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| Nicoletta da Modena Statue of Marcus Aurelius on Horseback (Piazza del Campidoglio, Rome) ca. 1500-1510 engraving British Museum |
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| Antico (Pier Jacopo Alari Bonacolsi) Statue of Marcus Aurelius on Horseback (reduced copy) ca. 1500-1510 bronze statuette Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna |
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| Marco da Ravenna Statue of Marcus Aurelius on Horseback (Piazza del Campidoglio, Rome) ca. 1517-19 engraving British Museum |
"Apart from the groups of Alexander and Bucephalus [below], the Marcus Aurelius [above] was the most important statue to survive unburied from antiquity, and during the Middle Ages it attracted a number of fanciful legends and a wide variety of names. By far the most important of these was that of Constantine for – as Carlo Fea pointed out in 1784 – it was probably due to this association with Christianity that it survived virtually intact after the downfall of paganism and the collapse of the Western Empire. However, by the late twelfth century the name of Constantine was repeatedly refuted (though it lingered on for several hundred years more) and the statue was identified (probably for political reasons) with various heroes of the ancient Roman Republic – either Marcus Curtius whose valour in plunging into a chasm in order to save the State had been celebrated by Livy, or a heroic peasant (villano) or a warrior (armiger), whose deeds were variously recorded but who was credited with having captured a foreign king besieging Rome 'during the time of the consuls and senators'. For this he had been rewarded with the equestrian statue which he had asked for. It showed him with his arm outstretched to seize the king while a cuckoo sat on the horse's head – this was a misinterpretation of the foretop of the horse's mane – because that bird's cry had signalled the whereabouts of the king, while the king himself, reduced to the size of a dwarf and his hands tied behind his back, lay underfoot (as, no doubt, had some bound barbarian captive when the statue was in its original state). A visitor to Rome early in the thirteenth century explained that one or other of these stories (with some variations) was believed by the Cardinals and officials of the Curia, while pilgrims thought that the figure was Theodoric and the people clung to the name of Constantine. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries various emperors were proposed: Septimius Severus, Lucius Verus, Antoninus Pius, and Hadrian among them. The humanist Bartolomeo Platina, who became librarian to Sixtus IV, is credited with having been the first to suggest Marcus Aurelius, but it was not until about 1600 that this became almost universally accepted."
– Francis Haskell and Nicholas Penny, Taste and the Antique (Yale University Press, 1981)
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| Hendrik Goltzius Statue Group of Alexander and Bucephalus, or, Horse Tamer (Piazza del Quirinale, Rome) 1590-91 drawing Teylers Museum, Haarlem |
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| Hendrik Goltzius Statue Group of Alexander and Bucephalus, or, Horse Tamer (Piazza del Quirinale, Rome) 1590-91 drawing Teylers Museum, Haarlem |
"These two huge groups [above] were recorded standing on the Quirinal Hill in the popular pilgrims' guide to Rome, the Mirabilia Urbis Romae, which was composed in the mid-twelfth century and copied with variations and additions for several centuries. It is almost certain that they had remained standing there since antiquity (for neither the machinery nor the motivation existed to move them, or to erect them, had they been excavated). . . . Although both horses were much repaired they seem to have been more admired than their superhuman companions in most Renaissance accounts of the group. The men are sometimes described as naked slaves in attendance on the horses and are often not mentioned at all, and the Quirinal Hill was, after all, named Monte Cavallo after the horses. However, in the first years of the eighteenth century, it was possible for de Blainville to declare the excellence of the horses was 'only perceptible to a Parcel of Italian Pedants', and thereafter it was typical of travellers to ignore or disparage the horses and to admire the men."
– Francis Haskell and Nicholas Penny, Taste and the Antique (Yale University Press, 1981)
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| Anonymous Artist working in Rome Statue of Marcus Aurelius on Horseback (now in Piazza del Campidoglio, Rome) 16th century drawing Morgan Library, New York |
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| Anonymous Italian Sculptor Statue of Marcus Aurelius on Horseback (reduced copy) ca. 1875 bronze statuette Royal Collection, Great Britain |
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| Francesco Faraone Aquila Statue Group of Alexander and Bucephalus, or, Horse Tamer (Piazza del Quirinale, Rome) ca. 1704 engraving British Museum |
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| Francesco Faraone Aquila Statue Group of Alexander and Bucephalus, or, Horse Tamer (Piazza del Quirinale, Rome) ca. 1704 engraving Victoria & Albert Museum |
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| Anonymous Photographer Statue of Marcus Aurelius on Horseback (Piazza del Campidoglio, Rome) ca. 1850-70 photograph Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
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| Anonymous Photographer Statue of Marcus Aurelius on Horseback (Piazza del Campidoglio, Rome) ca. 1880-1904 albumen print Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
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| Bartolomeo Pinelli Pair of Statue Groups of Alexander and Bucephalus, or, The Horse Tamers (Piazza del Quirinale, Rome) 1819 drawing Philadelphia Museum of Art |
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| Ostroumova-Lebedeva-Anna- Pair of Statue Groups of Alexander and Bucephalus, or, The Horse Tamers (Piazza del Quirinale, Rome) 1911 watercolor and gouache Hermitage, Saint Petersburg |
The two colossal statue groups with horses usually known as The Dioscuri (Castor and Pollux) [below] did not, like the others statues in this post, survive from antiquity above ground, but were "dug up during the pontificate of Pius IV in about 1560 and set up on either side of the entrance to the Capitol where Pope Paul III had intended moving the Quirinal statues."
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| Jan Asselijn Pair of Statue Groups - the Dioscuri with Horses - flanking head of Staircase (Piazza del Campidoglio, Rome) ca. 1635-42 drawing British Museum |
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| M.C. Escher Statue Group - one of the Dioscuri, with Horse (Piazza del Campidoglio, Rome) 1934 wood-engraving National Gallery of Canada |