Apollo Belvedere

The Apollo Belvedere in its niche in the Vatican Museums. A Roman workshop carved it in the early second century AD after a Greek bronze of about 330 BC, probably by the Athenian Leochares, and Pope Julius II had it moved to the Vatican. The god has just loosed an arrow, his weight on one leg and his arm still extended, with a cloak hanging from it in long folds. Winckelmann called it the highest ideal of art among the ancient works preserved, and the poise of that stride shows why.