Farnese Bull

[1] Pliny the Elder mentions what was presumably the prime version of it as the work of the Rhodian artists Apollonius of Tralles and his brother Tauriscus, stating that it was commissioned at the end of the 2nd century BC and carved from just one whole block of marble.

It was imported from Rhodes as part of the remarkable collection of artwork and sculpture owned by Asinius Pollio, a Roman politician who lived during the years between the Republic and the Principate.

"[4] The group underwent a substantial restoration in the 16th century, when Michelangelo planned to use it for a fountain to be installed at the centre of a garden between Palazzo Farnese and the Villa Farnesina.

In 1883, the original sculpture was noted by Domenico Monaco, curator of the (then) National Museum in Naples, to have been carved from a block of marble measuring 3.66 m × 2.75 m ("12 ft by 9 ft.");[7] after its restorations, the work's perimeter is approximately 3.3 m (10'10") on each side and over 4 m (13') high.

[8] It has been argued that the sculpture noted by Pliny in his Natural History could not be the Farnese Bull, which is instead a 3rd-century AD Roman version, made specifically for Caracalla's Baths.