Boy with Thorn, also calledFedele (Fedelino) orSpinario, is a Greco-RomanHellenistic bronze sculpture of a boy withdrawing athorn from the sole of his foot, now in thePalazzo dei Conservatori,Rome. There is a Roman marble version of this subject from theMedici collections in a corridor of theUffizi Gallery,Florence.[1]
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The sculpture was one of the very few Roman bronzes that was never lost to sight.[clarification needed] The work was standing outside theLateran Palace when theNavarrese rabbiBenjamin of Tudela saw it in the 1160s and identified it asAbsalom, who "was without blemish from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head."[2] It was noted around 1200 by the English visitor, Magister Gregorius, who noted in hisDe mirabilibus urbis Romae that it was ridiculously thought to bePriapus.[3] It must have been one of the sculptures transferred to the Palazzo dei Conservatori byPope Sixtus IV in the 1470s, though it is not recorded there until 1499–1500.[4]
In the Early Renaissance, it was celebrated through being one of the first Roman sculptures to be copied. There are bronze reductions bySevero da Ravenna andJacopo Buonaccolsi (called "L'Antico" for his refined, classicizing figures). Buonaccolsi made a copy forIsabella d'Este around 1501 that is now in the Galleria Estense, Modena.[5] He followed that work with an untracedpendant that perhaps reversed the pose. In 1500,Antonello Gagini made a full-size variant for a fountain inMessina, which is probably the bronze version that now resides in theMetropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
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In the sixteenth century, bronze copies made suitably magnificent ambassadorial gifts to the King of France and the King of Spain.Francis I of France was given a version byIppolito II d'Este. The making of this copy was overseen byGiovanni Fancelli andJacopo Sansovino, and the transaction effected by the courtlyBenvenuto Cellini. It now is held in theMusée du Louvre.Philip II of Spain received a copy from CardinalGiovanni Ricci. In the following century,Charles I of England had a bronzeSpinario made byHubert Le Sueur.[7]
Small bronze reductions were suitable for the less grand. AStill Life with 'Spinario' byPieter Claesz, 1628, is conserved at theRijksmuseum, and among the riches emblematic of the good life, it displays a small plaster model of theSpinario.[8] Later remakes, one such example can be seen in The Oliver Mansion, South Bend Indiana.
There were also marble copies. The Medici Roman marble seems to have been among the collection of antiquities assembled in the gardens at San Marco, Florence, which were the resort[clarification needed] of the humanists in the circle ofLorenzo il Magnifico, who opened his collection to young artists to study from. The youngMichelangelo profited from this early exposure to antique sculpture.[clarification needed] and it has been discussed whetherMasaccio was influenced by the MediciSpinario or by the bronze he saw in Rome in the 1420s.[9] However,Filippo Brunelleschi more certainly adapted theSpinario's pose for the left-hand attendant in 1401 for his bronze panelThe Sacrifice of Isaac, which was his trial piece for the competition to design the doors of theBaptistery of San Giovanni.[clarification needed][10]
There is a copy in the entrance lobby of Newcastle University School of Medical Science.
The formerly popular titleIl Fedele ("The faithful boy") derived from an anecdote invented to give this intimate and naturalistic study a more heroic civic setting: the faithful messenger, a mere shepherd boy, had delivered his message to the Roman Senate first, only then stopping to remove a painful thorn from his foot: the Roman Senate commemorated the event. Such a story was already deflated in Paolo Alessandro Maffei'sRaccolta di statue antiche e moderni... of 1704.[11]
Taking into account Hellenistic marble variants that have been discovered, of which the best is theThorn-Puller from the Castellani collection now in theBritish Museum,[12] none of which have the archaizing qualities of the bronzeSpinario, recent scholarship has tended to credit this as a Roman bronze of the first century AD, with a head adapted from an archaic prototype.[13]
InThomas Mann's 1912 novellaDeath in Venice, Gustav von Aschenbach compares Tadzio's beauty to the Spinario.
The statue is alluded to, as being part of an auction, in the Flavia Albia novelDeadly Election byLindsey Davis.
Media related toThe Spinario at Wikimedia Commons
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