Orpheus
by BANDINELLI, Baccio, Marble, height c. 200 cm
Bandinelli proposed to Pope Leo X a model of David Severing Goliath’s Head to replace Donatello’s David (Florence, Bargello), which had been removed from the courtyard of the Palazzo Medici, Florence, by the Republicans, but instead he was commissioned to carve a statue of Orpheus (c. 1519; in situ) for this position. Its composition was unashamedly derived from that of the Apollo Belvedere (Rome, Vatican, Museo Pio-Clementino), and it is accounted one of his best early works.