Verus as well as modern portraits of Pope Paul III and Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor. Scattered throughout were innumerable antique fragments – hands, arms, heads, legs, feet. Finally the two men arrived in a study with no fewer than seventy-six portraits. Aldrovandi quickly fixed his attention on one that stood out from the crowd.
“That’s a recent acquisition,” the cardinal told him. “You might find it interesting.”
In fact, Aldrovandi was stunned. Most surviving ancient statuary was marble, with the original paint and ornamentation long since worn away to leave a uniform whiteness and blank eyeballs that appeared blind. Here was a bust made of rich, dark bronze, with eyes of inlaid glass and ivory that gave the impression of a piercing gaze from the past directly into the present.
“That is no emperor,” observed Aldrovandi as he inspected the rough hair and lined features. Images of emperors from Augustus to Constantine had been reproduced over and over again. While they depicted individual traits, they also tended to represent the subject as young and serene regardless of his age or condition when the portrait was made. In contrast, this austere face was that of a man who had been aged by hardships; yet it could be assumed that he had triumphed over them to merit the honor of such a costly portrait.
“In my opinion,” Pio da Carpi said, “it can be only one man. The man who was chosen by Pythia to rule Rome. The man who pulled the dagger from Lucretia’s beautiful breast. The man who swore to banish the tyrants from the city and ordered the execution of his own sons when they betrayed the republic. His harsh story is written on this face as clearly as it is in the pages of Livy.”
“Where was it found?” asked Aldrovandi.
“I can’t be positive,” the cardinal admitted, “but I was assured it was discovered on the Capitoline.”
A number of things had recently been unearthed in that location. About ten years earlier, Pope Paul III had ordered a full rebuilding of the government buildings on the Capitoline Hill. Rome’s already deteriorating condition had been further degraded in 1529 when Protestant German troops commanded by Charles V – His Most Catholic Majesty – captured it after a long siege, sent Pope Clement VII fleeing for his life, and then spent months occupying and sacking the city. The once grand Capitoline was in a sad state, with the medieval palace of the senators (by then a ceremonial title) awkwardly sandwiched between the magistrates’ building and the Church of Santa Maria in Aracoeli (Saint Mary at the Altar of Heaven). While all these structures stood on the foundations of significant ancient Roman buildings and filled important civic and religious functions, they were architecturally undistinguished. The highlight of the complex was the equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius standing at the center of the hilltop, but it was frequently obscured by Rome’s boisterous central market.
Paul III commissioned a whole new urban space from Michelangelo Buonarroti, who had moved to Rome after the fall of the Florentine Republic in 1529. Michelangelo created a harmonious plaza by encasing the existing buildings in elegant classical-style architecture. The scrubby ground was cleared and leveled, and a ceremonial staircase flanked by paired ancient statues created a suitable entryway. Marcus Aurelius retained his place of honor, now framed by the elaborate starlike pattern that Michelangelo designed for the plaza pavement. As Michelangelo’s vision took shape, Christian Rome finally appeared to be rivaling the ancient city.
View of the Capitoline Hill before Michelangelo’s restoration, c. 1500.
The Capitoline Hill after Michelangelo’s restoration in 1536–46.
Étienne Dupérac after Michelangelo, piazza on the Capitoline Hill, 1568.
Arial view of the Capitoline Hill after Michelangelo’s restoration.
The heavy construction work unearthed an abundance of ancient artifacts, some of which found their way into the collection of their rightful owner, the pope, while many items were offered on the open market. The antiquities trade in Renaissance Rome was a brisk but shady business. Dealers and collectors alike had their favored “runners” who would alert them when a sensational find was made. Everyone knew that relics of the Roman past once considered rubbish could now fetch a handsome price. Farmers in their fields who had never heard of Julius Cæsar were on the lookout for anything from coins to statues. It paid to be deliberately vague when asked where something was found, since other treasures were likely to be lurking nearby, and there might be troubling issues of ownership. Cardinal Pio da Carpi did not ask too many questions.
“If you look closely,” he said, pointing to the neck of the bust, “you can see that the head was broken off its base at some time. The man who sold it to me admitted he had attached it to a different base. It may have originally had a full body.”
Aldrovandi knew his Livy well enough to understand that a realistic bronze portrait found on the Capitoline could well be – indeed, should be – that of the legendary founder of the Roman Republic. He quickly sketched the head in his notebook and labeled it BRUTUS.
The cardinal was gazing out a window, his head turned slightly in a pose that echoed the ancient bronze.
“I swear I see a resemblance,” said Aldrovandi, trying not to sound too obsequious. Their features were remarkably similar, and Rodolfo Pio da Carpi did come from an old Roman family. Who knew how far back his lineage went in the city?
Cardinal Pio di Carpi died in 1564, and in his will he donated the bronze portrait now universally known as Brutus to the new museum being organized in the judiciary building on the Capitoline.1818 A century earlier, Pope Sixtus IV had assembled some important antiquities in Rome and put them on display in the building’s portico – in effect creating the world’s first public art museum. During Michelangelo’s renovation, the collection was moved inside and displayed formally, and more objects were added. Images of emperors abounded, including the colossal fragments of Constantine and the equestrian Marcus Aurelius. But there were also much older pieces, such as the Etruscan “She-Wolf,” depicting the fierce beast of legend that nurtured the abandoned twins, Romulus and Remus, who went on to found Rome.
From this time on, the actual identification of the portrait ceased to matter until the twentieth century, when it was questioned—throwing the bust into a sudden eclipse from which it has yet to emerge. But for four hundred years it was firmly believed to be the great man celebrated by Livy, and the features were uniformly read as reflective of Brutus’s unyielding dedication to republican principles.
Francesco Salviati, Cardinal Rodolfo Pio da Carpi, c. 1540.
Brutus (so-called), c. 300 BC.
Even among such treasures, the Brutus was clearly iconic. Pio da Carpi thought it should be returned to the site where he believed
