Laocoön and His Sons

The Laocoön group in the Vatican Museums: the Trojan priest and his two sons caught in the coils of the serpents Athena sent to kill them. Dug up in a Roman vineyard in 1506, it was examined by Giuliano da Sangallo and Michelangelo and quickly bought by Pope Julius II. Pliny had credited it to three sculptors from Rhodes, Agesander, Polydorus and Athenodorus. Follow the snakes around the bodies and you see how the carvers tied three figures into one knot of strain, every muscle in the father's torso pulling against the coil.