Osservazioni sul “non finito” e/o “non visibile” nell’arredo scultoreo nel mondo romano. L’influenza di collocazione e tipologia sulla prassi degli scultori

This paper aims to investigate the “unfinished” in the Roman sculpture, and the link between the lack of refinement of a statue and its location. A careful review of the statues put in place in some public buildings of imperial age (Velleia, Olympia, Lupiae, Miletus) is an useful way to explore the “unfinished”, because on one side those statues clearly received the probatio of the redemptor, but on the other side they were also usually left unfinished on the back, i.e. where nobody could see them, as we can argue from their location. In this sense those statues were really exactae. In fact, the sculptors had carefully planned the invisibility of the “unfinished” parts, interrupting their work on the back and on the sides of the statues along precise lines. The same conclusion can be deduced from the examination of togate and cuirassed statues. This phenomenon was mainly due to the evident saving of time (and money), and to the consciousness that the back part was normally excluded from any form of storytelling about a statue. Therefore the act of not refining a statue must be interpreted as a sign of the desire to speed and rationalize the production time rather than a mark of negligence or an “artistic” choice.