The white marble sculpture Hercules and Cacus is to the right of the entrance of the Palazzo Vecchio in the Piazza della Signoria, Florence, Italy.
This work by the Florentine artist Baccio Bandinelli (1525-1534) was commissioned as a pendant to David, which had been commissioned by the republican counsel of Florence, under Piero Soderini (gonfaloniere for life), to commemorate the victory over the Medici.
The colossus (height : 5.05 m) was origi...
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The white marble sculpture Hercules and Cacus is to the right of the entrance of the Palazzo Vecchio in the Piazza della Signoria, Florence, Italy.
This work by the Florentine artist Baccio Bandinelli (1525-1534) was commissioned as a pendant to David, which had been commissioned by the republican counsel of Florence, under Piero Soderini (gonfaloniere for life), to commemorate the victory over the Medici.
The colossus (height : 5.05 m) was originally given to Michelangelo and meant to compliment the David but later appropriated by the Medici family as a symbol of their renewed power after their return from exile in 1512, and again in 1530. Although descriptions of its unveiling in 1534 provided verbal and written criticisms of the marble, most were instead aimed at the Medici family for dissolving the the Republic and were not aesthetic. A few of the writers of these hypercritical verses were imprisoned by Alessandro de'Medici, further suggesting a political commentary. The two...
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