The Choice of Hercules

Domenico Beccafumi painted this Choice of Hercules around 1520, depicting the hero at the crossroads between Virtue and Vice—a subject from Prodicus as transmitted through Xenophon's Memorabilia that became one of the most popular humanist allegories of the Renaissance. The Choice of Hercules offered painters the opportunity to contrast two female figures (Virtue and Pleasure) in a moralizing context that satisfied both intellectual and aesthetic demands. Beccafumi's characteristic acidic palette and the proto-Mannerist tension in his figure construction give the standard allegory a personal quality that distinguishes his version from more conventional treatments. The subject was particularly appropriate for decoration of humanist studioli and private chambers where the allegory would counsel daily choices of virtue over pleasure.

The panel shows the distinctive Sienese approach with refined color and elegant figure types, characteristic of the artist's contribution to central Italian devotional painting.