19th century, Ercole Farnese

early nineteenth century

Ercole Farnese

White Carrara marble, cm 

Base in green Prato marble

The sculpture in question, positioned on a square base in green Prato marble (also known as "serpentine") depicts Hercules in a moment of rest from his famous twelve labours, leaning on the club from which a lion's skin hangs, while his hand the right, carried behind his back, holds the apples he collected in the garden of the Hesperides after having supported the terrestrial globe passed to him by Atlas on his shoulders. A hero characterized by an invincible courage and an entirely human sensitivity, rarely found in a demigod, he was among the most loved and replicated mythological characters. Many famous men aspired, in fact, to be compared to the man who had been able to defeat some of the most frightening monsters of the classical mythological repertoire, from the terrible Hydra to the ferocious Nemean Lion: in particular, in the period between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries, the imagery linked to his amazing deeds became the subject of numerous studies and insights. Symbol of extraordinary strength and meticulous cunning, Hercules was thus depicted from antiquity to today in various artistic works (sculptures in the round, paintings, reliefs and frescoes), all referring to the bronze original from the end of the 4th century BC, now lost , and attributed to Lysippus of Sicyon, one of the greatest sculptors of the late classical era.

Among the most famous versions from which the sculpture in question draws inspiration we can certainly mention the famous Farnese Hercules of Glycon of Athens, dating back to the 3rd century. AD and belonging to the Farnese Collection, today kept at the Archaeological Museum of Naples, found during the sixteenth century at the Baths of Caracalla together with the version now preserved at the Royal Palace of Caserta; or even those present in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, in Palazzo Pitti, or the reduced version in the Louvre.

It should be noted that this image is also present in the seal of Grand Duke Cosimo I de' Medici.

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