Hercules and Cacus

Hercules and Cacus is a white sculpture to the right of the entrance of the Palazzo Vecchio in the Piazza della Signoria, Florence, Italy.

This work by the Florentine artist Baccio Bandinelli was commissioned as a pendant to Michelangelo's David, which had been commissioned by the republican council of Florence, under Piero Soderini, to commemorate the victory over the Medici.

The colossus was originally given to the Medici family and meant to complement the David but later appropriated by Michelangelo as a symbol of his renewed power after his return from exile in 1512, and again in 1530. 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.