Vatican

2018

Commemorative coin

European Year of Cultural Heritage — The Laocoön group

Official Journal of the European Union

The design features the Statue of Laocoön and His Sons, also called the Laocoön Group, a fundamental work of the world sculpture, foundational for the Vatican Museums. At the center bottom, the inscription of the issuing country ‘Città del VATICANO’. From left to right, in semi-circle, the inscription ‘ANNO EUROPEO DEL PATRIMONIO CULTURALE’. At the top right the year of issuance ‘2018’ and the mintmark ‘R’. At the bottom right the name of the artist ‘D. LONGO’. The coin’s outer ring depicts the 12 stars of the European flag.

Additional information

The coin depicts the Laocoon group exhibited in the Vatican Pius Clemens Museum, a Roman marble copy made in the 1st century AD of a Greek bronze sculpture of Hagesandros, Athanadoros and Polydoros from Rhodes created in the 2nd century BC, which has not been preserved. Found on the Esquiline in Rome in 1506, this work of art influenced the art of the Italian Renaissance through the aesthetics of Hellenism and immediately aroused Michelangelo's admiration. It depicts Laocoon, a priest in Troy according to Greek mythology, who - because he warned his fellow citizens about the Trojan horse - was sentenced to death by Athena with his sons Antiphas (right) and Thymbraeus (left). In Aeneid, Vergil describes their desperate fight with two sea snakes resembling pythons.

Edge lettering

Designer