The sculptor Pier Jacopo Alari Bonacolsi was nicknamed 'Antico' due to his unrivalled skill in replicating works of antiquity. This statuette is a reduced-scale copy of the famous life-size Classical marble statue known as the Apollo Belvedere due to its location documented from 1511 in the Vatican’s Belvedere Courtyard. It was excavated in Rome in 1489, and quickly acquired by Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere (later Pope Julius II). When Antico studied it in the late 1490s, the statue was in the gardens of Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere at SS Apostoli. At that time, the statue’s left forearm and right hand were still missing (these were restored in 1532), so Antico re-invented them. Alongside his skill in replicating antique works (and hence his nickname), Antico developed an innovative casting process which allowed him to create several versions in bronze from the same original moulds.