ITALY. Padova. Under Venetian rule, 1405-1797. Medal (Bronze, 33 mm, 27.27 g, 7 h), so-called 'Paduan Medal'. By G. Cavino, no date (circa 1550). Laureate bust of Hercules to right, wearing lion-skin; all within bead and reel border. Rev. HEPAKΛEOΣ - ΣΩTHPOΣ / TPAKΩN Standing club; in the field to left, monogram of HB and, on the ground line, the severed head of the Nemean lion to right and the severed head of a hound to left; in the field to right, eagle with spread wings standing to left. Attwood 1236. Johnson/Martini 2175. Toderi/Vannel 976. Very rare. A splendid struck original in the finest Renaissance style. Virtually as struck.



This impressive medal is usually attributed to Giovanni Cavino of Padua (1500-1570), who produced a medal with a very similar portrait of Hercules (Attwood 298). Both pieces bear the ligatured monogram ‘HB’, long regarded as a signature, though its meaning has been the subject of considerable debate.

The monogram has often been assigned to an anonymous ‘Monogramist HB,’ but Attwood argued convincingly for Cavino’s authorship and saw the letters as standing for Hercules Buphiloponus (‘Hercules, who loves labor like an ox’), the opening words inscribed on the base of Ammannati’s Hercules, commissioned in 1544 by the great Paduan patron Marco Mantova Benavides (1489-1582). However, Matzke has suggested reading the initials as those of the Paduan sculptor and architect Bartolomeo Ammanati (1511-1592), who in 1544-45 created a monumental statue of Hercules that still stands in a Paduan palace courtyard. The head of that statue closely resembles the portraits on both medals, leading Matzke to conclude that Ammannati may have supplied the design, while Cavino, the more accomplished die-cutter, executed the dies (cf. Historisches Museum Basel: All'antica. Die Paduaner und die Faszination der Antike, Speyer 2018, pp. 110f.). So, this medal too could be regarded as Cavino’s work.

The portrait of Hercules on the obverse ultimately derives from an ancient gem - almost certainly the one in Florence (A. Furtwängler: Antike Gemmen, pl. XLI, no. 35). The animal head on the lower right has sometimes been identified - rather implausibly - as the Erymanthian Boar. A more plausible explanation is that it represents one of the heads of the hellhound Cerberus, whom Hercules had to overcome in his final task.