Pollice Verso (from Latin: with a turned thumb) is an 1872 painting by French artist Jean-Léon Gérôme, featuring the eponymous Roman gesture directed to the winning gladiator.

The thumbs-down gesture in the painting is given by spectators at the Colosseum, including the Vestals, to the victorious murmillo, while the defeated retiarius raises two fingers to plead for mercy.

A 26-page pamphlet published in 1879, "Pollice Verso": To the Lovers of Truth in Classic Art, This is Most Respectfully Addressed, reprinted evidence for and against the accuracy of the painting, including a letter dated 8 December 1878 from Gérôme himself.

She rises at the blows, and every time a victor stabs his victim’s throat she calls him her pet; the modest virgin with a turn of her thumb bids him pierce the breast of his fallen foe so that no remnant of life shall stay lurking deep in his vitals while under a deeper thrust of the sword the fighter lies in the agony of death.

His first work was a large bronze statue of a gladiator holding his foot on his victim, based on Pollice Verso and first shown to the public at the Universal Exhibition of 1878 in Paris.