Sculpture Saturday *8

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According to the Web Gallery of Art, the statue Hercules and Diomedes is one of six statues that the sculptor Vincenzo de Rossi made for the Salone dei Cinquecento, in Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, Italy.

Tufts University’s Perseus Project, meanwhile, explains the backstory (without mentioning the handsiness). Greek mythology has it that Eurystheus, the king of Tiryns and Mycenae, tasked Hercules with twelve “Labors” as penance for killing his wife and children in a temporary bout of insanity. As one of the Labors, Eurystheus sent him to retrieve the man-eating mares of Diomedes, king of the Bistones tribe. And legend has it that Hercules killed Diomedes by feeding him to his own horses.