Samson and the Philistines
Before 1621. Oil on canvas.Not on display
Samson freed himself from his chains and killed a thousand Philistines, enemies of the Israelites, using only the jawbone of an ass (Judges 15:15). Giulio Cesare was the son of the painter Ercole Procaccini and was first trained as a sculptor in Milan. This painting dates from his last period. The frame, which is modern, reproduces a Lombard seventeenth-century model.
Recently D’Albo (2018), on the basis of a testimony by Carlo Torre included in his book Il ritratto di Milano (1674), has linked this work to a commission by Cosimo II de’ Medici to Procaccini. Torre says: ‘ambizioso il Gran Duca di Firenze, d´havere da lui una tela per ornamento di sua Galeria, [Procaccini] fecegli un Sansone di tanta sua sodifatione, che gli invi inviò per donativo, non per mercede una Collana con Medaglia al valore di mille scudi’. Upon the death of the grand duke in 1621, the painting was recorded in the inventory of his estate as ‘Sansone con una mascilla in mano contro a Filistei di mano del Procaccino milanese’. The painting was then sold to Lorenzo de’ Medici, who gave it as a gift to the Count of Monterrey during his visit to Florence in June 1621. It would become part of the royal collection, to which it was later given by the aristocrat or his descendants.
