The Vatican’s branch for classical ‘profane’ antiquities, reorganized in 1970 from the Lateran collections. Greek and Roman marbles, reliefs, inscriptions, and sarcophagi appear alongside noted fragments (including a Parthenon relief), mapping ancient public life, myth, portraiture, and display.
Artworks in Gregoriano Profano Museum
at the Vatican Museums
#73
Statue of Athena and Marsyas
After a lost bronze by Myron, the scene catches a split second: Athena turns away from the flutes she has rejected, while the satyr Marsyas, startled and eager, reaches toward them. Calm divine poise meets rustic curiosity—myth frozen at the moment choice becomes fate.
Roman copy of Myron’s famed ‘Athena and Marsyas,’ a landmark of Severe-style sculpture.
#74
Marble Fragment from the Parthenon
A small slice of the Parthenon’s great sculpture: crisp folds, firm contours, and calm rhythm from the Periklean age. Even as a fragment, it carries the balance and clarity that made Phidian classicism the touchstone for Western relief.
Direct link to the Parthenon’s Phidian classicism of the 5th century BCE.
#75
Asarotos Oikos (Unswept Floor) Mosaic
A virtuoso Roman trompe-l’œil: the dining-room floor seems littered with bones, shells, peels, and crumbs. Signed by the mosaicist Herakleitos, it turns the mess after a feast into witty illusion and a boast of skill.
Signed Roman mosaic after the celebrated ‘unswept floor’ motif.
#77
Bust of Julius Caesar
Lean cheeks, receding hair, and a tense, thoughtful gaze: this marble bust presents Julius Caesar without flattery. The pared-down face and stringy neck advertise Roman realism—power expressed as will and intellect rather than soft ideal beauty.
Defines the canonical likeness of Rome’s most famous dictator.
#78
Reliefs from the Palazzo della Cancelleria
Grand imperial processions carved in deep, flowing drapery: officials, soldiers, and personifications attend the emperor. Once reused in a Renaissance palace, the panels preserve Flavian spectacle and the propaganda of orderly rule cast in stone.
Major example of Flavian imperial propaganda in relief.
#79
Relief Panels from the Tomb of the Haterii
Vivid funerary panels for the Haterii family—builders by trade. Scenes show cranes, pulleys, and monuments rising, alongside funeral rites. It’s Rome’s working life and afterlife on one stage: profession as pride, memory as narrative.
Rare visual record of Roman construction technology in action.
#80
Mosaic of Athletes from the Baths of Caracalla
From Rome’s vast Baths of Caracalla, this floor shows athletes poised mid-contest—wrestlers, boxers, pankratiasts—named and kitted with gloves, strigils, and crowns. Black-and-white tesserae turn muscle and motion into graphic rhythm, celebrating sport as spectacle and imperial civic life.
Document of Roman athletics and bath-culture spectacle.Last Minute Offers
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