Belvedere Torso
Apollonius of Athens
1st century BC
Sculpture – Museum
Adult €25
15min
Vatican Museums (Sala delle Muse)
Viale Vaticano, Vatican City 00120
A fragment — a powerfully muscled seated torso — that Michelangelo refused to restore, saying it was too perfect to touch. He visited it repeatedly during the Sistine Chapel, ran his hands over it practically blind in old age. It directly inspired the twisted, muscular bodies of the Last Judgement. Perhaps the most influential incomplete work in existence.


