Today, however, a relatively small number of his works survive, and he is perhaps best known for his magnificent engraving, Battle of the Nudes. The Battle of the Nudes is reproduced in nearly all major art history and Renaissance art survey texts. The print is one of the earliest works of Renaissance art to convincingly portray the figure in motion and to suggest how muscles behave under the stress and strain of violent or vigorous activity.

Perhaps the single best-known work by Pollaiuolo is the engraving Battle of the Nudes. Its status as a monument of fifteenth-century Italian art, however, has not provided certainty about any of its various aspects. The print depicts ten men, silhouetted with little overlapping, on a shallow stage created by a dense background of plants, including a kind of corn, and a vine bearing grapes. Most of the ten men can be roughly paired, as mirror images of each other, a feature relatively common in works by Pollaiuolo, as in the Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian.

This large engraving of ten fighting men was the most influential print produced in Renaissance Florence. The subject was inspired by Greek and Roman sculpture. Most scholars suggest that these nudes were intended to be models for artists to copy, rather than to be depictions of a literary subject. However, paintings by Pollaiuolo of similar nudes show episodes from the life of Hercules. One ancient myth known to Pollaiuolo's patrons tells of the Greek hero Jason, who sowed a ploughed field with dragon's teeth, from which sprang armed men who promptly slaughtered each other. It is possible that Pollaiuolo's engraving illustrates this story. With The Battle of the Nudes, Pollaiuolo engraved deep outlines round his figures, then scratched fine drypoint lines inside these contours to model the muscles. Only one impression from the plate in that state survives. Another artist then reworked the anatomy with a V-shaped burin, leaving a deeper pattern of zigzag lines that could survive the pressure of printing.

Monumental in size as well as concept, Battle of the Nudes is among the largest Florentine engravings of the 15th century and the first print to bear the artist's full name. Battle of the Nudes belongs to the very inception of the Renaissance portrayal of the blatantly nude adult male, a motif inspired by classical art sources. The study of antique representations of the anatomy as well as mastering a repertory of harmonious and natural movements goes back to the early decades of the 15th century. Pollaiuolo showed exceptional skill in his imaginative adaptations of poses derived from antique sarcophagi and other ancient sculpture.
The sixteenth-century artist and biographer Giorgio Vasari described the print, and Pollaiuolo ’s skill:

"...he engraved on copper a battle of nude figures all girt round with a chain;and after this one he made other engravings,with much better workmanship than had been shown by the other masters who had lived before him."

The engraving was widely circulated and is often credited with the dissemination of Italian Renaissance ideals - particularly the modeling of the human form. German artists such as Albrecht Durer (1471-1528) and Jorg Breu (c. 1480-1573) are known to have used the engraving as a model for their own compositions. Its impact on other artists work is evident in their references to the dynamic poses, anatomical explicitness and expressive character of Pollaiuolo's figures.

A considerable part of Pollaiuolo's intention was to demonstrate his capacities as a master draftsman of the figure, while exploring the potential of the new printmaking medium - a medium well suited to his skills as a metalworker and goldsmith.[1]

The subject of the work has never been completely explained. Some scholars have argued that the print was meant to illustrate a mythological episode, while others have viewed it as a pattern piece, intended to demonstrate a range of poses and viewpoints for the benefit of other artists. According to yet another interpretation, the ten nude figures locked in combat may be gladiators fighting in funeral games, and the print itself may have commemorated the death of a prominent Florentine.

Pollaiuolo's apparent interest is to describe the human body in a state of urgent action, in varied poses, and from many perspectives. The figures' muscles are flexed and exaggerated beyond naturalism but nevertheless demonstrate the artist's keen understanding of anatomy. The careful pairing of fighters in complementary poses injects the violent battle with a dancelike order.

Gardens in Tuscany | Villa La Gallina in Arcetri

Here too is represented a ferocious fight between the hero, his body tensed into an agile, muscular mass and the legendary multi-headed monster. The outlines are very sharply defined, and the movement of nerves and tendons observed down to the last detail. Antonio del Pollaiuolo worked at time when thorough studies of anatomy were being made, and he therefore renders the human body realistically in its moments of greatest emotional excitement.

The dramatic force of the episode is expressed in the hero's grimace of fatigue and horror, but also his certainty of victory. Behind the proudly barbaric figure blue rivers meander through a broad landscape of green and brown fields, the sky above an enamel blue.

The two small panels by Pollaiuolo, Hercules and Antaeus and Hercules and the Hydra, were lent by the Republic of Italy. The panels had been in the Medici collection at the Uffizi since 1789. They were taken during the German army's retreat from the villa near Florence where much of the Uffizi collection had been stored during the war. After 18 years they were found in the possession of a German waiter in Pasadena. [3]

Yale's painting depicts the centaur Nessus trying to abscond with Deianira, the wife of Hercules. Because the waters of the river were swollen, Nessus offered to carry Deianira across, but she realized he was trying to flee with her and shouted for help. Hercules shot at Nessus with a poisoned arrow, killing him. Before he died, however, Nessus persuaded Deianira that his blood was a love potion, and that she should smear a tunic with the blood and give it to Hercules. When Hercules put on the tunic, he was consumed with agony, and Deianira killed herself. The painting was given to Yale in 1871. It was originally on panel, probably part of a piece of furniture, perhaps something given to celebrate a marriage. In 1867, the painting had been removed from its panel support and transferred to canvas. When the painting was conserved in 1998, a sliver of wood, which was analyzed as cherry, a kind of wood often used for furniture, was found in the lining. Nothing about the commissioning of this painting is known. The mythological scene is shown not in an ancient setting but in the Arno valley, above the walled city of Florence. The course of the river Arno is discernible, leading down into the city. Just beyond the left hand of Deianira is Brunelleschi's famous dome of the Cathedral of Florence--finished just about the time Pollaiuolo was born--which is both exactly in the middle of the city and in the center of the composition. This is not the only painting by Pollaiuolo that shows Florence in the background--one of the best known of the others is the Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian (National Gallery, London)--manifesting the pride that he and others took in being Florentine.