Hercules and Cacus

Hercules and Cacus is an Italian Renaissance sculpture in marble to the right of the entrance of the Palazzo Vecchio in the Piazza della Signoria, Florence, Italy.

The commission for a colossus (the final height is 5.05 m) was originally given to Michelangelo in 1508 by Piero Soderini, leader of the Republic of Florence after the expulsion of the Medici family in 1494.

[2] Vasari stated that Bandinelli had already carved the sculpture as far as the abdomen of Hercules when, in 1527, the pope was taken prisoner in Rome during its sacking, and the Medici were exiled once again from Florence.

Finally in 1534 the work on the statue was finished transported from his studio to the Piazza della Signoria and placed on its marble pedestal as part of the ringiera.

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 Republic and were not aesthetic.

Cellini referred to the emphatic musculature as "a sack full of melons", forgetting that Michelangelo had received similar deprecation previously by Leonardo da Vinci.