The Capitoline Wolf (Italian language: Lupa Capitolina) is a bronze sculpture depicting a scene from the legend of the founding of Rome. The sculpture shows a she-wolf suckling the mythical twin founders of Rome, Romulus and Remus. According to the legend, when King Numitor, grandfather of the twins, was overthrown by his brother Amulius in Alba Longa, the usurper ordered them to be cast into the Tiber River. They were rescued by a she-wolf that cared for them until a herdsman, Faustulus, found and raised them.
The age and origin of the Capitoline Wolf are controversial. The statue was long thought to be an Etruscans work of the fifth century BC, (Lacus Curtius website) Rodolfo Lanciani, Ancient Rome in the Light of Recent Discoveries ch. X; Musei Capitolini website ; Capitoline Museums:Exhibition "The Capitoline She-Wolf", June-October 2000 ; Lupa Capitolina Elettronica A site devoted to the Capitoline Wolf (in progress) with the twins added in the late 15th century AD, probably by sculptor Antonio del Pollaiuolo."Sculpture" . The Oxford Encyclopedia of Classical Art and Architecture. Ed. John B. Hattendorf. Oxford University Press, 2007. However, radiocarbon and thermoluminescence dating in the 21st century has suggested that the wolf portion of the statue may have been cast between 1021 and 1153, though the results are inconsistent, and there is yet no consensus for a revised dating. In a conference on this theme, most academics continued to support an ancient Etruscan origin. An analysis of the metal suggests that it contains lead from a source not known to have operated during medieval times.
The image of the she-wolf suckling Romulus and Remus has been a symbol of Rome since ancient times, and one of the most recognizable icons of ancient mythology.
The sculpture has been housed since 1471 in the Palazzo dei Conservatori on the Campidoglio (the ancient Capitoline Hill), Rome, Italy, and many replicas are in various places around the world.
The Capitoline Wolf was widely assumed to be the very sculpture described by Cicero, due to the presence of damage to the sculpture's paw, which was believed to correspond to the lightning strike of 65 BC. The 18th-century German art historian Johann Joachim Winckelmann attributed the statue to an Etruscan maker in the fifth century BC, based on how the wolf's fur was depicted.Francis Haskell, Nicholas Penny. Taste and the Antique: The Lure of Classical Sculpture, 1500–1900, p. 241. Yale University Press, 1981. It was first attributed to the artist Vulca, who decorated the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus; later scholars attribute it to an unknown Etruscan artist of around 480 or 470 BC. Winckelmann correctly identified a Renaissance origin for the twins; they were probably added in 1471 AD or later.Adriano La Regina, " Roma, l'inganno della Lupa è "nata" nel Medioevo. La Repubblica. 17 November 2006
During the 19th century, a number of researchers questioned Winckelmann's dating of the bronze. August Emil Braun, the secretary of the Archaeological Institute of Rome, proposed in 1854 that the damage to the wolf's paw had been caused by an error during casting. Wilhelm Fröhner, the conservator of the Louvre, stated in 1878 that the style of the statue was attributable to the Carolingian art period rather than the Etruscan, and in 1885, Wilhelm von Bode also stated that he was of the view that the statue was most likely a medieval work. These views were largely disregarded, though, and had been forgotten by the 20th century.
In 2006, Italian art historian Anna Maria Carruba and archaeologist Adriano La Regina contested the traditional dating of the wolf on the basis of an analysis of the casting technique. Carruba had been given the task of restoring the sculpture in 1997, enabling her to examine how it had been made. She observed that the statue had been cast in a single piece, using a variation of the lost-wax casting technique. This technique was not used in Classical antiquity; ancient Greek and Roman bronzes were typically constructed from multiple pieces, a method that facilitated high-quality castings, with less risk than would be involved in casting the entire sculpture at once. Single-piece casting was widely used in the Middle Ages to mould bronze items that needed a high level of rigidity, such as and . Like Braun, Carruba argues that the damage to the wolf's paw resulted from an error in the moulding process. In addition, La Regina, former superintendent of Rome's archaeological heritage, argues that the sculpture's artistic style is more akin to Carolingian and Romanesque art than that of the ancient world.
Radiocarbon and thermoluminescence dating were carried out at the University of Salento in February 2007 to resolve the question. The results revealed with an accuracy of 95.4% that the sculpture was crafted between the 11th and 12th centuries AD. A 2019 radiocarbon study based on organic residues in the casting cores recovered from the inner part of the statue claims to "firmly anchor the statue to the XI-XII centuries CE, in the Middle Ages."
However, a recent study by John Osborne at the British School at Rome concluded that the radiocarbon and thermoluminescence dates were totally inconsistent. He pointed out that metal from which the wolf is made is of the Etruscan type, using copper from Sardinia, and that there is no sign of the adulteration common in medieval times. On the balance of probabilities, Osborne argues that the wolf should be considered Etruscan.Archived at Ghostarchive and the
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The 12th-century English cleric Magister Gregorius wrote a descriptive essay De Mirabilibus Urbis RomaeG. McN. Rushforth, "Magister Gregorius de Mirabilibus Urbis Romae: A New Description of Rome in the Twelfth Century", The Journal of Roman Studies 9 (1919, pp. 14–58), p. 28f. Magister Gregorius' description seems independent of the well-known topography Mirabilia Urbis Romae. and recorded in an appendix three pieces of sculpture he had neglected; one was the wolf in the portico, at the principal entrance to the Lateran Palace. He mentions no twins, for he noted that she was set up as if stalking a bronze ram that was nearby, which served as a fountain. The wolf had also served as a fountain, Magister Gregorius thought, but it had been broken off at the feet and moved to where he saw it. Lupa etiam quondam singulis mammis aquam abluendis manibus emittebat, sed nunc fractis pedibus a loco suo divulsa est
The present-day Capitoline Wolf could not have been the sculpture seen by Benedict and Gregorius, if its newly attributed age is accepted, though it could have been a replacement for an earlier (now lost) depiction of the Roman wolf. In December 1471, Pope Sixtus IV ordered the present sculpture to be transferred to the Palazzo dei Conservatori on the Capitoline Hill, and the twins were added some time around then. The Capitoline Wolf joined a number of other genuinely ancient sculptures transferred at the same time, to form the nucleus of the Capitoline Museum.
The Capitoline Wolf was used on both the emblem and the poster for the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome. The Roman football club A.S. Roma uses it in its emblem as well.
It was used as the logo for Artie Ripp record label Family Productions, which in 1971 released Billy Joel first album as a solo artist, Cold Spring Harbor. Due to contractual obligations, it continued to appear on numerous Joel albums even after he was subsequently signed to Columbia Records.
The programme of conservation undertaken in the 1990s resulted in an exhibition devoted to the Lupa Capitolina and her iconography. Capitoline Museums: Exhibition "The Capitoline She-Wolf", June–October 2000
Anthony Mann's 1964 epic film The Fall of the Roman Empire prominently features an enlarged replica prop of the Capitoline Wolf as a republican symbol at the back of the Senate House, where, historically, the altar and statue of Victory would have stood.Allen M. Ward, "History, Ancient and Modern, in The Fall of the Roman Empire", in Martin M. Winkler (ed.), The Fall of the Roman Empire (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009), pp. 51–88 87–88.
The 1976 TV series I, Claudius also features the statue in its depiction of the interior of the Senate House.
In the 2009 film Agora, set in 5th-century Alexandria, the Capitoline Wolf—complete with the del Pollaiolo twins—can be seen in the prefect's palace. This is visible in the scene before Hypatia's capture, directly behind her character.
In Rick Riordan's novel The Son of Neptune, Lupa is the wolf that trains all demigods who wish to enter Camp Jupiter. She trains Percy Jackson, and it is mentioned that she trained Jason Grace. It is also possible that she trained Frank Zhang, Hazel Levesque, and Reyna Avila Ramirez-Arellano. Although she is stern and tough, she still has a soft side.
In the first episode of the American television programme The Addams Family, a mirror-image sculpture of the Capitoline Wolf is on display in the Addams's living room. It can be seen standing atop a table, just to the right of the main staircase.
The Boston Latin School uses an image on the cover of their agenda book, which is the official school emblem.
The Capitoline Wolf is used in Romania and Moldova as a symbol of the Latin origin of its inhabitants, and in some major cities, there are replicas of the original statue given as a gift from Italy at the beginning of the 20th century.
The Capitoline Wolf is reimagined in Look at Me (new Capitoline Wolf), a 2011 Installation art by Poland artist Paweł Wocial.
In the Nintendo game , the Capitoline Wolf is a statue that can be obtained, albeit under the pseudonym of "Motherly statue".
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