Carafa refers to this fantastic bronze hand as simply “Pantea” (all the gods), a name reflecting its allusion to many deities. He gives us a 360 degree view of the hand, picturing it from four sides. Apparently “a learned and erudite commentary” on the piece had once been written but was lost. We now know the hand to be a sacred symbol of the god Sabazius, a deity of fertility and vegetation worshipped by a religious cult of ancient Rome.
Featured on PDR in the collection Curiosities from the Museum of Giovanni Carafa (1778)
These fantastic depictions of various Roman antiquities are sourced from Alcuni monumenti del Museo Carrafa (1778), a wonderful catalogue of objects once found in the private museum of 18th-century antiquities collector Giovanni Carafa, the Duke of Noja (now called Noicattaro, a town near Bari in southern Italy ). Born in 1715, Carafa studied grammar and literature but soon developed an interest in scientific subjects, mainly mathematics. Around 1738 he was appointed lecturer of Optics and Mathematics at the University of Naples, and there he continued to explore his interests in the natural sciences, especially geology and mineralogy. He soon began collecting archaeological and numismatic pieces concerning southern Italy and established a small museum (which would become part of the collection of Museo di Capodimonte in…
Also appearing in the collection…
View of the bronze hand “Pantea”, a sacred symbol of the god Sabazius.
Artist
Date
1778
From
Alcuni monumenti del Museo Carrafa
Source
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