Apollo Belvedere

Preserved but no longer current.

Meaning · English

An ancient marble statue, supposed to be a Roman-Greek copy of a bronze votive statue set up at Delphi in commemoration of the repulse of an attack by the Gauls on the shrine of Apollo in 279 B.C. It represents the god holding the remains of a bow, or (according to some conjectures) an aegis, in his left Band, and is called Belvedere from the Belvedere Gallery of the Vatican, where it stands.

Era: ca. 1898 (Victorian)

Sources & notes

Reproduced from Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898 edition, public domain; archive.org, retrieved 2026-07-31; OCR text, minor errors possible). Reflects the scholarship and attitudes of its era.

Common questions

What does “Apollo Belvedere” mean?

An ancient marble statue, supposed to be a Roman-Greek copy of a bronze votive statue set up at Delphi in commemoration of the repulse of an attack by the Gauls on the shrine of Apollo in 279 B.C. It represents the god holding the remains of a bow, or (according to some conjectures) an aegis, in his left Band, and is called Belvedere from the Belvedere Gallery of the Vatican, where it stands.

Is “Apollo Belvedere” formal or informal?

No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.