Artist: Filarete
Date: 1456
Museum: Museo Arqueológico Nacional (Madrid, Spain)
Technique: Bronze
The equestrian figure of Hector, a work by the Florentine artist Antonio Averlino, ‘Filarete’, is a masterpiece of Renaissance bronze. Its creator was a scholar, architect and sculptor from the Quattrocento who initiated a popular new genre of sculpture in the Modern Age that involved creating small or medium-size bronze sculptures, perfecting the ancient Roman technique of lost-wax casting to create figures inspired by Antiquity. Filarete’s Hector shows the victorious hero of the Iliad, having just defeated the invincible Hercules in a dual with spears, illustrated in the scenes on the base. Filarete was working for the Duke of Milan on the urban renovation of the city at the time when this bronze statue was produced. It is therefore likely that Hector allegorically represents Francesco Sforza, as he is associated with the emblems worn by the hero: a lion on the cuirass and a snake-dragon on the harness of the saddle.
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