Statua di Pasquino

This guide to the Statua di Pasquino in Rome opens on an anonymous note pinned to a battered marble torso in 1501, warning Pope Alexander VI against leaving the city. It traces the statue's hidden identity as an unearthed ancient Greek figure, and the tradition Cardinal Oliviero Carafa began of dressing it each year for the Feast of Saint Mark, which the sharpest tongues of the papal court turned into running anonymous satire. The satirist Pietro Aretino later claimed the statue's voice as his own.