Hercules Seated on a grassy bank

This drawing is based on the antique sculpture traditionally considered a fragment of a Hercules. It was referred to as the "Belvedere Torso" ever since its removal to the courtyard of the villa Belvedere in the Vatican by Pope Julius II in 1509.

When the young sculptor Bandinelli first visited Rome in the spring of 1514 as a protegee of the Medici, he came armed with letters of introduction from his patron Lorenzo de'Medici requesting access to papal and other private collections in Rome. On his return to Florence in 1515 he was commissioned to produce several temporary constructions in honour of the visit in November of the Medici pope Leo X. These included a colossal wood and clay Hercules placed in the Loggia dei Lanzi fronting the Piazza della Signoria. It is possible that at this time, with Hercules in mind, he attached a bearded head to the suitably herculean bulbous body of the Belvedere torso he had studied recently.