1503–1506: Julius II and Bramante's project
When Rodrigo Borgia died in 1503, the new pope Julius II della Rovere — a man of war and culture, patron of the Sistine Chapel and St Peter's — decided to bring together the ancient sculptures he had accumulated as a cardinal. The chosen space was a garden north of the papal palace, separated from the apartments by a long corridor.
Donato Bramante was commissioned to design this "Casino delle Statue" — an outdoor area with flower beds, orange trees, fountains, and niches in the walls for sculptures. The project, completed between 1504 and 1506, was conceived as a private pleasure garden, not a public museum. Access was reserved for selected guests, ambassadors and artists.
The name Belvedere — literally "beautiful view" — referred to the view over the Roman countryside enjoyed from the top of the hill. It was, in a literal sense, a privileged place for seeing.
1506: the discovery of the Laocoön
14 January 1506 was one of the most important dates in the history of Western art. In a vineyard on the Oppian Hill, near the Baths of Trajan, workers digging for a cellar unearthed a marble group of extraordinary proportions.
Julius II immediately sent Michelangelo and Giuliano da Sangallo to examine the find. Sangallo recognised on the spot the sculptural group described by Pliny the Elder in his Naturalis Historia as "a work superior to every other painting and sculpture": the Laocoön, by the Rhodian sculptors Hagesander, Athenodoros and Polydorus, datable between the 1st century BC and the 1st century AD.
The group depicts the Trojan priest Laocoön and his two sons entwined by serpents sent by Poseidon — punishment for having tried to warn the Trojans about the wooden horse. The expression of physical pain and moral resistance, the torsion of the bodies, the variety of emotions in the three faces — every element seemed to embody the best of ancient art.
Julius II immediately purchased the sculpture and transferred it to the Belvedere Courtyard.
The immediate impact: Michelangelo and the Laocoön
Michelangelo was profoundly struck by the discovery. Art historians have precisely documented the influence of the Laocoön on subsequent Michelangelesque works:
- The Rebellious Slave of the Tomb of Julius II shows the same torso torsion and muscular tension as the Laocoön
- The Damned in the Last Judgment reproduce the posture of the elder son
- The figure of Adam in the Creation on the Sistine ceiling reflects the compositional challenge of the Laocoön's right arm
This last point has a historical backstory: the right arm of the Laocoön was missing at the time of discovery. Raphael organised a competition among sculptors to propose the correct arm. Michelangelo maintained that the arm should be bent towards the body; others proposed an outstretched arm. For centuries, Giovanni Montorsoli's outstretched arm was installed. In 1906 the original solution was found: the arm was indeed bent, as Michelangelo had intuited.
The Apollo Belvedere
The Apollo Belvedere was already in Julius II's collection when it was transferred to the Courtyard in 1506. The sculpture — a Roman marble copy of a Greek bronze original of the 4th century BC, attributed to the sculptor Leochares — had been found near Anzio in the second half of the fifteenth century.
Apollo is depicted after firing an arrow — the gesture is captured in the moment immediately following the shot. The left arm extended, the cloak flying backwards, the step forward: the sculpture expresses speed and divinity simultaneously.
Johann Joachim Winckelmann, in 1764, wrote the most celebrated description in the history of art of the Apollo Belvedere: "In the Apollo Belvedere the highest ideal of art has been achieved... his aspect is like an eternal spring, a flourishing youth in eternal bliss." This text established the aesthetic category of the Classical Sublime — the idea that Greek art embodied an unattainable ideal.
In the nineteenth century, with Romanticism and the revaluation of Greek origins (rather than Roman ones), it was understood that the Apollo was a copy. But its influence was already inscribed in the history of European culture.
The Belvedere Torso
The Belvedere Torso is signed on the base: Apollonios Nestoros Athenaios epoiei — "Apollonius son of Nestor of Athens made this." The signature dates from the 1st century BC. The sculpture — a fragment of a seated male figure, without head or arms — was known in Rome already in the fifteenth century.
Michelangelo venerated it openly. He called it "the school of sculpture" and would bring it to visit illustrious guests. According to Vasari, he refused to restore it so as not to contaminate the perfection of the fragment. Art historians have identified the influence of the Torso in the figures of the Prophets and Sibyls on the Sistine ceiling — in particular in the way the bodies twist to read or look in different directions.
The identity of the subject remains controversial: it could be Hercules, Polyphemus, Ajax, or Philoctetes. The ambiguity was probably intentional: a representation of pure physical power, without a specific narrative.
The transformation into a museum: Pius VI and Simonetti (1771)
From Bramante's opening in 1506, the Belvedere Courtyard remained an open garden for nearly three centuries. In 1771, Pope Pius VI decided to transform it into an enclosed museum.
The architect Michelangelo Simonetti designed four large niches at the corners of the courtyard, creating the octagonal form that has remained ever since. Each niche was designed as a small separate cabinet — a room in the open air — with a principal sculpture at the centre and seating for observers.
The result was the Museo Pio-Clementino, inaugurated by Pius VI in 1772 and completed under Pius VII. It was the first major modern museum designed as an educational itinerary with ancient sculptures: the prototype of all the European national museums of the nineteenth century.
Napoleon and the return of the sculptures
In 1797, the Treaty of Tolentino required the Vatican to cede 100 works of art as war reparations. Among them, the Laocoön and the Apollo Belvedere. Transported to Paris, they were displayed at the Louvre as symbols of Napoleonic cultural glory.
When Napoleon fell, the Congress of Vienna (1815) established the restitution of the works of art. The Vatican's representative was Antonio Canova — the greatest living sculptor — who negotiated the return of 97 of the 100 works.
In the meantime, Pius VII had commissioned from Canova two sculptures to fill the empty places left by the Laocoön and the Apollo: Perseus with the Head of Medusa (1800–1801) and the Boxers Creugas and Damoxenos (1801–1806). When the ancient sculptures returned, the Perseus remained in the Octagonal Courtyard — where it still stands — as a paradoxical testimony to the temporary absence and return.
The Apoxyomenos sculpture
The Apoxyomenos ("the scraper") is a Roman copy of a bronze original by Lysippos of around 320 BC. The figure depicts an athlete scraping oil and dust from his body with a strigil after the competition.
The gesture — arms extended forward, head turned to the side — breaks the frontality of earlier Greek sculpture. Lysippos is considered the first Greek sculptor to have systematically used multiple viewpoints: the sculpture works from the front angle but also from different sides, being conceived to be walked around.
The Apoxyomenos was found in Rome in 1849 and has been displayed in the Octagonal Courtyard since 1854.
Winckelmann in the Belvedere Courtyard
Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717–1768) was a German scholar who arrived in Rome in 1755 and gained access to the Belvedere Courtyard as librarian to Cardinal Albani. His repeated visits to the Laocoön and Apollo Belvedere generated two foundational texts: the Geschichte der Kunst des Altertums (History of Ancient Art, 1764) and the essay on the "imitation of Greek works" of 1755.
Winckelmann was the first to propose a historical periodisation of classical art — archaic style, sublime style, beautiful style, style of imitation — and to distinguish between original Greek art and Roman copies. He was also the first to make "ideal beauty" the central criterion of art history.
His murder in Trieste in 1768 — at the hands of a street criminal who had stolen some gold coins from him — added a tragic dimension to his figure that amplified his legend.
Visiting with a private driver
The Octagonal Courtyard is one of the first stops on the Vatican Museums route, best reached at opening time.
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Frequently asked questions
Is the Laocoön original or a copy? It is almost certainly an original, not a copy. The dating is debated — between the 1st century BC and the 1st century AD — but the quality of execution suggests an original work, not a Roman replica of an earlier Greek bronze.
Is the Apollo Belvedere original? No. It is a marble copy of a Greek bronze original of the 4th century BC. The original has been lost. The copy was made in Roman times, probably in the 1st–2nd century AD.
Has the Belvedere Torso been restored? No. Michelangelo refused to restore it; in subsequent centuries, this precedent was respected. The fragment is displayed as it was found.
Is Canova's Perseus still in the Octagonal Courtyard? Yes. It occupies one of the niches originally intended for the Apollo, flanked by the two Boxers.
Is Winckelmann buried in Rome? He is buried in the Cathedral of Trieste, the city where he was killed. But the majority of his career and works are linked to Rome and the sculptures of the Belvedere Courtyard.
Article no. 39 — TIER S — MON-02 Vatican Museums + Sistine Chapel Type: HISTORY Words: ~2,400