“Oportuna marmora”. Arnolfo a Baltimora: una testa antica ‘sottilmente’ rilavorata e Arnolfo di Cambio

This paper studies a large Roman head of the emperor Antoninus Pius, largely reworked in medieval times as St. Peter, preserved in the Walters Art Museum (Baltimore, USA), which has never before been considered by specialized studies. Here is argued its attribution to Arnolfo di Cambio, the great Florentine sculptor and architect active in Pisa, Siena, Bologna, Rome and Florence between the second half of the 13th and the very early 14th centuries. The peculiarities and the meaning of its reworking and the technical-execution aspects are then explored and discussed in the broader context of the phenomenon of reuse and re-functionalization of classical marbles in the medieval age.