Vatican Museums

Around the mid-Thirties, influenced by the “fairytale” appearance of the Knight of Bamberg, which he had seen during a trip to Germany in the city cathedral, Marino Marini began to create his first versions of the horse-knight duo. The wooden Knight, dating from 1936-1937 and originally from the Battiato Collection, is one of the most emblematic antecedents of this seemingly infinite series. The possibility of comparison with the subsequent Knight (1953) and The Idea of the Knight (1955), Cry (1962) and Miracle (1971) further underline the great equilibrium, demonstrating the successive changes the subject undergoes. It is a slow, gradual metamorphosis, that from the first harmonious and true-to-life visions arrives at an abstract transfiguration of the metaphorical representation of the relationship between man and nature.