Rape of a Sabine

Giambologna added his own contributions to the statuary of the Piazza della Signoria in Florence, including the Rape of the Sabine Woman, placed in 1583 by Grand Duke Francesco I under the Loggia dei Lanzi in the spot once occupied by Donatello’s Judith and Holofernes. The identification of the subject mattered so little to Giambologna that he called earlier versions of the same group Paris and Helen, Pluto and Proserpina, and Phineus and Andromeda. His chief interest lay in the energy of the spiral movement and the vitality of the male and female figures, and he succeeded so well in their rendition that Baroque sculptors, particularly Bernini, never forgot this group.