Policretior manu - Zum Polykletbild der frühen Neuzeit

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This article analyses all known cases of the Italian Renaissance in which ancient works of art were - usually erroneously - attributed to the ancient sculptor Polyklet. It also analyses the various textual sources in which these attributions are made. This allows us to understand more precisely what ideas artists and humanists harboured about antiquity. It also shows that in the period before the discovery of Apollo of Belvedere or the Laocoon, the idea of antiquity was mainly characterized by falsely attributed minor works of art, often of inferior quality. Nevertheless, these works played a major role for artists such as Lorenzo Ghiberti or Sandro Botticelli.