CIRCA 1ST CENTURY A.D., MOUNTED ON A 17TH CENTURY BUST

Tyche was the personification of chance who was recognized as a divinity by the Greeks in the 4th century B.C., becoming a goddess who ensured good fortune. Merging with the Roman goddess Fortuna and the Greek goddess Cybele, Tyche came to be revered as a protector of the public, private and royal realms. Each individual would have had his own Tyche, as would each city and kingdom. As Tyche's importance proliferated in the ancient world, so too did her personifications appear in all media, from coins and gems to large-scale sculpture. The most famous Tyche statue is the Tyche of Antioch, a sculpture produced by Euthykides in circa 300 B.C., showing a goddess wearing a mural crown, seated on a rock with her feet resting on the river god Orontes. This type became a common personification for other city goddesses.

Cybele was an eastern goddess whose worship in Rome began in the late 3rd Century B.C. She was known as the Magna Mater or Mother Goddess and was the protectress of Rome. At the time of Augustus her worship was at its highest, her temple stood on the Palatine hill, and his wife Livia was associated with her as the mother of Rome, represented wearing the tall mural crown on statuary, gems and coins. Although worshipped by the highest of patrician families, who were keen to associate themselves with her Trojan origins, Roman citizens were both shocked and fascinated by her priests who were ritually castrated and were known for their effeminate manner and dress.

The above head wears a tall crown in the form of a city wall with openwork arched gateways, to symbolise her role as protectress of cities. For similar female heads with openwork crowns in the British Museum see acc. nos 1836,1008.3 and 1805,0703.243, from the Townley collection. For a full scale statue of Cybele cf. M. Moltesen et.al, Imperial Rome II Statues, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, 2002, pp. 119-121, no. 27.

Urban VIII (Maffeo Barberini, 1568-1644) was a well-known patron of the arts, spending vast amounts of money that would eventually lead to debts running to millions of scudi. He commissioned works from his favourite sculptor Bernini, and undertook a lavish rebuilding programme which included the baldacchino and cathedral in St Peter's Basilica, and the refurbishment of the Palazzo Barberini. His vast collection of antiquities included the Portland vase, which remained in the Barberini collection for over 150 years and is now held in the British Museum. Although his friend, admirer and patron for more than a decade, he famously had Galileo arrested and tried by the Inquisition, for writing his defense of the Copernican view of the solar system in 1632 - it was to remain on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum for over 200 years.

In the 1644 contents inventory of the Palazzo Barberini, page 60, no. 663, the above bust is listed as follows: "Una testa di Cibele, con la testa coronata di Torri, con suo petto di porta santa, e camiscia di alabastro, e suo peduccio di binaco e nero, con scabellone di marmo bigio".