Sleeping Hermaphroditus
Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s the Sleeping Hermaphroditus whose mattress he was asked to make in 1620, was a young artist and excelled in detail. The statue is probably from Roman times, almost certainly a copy of a bronze original made in the second century BC. It is preserved in the Louvre Paris. The story of Hermaphroditus is conveyed to us by Ovid who tells it in the Metamorphoses. The young man is handsome, about 15 years old, the son of Hermes and Aphrodite, in whose face were concealed the features of both parents from whom he also drew his name, which Ovid reveals only at the end of the tale. Hermaphroditus was reared by the Naiads, as soon as he had turned 15, he returned to his native land, enjoyed wandering in the woods, discovering unknown lands, arrived in Caria, in the territory of Halicarnassus, he came across a pond of very clear water, where lived a nymph named Salamacia. Salamacia while picking flowers sees at the spring the handsome son of Aphrodite. The meeting between the...