# Phalaris and the Bull of Perillus

- By: Giovanni Battista Caccini (Italian, 1556-1612)
- Date: 1590–1600
- Medium: Terracotta with traces of polychromy
- Classification: Sculpture
- Dimensions: 68.6 × 87.6 cm (27 × 34 1/2 in.)
- Culture: Italy
- Credit line: Kate S. Buckingham Endowment
- Museum: [Art Institute of Chicago](https://www.artic.edu/artworks/29431)
- Rights: [Public domain (CC0)](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)
- Picture: https://www.artic.edu/iiif/2/8440f17e-a772-0dde-27a5-e3532a0a9de3/full/!1920,1080/0/default.jpg
- Who can see it: Adult profiles and older (museums give no ratings; placed by Invisible Network from the museum's own words)

This classical subject tells the cautionary tale of the sculptor Perillus, who offered to make a bronze bull in which the tyrant Phalaris could roast his enemies. Perillus was rewarded by being the contraption’s first victim. In the Renaissance this story was interpreted as a moral fable of how bad advice rebounds on the giver, and it is here presented against the backdrop of a large, contemporary piazza. The relief is attributed to Giovanni Caccini on the basis of its stylistic relationship to his best-known work, the bronze panes of the doors of Pisa Cathedral.

Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0