Antonio del Pollaiuolo

Timeline

1. 1459–1475Florence · FlorenceHe established his own workshop in Florence in 1459, renting a shop opposite the Palazzo Vecchio in 1464 and renewing the lease long-term. Around 1460 he painted three panels over three meters tall of the Labors of Hercules for the great hall of the Palazzo Medici (originals lost; the Uffizi holds reduced versions Hercules and the Hydra and Hercules and Antaeus), inaugurating a new style of mythological painting with anatomical nudes and violent struggle; at the same time he produced goldwork such as the lower part of the silver cross in the Baptistery.
2. 1470–1484Florence · FlorenceWith his brother Piero he collaborated on the Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian (c. 1473–1475, National Gallery, London), in which six soldiers display the human body's structure from different angles in three symmetrically paired poses. His large engraving the Battle of the Nudes is one of the most important prints of 15th-century Italy, pushing the male nude in combat to a new scale and complexity; by 1489 he was called Florence's foremost craftsman.
3. 1484–1498Rome · RomeAround 1484 he went to Rome to direct the bronze floor tomb of Sixtus IV, completed in 1493, the inscription proclaiming his skill in gold, silver, painting, and bronze. He then continued with the tomb of Innocent VIII, first showing on a papal tomb the double image of the living blessing and the dead laid out. The two bronze tombs are among the few monuments moved from Old Saint Peter's Basilica into the new building. He died in Rome in 1498.