Ratto di Polissena"Carved between 1855 and 1865 after a long gestation with studies and drawings (many of which are still preserved in Florence and Rome ) is considered the artist's masterpiece and one of the most significant works of the nineteenth-century Italian sculpture , earning the prestigious location in Piazza della Signoria in Florence , the only modern work between ancient masterpieces of the Renaissance.
The subject of the sculpture is Polyxena , youngest daughter of Priam, kidnapped by Pyrrhus to be sacrificed in anticipation of the start of the Greek ships to return from the Trojan War . The violence of the abduction is underlined by the killing of the brother of Polyxena Polidoro , who fell to defend his sister, and the raised arm with the sword of Pyrrhus appeal that is going to strike a blow to kill the mother of Polyxena , Hecuba , who holds at his heels.
To sculpt the Rings was inspired by a statue of Lorenzo Bartolini ( Pirro throwing Astyanax from a tower ) and Ercole and Lica by Antonio Canova, but also close to Patroclus and Menelaus of Roman , especially in the physiognomy of the protagonist.
The statue is characterized by the complexity of the subject , treated with almost theatrical action , represented by the gesture of the arm that lifts the sword of Pyrrhus ."
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Polyxena"In Greek mythology, Polyxena was the youngest daughter of King Priam of Troy and his queen, Hecuba. She is considered the Trojan version of Iphigenia, daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra. Polyxena is not in Homer's Iliad, appearing in works by later poets, perhaps to add romance to Homer's austere tale. An oracle prophesied that Troy would not be defeated if Polyxena's brother, Prince Troilus, reached the age of twenty. During the Trojan War, Polyxena and Troilus were ambushed when they were attempting to fetch water from a fountain, and Troilus was killed by the Greek warrior Achilles, who soon became interested in the quiet sagacity of Polyxena.
Achilles, still recovering from Patroclus' death, found Polyxena's words a comfort and was later told to go to the temple of Apollo to meet her after her devotions. Achilles seemed to trust Polyxena—he told her of his only vulnerability: his vulnerable heel. It was later in the temple of Apollo that Polyxena's brothers, Paris and Deiphobus, ambushed Achilles and shot him in the heel with an arrow, supposedly guided by the hand of Apollo himself, steeped in poison.
Some claimed Polyxena committed suicide after Achilles' death out of guilt. According to Euripides, however, in his plays The Trojan Women and Hecuba, Polyxena's famous death was caused at the end of the Trojan War. Achilles' ghost had come back to the Greeks, demanding that the wind needed to set sail back to Hellas was to be appeased by the human sacrifice of Polyxena. She was to be killed at the foot of Achilles' grave. Hecuba, Polyxena's mother, expressed despair at the death of another of her daughters. (Polyxena was killed after almost all of her brothers and sisters.)
However, Polyxena was eager to die as a sacrifice to Achilles rather than die as a slave. She reassured her mother, and refused to beg before Odysseus or be treated in any way other than a princess. She asked that Odysseus reassure her mother as she is led away. Polyxena's virginity was critical to the honor of her character, and she was described as dying bravely as the son of Achilles, Neoptolemus, slit her throat: she arranged her clothing around her carefully so that she was fully covered when she died."
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