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Brace yourselves folks!  This is just the kind of discovery that makes us dance with delight here in the Compound:

In a recent article in the Italian paper, Il Messaggero, archaeologist Rita Volpe announced that new archival research has revealed the find spot of the famous Laocoön sculpture, now in the Vatican Museums.  We’ll start with the back story.

The ancient sculpture emerged from the ground on January 14, 1506, when a farmer named Felice De Fredis, while digging in his vineyard on the Esquiline Hill, uncovered nine fragments of ancient marble statuary. Word of the discovery quickly reached Pope Julius II and he promptly dispatched the architect Giuliano da Sangallo (perhaps accompanied by Michelangelo) to inspect the new discovery.

Though ancient sculptures were regularly pulled from the ground in Renaissance Rome, this find proved to be of extraordinary interest.  Almost immediately, the fragments were identified as being from the Laocoön, a sculpture that had belonged to the Roman Emperor Titus, and that was known to Renaissance humanists because it received the highest of praise from the first-century writer, Pliny the Younger, in his volume, The Natural History (XXXVI, 37):

…the Laocoön, which stands in the palace of the Emperor Titus [is] a work to be preferred to all that the arts of painting and sculpture have produced.

Finding the Laocoön was a dream come true for well-educated Renaissance artists and patrons who were intent on restoring Rome to its ancient glory.  At the very moment in which the idea of “Rome Reborn” was being made manifest in art and architecture projects citywide, the Laocoön emerged from the earth, further fueling the Renaissance dream of returning Rome to its former grandeur.

By March of 1506, Pope Julius II managed to procure the sculpture for his own antiquities collection, and in July of the same year he triumphantly transported the sculpture through the streets of the Rome.  Throngs of citizens lined the streets and showered the Laocoön with flower petals while the Sistine Chapel Choir heralded the sculpture’s journey to the Belvedere Courtyard of the Vatican Palace. Without a doubt, the Laocoön was the find of the century.

So where does the new research suggest that the sculpture was found?  Recent archival work suggests that the location is now occupied by nuns, the Suore di San Giuseppe di Cluny, and is at Via Mecenante 35A.

The Messaggero article is here.