Phalaris and the Bull of Perillus

Discussion

FROM THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO’S CATALOG

This classical subject tells the cautionary tale of the sculptor Perillus, who offered to make a bronze bull in which the tyrant Phalaris could roast his enemies. Perillus was rewarded by being the contraption’s first victim. In the Renaissance this story was interpreted as a moral fable of how bad advice rebounds on the giver, and it is here presented against the backdrop of a large, contemporary piazza. The relief is attributed to Giovanni Caccini on the basis of its stylistic relationship to his best-known work, the bronze panes of the doors of Pisa Cathedral.

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