Ulysses Monument
1989
The monument, created in the ‘80s by the Calabrian sculptor Maurizio Carnevali, is meant to be a tribute to the theory of the German scholar Armin Wolf, assuming that Tiriolo was the Land of Phaeacians, of Alcinous and Nausicaa, described by Homer in the Odyssey.
The sculpture shows different characters. The first one, on the spectator’s left, represents Bacchus, sculpted with a glass in his hand: his presence is motivated by the finding in Tiriolo of the bronze table of 186 b.C. showing the text of the Senatusconsultum about bacchanalia, released by the Romans to forbid Dionysian cults.
In a ship-shaped hollow having the head of a bird on its bow, there are other two characters: a female one, well highlighted from her face to her breast; the other one is Mars, with his face hidden, against the rock, represented while holding his sword. The female character of the sculpture is dual: it can represent either Nausicaa if linked to Ulysses, or Venus if considered in relation with Mars.
Ulysess, standing in the central position, coincides with the ship’s mast, which is the figurative container of the characters. Ulysses is represented with two faces. Both of them are well defined and follow the sun from sunrise to sunset, looking at the two seas (the Ionian and Tyrrhenian seas, well visible from Tiriolo), which are the great background to Ulysses’ action from the beginning to the end.
