The Etruscan Chimera

The Chimera, this lion-dog with a snake’s tail and a goat’s head on its back, was formed from the transformation of fantastic animals from Syrian, Persian and Babylonian Assyrian art.

It appeared in the Western world through Greek, Etruscan and Italic art through commercial exchange in the 8th – 7th century BC. The variant in which the goat’s head emerges from a wing is one of the oldest representations.

But it is at the end of the 5th and beginning of the 4th century BC. that the Chimera with the Etruscan civilization reaches the apex of its artistic representation with the bronze of Arezzo.

There are various Greek myths relating to his birth: according to Homer it was a divine animal fed by Amisodaros king of Caria; for Hesiod it was the daughter of the Hydra of Lerna and the Nemean lion, granddaughter of Typhon and Echidna, sister of the sphinx. It symbolized chthonic power and of the underworld’s forces.

It was killed by the Corinthian hero Bellerophon of the lineage of Sisyphus, son of Eurynome and Glaucus and Poseidon: the myth tells that Bellerophon fled from his homeland for having involuntarily caused the death of his brother and went to Prince Preto in Argos, where, however, he refused the advances of his wife Sthenebea who took revenge by sending him to his father-in-law Lobate king of Lycia, who to expiate him invited him to perform a series of “labours” including that of killing the Chimera, helped by the winged horse Pegasus.

In Etruscan times the Chimera with Bellerophon was positioned to protect the city gates with an apotropaic function, and the Chimera of Arezzo was found near the ancient Etruscan gate corresponding to the current Porta San Laurentino;

It is probable that some representations of angels or saints with the same function of guardians of the doors derive from the memory of the ancient mythical episode, such as San Michele or San Giorgio often depicted with wings like Pegasus, the winged horse of Bellerophon, which they are about to kill the dragon, a distant relative of the Chimera.

At the beginning of the seventh century BC. C. the Chimera was still implemented in a purely decorative way, and at the end of the sixth century BC. its image began to appear on coins, gems, beetles, antefixes,

on ceramics,

In the 5th century BC. there was the return and diffusion of the myth of it with Bellerophon on Pegasus who kills it which continued even in Roman times appearing on ceramics, mosaics, frescoes, gems and coins.

The Chimera of Arezzo is male (although in ancient times the Chimera also appeared in female forms) and is represented wounded by enemy blows on the left thigh and on the neck of the goat’s head hanging on the left side now dying .

The animal’s body has been modeled with plastic naturalism, while the head still has a strong archaic flavor as a sculptural work of transition between two artistic styles.

Particularly convincing on the archaic nature of the head is the comparison with the clay drip from Metapontum dating back to the mid-5th century BC. and the red-figured Attic Rhyton of Ruvo from the end of the 5th century. B.C.

Other stylistic affinities can be found in the comparison with the funerary statue from Marciano in the Antikensamlung in Berlin and with the support paw in the Archaeological Museum in Florence.

The study of the Etruscan writing on the left leg tinscvil, engraved on the wax before casting, confirms the dating of the Chimera of Arezzo at the end of the 5th – beginning of the 4th century. B.C.

The myth of its killing foresees that the Chimera and the other two figures of Bellerophon and Pegasus are united in a single sculptural group, as often happens. But the Chimera, like other monstrous figures, is also represented by itself, i.e. she takes on an autonomous life as precisely in coins, ceramics, etc.
The Chimera of Arezzo may have been removed from a bronze group with Bellerophon riding Pegasus. However, the Etruscan dedication written on the left leg of the animal engraved on the wax before casting could also suggest a single casting. The bronze would then be buried together with other small bronzes in a votive deposit.

The sculpture is about 80 cm high and about 130 long including the tail, which however is not in its original position due to the eighteenth-century restoration.

Cosimo I dei Medici Duke of Tuscany ordered that both the Chimera and the other finds excavated in Arezzo be brought to him, and exhibited the large bronze in the rooms of Pope Medici Leo X in Palazzo Vecchio, as a symbol of all the fairs he won in the creation of the Kingdom of Etruria. Subsequently it was taken to the “midday corridor” of the Uffizi. Today it is in the Archaeological Museum of Florence.
The restoration was done by Cellini; the legs on the left side, found detached from the body just above the joint, were roughly reattached with lead casting.

In 1785 the sculptor Carradori recreated the tail of the animal (still not remade in the drawing of Verkruys Drawing of 1724 reproduced by Th. Dempster in 1720-1726)

not respecting the original trend, only the part closest to the body of the Chimera is a fragment of the original tail and the position of the snake biting the horn of the goat’s head was created to give it a foothold thanks to which to support its weight .

In 1933, in front of the Arezzo railway station, two fountains were placed with a replica of the Etruscan Chimera cast by the Aglietti foundry in the center of each one. During the Second World War they were removed and the metal melted down for military purposes.

After the war, the Municipality of Arezzo asked the Ferdinando Marinelli Artistic Foundry of Florence to cast two replicas which were repositioned in place of the lost ones.

Several times this magnificent bronze conserved in the Archaeological Museum of Florence has been requested to be exhibited both in exhibitions and museums in various parts of the world have set up. And a serious problem arose: if the original is lost during transport by ship or by plane, how can it be done? Losing such a masterpiece would be a tragedy and a crime. The project of the “identicals” was therefore born by the Archaeological Superintendence, that is, the creation of absolutely identical replicas of these bronzes, to be sent to the various exhibitions and keep the original in the Museum.
The management of the Archaeological Museum of Florence therefore contacted the Ferdinando Marinelli Artistic Foundry through the Bazzanti Gallery, to begin studying the possibility of performing a negative cast not only on the Etruscan Chimera, but also on two other Etruscan bronzes in the Museum: the Etruscan Minerva , and the Idolino, to then cast the identical ones in lost-wax bronze. Having ascertained the capacity and working quality of the foundry, he proceeded to give it the assignment.
Our technicians have reached the laboratories of the Archaeological Superintendency and have begun to execute, with extreme care, the mold of the Chimera in silicone rubber and mother mold in plaster.

From the mould, carefully transported to the foundry, the waxes to which the castings were applied were made and retouched, the casting performed and processed, the parts assembled and welded.

The “identical” of the Chimera was exhibited at the Florentine Archaeological Museum, and was then sent to various exhibitions such as the 2014 “Etruscan Seduction. From the secrets of Holkham Hall to the wonders of the British Museum” at Palazzo Casali in Cortona.
It is currently located at the entrance to the Archaeological Museum of Florence.