Allegory of Hercules

Allegory of Hercules is a c. 1535 oil on canvas painting by Dosso Dossi, now in the Uffizi in Florence.

Its subject is uncertain and its sometimes almost known as Bambocciata or Stregoneria.

[1] It was acquired in Siena by Giannotto Cennini for cardinal Leopoldo de' Medici, who received it in 1665.

His inventory called it a "painting with portraits of the jesters of the dukes of Ferrara", a satirical caricature subject which can only have originated as a direct commission from Ercole II d'Este, himself named after Hercules, hence the painting's name.

[2] This article about a sixteenth-century painting is a stub.