This fragmentary torso was once heavily — and rather imaginatively — restored as Diomedes, the Greek warrior in the Trojan Wars. On the other hand the way the body twists, with the weight on one leg and shoulder dropped, and also leaning forward, could suggest the pose of an athlete throwing a discus.
There has also been speculation that the torso is related to the work of a sculptor called Pythagoras, but this is based on a tenuous link to a passage in the writings of Pliny. Nor do we have any information about where or when the sculpture was found; the Valentini Torso remains something of a mystery
Rome, Museo Nazionale
Lippold: Griechische Plastik, 131 (n.11)
Richter: Sculpture & Sculptors of the Greeks (1950), 203
Walston: Catalogue of Casts in the Museum of Classical Archaeology (1889), 31, no.116
Waldhauer, O: Pythagoras of Rhegium, 73-, figs.16-18
Lechat, H: Pythagoras, 58-, figs.6-12
Formerly in the Palazzo Valentini
