Florentine School, 16th century

These must be pages from a sketchbook, as one has three stitch holes at the left margin (the other is slightly trimmed to the left side). Generally fresh and in quite good condition, the chalk strong. The page with Hercules slightly foxed at the top, and with a few red chalk sketches and black chalk numbering, verso. Some surface dirt around the edges.
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The signs of stitching on the left edge of one of these drawings suggests they came from an album.  They are both after Rosso's compositions engraved by Jacopo Caraglio around the mid 1520s.  The first subject, Jupiter, is from Mythological Gods and Goddesses, the second is from a series of six Herculean subjects.¹  Stylistically the drawings are close to the circle of Giovanni Battista Naldini (circa 1537-1591), an artist who would have very much admired the eccentricity and quality of the works of Rosso.  The status of prints and their importance for recording invenzione and disegno had developed enormously during the 16th century and it would have been normal practice for artists, especially at the beginning of their career, to copy the successful images and compositions of the great masters. 

1. Respectively, Bartsch, XV, 26-3 (81) and  XV, 45-1 (85)