Vincenzo Franciosi

The great xoanon from the sanctuary of Mephitis in the Ansanto Valley schematically shows a female gure dressed in a long tunic with the characteristic St. Andrew's cross pattern on her chest. Recent microscopic and dendrochronological analyses suggested that the wooden statue, representing undoubtedly the goddess Mephitis, was carved in an oak trunk of about half a century. e oak is the quintessential image of the World Tree. It manifests its axial and mediumistic role by connecting the three levels of the cosmos: the infernal, with the roots; the terrestrial, with the trunk; the celestial, with the branches. e same mediumistic character is expressed by the goddess Mephitis, " the one who is in the middle " , mediating between the world of the living and the world of the dead.

Now that the head of the ’Massimino Farnese’ has been identified as portraying Marcus Nonius Balbo and information has been gathered from 18th-century excavation journals, there is general consensus that the head of the statue, which had been torn inadvertently from a tuff bank in the course of excavations in Herculaneum by Duke d’Elboeuf in 1710-1711, was relocated by Weber on February 13, 1768 and that the body was recovered on April 16 of the same year. Hence, the statue could be thought of as an honorary portrait of Marcus Nonius Balbo in heroic nudity. Actually, though, it is not at all certain that the head belongs to that body; indeed, the presence of integrations due to modern restorations in the neck area would suggest the contrary. The body of the statue, which is distinct from the Doryphoros type only for a black chlamys over the left shoulder, might be one of the best marble replicas from the Roman Age of the bronze archetype of Polykleitos’ Hermes.

The great xoanon from the sanctuary of Mephitis in the Ansanto Valley schematically shows a female gure dressed in a long tunic with the characteristic St. Andrew's cross pattern on her chest. Recent microscopic and dendrochronological analyses suggested that the wooden statue, representing undoubtedly the goddess Mephitis, was carved in an oak trunk of about half a century. e oak is the quintessential image of the World Tree. It manifests its axial and mediumistic role by connecting the three levels of the cosmos: the infernal, with the roots; the terrestrial, with the trunk; the celestial, with the branches. e same mediumistic character is expressed by the goddess Mephitis, " the one who is in the middle " , mediating between the world of the living and the world of the dead.

L’interesse scientifico nei confronti del «contesto», sviluppatosi di recente nel panorama della ricerca archeologica mediterranea, ha condizionato profondamente l’approccio dell’archeologo classico all’opera d’arte antica, segnando un importante passo in avanti negli studi di antichità. Nel caso dei monumenti scultorei la conoscenza del contesto di provenienza, nonché delle modalità di allestimento in antico, difficilmente si realizza, così tra le repliche del tipo noto come Doriforo, gli esemplari rinvenuti nel ginnasio di Messene e nella Palestra Sannitica di Pompei, proprio in virtù della loro certa collocazione topografica, offrono una straordinaria opportunità di studio, prestandosi a riflessioni di natura ideologica e culturale, oltre che stilistica. La storia degli studi lega a doppio filo le due repliche: la statua pompeiana, ottima nel suo stato di conservazione, ha spinto gli studiosi a tentare il riconoscimento del tipo; la replica di Messene ha, invece, permesso l’identificazione del soggetto.