Il colore originario dei Bronzi di Riace: un approccio archeometrico e letterario

The history of studies on the Riace Bronzes consists mainly of interventions by archaeologists and historians of Greek art who have almost always used the traditional “philological method” born in the nineteenth century, based on comparisons between original statues and copies, created in different eras and made with different materials. It is a system that has no objective element to enhance the works compared but is based mainly on the ability of visual analysis of the scholar, his sensitivity, his inspiration. The result, in our opinion, is often completely arbitrary and without any scientific value. Literary sources can also make a decisive contribution to the original colouration of the Bronzes. In this perspective, we will try to follow a scientific path based on the intersection of literary sources and archaeometric data. In this work we were facilitated by the progress of research and new data from the Japanese team, led by Prof. Koichi Hada, which imposed a further survey on the original colouring of the Bronzes.