The three tutelary deities of Rome – Jupiter in the centre, Minerva on the right and Juno on the left – occupy a single seat and are being crowned by a winged victory. Each of the three deities present their traditional attributes and sacred animals: lightning bolt and eagle for Jupiter, peacock and sceptre for Juno, while Athena-Minerva– identifiable by the owl – once probably held a spear in her left hand and was arranging her helmet with her right hand. The iconographies refer to models of the Classical period. Jupiter, in particular, reflects the superb likeness of the enthroned god created by Phidias in the Fifth Century BCE. Such a model for the representation of the father of the gods was elaborated over the centuries but never abandoned in Greek and Roman art, as highlighted by the circular altar from Ostia.
Although on a smaller scale, the sculptural group is the only known full round marble replica of the Capitoline Triad. Their cult originated in Rome on the Capitoline Hill and became a distinctive feature of cities across Roman Italy.
The sculptural group on display here comes from an important villa in the Ager Tiburtinus (at Inviolata, near Guidonia Montecelio), where it was discovered in 1992 during an illegal dig before being smuggled out of the country and sold in Switzerland. Thanks to a prompt intervention by the artistic heritage protection unit of the Carabinieri (an Italian police and armed force), the work was saved from being dispersed on the antiquities market and was returned to Italy.