Storico Giardino Garzoni
Apollo and Daphne
This statuary group is taken from the famous sculpture of the same name executed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini in 1621-22, conserved in the Galleria Borghese in Rome. Daphne was a nymph, a follower of Diana and hence vowed to perpetual virginity. She was loved by Apollo for her beauty, but she took to her feet to escape the advances of the god; although Daphne was fleet of foot Apollo came steadily closer until he was about to overtake her. At this point Daphne called out to her father Peneus for help, and he transformed her into a laurel tree. The desolate Apollo took the laurel up as the sacred tree of his cult. This poetic legend was told by Ovid in his Metamorphoses and was taken up by Statius and Lucian, and more recently by Rinuccini, Marino and D'Annunzio. In the iconological framework of the Collodi garden it is the key for understanding how, through metamorphosis, nature can be changed into even more precious elements that bring glory and celebrity.