Alexander the Great - October 2019

The enigmatic figure of Alexander the Great in the beautiful essay published by Adelphi. Items in marble, terracotta and plaster of our production.

«Alexander the Great had the habit of keeping his neck slightly tilted to the left, like someone who lingers reflecting around himself or something. The gaze, full of "an effused and liquid sweetness" was almost always turned upwards, to chase the omens, the signs and the revelations, which appear in the clouds of the sky. The complexion was white, delicate, with shades of purple on the cheeks and on the chest: the skin gave off a perfume, which impregnated the light linen tunics.» Plutarch on Alexander III of Macedon

 Head of Alexander the Great cod. 3463
Our reproduction in Parian marble, Paros
Istanbul Archaeological Museum, 2nd century BC
Found during excavations at Pergamon\'s agora


Tondo of Alexander Ammon

Tondo of Alexander Ammon
the Great cod. 12280

Reproduction in yellow Siena marble
of an ancient Greek Tetradrachm, 297 BC

«Every night before falling asleep he read some verses of the Iliad, and then he put it back under his pillow: he worshiped Pindar, he loved the tragedies of Euripides, he knew the philosophy, mathematics, medicine and botany of his age. Alessandro was not born for modest, obscure and enviable destinies. Thus the inclined-headed ephebe became the greatest conqueror that history has ever known: the model of Pompey and Caesar, the dream of Germanicus, Nero, Trajan, Hadrian, Louis XIV and Napoleon. No one touched so many hearts and reawakened so many fantasies and enthusiasms, like this Macedonian who disappeared at thirty-two, without leaving heirs behind. [...] Sometimes the imagination of men chooses a figure from the past; and he collects his desires, as happens in the crystallizations of dreams.

Gli Adelphi - Alessandro Magno

[...] They didn\'t love him just because he had been a great strategist, or the most enlightened politician of classical antiquity. The cause of this universal veneration was another. While we all try to be ourselves, people, Alessandro did not bother to be himself, the son of Philip and of Olympiad, a not tall, blond-haired man who knew by heart the tragedies of Euripides. He wanted to imitate something that had been, and that many believed was dead. With all the strength of his passion, he placed before the eyes of his mind a multitude of divine and heroic figures, and tried to resurrect them and reincarnate them in his life. His attempt was neither the first nor the last, since all classical and Christian antiquity lived by imitation, but had never been conducted with such ardor and so great grandeur. Alexander\'s models were a god, a demigod, a hero and a king: Dionysus, Hercules, Achilles, Cyrus the Great of Persia. While his rivals fought surrounded by ten thousand guards, he was always at the head of the troops, first in scalar walls and towers, armed with troops, first in scalar walls and towers, armed with a spear and sword, with a helmet surmounted by a plume wonderfully candid and great. The Iliad taught him that he could only cultivate two passions, the only epics and nobles: furious anger and the most disinterested friendship. From Hercules, mythical ancestor of the paternal family, he learned the opposite virtue: that of enduring with obstinate patience all the pains of the world; the rapid and violent suffering of war, and the endless suffering of hunger, thirst, fatigue and despair. From Dionysus, Alexander took the extreme mobility, which transformed him into a vagabond king, whose real palace was a tent: the desire and the anxiety to overcome every limit, and that fury of laceration, which occasionally broke terribly into his life. The last of his models was not Greek. Among the kings of the past, Alexander venerated Cyrus the Great above all: founder of the Persian Empire. Imitating the example of Cyrus, he extended his empire to the borders of the known land: he kept the same liberality towards the traditions and religions of the dominated peoples. He knew neither winners nor losers: neither Persians nor Macedonians nor Greeks nor barbarians; but only of commoners who possessed equal rights. No other man perhaps came to understand in himself so many different people, distributed around a center, which continues to elude us. He was multifaceted: an unpredictable knot of contradictions; so that he does not seem to belong to the race of the powerful, but to that of the immense and anonymous writers, Shakespeare and Balzac, who carry in their womb all human creatures, possible and impossible things, real and imaginary cities.» 
Pietro Citati on Alexander the Great, Gli Adelphi, 1974

Alexander the great terracotta head

Head of Alexander the Great cod. 1935
Our terracotta reproduction
Istanbul Museum, 2nd century BC
Found during the excavations at Pergamon

Alexander the great terracotta roundel
Tondo of Alexander the Great
with diadem cod. 12166

Our free reproduction in terracotta
of an ancient Greek coin from Thrace



PARTHENON METOPE

Bas-relief of Alexander the Great on horseback cod. 7407 reproduction in plaster of the metope of Parthenon

Guido Frilli
Oct 11, 2019