Boy with a Dragon

Pietro Bernini and his gifted son Gian Lorenzo carved this marble boy with a dragon for the palace of Maffeo Barberini, later Pope Urban VIII. Hercules, who demonstrated his divine strength even as an infant by slaying poisonous serpents, appears here as a mischievous boy who smiles, sits on the dragon, and breaks its jaw with his bare hands. Common in Hellenistic statuary, the theme of Hercules and the serpent was revived in sculpture of the early 1600s. This work was presented as a diplomatic gift by Cardinal Carlo Barberini, grandnephew of Pope Urban VIII, to King Philip V of Spain when he entered Naples in 1702.