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Updated: June 9, 2025
Of all the paintings that Hawthorne saw in Rome none impressed him so deeply as Guido's portrait of Beatrice Cenci, and none more justly. If the "Laocoon" is the type of an old Greek tragedy, a strong man strangled in the coils of Fate, the portrait of Beatrice represents the tragedy of mediaeval Italy, a beautiful woman crushed by the downfall of a splendid civilization.
He, therefore, preferred to confine himself to the representation of the least of the suffering, and he found it advisable to dwell at length on the formidable nature of the two serpents, and on the rage with which they attack their victims, rather than on the feelings of Laocoon.
This place is very grateful in a climate which, in summer, is intensely warm. There are other public baths, but this is chiefly resorted to by people of respectability. The price is very moderate, thirty sols. David. Place de la Concorde. L'Église de Madeleine. Print-shops. Notre Dame. Museum or Palace of Arts. Hall of Statues. Laocoon. Belvidere Apollo. Socrates.
But the currents were moving swiftly toward a crisis which was to change all this. One more pope, that magnificent patron of art, Julius II., creator of the Vatican Museum, with the recently found Apollo Belvedere, and the Laocoön as a splendid nucleus, and projector and builder of St. Peter's.
The assertion may appear somewhat strange at present, but I hope in the sequel to demonstrate its justice: it is only before the groups of Niobe or Laocoon that we first enter into the spirit of the tragedies of Sophocles.
The Vatican collection has great archaeological value, but, with the exception of the "Laocoon," the "Meleager," the "Apollo," and a few others, little or no artistic value. The vast majority of the statues there are either late Roman works or cheap Roman copies of second-rate Hellenic statues.
These more than outweigh the Laocoon and the Belvedere Apollo at Rome. It contains, besides, the St John of Raphael and many other chefs-d'oeuvre of the greatest masters in the world." It is interesting to compare Mr Pontifex's effusions with the rhapsodies of critics in our own times.
When the refugee fell, he clawed and bit at the vines which had tripped him, in a fancied battle of Laocoön, until at last he saw the coolness of water ahead of him, and, dashing down the slope, hurled himself, shrieking, into its stillness. There his outcry ended. His spread fingers clutched at a liquid emptiness and his fevered eyes showed once or twice briefly and were quenched.
Michelangelo believed in the 'Laocoön, and he was at least as good a judge as most modern critics, and he roughed out the arm that was missing, his sketch lies on the floor in the corner, and devoted much time to studying the group. It is true that he is said to have preferred the torso of the 'Hercules, but he did not withhold his admiration of the other good things.
Then the Cardinal said to them: "There shall be sent to his Majesty either this one or one so like it that there shall be no difference." And, having resolved to have another made in imitation of it, he remembered Baccio, whom he sent for and asked whether he had the courage to make a Laocoon equal to the original.
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