In the wonderful Borghese Gallery in Rome we have not just Baroque and Renaissance work of arts. The Borghese family would be surrounded by masterpieces by all the ages, in order to underline its opulence and wealth. In one room there is a gorgeous mosaic, some marble busts and especially a sculpture depicting a sleeping hermaphrodite. What is its origin?

This fantastic statue is a Roman copy from the II century a.D. of the original Greek version sculputed by the famous Policleto. At the XVII century, when this roman copy was found below the Church of St Mary of the Victory in Rome, even Bernini, the master of the Baroque age, was called to restore it. Nothing strange because his talent was used several times by the Borghese family. You should consider  how in the modern museum it is visible a marble masterpiece by Bernini, that was a part of the Borghese collection, which was probably realized by him when he was a teenager. Imagine how the artist changed the original marble support of the statue, turning it to a soft matress where the strange creature is sleeping. But who really were the hermaphrodites? They were mythilogical people who had the two sexual attributes, male and female. But behind them there is a myth that, in some degree, is based on love and possession.

Hermaphrodite was an handsome boy, and a nimph named Salmacis fell in love with him. It seems that he didn't exchange her love, but it doesn't matter because Salmacis literaly got crazy for him. One day the boy was swimming on a natural and pure lake, when Salmacis saw him. So she plunge her cathcing him and strongly embracing him. At the same time she prayed the Gods, asking them to stay with him for the eternity. And it seems that the Gods listened to her, in a strange way of course. Salmacis and Hermphrodite became one person. It is the myth that probably was used to justify all the people who were a little bit androgynous. The problem is that they were considered, mainly in the ancient Greek, real monsters. It could happen that they were exiled just for their nature. Sometimes, and maybe just following the myth, the androgynous were drowned in a specific ritual. Something sad that was able to create a masterpiece like this marble statue that we have at the Borghese Gallery in Rome, where another time we can observe a work art, realized followed a myth, which is full of themes still today contemporaries.