Boy with thorns

Replica of an ancient Roman statue, to which a local legend is linked

The sculpture (12th-13th century) is now set in a niche at the back of the church of Santa Maria di Teggiano, together with funerary reliefs from the Roman era, in a rearrangement that dates back to after the earthquake of 1857.

It represents a replica of the ancient bronze statue of Spinario, preserved in the Middle Ages in the Lateran square in Rome, and interpreted both as a symbol of the sin of Lust and as a personification of the month of March. This image was inserted into the medieval cycles of the months or appeared alone or with other allegories, to represent the aforementioned sin.

This had to be the function of the sculpture in question, which appeared to be placed in a highly visible space, on the perimeter of the town's mother church, where other reused fragments were present. A relief with a similar subject is still fixed on the walls of the Romanesque bell tower of the cathedral of Capua.

In the erudite tradition of the modern age, the authors preserve memory of the allegorical interpretation of the sculpture because they pass on the memory of a legendary character from Roman Teggiano, Marzio. After a tiring journey from Rome to bring important news to the city, Marzio died due to a poisoned thorn that got in his foot, and his fellow citizens erected a monument with his image.