La stele funeraria greca del Museo dell'Abbazia di Grottaferrata

The funerary stele of the classical period portraying a youth absorbed in reading is the best-known sculpture in the archaeological collection displayed in the Museum of the Abbazia di San Nilo at Grottaferrata. The monument still presents many obscure points in its art-historical interpretation, but in the present paper the author has tried to answer some of these doubts through a new and exhaustive investigation. The examination of a series of printed documents and manuscripts has corroborated a provenance of the relief from the territory of Grottaferrata, where it seems to have been transported in Roman times to be used as the ornament of the villa of a wealthy member of the nobilitas. An iconographic analysis of the piece has confirmed how exceptional it is in the context of funerary reliefs of the classical period. From a formal and stylistic point of view, the sculpture is characterized by a co-penetration of various traditions, which suggests its attribution to a native sculptor of Ionia, but educated at Athens. The sculptor created this monument, undoubtedly on commission, between 410 and 390 BC. A brief appendix is devoted to the fortunes of the stele in modern times.