Two fighters

This terracotta has often been linked with the Medicena commission for a large statue of Hercules and Cacus, to be set up alongside the David in front of Palazzo Vecchio. In 1525 the task was given to Baccio Bandinelli, but after the expulsion of the Medici the Florentine Republic once again asked Michelangelo to carve the two figures. With the fall of the Republic and the return of the Medici family, the commission was assigned definitively to Bandinelli, who completed his colossal group in 1534.