Battle of the Nudes

aside from his "label." The inscription thus suggests a misguided attempt to assign
a known subject to a generalized battle scene that, like the Battle of the Nudes, has no
clear protagonist but appears to draw on imagery from Roman sarcophagi such as
the half-fallen warrior seen from the front or the lunging figure with the curved
sword, and like the Battle serves as an all'antica invention rather than an illustration
of a specific narrative event. (The misnomer is perpetuated, however, because it ap-
pears on the second state of the print and serves as a means of differentiating be-
tween Pollaiuolo's engraving and the anonymous engraver's similar subject by
title.) The engraver's addition of extensive interior modeling (albeit exaggerated
and crude, resulting in a schematic and inaccurate anatomical description) and the
background vegetation of vines and stalks, which are not indicated in either the
Fogg fragment or the expanded copy drawing, were not independently invented,
but rather appear to derive from some awareness of the Battle engraving. Although
closely spaced parallel shading lines predominate, the contours are weaker, the
tonal subtleties Pollaiuolo achieved with his nuanced zigzag strokes are lacking,
and the figures appear stiff and awkward. In light of the similarities in scale and
nude secular subjects, various scholars have tried to devise a logical narrative con-
nection between the two engravings and the drawing Prisoner Led before a Judge (see
fig. 18), but to no satisfactory conclusion. 55 Stylistically, the Battle of Hercules and the
Giants engraving is typically identified as North Italian (possibly Paduan), based on
the consistent, narrowly spaced parallel hatching used for shading and the angular
treatment of the broken rocky foreground ledge that is similar to that found in some
Mantegna School prints. Thus it does seem probable that the original Pollaiuolo
drawing (of which the Fogg fragment may be a part, or which may show the same
composition) may have been the cartonum (cartoon) of nude figures that is docu-
mented as being among the drawings used as models by students in the art school
of Paduan painter Francesco Squarcione (c. 1395-c. 1468) in the 1460s. 56 Whether or
not Pollaiuolo ever intended that this composition be engraved remains specula-
tion, but it is worthy of note that the Battle of the Nudes presents a more carefully
orchestrated composition in which the figures appear more balanced, less crowded
together, and overlapped—and thus provides a more complete view of their entire
bodies than those found in the Hercules battle image, which are more in keeping
with classical battle reliefs. The cropped edge of the Hercules print also suggests the
reuse of another image for another purpose. It is also possible that the intention was
to reproduce the original drawing on two paired engraving plates, like Mantegna's
Battle of the Sea Gods, but for some reason the second plate was never realized. Lilian
Armstrong Anderson objected to dating the Hercules print to c. 1500, as Arthur
Hind and John Goldsmith Phillips had suggested, 57 observing that some of the fig-
ures in the composition correspond to images of putti portrayed in combat in illu-
minations for several Venetian incunabula printed around 1470; she thus asserts
that the print must have been in circulation by the late 1460s. 58 However, one must
consider the possibility that the miniaturists who created the illuminations might
have known the drawing, particularly during the time it was "stolen" from the
Squarcione school. 59 So the print could have been made at any time during the last
quarter of the fifteenth century. Another possible factor that affects the dating of the
print is the suggestion that Pollaiuolo may have created his Battle engraving in re-
46