Aeneas & Anchises - Chateau Vranov nad Dyjí / Zámek Vranov nad Dyjí (South Moravia) - Epic Beings and Creatures on Waymarking.com

Depicted Baroque sculpture of Aeneas carrying his father Anchises (Greek mythology) decorates right side of monumental stairway in Cour d'honneur of the Chateau Vranov nad Dyjí (zámek Vranov nad Dyjí).

The exceptionally valuable Baroque sculptural group of sculptor Lorenzo Mattielli (ca 1730), together with the opposite sculptural group Heracles and Antaîos, forms a highly impressive unified unit that significantly enhances the architecturally demanding staircase and the entire environment of the Chateau's Cour d'honneur.

The sculpture of Aeneas carrying his father Anchises from the burning Troy is life-size. Captured in walking, Aeneas is leaning forward under the weight of his father's body, and Anchises rests sitting on his right shoulder. Aeneas represents an ancient soldier with a helmet, dressed in a skirt, with a carapace, on his feet knees. Anchises with a long beard isportrayed in an almost complete act. Both characters are sharply distinguished by age.

Chateau Vranov nad Dyjí, one of the most remarkable buildings of the Central European Baroque, was created by rebuilding of a Romanesque-Gothic castle firstly mentioned in 1100. The current form was imprinted on it after a devastating fire in 1665.

In Greco-Roman mythology Aeneas was a Trojan hero, the son of the prince Anchises and the goddess Aphrodite (Venus). His father was a first cousin of King Priam of Troy (both being grandsons of Ilus, founder of Troy), making Aeneas a second cousin to Priam's children (such as Hector and Paris). He is a character in Greek mythology and is mentioned in Homer's Iliad. Aeneas receives full treatment in Roman mythology, most extensively in Virgil's Aeneid, where he is cast as an ancestor of Romulus and Remus. He became the first true hero of Rome.

Anchises was a member of the royal family of Troy in Greek and Roman legend. He was said to have been the son of King Capys of Dardania and Themiste, daughter of Ilus, who was son of Tros. He is most famous as the father of Aeneas and for his treatment in Virgil's Aeneid. Anchises' brother was Acoetes, father of the priest Laocoon. He was a mortal lover of the goddess Aphrodite (equivalent to the Roman goddess Venus). She fell in love with Anchises seeing him herding sheep on Mount Ida after Zeus persuaded Eros to shoot her an arrow to cause it. One version is that Aphrodite pretended to be a Phrygian princess and seduced him, only to later reveal herself and inform him that they would have a son named Aeneas; Aphrodite had warned Anchises that if he told anyone about her being the mother of his child, Zeus would strike him down with his thunderbolt. He did not heed her warning and was struck with a thunderbolt, which in different versions either blinds him or kills him. The principal early narrative of Aphrodite's seduction of Anchises and the birth of Aeneas is the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite.

The contest between Heracles and Antaeus was a favored subject in ancient, Renaissance and Baroque sculpture.

[excerpted from Wikipedia]