Hercules at the Crossroads

The story is older than the painting by about 2,000 years. The Greek sophist Prodicus told it and Xenophon wrote it down: the young Hercules meets two women on a road, one offering an easy life and one offering a hard one, and has to choose. Eighteenth-century Europe used the fable constantly, in opera, in schoolbooks and on the walls of houses that wanted to look serious.

The Marquis Gerini ordered this version from Pompeo Batoni in 1740, and the museum's record reads the figures off for you. Virtue wears the helmet of Minerva and points to the road ahead. Pleasure sits on the ground and holds out a rose, with a flute beside her, playing cards for idleness and a mask for deception.

Batoni finished it in 1742. The Gerini sold it to the grand dukes in 1818, and it has moved around Florence ever since, reaching the Gallery of Modern Art on the second floor of this palace in 1972.