Samson Defeating Two Philistines

Not long after Bandinelli’s plans for a monumental sculptural group of Hercules and Cacus outside the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence had to be abandoned, Michelangelo was engaged for the ambitious project. The city fathers of Florence gave him a free hand in the choice of subject. All they required was a group of figures interacting, in whatever way Michelangelo thought proper and pleasing. Vasari tells us that Michelangelo decided on a three-figure group on the Old Testament subject of Samson in combat with two Philistines. Though Michelangelo’s model has not survived, a number of bronzes cast later – some of them considerably later – do show what it looked like. Among them is the Berlin group, probably made in the early seventeenth century. Michelangelo’s conception supplied a valid prototype for a dynamic group composition, and, even if the large-format sculpture was never made, it did serve Giambologna as inspiration a generation later.