"Samson and a Philistine"

Giambologna was a distinguished sculptor, a master of the Italian Mannerist style, who provided the link between the periods of the High Renaissance and the Baroque, as exemplified by Michelangelo and Bernini respectively.

Giambologna shows the mighty, muscular Samson standing over and straddling a Philistine man. He wrenches the man's head backward by his hair, which he grasps in his left hand, as he raises the bone over his head with his right hand, poised to deliver the fatal blow. Giambologna based this sculpture on a work by Michelangelo from the 1520s depicting Samson in combat.

Giambologna's sculpture takes on a pyramidal form and shows figures engaged in movement. This work  characterized by intense action and exaggerated contrapposto, and multiple viewpoints of the action.  Choosing to eliminate the third figure of the dead Philistine (seen in Michelangelo's version)   meant Giambologna had to create a series of spaces between the lower elements of the two remaining figures that necessitated cuts into and even all the way through the lower part of the marble block. Excavating the marble to this extent presented huge technical challenges - the great weight of marble in the two bodies is supported by only five narrow points of contact with the base. But Giambologna had the necessary skill, and perhaps welcomef the opportunity to imitate the virtuoso classical sculptures from the Ancient Greek Hellenistic period (approx. 323 BC - 31 BC) that he would have seen in Rome.