Presented by Signature Partner

Jul 17, 2024

Castor and Pollux

In honour of the XXXIII Olympiad, we turn our eyes to this homage to youthful athleticism from the AGO’s European Collection

By Andrea-Jo Wilson

Bronze statue of two male nude figures holding torches

Massimiliano Soldani. Castor and Pollux, probably conceived c. 1701; cast by 1711. bronze, Overall: 52.5 cm (20 11/16 in.). Art Gallery of Ontario. Purchased from the collection of Margaret and Ian Ross with assistance from the Volunteer Committee Fund, 1982. © 2011 Art Gallery of Ontario 82/66

As all eyes turn to Paris and the start of the XXXIII Olympiad, we celebrate with this homage to youthful athleticism (complete with torches) from the AGO’s European collection in this RBC Art Pick.

One of the finest bronze sculptors in Europe, Italian artist Massimiliano Soldani Benzi (15 July 1656 – 23 February 1740) spent his entire life in service to Grand Duke Cosimo III de' Medici. He was sent to Rome to study coin making by the family, and upon his return to Florence, he rose to become the director of the Granducal Mint. His workshop and home were located on the ground floor of the Uffizi.

“We are very fortunate to have a truly exceptional collection of Italian bronzes here at the AGO. Soldani Benzi is a star: his work demonstrates his study of ancient sculpture in Rome and the robust support of his Medici patrons,” says Adam Harris Levine, Associate Curator, European Art, AGO.

This superb bronze is based on a much-celebrated 1st-century AD marble sculpture called the San Ildefonso Group. Kept today in the Prado Museum (Madrid), it was displayed in Rome before it left for Spain in 1839. Soldani Benzi would have studied the marble sculpture in person as a student in Rome. The ancient Roman marble may have been carved based on a now-lost, earlier Greek bronze.

A celebration of idealized male beauty and strength, Soldani Benzi's sculpture features two athletes posed frontally, sporting laurel wreaths, and holding objects related to athletic games – torches and a patera, a flat dish from which wine was poured to thank the gods for victory. Widely associated in Greek and Roman myth with boxing, horses and sailing, the figures are the half-brothers and demi-gods Castor and Pollux, the heavenly twins of the zodiac Gemini. The figure with his arm raised is Castor – he holds one torch on his shoulder and another rests on a small square altar decorated with rams' heads and pendant floral scrolls. Pollux leans on Castor's right shoulder and holds his right hand at waist level.

To their left on an altar is a small female figure, usually interpreted as a statue of the goddess Persephone or the Egyptian goddess Isis. She holds a sphere, often interpreted as the egg, from which it is said that Castor and Pollux hatched.

While today’s Olympic games bare only a passing resemblance to the games of ancient Greece, laurel wreaths and fire are symbols from that past. Instead of today’s gold, silver and bronze medals, ancient Olympians received laurel- or olive-leaf wreaths as reward, and fires would have been lit during the religious ceremonies that proceeded various games, the most celebrated of which was held at Olympia.

Castor and Pollux is currently on view in gallery 120, part of the Tanenbaum Center for European Art.

Castor and Pollux

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