance Italians looked to the past to rebuild their society, convinced that the ancient Greeks and Romans had built a stronger civilization. And some artists passed off their works as forgeries to make a profit.
Lorenzo de’ Medici was the greatest art patron of the Renaissance. Even with artists like Sandro Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, and Michelangelo working for him, Lorenzo de’ Medici preferred antiquities to modern works.
Once, Lorenzo even told Michelangelo to bury one of his sculptures in the ground so it would look more like an ancient statue.
Renaissance collectors would pay high prices for antiquities. Italy’s Renaissance cities were built atop Roman ruins. It wasn’t uncommon for 15th and 16th-century builders to unearth ancient treasures. From Roman coins to massive statues, Italians were surrounded by classical art.
And Michelangelo took advantage of the demand for antiquities. In 1496, a decade before Laocoön emerged from the vineyard, Michelangelo buried one of his sculptures in a different vineyard.
At the time, Michelangelo was a young, unknown artist. David and the Sistine Chapel were in his future. And the young artist saw forgery as the fastest way to make a name for himself.
So Michelangelo buried a sculpture called Sleeping Cupid. And then he dug it up, selling the piece to a cardinal. The truth eventually came out — but instead of feeling duped, the cardinal hired Michelangelo. Few artists were skilled enough to imitate the ancients. The Sleeping Cupid proved Michelangelo’s talent and helped launch his career.
Did Michelangelo pull the same con in a Roman vineyard in 1506?
According to art historian Lynn Catterson, the answer is yes. Catterson sees too many coincidences in the story. Michelangelo simply happened to attend the unearthing of Laocoön? The same artist who happened to have a history of forgery?
Only one person had “the motive, the means, and the opportunity” to forge the sculpture, says Catterson. And that person was Michelangelo.
If the sculpture was a forgery, that is. Most scholars don’t think the Laocoön was forged at all. In part, that’s because Michelangelo never claimed that he created it. Artists didn’t boost their careers by keeping their forgeries secret.
Plus, the logistics of the crime are hard to imagine. Someone would have noticed Michelangelo sculpting a massive piece of marble in a Roman vineyard — or caught him transporting it to bury it. Forty men spent four days moving David a few blocks from Michelangelo’s studio to its place in the Piazza della Signoria in Florence.
Finally, Laocoön shares important stylistic similarities with other Hellenistic-era sculptures that Michelangelo never saw. It would be giving the artist a great deal of credit to claim he could pull off a forgery that good.
Today, the Laocoön sits in the Vatican Museum, where millions visit it every year. Are they seeing a Greek sculpture or a Renaissance forgery? We might never know the truth. And yet, either way, the Laocoön is part of history.
For more tales on the intersection between history and art, check out Through Mona Lisa’s Eyes, a book on the mysteries behind history’s most famous artworks.
Bruce Wilson Jr. is the author of nine books on history. Visit Bruce Wilson’s website to learn more.
