Marforio is a large 1st century
Roman marble sculpture of a reclining bearded
river god or
Oceanus, which in the past has been variously identified as a depiction of
Jupiter,
Neptune, or the
Tiber. It was the humanist and antiquarian
Andrea Fulvio who first identified it as a river god, in 1527. The
Marfoi was a landmark in Rome from the late 12th century.
Poggio Bracciolini wrote of it as one of the sculptures surviving from Antiquity, and in the early 16th century it was still near the
Arch of Septimius Severus, where the various authors reported it. The origin of its name is a matter of some debate. It was discovered with a granite basin bearing the inscription
mare in foro, but may take its name from the Latin name for the area in which it was discovered (
Martis Forum), or from the Marioli (or Marfuoli) family who owned property near the
Mamertine Prison, also near the forum, where the statue was sat until 1588.
Pope Sixtus V had the statue moved to the
Piazza San Marco, (in Rome) in 1588, and then to the
piazza del Campidoglio in 1592, where it decorates a fountain designed by
Giacomo della Porta on a wall of the
Basilica di Santa Maria in Ara Coeli, facing the
Palazzo dei Conservatori. Part of the face, the right foot, and the left hand holding a shell were restored in 1594. In 1645, the building of the Palazzo Nuovo enclosed the fountain in its courtyard. ==See also==