Pio Fedi ~ The Rape of Polyxena, 1865 | Loggia dei Lanzi, Florence

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The Rape of Polyxena is a marble statue located in the Loggia dei Lanzi, the  open-air museum in Florence, Italy’s Piazza della Signoria.
It was sculpted in 1868 by Italian sculptor who worked chiefly in the Romantic style, Pio Fedi (1815-1892), but it was placed alongside several sculptures from the Renaissance. The Rape of Polyxena embodies Hellenistic, Renaissance, Baroque and Neoclassicist mannerisms regarding its style and theme. Fedi intricately blended multiple styles and stories in order to construct The Rape of Polyxena. The most prominent literary sources of the Greek legend concerning Polyxena are Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Euripides’ Hecuba and Bocaccio’s Famous Women. This project discusses the various sources of the scene presented and the different sculptures that may have inspired Fedi to create his work.