The volume refers to the first great Italian exhibition on Antinous in relation to the Emperor Hadrian. A rich and unpublished carousel of illustrations, gathers together masterpieces from Hadrian's Villa from Hadrian's Villa and others.
This Italian monograph about the “melancholic god” reconstructs the ancient figure and the seductive charm he has exerted on the history of taste. A rich and, in some cases, previously unpublished carousel of illustrations, gathers together masterpieces from Hadrian’s Villa and others conserved in European museums, thus forming an ideal image gallery of the Bithynian youth from ancient times to the present day. The volume refers to the first great Italian exhibition on Antinous in relation to the Emperor Hadrian in a unique location: Hadrian’s Villa, the marble city immersed in the evocative landscape of the Tiber, where they lived together for some time and where the archaeological remains of the Antinoeion, a sanctuary dedicated to the god or perhaps his monumental tomb, were found. A number of essays by authoritative specialists consult historical sources to reconstruct the figure’s true identity, his origins, his adventures and mysterious death, as well as studying in depth the Bithynian youth’s network of relations with Egypt, his deification and the cult that grew up around him. Special attention is given to the sad youth’s iconography in different kinds of statues (including his identification with many other deities) which influenced art to an extraordinary degree from the Middle Ages to modern times, even becoming the style of beauty in neo-Classical times and inspiring original interpretations in 20th century literature, from Pessoa to Yourcenar, in homosexual imaginary and in contemporary culture.