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Greek mythology described Silenus, son of Pan, god of the wild, and of a nymph, as an elderly, fat, bald figure, often depicted as having animal-like features, such as donkey's ears and goat's hooves. A lover of wine, music and song, many believed him to be attributed with extraordinary wisdom and the gift of divination. Due to these gifts of his, Zeus chose him as the teacher of young Dionysus, his son born from his affair with the human Semele.
In the middle of the 16th century, a large marble statue was discovered in Rome, a Roman copy of a bronze work by the famous Greek sculptor Lysippos, which had been lost. The statue, now preserved in the Louvre, presents an unusual iconography of Silenus, portraying him as an elderly hero who still has a strong body, lovingly holding a young Bacchus in his arms.
Ferdinando de'Medici, still a cardinal at the time, obtained permission from the owner of the marble work to make a cast with which, according to the documentary evidence, Giacomo del Duca would have created the model for a fusion in bronze. Compared with the ancient version, the modern sculpture appears animated by an all-new naturalism.
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