The
Apennine Colossus is a stone statue, approximately 11 metres (36 feet) tall, in the estate of Villa Demidoff (originally
Villa di Pratolino) in
Vaglia in
Tuscany, Italy. A personification of the
Apennine Mountains, the colossal figure was created by
Giambologna, a Flemish-born Italian sculptor, in the late 1580s. The statue has the appearance of an elderly man crouched at the shore of a lake, squeezing the head of a sea monster through whose open mouth water originally emanated into the pond in front of the statue. The colossus is depicted naked, with
stalactites in the thick beard and long hair to show the
metamorphosis of man and mountain, blending his body with the surrounding nature. It is made of stone and plaster and the interior houses a series of chambers and caves on three levels. Initially, the back of the statue was protected by a structure resembling a cave, which was demolished around 1690 by the sculptor
Giovanni Battista Foggini, who built a statue of a dragon to adorn the back of the colossus. The Italian sculptor
Rinaldo Barbetti renovated the statue in 1876.
Sculpture credit: Giambologna; photographed by Rhododendrites
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