After restoration, Apollo Belvedere returns to the Vatican Museums

After almost five years of restoration work, the iconic Apollo Belvedere sculpture was once again on display to the public in Vatican Museums.

The iconic marble work, which depicts the Greek god Apollo after shooting an arrow with his bow, was restored to restore its solidity, using, among other things, a carbon and steel bar inserted into its base.

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Experts also used fragments of plaster dating from the 5th and 6th centuries BC to reconstruct one of the hands of the 2,24-meter statue, replacing the one made by the Florentine artist Giovanni Angelo Montorsoli after the sculpture was discovered in Rome in 1489, among the ruins of an ancient domus.

The restoration work on the statue cost around 150 euros, in addition to the 100 euros for the renovation project, and was partly funded by the Patrons of Art of the Vatican Museums. The restoration of the statue began after “serious structural damage” was detected in 2019.

 “The main challenge was having the courage to remove such an important work from our museums and to take actions that also required a lot of time,” analyzed Barbara Jatta, director of the Vatican Museums. (HANDLE)