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We're in the Capitoline Museums in Rome looking at the equestrian sculpture of the emperor Marcus Aurelius.

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We're not exactly sure of the date, but it's sometime around 176 CE or 180 CE.

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It's in a new space, because it was suffering some conservation problems,

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and so it had to be removed from the campidoglio where Michelangelo had put it.

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And, actually, that's an important point because we don't know where it originally was in Rome.

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What's really important is that this is the only equestrian sculpture of its size to survive from antiquity.

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And we know that there had been dozens of them in Rome.

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They were created to celebrate the triumphal return of an emperor.

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There's so much authority as a result of him on horseback, clearly ruling.

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His left arm is lightly holding the reigns, or what would have been lightly holding the reigns of the horse.

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The right hand protrudes out, addressing the citizens of Rome.

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There's a sense of confidence in his posture, and of course in the scale, it is enormous.

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This survived because it was thought to have represented Constantine,

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the emperor who made Christianity legal in the Roman Empire,

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and so this wasn't melted down for it's bronze, the way that almost all other Equestrian sculptures were.

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This could have ended up as a cannon.

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Right, so we're lucky it survived and it had enormous influence in the Renaissance,

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for artists beginning with Donatello, and Leonardo da Vinci.

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And of course, also, the ability to cast something this size in bronze had also been lost.

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And it just shows how accomplished the ancient Romans were,

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both in their handling of the material, but also in the representation,

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the real understanding of the body and its musculature.

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And of the anatomy of the horse, striding forward, it's so animated and lifelike.

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The folds of the neck, as his head pushes downwards.

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And the folds of the drapery that Marcus Aurelius is wearing.

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How it comes down and drapes over his leg and the back of the horse.

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There's also something really wonderfully momentary and also at the same time very timeless here.

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The horse is striding, his arm is raised but there's also a wonderful sense of balance.

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The horse is in motion, he's pulling to the right.

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He had, in his left hand, the reigns so there's a tension in that

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he sort of seems to be pulling back and the horse pulls its head back a little bit.

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At the same time, the right side of his body seems to be moving forward, and leaning to the right,

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there's a kind of animation throughout.

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There's also this unity between this incredibly powerful animal and Marcus Aurelius,

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and he's in full control of the horse.

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And even, kind of, moving forward while pulling the horse back slightly, holding it back.

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And you're right, his left hand is holding the reigns, but it's a light touch, even though he's in command

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of this incredibly powerful animal.

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Is it me, or does he seem a little too big for the horse?

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Do you know if this was cast in one piece?

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It would have been cast in individual pieces, and then it would have been assembled

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and then the bronze would have been worked so as to erase the seams.

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And so this commemorating of a great man and his great deeds was an important idea in the Renaissance

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with the flowering of Humanism, this recognition of the achievement of an individual,

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the representation of that individual in a portrait.

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These are things that had been lost in the Middle Ages.

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This interest in representation, both of his authority, of his position in society, but also

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the ability to render the body and the interest in rendering, all those things come together in the Renaissance,

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again, having originally come together, of course, in the Classical world.