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Hercules in Florence Note: A version of this essay, based on my experiences as a visiting professor in the ACM Florence Programs in 1992-1993 and in 2011, was written as a contribution to the Festschrift in Honor of Janet Smith, to be published in 2012.
My intention here is not to offer new theories or interpretations
regarding Hercules in Florence. Rather I provide some resources
understanding Hercules in Florence. First, I provide a chronological
overview of selected literary texts from Late Antiquity and the
Renaissance which helped to mould or to articulate Renaissance attitudes
towards the hero. Since many of these are currently not available in
English, I include my own translations for cited passages. I then
discuss some specific public representations of the hero in Florentine
art. These art objects are also discussed chronologically. Attached at
the end of the study is a fairly comprehensive list of art in Florence
in which Hercules appears, organized by location, as well as
bibliographies of primary and secondary resources on the hero.
Hercules in Literary Texts
The late fourth century AD grammarian and Neoplatonic philosopher
Macrobius (Ambrosius Theodosius Macrobius) was widely read during the
medieval period and Renaissance. Hercules is mentioned by Macrobius
especially in the context of the cardinal virtue of fortitude. In his
Commentary on the Dream of Scipio
(especially Book 1, section eight) Macrobius provides the following
description of fortitude:
[est politici] fortitudinis animum supra periculi metum agere nihilque
nisi turpia timere,
tolerare fortiter uel aduersa uel prospera: fortitudo praestat
magnanimitatem fiduciam
securitatem magnificentiam constantiam tolerantiam firmitatem.
[It is a characteristic of political] fortitude to keep the mind above
fear of danger except
for the fear of base things and the brave endurance of either
adverse or favorable situations:
fortitude displays confidence, freedom from care, nobleness,
steadfastness, endurance and
strength.
It is no surprise that Macrobius defines fortitude here especially in
the context of the good statesman since he is commenting on Cicero’s
so-called Dream of Scipio,
from the sixth book of a philosophical dialogue (mostly lost) entitled
De Re Publica (On
the Republic, 54-51 B.C.). Macrobius’ focus on political fortitude
will prove to have significant influence on political thinking during
the Italian Renaissance, when rulers like the Medici sought to be
associated with this virtue, and, implicitly, with Hercules.
Macrobius was interested especially in the astronomical features of the
Dream of Scipio in which
Cicero describes his philosophical views in terms of a cosmic vision.
Indeed, astronomy influences Macrobius’ view of the hero Hercules, whom
he associated with the sun in his
Saturnalia, a literary conversation on a variety of topics during
the Roman feast of Saturnalia.
Macrobius specifically links the sun with the virtue of fortitude in
this reference to Hercules at
Saturnalia 1.20.6:
Sed nec Hercules a substantia solis alienus est: quippe Hercules ea est
solis potestas quae humano generi virtutem ad similitudinem praestat
deorum. Nec aestimes Alcmena apud Thebas Boeotias natum solum vel primum
Herculem nuncupatum: immo post multos atque postremus ille hac
appellatione dignatus est honoratusque hoc nomine, quia nimia
fortitudine meruit nomen dei virtutem regentis.
But Hercules is not foreign to the substance of the sun: certainly
Hercules is that power of the sun which offers to the human race a
virtue similar to that of the gods. You should not think that the child
born of Alcmena in Boeotian Thebes was the first or only one called
Hercules: indeed after many, and last of all, he is worthy of this
appellation and honored by this name since, because of his excessive
fortitude, he deserves the name of the god who rules over virtue.
Here Macrobius makes reference to the ancient belief that the
Greco-Roman hero called Hercules was only the last of a long series of
ancient heroes by the same name. His association of
nimia fortitudine (“excessive
fortitude”) with the hero is significant. By combining Macrobius’
description of this virtue in his
Commentary on the Dream of Scipio with his description of Hercules
in the Saturnalia, we get a
picture of the hero as a strong, noble and confident hero who
steadfastly endures hardships in his pursuit of virtue, a portrait which
will be associated with Hercules into the Renaissance and beyond.
While Macrobius’ statement about Hercules is based entirely on Greek and
Roman philosophy and values, Dante (Durante degli Alighieri,
c.1265–1321) specifically identifies the Greco-Roman hero with Jesus
Christ (Miller, 1982). In particular, in the
Inferno the Italian poet
makes frequent reference to the hero and, especially to the monsters he
encountered, including Cerberus (Inferno
6), Geryon (Inferno 17),
Cacus (Inferno 25) and
Antaeus (Inferno
31), all of whom are represented by Dante as violent monsters
defeated by a powerful and just hero.
In Inferno 9 Dante has a
divine messenger link divine punishment of the demons with Hercules’
treatment of Cerberus:
comincio` elli in su l'orribil soglia,
90
“ond'esta oltracotanza in
voi s'alletta?
a cui non puote il fin mai esser mozzo,
e che piu` volte v'ha cresciuta doglia?
“ Che giova ne le fata dar di cozzo?
95
Cerbero vostro, se ben vi
ricorda,
ne porta ancor pelato il mento e 'l gozzo.”
he began at the horrible threshold,
“From where comes this arrogance imbedded in you?
From which an end can never be severed
And which has increased your pain many times?
Your Cerberus, if you recall well,
For that reason bears a peeled chin and neck.”
Just as Hercules leashed Cerberus and thus peeled the fur from the
beast’s chin and neck, so the devils should fear similar treatment from
God. While Christ and his harrowing of hell following his death on Good
Friday are not mentioned directly in the
Inferno, Hercules, in a very
real sense, serves here as a type of Christ and takes up a similar role,
journeying to the Underworld to capture Cerberus.
Dante’s association of Hercules with Christ is not original, but
goes back to early Christian identifications of the hero with the
Christian savior. One example of such an association is a 4th-century
painting of Hercules in the Garden of the Hesperides found in the
Christian Catacomb of the Via Latina in Rome. (To see this image, see
http://www.mcah.columbia.edu/roman/htm/lecture/kampen_l26_100.htm.)
Omerus vero in Odissea dicit eum ab Ulixe apud Inferos conventum et
locutum. Dicit
tamen non eum quem videbat Ulixes Herculem verum esse, sed eius
ydolum. Hic insuper
quantum vivens mortales fortitudine sua fecit attonitos, tantum
vel amplius mortuus decepit insanos.
13.1
Homer truly says in the Odyssey
that [Hercules] was met and talked to by Ulysses in the
Underworld. He says, nevertheless, that he whom Ulysses saw was
not the real Hercules
but his idol. As much as he, while he was alive above, made
mortals astonished by his
fortitude, so much more did he, in death, deceive insane mortals.
Boccacio thus depicts a hero whose fortitude is so remarkable that no
mortals, either living or dead, are able to comprehend it.
In De praeclaris
mulieribus (On Famous Women),
a collection of 106 biographies, Boccaccio also provides lives of two
women important in the life of Hercules, Iole and Deinanira. Iole (#23)
was so beautiful that Hercules was completely infatuated with her,
killed her father to obtain her, and then found himself enslaved to her
by his passion to the point that the hero was completely emasculated and
wore women’s clothes.
. . . Pretending that she was afraid of a lover so roughly dressed, she
ordered this once-fierce man to put aside his club by which he had tamed
monsters; she made him put aside the skin of the Nemean lion, the
insignia of his fortitude, and put aside his poplar wreath, his quiver
and his arrows.
Boccaccio’s description of Hercules’ lion skin as
suae fortitudinis insigne
(“an insignia of his fortitude”) echoes Macrobius’ emphasis on the
hero’s virtue.
Boccaccio’s life of Hercules’ wife, Deinanira (#24), is based on a story
well-known from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, IX. While taking home his
new bride Deinanira, Hercules has to cross a river. The centaur Nessus
volunteers to transport Deinanira on his shoulders, but takes liberties
with her during the passage. When his bride cries out, Hercules rushes
the centaur and kills him with one of his arrows dipped in the poisonous
blood of the Hydra he had killed earlier in his labors. In his death
agony Nessus suggests to Deinanira that she save some of his own blood
as a love charm against the day that Hercules falls in love with another
woman (sometimes called Iole). The ingenuous Deinanira does this, not
realizing that the centaur is seeking vengeance and that his blood is
contaminated with the Hydra’s blood. So, later, when Deinanira does
persuade Hercules to put on a cloak dipped in the centaur’s blood,
Hercules’ body is consumed with such terrible burning pain that he
arranges his own death on a funeral pyre.
The biographies of both Iole and Deinanira thus demonstrate the danger
of the feminine in the life of the hero and in
Genealogia (13.1) Boccaccio
sums up Hercules’ relationship with women this way:
nam cum cetera superasset
monstra, amori muliebri succubuit (“For although he had conquered
other monsters, he succumbed to the love of a woman.”). Hercules’
weakness for women is part of the hero’s intense lifelong struggle
between virtue and vice first described by the fifth-century Greek
philosopher and historian Xenophon in his
Memorabilia (2.1.21 ff).
While Boccaccio does not specifically mention this episode in the life
of the hero, this struggle, often called Hercules at the Crossroads,
becomes a major literary and artistic theme in the Renaissance.
Petrarch (Francesco Petrarca, 1304–1374), the father of Humanism,
planned to bring Hercules into the Renaissance with his unfinished
portrait of the hero in De Viris
Illustribus (On Famous Men),
a collection of moral biographies modeled on both Plutarch’s
Parallel Lives of famous
Greeks and Romans and St. Jerome’s
De Viris Illustribus on the
lives of early Church Fathers. The first book of Petrarch’s biographies
focused entirely on famous Romans, while the second, beginning with
Adam, moved through various biblical figures down to Moses and then on
to the Greek heroes Jason and Hercules. In his inclusion of two Greek
heroes, Petrarch was following Plutarch, who included both the extant
biography of Theseus as well as a lost biography of Hercules in his
Lives. Here is how Petrarch
introduces the hero’s accomplishments:
Therefore Hercules is (as certain people think) that rather famous
philosopher, (as others think), a man incomparable in war and of more
than human strength, although [these sources] testify whether it was
possible to find, at the same time in a single person examples of others
who merited equally excellence in warfare and the glory of innate
intelligence. Certainly the good fortune of innate intelligence was
bestowed on this man so that he is reputed to have held the sky on his
shoulders, with the unique knowledge of having heavenly matters leaning
on him, to which burden he is said to have succeeded
following Atlas, who was
also very knowledgeable of this matter; truly Hercules’ strength in body
raised him, as the conqueror of all monsters, the savior of many peoples
and as the common aid of the world, to the reputation of divinity
through the proclamation of a certain singular fame.
There is no mention here of the hero’s fortitude. Instead Petrarch
portrays Hercules as huic viro
ingenii (“a man of innate intelligence”) whose encounter with the
Titan Atlas enabled him to acquire
singulari peritia caelestium
(“a unique knowledge of heavenly matters”) as he took on his own
shoulders the burden of the sky. Such a deed demonstrated for Petrarch
not only Hercules’ intelligence but also his strength and his role as
savior of those in need.
Petrarch’s interest in Hercules continues with other Renaissance writers
like the Italian humanist Coluccio Salutati (1331-1406). The most
influential portion of Salutati’s references to Hercules is probably his
direct reference to Xenophon’s story of the choice of Hercules in his
unfinished didactic mythographic work
De laboribus Herculis (3.7).
For Salutati the hero’s choice at the crossroads was clear and
deliberate:
Therefore about to set out on the road to virtue not recklessly but by plan and choice, what does our Hercules, seeing virtue near difficulty, think about, ,—just as Xenophon asserted that Prodicus said—unless about labors and combat with the flesh, with the world, both with spiritual plots and fatal examples?
Salutati presents the labors of Hercules in a philosophical and
allegorical context evidently influenced by Macrobius’ interest in
astronomy. For example, here Salutati interprets the hero’s encounter
with the dragon at the Garden of the Hesperides as an allegory about the
mastery of time:
And before the use of letters the serpent swallowing his tail with his
mouth was put into the shape of the year and the form of time. Within
the circuit of the serpent was depicted for the memory of the thing
whatever notable event had happened in that year. Whence time was
indicated through mountains as diversity of location and through the
dragon as the guardian itself. Thus, and not on account of any other
reason, Saturn, who holds the shape of time, is usually also depicted
holding in his hand the serpent rolled into its tail. Hercules, however,
a man of the most consummate perfection, went over the real walls [of
the Garden of the Hesperides], that is, by marking out the situation of
the stars, as far as possible; he also defeats the dragon either by
putting it to sleep or killing it, that is, he discovers the guiding
principle of time. Thus coming to the model and the knowledge of the
stars he seizes the apples of Juno or of Atlas, since he is believed to
have learned astronomy in those parts from Atlas and to have first
brought this very science into Greece.
Here Salviati’s Hercules seems to possess not only the fortitude granted
him by Macrobius and Boccacio but also the intelligence attributed to
him by Petrarch, for he is described as
vir consumatissime perfectionis
(“a man of the most consummate perfection”).
The dragon guarding the Garden of the Hesperides, represented in this
passage as a serpent swallowing its tail, is linked by Salutati with the
cyclical nature of time, especially evident in the succession of the
months and seasons in a yearly rotation. By defeating the dragon,
Salutati suggests, Hercules can be said to have mastered a knowledge of
time and acquired an understanding of astronomy. A similar view of time,
it should be noted, is later prominently displayed on Giuliano da
Sangallo’s 1487 frieze on the façade of the Medici Villa at Poggio a
Caiano (Cox-Rearick: 1982).
A prolific literary correspondent, Salutati also mentions Hercules in a
letter to another Renaissance scholar Andreolo Arese (Epistolario
VI.5.14-21 in Vol. 2, pg. 151 of Novati’s edition). In this letter
Salutati sees Hercules’ labors as part of a divine scheme of justice.
Quid autem, si cuncta Regentis iusticiam contemplemur, occurrere potest
iustius, quam crudelium depositio dominorum, quam concedit, cum audit
Deus compeditorum gemitus, ut solvat filios interemptorum? hoc opus
semper ordinatio divina permisit maxime virtutis viris. hinc Hercules
Busiridem Egyptium, Thracem Diomedem, Anteum Libycum, Erycem Siculum,
Hiberum Geryona, Cacum Italum, Narbonenses Albìona et Bergionem et
innumeras alias feras, quae, cum homines fuerint, a proprietatibus
vitiorum fabulose bestiarum nominibus recensentur, tum occidisse
creditur, tunc domuisse.
However, if we contemplate the justice of the Ruler in all things, what
more just thing can happen than the deposition of cruel rulers, which
God allows when He hears
the groans of fettered slaves, so that He releases the sons of those who
have been killed? Divine will
always leaves this task especially to men of virtue. So Hercules is
believed this time to have killed, that time to have subdued, the
Egyptian Busiris, the Thracian Diomedes, the Libyan Antaeus, the
Sicilian Eryx, the Hiberian Geryon, the Italian Cacus, the Narbonensian
Albion and Bergion and innumerable other beasts which, although they
were human, were reckoned fabulously
by the names of beasts from the special characteristics of their vices.
While Salutati’s mythography is usually understood in a completely
non-Christian context and Hercules is here described primarily as the
Greco-Roman hero who defeats monsters from all over the world, it is
significant that, in this passage, Salutati associates Hercules not with
the ancient gods but with the Christian deity in his use of the
following direct quote from scripture:
compeditorum gemitus, ut solvat
filios interemptorum (“the groans of fettered slaves, so that He
release the sons of those who have been killed,”
Psalm 101 [102]:21). Such a
Christianized hero, based on the early Christian association of Hercules
and Christ echoed in Dante’s
Inferno, is a fundamental aspect of the hero in the Renaissance.
Hercules in Public Art in Florence
While these passages on Hercules are by no means comprehensive, they
illustrate the continuing interest in the hero by medieval and early
Renaissance authors, an interest which is also reflected in Renaissance
art, especially in Florence, where the hero was held in special honor
and appears prominently in several important works of public art in the
city. Hercules also appeared on
the state seal of Florence as early as 1281 (Ettlinger 1972).
Perhaps the earliest public visual representation of Hercules in
Florence can be found
on Andrea Pisano’s bronze doors on the south side of the Baptistery.
These doors were originally placed, in 1336, on the front doors facing
the Duomo, but were moved to their present location when Ghiberti’s
so-called “Gates of Paradise” doors were added in 1424. While classical
mythology would appear to have no place in such a sacred Christian
context, Herculean elements on these doors are another illustration of
the medieval and Renaissance willingness to syncretize the
iconography of classical and Christian mythology which was noted above
in such literary contexts as Dante’s
Inferno.
The eight seated figures in the bottom two rows of the doors represent
the Christian virtues. Spes (Hope), the top one on the far left, is an
angel. All the rest are female and wear hexagonal halos. Below Spes is
Fortitudo (Fortitude), facing right. She holds a shield in her left hand
and a club in her right. The club rests on her right shoulder and a lion
skin is tied around her shoulders and over her head. The club and the
lion skin, of course are attributes of Hercules, and are associated with
the hero’s first labor, in which he had to defeat the Nemean Lion,
invincible because of its impermeable skin. Hercules defeated the lion
by making a club out of a tree truck, dazing the lion with the club, and
then flaying the beast with its own claws. Hercules then wore the lion
skin and carried the club on his remaining eleven labors. In completing
this and his other labors, the hero was using his great strength to
improve the lives of those around him. So Fortitude’s use of the hero’s
attributes identifies the virtue not only with Hercules’ great strength
but with his reputation as a savior of the oppressed, a theme which, as
we have seen, runs through medieval and Renaissance references to the
hero.
Hercules also appears on the campanile of the Duomo, built between 1334
and 1359 under the direction of three successive architects, Giotto di
Buoninsegna, Andrea Pisano and Fr. Talenti. On the lowest story are two
rows of bas reliefs, some of which are based upon Greco-Roman mythology.
The lower hexagonally-shaped panels are by Andrea Pisano and Luca della
Robbia and depict scenes of human history and accomplishments. The upper
ones, diamond-shaped with blue-glaze background, are by Alberto Arnoldi
and Pisano’s students and portray more cosmic and religious elements.
So, on the west side, events from the Book of Genesis are placed
below the heavenly bodies. On the south, various human professions are
ranged below the cardinal virtues. On the east, human accomplishments
are below figures representing the liberal arts. Human accomplishments
continue on the north side below the seven sacraments. The upper panels
of the planets, the virtues, the liberal arts, and the sacraments thus
place in the divine order the earthly events of the lower panels. The
originals of all these bas-reliefs have been removed to the Opera del
Duomo Museum and have been replaced with copies on the campanile.
Hercules is associated with two of these panels.
On the upper diamond-shaped rank of the south side are the seven
cardinal Virtues. In these representations Pisano repeats some of the
motifs he used on the Baptistery doors. At the far right is Fortitude,
again wearing a lion skin. She holds a club in front of her with her
right hand and a shield at her side in her left hand.
On the east side of the campanile, the representation of human
accomplishments continues with five reliefs representing such concepts
as agriculture, navigation, theatre and architecture. The second panel
from the left represents Hercules and Cacus. The hero is shown standing
in full frontal view on the left side of the relief. His lower torso is
naked and his right leg damaged. He wears his lion skin over his
shoulders and his hood over his head, with the lion skin knotted over
his chest. Hercules holds this knot in his left hand and he rests his
club on the ground with his right hand. Cacus’ cave is at the right side
of the relief and the naked, bearded body of the monster lies face up at
the mouth of the cave. A tree is growing on the hillside above the cave.
Hercules’ adventure with the giant Cacus, is well-known from Vergil’s
Aeneid VIII. Cacus was a cannibalistic monster who plagued the
region around Rome. While Hercules was passing through Italy with the
cattle he had captured from the three-bodied giant Geryon, Cacus stole
several of the animals and hid them in his cave. He cunningly walked
them backwards so that their tracks led out of instead of into their
place of concealment. Unfortunately for Cacus, Hercules heard the lowing
of the cattle, found their hiding place and challenged their captor to a
grueling wrestling match in which the giant was eventually strangled.
The myth of Cacus fits into this series of panels representing human
accomplishments in two ways. First of all, the Cacus story illustrates
an important human accomplishment, namely the domestication of animals,
animal husbandry, and the art of cowherding, for Hercules encounters
Cacus while leading cattle back from Spain into Greece. Furthermore, in
punishing Cacus for stealing the cattle Hercules can be seen as a
champion of social justice, a code of behavior on which the Florentines
prided themselves, particularly during the Republic.
The reliefs on the Campanile blend together Christian and classical
themes. The representations of human accomplishment on the lower rows
are all incorporated into a larger composition in which the planets, the
liberal arts, and human accomplishments are placed in a religious
context, bolstered by the presence of the seven sacraments and seven
cardinal virtues. In this context the Hercules on the Campanile
parallels Salutati’s description in
Epistolario VI.5 of the hero
as God’s champion of justice.
A blending of classical and Christian iconography is also strongly
visible on the Porta della Mandorla on the north side of the Duomo. This
doorway, dating from c.1391-1405, was carved by Giovanni d’Ambrogio,
Piero di Giovanni Tedesco, Iacopo di Piero Guidi, and Niccolo Lamberti.
Dominating the gable is Nanni de Banco’s sculpture of the Assumption
(1421), enclosed in a frame shaped like an almond or mandorla
which gives the doorway its name.
The doorposts are decorated with a series of friezes, mostly filled with
flowers and angels, but, especially on the left side of the door,
several mythological figures can be seen. The central frieze panel
consists of five tear-shaped lozenges on either side of the doorway. In
each lozenge there is an angel holding a scroll, and between the
lozenges are figures surrounded by floral designs. At the lower left
hand corner of the door, between the first two angel lozenges, is a
naked figure of Hercules with his lion skin wrapped over his left
shoulder and arm. The lion’s head is visible on the hero’s left
shoulder. His right arm is broken off, but it may once have held a club.
The hero’s presence on this frieze makes more explicit the association
of Hercules with the virtue of fortitude seen on Pisano’s Baptistery
doors as well as on the Campanile, and with social justice in the story
of Hercules and Cacus on the Campanile. Here the hero’s appearance has
an even more religious context linked, perhaps, with Dante’s references
to Hercules in the Inferno,
namely as a Christ figure who sacrifices himself to aid the oppressed
and who from the land of the dead.
The innermost frieze consists of a garland of ivy which runs around the
entire doorframe. On the right only flowers are woven within the ivy,
but on the left and on top there are human figures, some of which are
mythological. Starting from the bottom left-hand corner, the first three
figures are angels with animals scattered in the garland. The next four
figures all represent Hercules. Unfortunately, the lowest has lost the
objects which were in his hands. Were it not for his facial features,
which are identical to the other three Hercules figures, there would be
no way to identify him.
The next figure represents Hercules with the Hydra, one of the hero’s
twelve labors. Hercules had to slay the multi-headed Hydra, but every
time he cut off one of the monster’s heads, two grew in its place. In
the end Hercules succeeded by cauterizing the wounds so no new heads
appeared. The last, immortal, head the hero buried. In the doorframe the
bare-chested hero is shown raising an axe in both hands to decapitate
the Hydra. The hero does not look at the monster, but stares, instead,
straight out at the viewer. Most of the hydra is worn away.
The third scene depicts yet another adventure: here Hercules wrestles
with the giant Antaeus who
derived his superhuman strength from the earth itself. In order to
defeat him, Hercules raised the figure of Antaeus off the ground, to
prevent contact with the soil. On the doorframe Hercules, shown fully
frontal, holds the naked figure of Antaeus around the waist. While
Antaeus has his arms wrapped around Hercules’ neck, he has already lost
the contest, since his feet dangle in midair behind him. Antonio del
Pollaiuolo painted this myth on a large canvas for Lorenzo de’ Medici.
While the original painting is lost, a small copy on wood, in
Pollaiuolo’s own hand, survives in the Uffizi.
The last Hercules is dealing with the Nemean Lion. The naked hero is
shown on the doorframe wrestling with the lion. He straddles the beast’s
back and has locked his legs around its neck. Hercules holds the lion’s
mouth in his hands. As in the other representations of the hero on the
door, Hercules is shown facing the viewer and does not look at his
opponent.
How can this doorframe be interpreted? While the central figure of
Christ the King above the door is appropriately religious, the angels
scattered through the rest of the frieze do not sufficiently balance the
other figures, some of which are definitely mythological and others
unidentifiable. One possible explanation of this door is to be found on
the central bronze doors from old St. Peter’s in Rome, decorated by the
Florentine Filarete in 1439–1445, and placed at the main entrance to the
new basilica. Filarete, certainly familiar with the Porta Della Mandorla
on the cathedral in his native city, incorporated around the main
religious panels of his doors, a frieze very similar to the one on the
Porta della Mandorla. Filarete’s frieze is filled with scenes from
Ovid’s Metamorphoses such as the encounter between Diana and
Actaeon, episodes from early Roman history like the Twins Romulus and
Remus with the She-Wolf and the Rape of the Sabines, and selections from
Aesop’s Fables. Could the animals in the bottom left-hand corner
of the Porta Della Mandorla have inspired Filarete’s plan for the doors
of St. Peter’s? On both sets of doors the figure of Hercules appears
wrestling with Antaeus. While Filarete uses mythological figures on the
doors of St. Peter’s to place the stories of Sts Peter and Paul and the
Papacy at the center of universal history, the artists of the Porta
Della Mandorla may have had a slightly different goal. Perhaps,
borrowing the figures of Hercules from their more specific contexts on
the Campanile of the Duomo, the artists here use Hercules to link their
native city with the glory of Christ the King who reigns at the center
of this doorframe frieze.
The influence of this door frame can possibly also be seen in the
commission of Donatello in 1415 to create a colossal statue of Hercules
for the porch above the south apse of the cathedral. This gigantic
statue, to be constructed of gold-gilded bronze plate around a stone
core, was never completed but served as a conceptual precursor, at least
in its monumentality, for Michelangelo’s David. The prominence of
Hercules in the iconography of the cathedral illustrates not only the
hero’s special association with Florence but also his identification
with virtue and altruism.
The Piazza della Signoria, the civic centre of Florence, is also its
mythological heart. Here the myths of the ancient Greeks and Romans,
mingled with biblical and historical figures, are tightly woven into the
history, politics, architecture and culture of this great city.
Traditionally the staunch republicans of medieval Florence identified
themselves with figures who represented the victory of a weak but
determined champion over a cruel oppressor. Hence the Florentine
fondness for Biblical characters like David, who defeated the giant
Philistine champion Goliath with only a slingshot, or the Hebrew woman
Judith who managed to slay the enemy of her people, King Holofernes.
Indeed, the two most well-known statues in the piazza, Donatello’s
bronze representation of Judith
Beheading Holofernes (c.1455) and Michelangelo’s magnificent marble
David (1503), were moved to
the piazza to celebrate the expulsion of the tyrannical Medicis in 1494.
While both of these pieces are now represented in the piazza by copies,
two pieces of original sculpture representing Hercules are visible from
the square.
The earlier of these is Baccio Bandinelli’s
Hercules and Cacus. This
statue, unveiled in 1534, still flanks the entrance to the Signoria
today, along with a copy of Michelangelo’s
David. The success of the
David had encouraged the
Republican government of Florence in 1508 to commission from
Michelangelo a statue of Hercules to serve as a complement to his David.
Political misfortunes and papal commissions, however, kept Michelangelo
from completing this project, which eventually fell into the hands of
his rival Bandinelli, who finished the statue in 1534 (Bush, 1980).
Hercules can be understood here as a mythological counterpart to the
Biblical David. Like David, the Greek hero Hercules was a champion of
the oppressed. Just as David saved the Israelites from the Philistines
by defeating the giant Goliath, Hercules destroyed many monsters and
improved the lives of ordinary people during his twelve labors. His
travels brought him to many ancient lands, including Italy, and the
Florentines had long claimed that their city rested on swampy land
reclaimed by the great hero. For this reason Republican Florentines
placed the hero on their governmental seal in the thirteenth-century. At
the same time the hero was frequently associated with the Medici
(Forster, 1971). For example, Pollaiuolo executed two paintings of
Hercules for Lorenzo the Magnificent, and after Lorenzo’s death in 1492
Michelangelo carved a large statue of Hercules in honor of his dead
patron.
In this context, it is significant to note Herculean features of
Michelangelo’s David which
are well described by Paoletti and Radke (2005: 389):
The figure is simultaneously understandable as an ordinary man,
essentially free of attributes that would readily identify him (the
sling being virtually hidden from sight), and as a hero.
The colossal size of the figure—nearly three times life
size—implies a link with colossal sculptures of antiquity; the greatness
of Greece and Rome now is equaled by that of Florence.
But concentration on the statue’s formal classical antecedents
misses the deliberate tension in the figure between real and ideal, the
suggestion that the ordinary can be transformed into the extraordinary
by a decisive moment of action.
The nudity of the figure is unusual for a representation of David,
Donatello's bronze "David" notwithstanding.
The biblical text (I Samuel 17:38-39) leaves little room for
interpreting David as a nude. The pose of the figure and David's mature
body, along with the nudity, suggest, instead, a classical statue of
Hercules. Moreover, the
rocky terrain on which the figure stands, as well as the blasted tree
trunk behind David's right leg, derive from the well-known tale of
Hercules at the Crossroads.
Faced with a choice between virtue and vice, allegorically represented
as, respectively, a sere and rocky landscape and a lush and flowering
landscape, Hercules chose the first. No one entering the Palazzo della
Signoria could have missed the moral and political meaning of the statue
nor the reference to the classical hero who had appeared on the state
seal of Florence since the end of the thirteenth century.
From the moment of its unveiling, Bandinelli’s statue has been unpopular
with Florentines. Perhaps the statue was identified too closely with the
fall of the Florentine Republic and with papal interference in the
city’s affairs. Perhaps the Florentines could not help but look at a
work of Bandinelli and wish it were by Michelangelo. Perhaps nothing
could ever successfully complement the
David. The statue received
its most famous and scathing criticisms from Benvenuto Cellini, who
recounts in chapter LXX of
his Autobiography the pleasure with which he expressed his
opinion to Cosimo de’ Medici in the very presence of the sculptor.
Cellini may be right that Hercules’ muscles look like a sack of melons
and his loins like a sack of long marrows. He may also be right that, if
the hero’s head were shaved, there would not be enough skull left to
hold his brains. But lovers of mythology and of the hero Hercules can
still view the statue with some pleasure and can enjoy the way that
Bandinelli contrasts hero and giant. Cacus cowers at the hero’s feet and
grapples futilely for a weapon while Hercules, with club in hand,
ignores his opponent and looks fiercely? out towards the Loggia dei
Lanzi.
The pedestal of this statue is also worthy of note. Four hermes (male
figures on a post) are on each side of the base with the following Latin
inscription in two sections on the front:
FLOREN
FACIEBAT
MD
XXXIIII
Baccio
Bandinelli
the Florentine
made this
15
34
The corners of the pedestal are decorated with beast heads. To the north
are the heads of a lion and a boar. To the south are the heads of a
dragon and a dog. Each of these can be associated with a labor of
Hercules: the Nemean lion, the Erymanthian boar, the dragon which
guarded the Garden of the Hesperides and Cerberus, the three-headed
watchdog of the Underworld.
The second sculptural group depicting Hercules in the Piazza della
Signoria is a representation of Hercules and the centaur Nessus,
commissioned from Giambologna by Duke Ferdinand I in 1594. This group
was originally placed on a pedestal on the Via Cerretani but was moved
under the Loggia dei Lanzi in the nineteenth century. Unlike Boccaccio,
who was more interested in that part of the story which led to the
hero’s death, Giambologna focuses on the physical contest between the
hero and the centaur. Nessus has been forced to the ground. He kneels on
his equine forelegs while Hercules pushes the centaur’s human head and
throat violently back. With his human arms Nessus struggles vainly
against his enraged foe. The naked, bearded figure of Hercules leans
against the centaur’s left side. His left hand is at Nessus’ throat and
in his right hand he raises his metal club to strike. The hero’s lion
skin is draped over the centaur’s back and the lion’s head and paws hang
down on Nessus’ left flank, behind the hero’s left thigh. Conspicuously
absent in this sculpture is Hercules’ bow, which is traditionally
associated with this adventure.
One additional public representation of the hero in the city of Florence
is a bronze composition of Hercules and the Nemean Lion signed and dated
1907 by Romano Romanelli in the Piazza Ognissanti. This bronze
composition rests on a low plain rectangular stone pedestal and is meant
to be viewed from all sides.
Romanelli has depicted Hercules in close physical contact with the lion.
The naked hero has wrapped his arms tightly around the beast’s head and
is leaning over onto the lion’s back. The lion has been forced to the
ground and its claws are extended in a desperate attempt to find a hold
for counterattack. Hercules’ face, nestled in the fur on the lion’s
back, faces the Arno while the lion, with gaping jaw, faces west towards
the Palazzo Lenzi (the French Consulate).
Romanelli’s statue extends the artistic tradition of public sculpture in
Florence into the 20th century. It thematically recalls
Hercules’ appearance on the Porta della Mandorla of the Duomo, where the
hero also wrestles with the Nemean Lion. The visual contrast between
these two pieces is striking. While the Mandorla relief is essentially
frontal and vertical, with hero and lion positioned side by side,
Romanelli has created a 360-degree horizontal composition in which the
bodies of human and beast blend in conflict.
While the literary and artistic representations of Hercules discussed in
this paper are only a sampling of the hero’s rich presence in Florence,
I hope that they are sufficient to illustrate the dynamic portrait of a
major ancient hero who has continued to resonate in the intellectual and
visual life of the city throughout its history. The following list of
artistic representations of Hercules in Florence is intended to provide
a more comprehensive overview of the hero’s presence, not only in public
art but also in the many museums throughout the city.
Hercules in Florence
Public Sculpture
At the Duomo:
Pisano, Andrea. Doors on the south side of the Baptistery (1336)
Pisano, Andrea, and Luca della Robbia. Hercules and Cacus on the
Campanile (1334-1359)
d’Ambrogio, Giovanni, Piero di Giovanni Tedesco, Iacopo di Piero Guidi,
and Niccolo
Lamberti. Porta della Mandorla. c.1391-1405
In the Piazza della Signoria:|
In the Piazza Ognisanti:
Museums
In the Palazzo Vecchio:
Sala del Cinquecento
Studiolo di Francesco Primo
Quartiere degli Elementi, Sala d’Ercole (Hercules Room)
Mezzanino (adjacent to Sala dei Duecento)
In the Archaeological Museum:
In the Bargello:
Sala Donazione Bruzzichelli
Sala Donazione Carand
Sala della Sculture del Secondo Quattrocento
Sala dei Bronzetti
Sala del Medagliere
Palazzo Medici-Riccardi
Ufizzi
First (East) Corridor. North End
Room 16
Third (West) Corridor: North End
Room 33 (The Cinquecento Corridor)
Room 41
In the Palatine Gallery of the Pitti Palace:
Cortile
Vestibule
Mars Room
Saturn Room
Poccetti Gallery
Hercules Room
Vestibule
Museo Delgi Argenti
Boboli Gardens
At Porta Romana entrance
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Some Primary Resources
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edited and translated by Virginia Brown. Cambridge,
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Cellini, Benvenuto. Autobiography.
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Durham, N.C.. Duke University Press. |