Giovanni Battista Naldini was a student of Jacopo Pontormo and Giorgio Vasari. He was active mostly in Florence, where he painted, among other things, the fresco with the pietà and putti on Michelangelo’s tomb. Several frescoes in Rome have survived as well.
This life-size Bathsheba dates from the 1570s and is now found in the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg.
The second small picture of Heracles Antonio Pollaiuolo painted for Lorenzo il Magnifico, of equal height, fighting the lion, seems to be lost completely. Heracles fighting the Hydra is in the Uffizi, and even in better condition than Antaeus. Vasari writes about it:
The third picture, wherein Hercules is slaying the Hydra, is something truly marvellous, particularly the serpent, which he made so lively and so natural in coloring that nothing could be made more lifelike. In that beast are seen venom, fire, ferocity, rage, and such vivacity, that he deserves to be celebrated and to be closely imitated in this by all good craftsmen.
Antonio Pollaiuolo painted three small pictures of Heracles for Lorenzo il Magnifico, each about 17cm high. One of them seems to be lost, the other two are in the Uffizi. Vasari writes:
The first of these, which is slaying Antaeus, is a very beautiful figure, in which the strength of Hercules as he crushes the other is seen most vividly, for the muscles and nerves of that figure are all strained in the struggle to destroy Antaeus. The head of Hercules shows the gnashing of the teeth so well in harmony with the other parts, that even the toes of his feet are raised in the effort. Nor did he take less pains with Antaeus, who, crushed in the arms of Hercules, is seen sinking and losing all his strength, and giving up his breath through his open mouth.
Antaeus was the son of Poseidon and Gaia, invincible as long as his feet touched the ground. Heracles, on discovering his secret, lifted him up and crushed him in his arms.
This beautiful picture was discovered as recently as 1895, in one of the ante-rooms of the Pitti Palace, by Mr. William Spence of Florence, who at once recognized it as a work of Botticelli’s. After some renovation (it had already been painted over in parts) it was for a time exhibited at the Uffizi; but has since been removed to the private apartments of the Pitti Palace.
A. Streeter, from whose 1903 book Botticelli the above quote is taken, saw Pallas and the Centaur as an allegory of the peace that ended the war between Florence on one side and the Pope and the Kingdom of Naples on the other, but there are other interpretations as well.
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