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Belvedere Torso
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Vigorous action and dramatic emotion in Hellenistic sculpture. (Top) “Belvedere Torso,” marble by Apollonius, 1st century bc. In the Vatican Museums. (Bottom) “Dying Gaul,” marble Roman copy after a bronze original, from Pergamum, c. 230–220 bc. In the Museo Nazionale Romano. Apollo Belvedere, restored Roman copy of the Greek original attributed to Leochares, 4th century bc; in the Vatican Museum, Rome
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Belvedere Torso

Greek sculpture
Also known as: “Apollo Belvedere”
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History

Belvedere Torso, Hellenistic sculpture fragment of a male nude (5 feet 2 5/8 inches [1.59 m] high) in the Vatican Museum; the work is signed by the Athenian sculptor Apollonius the son of Nestor and was long thought to be a 1st-century-bc original. It is now believed that Apollonius copied a 2nd-century original. The dynamic pose of the torso influenced the development of the energetic figure style of Michelangelo and was subsequently much studied by artists of the Mannerist or Late Renaissance and Baroque periods.