Venus Taurida was installed in the summer garden
LITERARY AND ARTISTIC ALMANAC
Venus Tauride. Description of one statue.
In the Hermitage, where during my university years and later, while I lived in the city center, I visited constantly, prolonging my walks already in time, I no, no, went down into the halls antique sculpture, where he was not particularly interested in anything, feeling the presence around the corner of a single statue, in comparison with which everything around faded.
These are literary “fictions” behind which the Mazzoni pen hides in the peculiar self-assessment of his painting, which was also the author of some literary works. It is difficult to associate the corresponding painting by Mazzoni with the sonnet. I, 58: “It is not the body that sins, but the mind, therefore, if there is no intention, one cannot talk about guilt.”
Massimiliano Simone, Animated and Inanimate. The sculptures were placed for the first time on the external façade and in the courtyard of the Conservatory Palace; that initial core was enriched by subsequent acquisitions of finds from urban excavations, from the Vatican or purchased specifically. Unfortunately, the presence of serious problems with the penetration of water and moisture forced the Lapidari gallery to move closer to the public, and then the halls of the New Museum and the New Army Palace of the Conservatory were excluded from the museum. The Palazzo dei Conservatori, decorated with frescoes of the history of Rome, houses the most famous capitals in bronze, such as Lupa, Spinarium and Grosse; The large glass lobby on the ground floor of the palace contains the equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius, once placed in the center of the square, and the remains of the Temple of Jupiter Capitol.
Aphrodite (Venus Tauride). Roman copy from a Greek original of the 3rd century. BC. Marble.
The marble has not retained its purity and freshness, which is why the statue does not seem particularly attractive. But if you imagine her in all the pristine purity of snow-white marble, slightly painted to match the flesh color, as the Greeks did, with pupils emitting light and life, everything changes.
Researchers involved in the Antikythera Mechanism Research Project, using X-ray tomography and other imaging techniques, were able to decipher the inscriptions on the exterior and interior of 82 surviving fragments. Some characters are about 1.2 mm in size.
Information obtained from the text contains earlier speculations about the device, the mechanism of antiquity calculating the positions of the Sun, Moon and Planets, as well as the phases of the Moon and even upcoming solar and lunar eclipses. Although the mechanism also shows the position of the planets and the Sun in the zodiacal constellations, the main functions of the device are astronomical. “This is something more serious than a toy,” Prof.
The goddess had just bathed and came out to a secluded shore; Hearing someone's voices, she looked to the side, the movements of her hands are not difficult to guess - is it possible to imagine that Praxiteles' Aphrodite of Cnidus was more beautiful? Or the Venus de Milo? Meanwhile, the Tauride Venus has an amazing history.
It is known that in the transformations of Peter I, Slavophiles and Westerners alike saw only the borrowing of styles of foreign clothing, they started talking about joining the achievements of Western civilization, about the Europeanization of Russia... This is only the external side, an appearance, which to this day constitutes one of the black myths about Russia .
At first they ignored other finds, including bronze and marble statues, luxurious glass and ceramics. But covered with a layer of sediment, fragments of a bronze mechanism consisting of a casing, a handle and dozens of gears soon attract the attention of scientists. Research continued from various teams over the coming decades.
By rotating the lever, a gear train of metal gears is set to set the positions of the different pointers on the front panel of the device. The design is similar in many ways to a watch, but modern descriptions also present it as an "analog computer". It is believed to have been made between 200 and 70 BC and was unparalleled for the next thousand years.
No culture develops without borrowing. The greatest receptivity to the civilizations of the East was demonstrated by the ancient Greek culture, which Rome took as its basis, a basis rejected by Christianity as pagan. A new appeal to the origins of European civilization in European countries in the 14th - 16th centuries gave birth to the Renaissance.
Evidence of the existence of such devices exists in ancient texts. Cicero mentions mechanisms that simulated the movement of planets in the celestial sphere, the work of Archimedes, and brought to Rome after the siege of Syracuse. He also mentions that his contemporary and acquaintance, the poet Posidonius, a philosopher, also built such a device.
He also mentions the usual ways of "making spheres", which are today perceived as evidence of a forgotten tradition.
Evidence of the existence of such devices exists in ancient texts. Cicero mentions mechanisms that simulated the movement of planets in the celestial sphere, the work of Archimedes, and brought to Rome after the siege of Syracuse. He also mentions that his contemporary and acquaintance, the poet Posidonius, a philosopher, also built such a device.
Russia experienced the same thing in its historical periods. There is no talk of backwardness here, just as one cannot talk about the backwardness of a younger brother in relation to his elder, let the first try to imitate the second; and there is no need to talk much about borrowing, especially if the younger one is brilliantly gifted.
The most impressive properties and traits of Renaissance eras and personalities are the genius and universalism of knowledge and talents. Is it possible to imagine a king, a ruler, a king from all times and peoples, so that he would appear as an excellent blacksmith, carpenter, turner, shipbuilder, commander, connoisseur of books and art, straightener of the alphabet?
Do you know where the Tauride Venus came from in the Hermitage? From Tavrida? From Greece? From Italy?
Or from the Tauride Palace? Apparently yes. But she got there from the Summer Garden, where a marble statue of a naked goddess was put on public display for the first time in Russia in the summer of 1719.
In Rus', they had never seen white devils, as Christians called the statues of the goddess of love and beauty, breaking her hands and throwing her into a ditch. A statue unearthed from the ground, in such rare condition and unique beauty, buying, it turned out, was not so easy: the Vatican, having learned about the find and the deal, seized the statue of Venus.
The king's ministers had to intervene, enter into negotiations with the cardinals, and promise them to deliver the relics of Saint Brigid before Venus was allowed to leave the borders of blessed Italy. They didn’t dare take it out by sea: what if there was a storm or a shipwreck?
They were transported slowly through Vienna and on sleighs, waiting until winter. For almost a year or two, Tsar Peter, having made his second trip to Europe, having experienced the tragedy of his son’s flight to the Austrian emperor and the death of his youngest son, corresponded with his ambassadors about the delivery of Venus to St. Petersburg. The disasters that befell did not break his spirit. He organized a celebration unique for Orthodox Rus' in honor of the ancient guest on the Neva and in the Summer Garden.
What was it? Merezhkovsky begins his historical novel about Peter I and Alexei with a mention of this festival, although the latter by this time, a year later, had died, unable to bear torture, the usual method of inquiry in all countries since ancient times.
Films and studies have appeared in which the king is shown almost personally torturing his son and first wife Evdokia. All this is fiction! That is, from the same series of black myths about Russia. But if, let’s say, this is true, documents have been preserved that inspire confidence among historians - and there are no such documents - in all countries, when the conspiracy was discovered, the heads of those closest to the ruler flew at the throne first. There is no news here.
The essence of the actions of the reformer king is not in cruelty and coercion. This is not what makes it unique. We still laugh at the festivities that Tsar Peter loved to organize. Even Pushkin in “The Blackamoor of Peter the Great”, not without humor, mentions the assemblies that the tsar established, accustoming Russian society to the light in which the poet himself so loved to be in his time.
Meanwhile, the theater arose, the entire culture of antiquity began with national festivals. This is what the Tsar-Reformer introduced the Russian people to, as a person of genius, most likely unconsciously, but containing within himself all the richness of human nature, like the Greeks.
Now imagine the Summer Garden. On the Neva side, in a gallery of twelve paired columns, there is a statue of Venus. Guests, including nobles and craftsmen, builders of the city and ships, arrive on boats and barges. On the pier, Bacchus sits on barrels of wine, greeting everyone with a glass of wine.
Along the alley leading to the Summer Palace there are tables with cold snacks, and there the Tsar and Tsarina greet the guests. Trumpets, drumming and cannon fire over the Neva herald the beginning of the festival in honor of Venus.
Mummers depicting gods, nymphs and satyrs, led by Neptune, arrive on boats. The celebration is in full swing. Lights with various symbols and fireworks are lit on the Neva.
Here only the king's closest associates are older; most are all young, and some of the ladies are still young. On the boardwalk Summer Palace the orchestra is playing; the mummers began to dance in a round dance, the audience joined them, and at the height of the fun, the king and queen; the round dance is crowded, and it spreads along the alleys of the Summer Garden.
This is more than a celebration, but a mystery, with the appearance in the minds and worldview of Russian poets and artists of the gods of Greece, as was the case in European countries during the Renaissance.
A similar celebration, which amazed Europe, was organized in the Tauride Palace and Garden on April 28, 1791 by Potemkin, Prince of Tauride, formally in honor of Empress Catherine II. Works of art were exhibited there: paintings, sculptures, busts - exceptional, and among them Venus, in whose honor Tsar Peter organized a festival, soon, with the conclusion of peace with the Swedes, declared the All-Russian Emperor.
Venus of Tauride, take a closer look at it during your next visit to the Hermitage or at the photograph, it is now clear that this is a symbol of the Renaissance in Russia, with its origins in antiquity, which Peter I, the greatest Renaissance personality, was fully aware of. “Why! - the editor-in-chief of the Aurora publishing house told me, where I dropped in with the manuscript of the book “Renaissance in Russia” (woman). “He cut off the heads of the archers...”
Holy simplicity! This is how they overlooked the Renaissance in Russia, continually falling into self-deprecation and foolishness, right up to the destruction of the great state.
There is a sonnet dedicated to the Tauride Venus. In the Hermitage this unique statue occupies the best place: upon entering Big hall in the corner - most visitors pass by without noticing it among the many sculptures. And if with a guide, the group stops at the aisle, everyone’s attention is scattered; I don’t know what the guide is saying, but the Tauride Venus deserves to stand alone in a small hall, a wonderful symbol of the Renaissance in Russia, which the Hermitage embodies with all its treasures (not at all imperial power, as those ignorant of art think).