A few days later, on October 22, a mysterious fire broke out in the temple of Apollo, consuming the roof of the building, and the statue of the god, copied from Phidias' statue of Zeus at Olympia.
The choice of Athens for the press launch was connected to the car's new name, Fidia, which was the name (commonly spelled "Phidias" by anglophone classicists) of the artist who some 24 centuries earlier had supervised creation of the friezes which originally decorated the Parthenon (and which in 1816 turned up in the British Museum, following their controversial removal in 1802 by Lord Elgin).
Phidias |
For instance the sculptor Pierre-Charles Simart produced a copy of the Athena Parthenos of Phidias for patron Honoré Théodoric d'Albert de Luynes, circa 1840, in ivory and gold, based on ancient descriptions.
Hegesias or Hegias of Athens, sculptor or possibly two sculptors of the generation before Phidias
Mark Barr was an American mathematician who, according to Theodore Andrea Cook, in about 1909, gave the golden ratio the name of phi (ϕ), the first Greek letter in the name of Phidias, the Greek sculptor who lived around 450 BC.
He was acclaimed by poets such as Guarino da Verona and praised by humanists of his time who compared him to such illustrious names as Cimabue, Phidias and Praxiteles.