The text discusses various depictions of human figures and statues by artists like Baccio Bondinelli and ancient sculptors. It highlights the diverse postures and movements captured in these artworks, such as the Gladiator and children of Niobe, and contrasts them with other representations like Alexander taming Bucephalus. The passage also notes the flexibility of ancient sculptors in creating statues with varied attitudes and poses, using Laocoön as a prominent example.
OF THE HUMAN FIGURE
Justinian: that of another Faun playing the flute, in the city of Borghese, and many other statues that can be seen in Rome, which rely more or less on the support that holds them.
Baccio Bondinelli depicted with as much art and intelligence men in various postures, in his painting of the massacre of the Innocents, known through the engraving. The ancients also left us statues in different postures as described, but which appear in full movement. Among these is the figure of the Gladiator in the city of Borghese, who, with an impetuous step, prepares to strike his opponent, and at the same time parries the threat: or in the gardens of the Medicis, the children of Niobe, who seem to want to escape from the fury of Apollo and Diana, who chase them with arrows. Such are the figures in action seen in representations of battles: that of Alexander taming the horse Bucephalus, on the Quirinal hill in Rome, etc.
On different ancient statues
The Sculptors of antiquity did not confine themselves to the narrow limits of previous examples, but infinitely varied the postures and adjustments of their statues: they represented some standing and at rest, others running, others enhanced. There is an unparalleled example of the latter in the famous group of Laocoön bound with his children by monstrous serpents.