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Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Dioscuri and the Soldiers' Memorial

I realized recently that the two horsemen out front of the Soldiers' Memorial are clearly based off of the famous Dioscuri statues which stand out front of the Palazzo Quirinale in Rome.Dug out of the ground during the Renaissance, these ancient statues were from the Severan period of ancient Rome.Read about them here, in Italian, by translating the page at Google.
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3 comments:

  1. Tom Maher - KirkwoodJuly 19, 2011 at 2:16 PM

    But - our warriors and their stallions (?) are much more modest than those of Rome...

    Excuse my ignorance but - what do the wings on the horses signify?

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  2. ChrisJuly 20, 2011 at 8:17 AM

    The wings probably are a reference to Pegasus, the winged horse of Perseus from ancient mythology.

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  3. Tom Maher - KirkwoodJuly 20, 2011 at 4:45 PM

    I actually thought about Pegasus, but I couldn't figure out the connection - unless - it was a veiled (to me, anyway) reference to aviators.

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