Pollaiuolo, Antonio del

(c. 1431-1498)

   Italian goldsmith, painter, sculptor, engraver, and draughtsman. Pollaiuolo was among the earliest masters to perform autopsies to gain full understanding of the anatomical constitution of the human form. He was particularly interested in depicting the human body in motion. His two versions of Hercules and Antaeus, one painted in c. 1460 (Florence, Uffizi) for the Medici and the other sculpted in the 1470s (Florence, Museo Nazionale del Bargello), clearly reflect his scientific approach as they show the strain of men engaged in physical struggle. His Battle of the Ten Nudes, an engraving from c. 1465 (New York, Metropolitan Museum), reads like a page in an anatomy book. This has led some to propose that the work was meant as a teaching tool used to demonstrate to students in Pollaiuolo's workshop the intricacies of rendering the body in movement. Pollaiuolo's St. Sebastian (fin. 1475; London, National Gallery), painted for the Oratory of San Sebastiano in the Church of Santisima Annunziata, Florence, shows six figures around the saint. Four shoot at him with arrows, while two others reload their crossbows, their muscles flexing and distending in response to their actions. Pollaiuolo preferred mythological scenes to religious representations. In fact, his Uffizi Hercules and Antaeus is among the earliest large-scale painted mythologies of the Renaissance. Another example is his Apollo and Daphne (London, National Gallery) of c. 1470-1480. His Portrait of a Young Woman (1460s; Milan, Museo Poldi Pezzoli) rejects the flat, caricature-like approach of previous masters in favor of a more realistic representation achieved by the inclusion of subtle details of anatomy. Pollaiuolo's paintings show that, for him, the human form was as worthy of study as light and space.