Placed in the Belvedere Courtyard (now part of the Pio-Clementine Museum) by Julius II in 1503, the Apollo was the first in the papal collection of ancient statues to be displayed there. A Roman copy of a Greek original, the statue may have been sculpted by Leochares, one of whose works is mentioned in Pliny as being an Apollo wearing a diadem. In 1506, it was joined by the Laocoön.
