In January 1506 the ancient sculpture group Laocoön and His Sons was discovered in Rome and quickly acquired for the Vatican. Artists and scholars treated it as a dramatic survival of classical antiquity. Its twisting bodies and suffering faces became a model for expressive power in Renaissance art.

The discovery influenced literary ideas of pathos, heroic suffering and ekphrasis. Poets and critics used such works to debate how visual and verbal arts could represent agony, dignity and tragic narrative.