The group of the Wrestlers was discovered in 1583 near Porta S. Giovanni, Rome, and was purchased in the same year by Cardinal Ferdinando de' Medici from the Varese family. The group was placed in the Tribuna of the Uffizi in 1688, and has remained there since apart from a brief period when the sculpture was removed to Palermo to escape the French in 1800, and returned in 1803.