Palazzo Vecchio
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Palazzo Vecchio | |
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General information | |
Town or city | Florence, Italy |
Coordinates | 43°46′10″N 11°15′22″E / 43.76944°N 11.25611°E |
The Palazzo Vecchio (Italian pronunciation:
Originally called the Palazzo della Signoria, after the
History
In 1299, the commune and people of Florence decided to build a palace that would be worthy of the city's importance, and that would be more secure and defensible in times of turbulence for the magistrates of the commune.
The cubical building is made of solid
The solid, massive building is enhanced by the simple tower with its clock. Giovanni Villani wrote that Arnolfo di Cambio incorporated the ancient tower of the Foraboschi family (the tower then known as "La Vacca" or "The Cow") into the new tower's facade as its substructure;[1] this is why the rectangular tower (height 94 m) is not directly centered in the building. This tower contains two small cells, that, at different times, imprisoned Cosimo de' Medici (the Elder) (1435) and Girolamo Savonarola (1498). The tower is named after its designer Torre d'Arnolfo. The tower's large, one-handed clock was originally constructed in 1353 by the Florentine Nicolò Bernardo, but was replaced in 1667 with a replica made by Georg Lederle from the German town of Augsburg (Italians refer to him as Giorgio Lederle of Augusta) and installed by Vincenzo Viviani.
Duke Cosimo I de' Medici (later to become grand duke) moved his official seat from the Medici palazzo in via Larga to the Palazzo della Signoria in May 1540, signalling the security of Medici power in Florence. to the Palazzo Pitti. Cosimo I also moved the seat of government to the Uffizi.
The palace gained new importance as the seat of united Italy's provisional government from 1865 to 1871, at a moment when Florence had become the temporary capital of the Kingdom of Italy. Although most of the Palazzo Vecchio is now a museum, it remains as the symbol and center of local government; since 1872 it has housed the office of the mayor of Florence, and it is the seat of the City Council. The tower currently has three bells; the oldest was cast in the 13th century.
Entrance
Above the front entrance door, there is a notable ornamental marble
Courtyards
First courtyard
The first courtyard was designed in 1453 by Michelozzo. In the lunettes, high around the courtyard, are crests of the church and city guilds. In the center, the porphyry fountain is by Battista del Tadda. The Putto with Dolphin on top of the basin is a copy of the original by Andrea del Verrocchio (1476), now on display on the second floor of the palace. This small statue was originally placed in the garden of the Villa Medici at Careggi. The water, flowing through the nose of the dolphin, is brought here by pipes from the Boboli Gardens.
In the niche, in front of the fountain, stands Samson and Philistine by Pierino da Vinci.
The frescoes on the walls are
The harmoniously proportioned columns, at one time smooth, and untouched, were at the same time richly decorated with gilt stuccoes.
The barrel vaults are furnished with grotesque decorations.
Second courtyard
The second courtyard, also called "The Customs", contains the massive pillars built in 1494 by Cronaca that sustains the great "Salone dei Cinquecento" on the second floor.
Third courtyard
The third courtyard was used mainly for offices of the city. Between the first and second courtyard the massive and monumental stairs by Vasari lead up to the "Salone dei Cinquecento".
Salone dei Cinquecento
The Salone dei Cinquecento ('Hall of the Five Hundred') is the most imposing chamber, with a length of 52 m (170 ft) width of 23 m (75 ft), and height of 18 m (59 ft).
The Salone dei Cinquecento was built in 1494 by Simone del Pollaiolo, on commission of Savonarola who, replacing the Medici after their exile as the spiritual leader of the Republic, wanted it as a seat of the Grand Council (Consiglio Maggiore) consisting of 500 members.
Later, the hall was enlarged by Giorgio Vasari so that Grand Duke Cosimo I could hold his court in this chamber. During this transformation, famous (but unfinished) works were lost, including the Battle of Cascina by Michelangelo,[6] and the Battle of Anghiari by Leonardo da Vinci. Leonardo was commissioned in 1503 to paint one long wall with a battle scene celebrating a famous Florentine victory. He was always trying new methods and materials and decided to mix wax into his pigments. Da Vinci had finished painting part of the wall, but it was not drying fast enough, so he brought in braziers stoked with hot coals to try to hurry the process. As others watched in horror, the wax in the fresco melted under the intense heat and the colors ran down the walls to puddle on the floor.[citation needed] A legend exists that Giorgio Vasari, wanting to preserve Da Vinci's work, had a false wall built over the top of The Battle of Anghiari before painting his fresco. Attempts to find Da Vinci's original work behind the Vasari fresco have so far been inconclusive.
Michelangelo never proceeded beyond the preparatory drawings for the fresco he was commissioned to paint on the opposite wall. Pope Julius II called him to Rome to paint the Sistine Chapel, and the master's sketches were destroyed by eager young artists who came to study them and took away scraps. The surviving decorations in this hall were made between 1555 and 1572 by Giorgio Vasari and his helpers, among them Livio Agresti from Forlì. They mark the culmination of mannerism and make this hall the showpiece of the palace.
It has been stated that the Salone dei Cinquecento is the largest hall in Italy by volume. However, Padova´s Palazzo della Ragione is 81,5 m long, 27 m wide and 24 m high. Even though Salone dei Cinquecento with its flat ceiling is close to parallelepiped and Palazzo della Ragione´s hall with open roof is not, the latter's bounding box at 52 800 cubic m is 145% bigger than the 21 500 cubic m of Salone di Cinquecento (and likely to be larger even accounting for the roof).[7]
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Cartoon of the Battle of Cascina by Michelangelo, lost fresco West wall
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The Battle of Anghiari Cartoon[8]
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Possible copy of original Da Vinci lost fresco East Wall
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View on the West Wall with huge Battle Frescoes 1494 by Vasari & Assistants II. Site of the never done Battle of Cascina.
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View on the West Wall with huge Battle Frescoes 1494 by Vasari & Assistants II. Site of the never done Battle of Cascina.
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View on the East Wall - Battle Fresco 1575 by Vasari & Assistants. Site of the ruined Battle of Anghiari.
On the walls are large and expansive frescoes that depict battles and military victories by Florence over Pisa and Siena:
- The Taking of Siena
- The Conquest of Porto Ercole
- The Victory of Cosimo I at Marciano in Val di Chiana
- Defeat of the Pisans at the Tower of San Vincenzo
- Maximilian of Austria Attempts the Conquest of Leghorn
- Pisa Attacked by the Florentine Troops
The ceiling consists of 39 panels constructed and painted by Vasari and his assistants, representing Great Episodes from the life of Cosimo I, the quarters of the city, and the city itself. Toward the center is the apotheosis: Scene of His Glorification as Grand Duke of Florence and Tuscany.
On the north side of the hall, illuminated by enormous windows, is the raised stage called the Udienza, built by
In the niches are sculptures by Bandinelli: in the center the statue of the seated "Leo X" (sculpted assisted by his student Vincenzo de' Rossi), and on the right a statue of "Charles V crowned by Clement VII". The six statues along the walls that represent the "Labors of Hercules" are by de' Rossi.
In the central niche at the south of the Hall is Michelangelo's noted marble group
Studiolo of Francesco I
At the end of the hall is a small side room without windows. The
The other rooms on the first floor are the Quartieri monumentali. These rooms, the Residence of the Priors and the Quarters of Leo X, are used by the mayor as offices and reception rooms. They are not accessible to the public.
Second Floor
A staircase designed by Vasari leads to the second floor. This floor contains the Apartments of the Elements, Priori, and Eleonora of Toledo.
Apartments of the Elements
These apartments (Sala degli Elementi) consist of five rooms (such as the Room of Ceres) and two loggias. The commission for these rooms was originally given by Cosimo I to Giovanni Battista del Tasso. But on his death, the decorations were continued by Vasari and his helpers, working for the first time for the Medicis. These rooms were the private quarters of Cosimo I.
Room of the Elements
The walls in the Room of the Elements are filled with allegorical frescoes Allegories of Water, Fire and Earth and, on the ceiling, represents Saturn.
The original statue "Boy with a Fish" by Verrocchio is on exhibit in one of the smaller rooms (the copy stands on the fountain in the first courtyard).
Terrace of Saturn
Named for the fresco on the ceiling. Has a fabulous view of Florence. There is a southeastern view to Piazzale Michelangelo and the Fortress Belvedere. Also visible are the remains of the Church of San Piero Scheraggio.
The Hercules Room
This room (the Sala di Ercole) gets its name from the subject of the paintings on the ceiling. Also the tapestries show stories of Hercules. The room contains a Madonna and Child and an ebony cabinet called a stipo inlaid with semi-precious stones.
The Lion House
Cosimo the Elder kept a menagerie of lions in a dedicated lion house in the palazzo. He often fought them or baited them against other animals in large festivals for visiting Popes or dignitaries.[9]
The Room of Jupiter
The room is named for the fresco on the ceiling. On the walls are Florentine tapestries made from cartoons by Stradanus (16th century).
The Room of Cybele
On the ceiling, the Triumph of Cybele and the Four Seasons. Against the walls are cabinets in tortoise shell and bronze. The floor was made in 1556. From the window one can see the third courtyard.
The Ceres Room
The room gets its name from the motif on the ceiling, by
Apartments of Eleonora of Toledo
Beginning in 1540 when Cosimo moved the seat of government here, these rooms were refurbished and richly decorated to be the living quarters of Eleonora.
Sala Verde
This room served as Eleonora's bedchamber and was called the Green Room because of the color of the walls. The decorations on the ceiling are by
Cappella di Eleonora
The small, richly decorated chapel adjoining the Sala Verde is painted in fresco by the mannerist
The Room of the Sabines
It was named because of the ceiling decoration. At one time it was used for the Ladies-in-waiting at the court of
Dining Room
On the ceiling is the Coronation of Esther decorated by
The Room of Penelope
On the ceiling Penelope at the loom, in the frieze, episodes from the Odyssey. On the walls: Madonna and Child and a Madonna and Child with St. John by Botticelli.
The Room of Gualdrada
This room is dedicated to Virtue as personified by
Apartments of the Priori
These rooms were used by the priori (priors) representing the guilds of Florence.
Sala dell'Udienza
The Audience Chamber or Hall of Justice used to house the meetings of the priors. It contains the oldest decorations in the palace.
The carved coffer ceiling, laminated with pure gold, is by Giuliano da Maiano (1470–1476). On the portal to the Chapel of the Signoria is an inscription in honor of Christ (1529). The doorway to the Hall of Lilies has marble mouldings sculpted by the brothers Giuliano and Benedetto da Maiano. The inlaid woodwork (intarsia) on the doors was carved by Del Francione and depicts portraits of Dante and Petrarch.
The large frescoes on the walls portraying the Stories of Furius Camillus by
Chapel of the Signoria
A small doorway leads into the adjoining small chapel dedicated to St. Bernard, containing a reliquary of the Saint. Here the priors used to supply divine aid in the execution of their duties. In this chapel, Girolamo Savonarola said his last prayers before he was hanged on the Piazza della Signoria and his body burned.
The frescoes on the walls and ceiling, on a background imitating gold mosaic, are by
Sala dei Gigli
The carved ceiling of the Hall of the Lilies, as this room is usually called, decorated with fleur-de-lys, and the Statue of St. John the Baptist and Putti are all by Benedetto da Maiano and his brother Giuliano. The golden fleur-de-lys decorations on blue background on the ceiling and three walls refer to the (short-lived) good relations between Florence and the French Crown.
On the wall are frescoes by
After its lengthy restoration, the (original) statue "Judith and Holofernes" by Donatello was given a prominent place in this room in 1988.
A door in the east wall leads to the Stanza della Guardaroba (Hall of Geographical Maps). This door is flanked by two dark marble pillars, originally from a Roman temple.
Stanza delle Mappe geografiche o Stanza della Guardaroba
The Hall of Geographical Maps or Guardaroba was an ambitious room that set out to represent the known world of the 16th century through the display of a collection of artifacts and murals of cartography, all seen in relation to scientific instruments of time and astronomy. For various reasons, it was not seen to completion, yet the accounts of
The idea behind the guardaroba is similar to that of late medieval
Guardaroba best translates to a type of storage space, or ‘wardrobe’ and its purpose was to house a collection; an early wunderkammer of sorts. Evidently, collections of artifacts and precious items existed before the Renaissance, yet it is not until the Renaissance that there consistently appeared collections which were preserved and interpreted, known as
Master carpenter
“Over the doors of those cupboards within their ornaments, Fra Egnazio has distributed fifty seven pictures about two braccia high and wide in proportion, in which are painted in oils on the wood with the greatest diligence, after the manner of miniatures, the Tables of Ptolemy, all measured with perfect accuracy and corrected after the most recent authorities, with exact charts of navigation and their scales for measuring and degrees, done with supreme diligence; and with these are all the names both ancient and modern...The images of plants and animals are exactly in line with the maps...The terrestrial globe is marked distinctly and it is possible to use it for all the operations of the astrolabe perfectly” - Giorgio Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects
As well as the maps on the cabinets, other images adorned the room. Up to 300 portraits of famous people of the day hung around highest perimeters of the walls and would be revealed from beneath green cloth curtains. In between the cabinets doors, were to be mounted natural history drawings of flora and fauna that, as Vasari indicated above, would have been in line with its corresponding regions on the maps in a similar fashion to the objects that are revealed from beneath their corresponding region. The collected artifacts were arranged and maintained by curators and conservators known as guardarobiere, in a similar manner to the role of the contemporary museum.
The rarer an item, the more attractive it was to the collector and desired for the collection. Objects from the Americas or New World as it was then referred to, were particularly valuable at this time as Italians were not allowed to travel there without permission from Spain or Portugal. Instead, they explored this region vicariously through objects and the Medici possessed a significant collection of artifacts from the Americas, largely collecting featherwork.
Vasari intended the worldly representation in the guardaroba to be seen in relation to the larger cosmos, represented by a celestial sphere in the centre of the room and painted constellations on the ceiling. He also had grand visions of two large globes, a terrestrial and celestial hidden behind a false ceiling that could be lowered impressively via a pulley system into the room below. The room was also to display a copy of the 1484 clock made for
A digital reconstruction of the room, as it was designed and described by Giorgio Vasari can be found here.
Old Chancellery
This was
In the center of the room, on the pedestal is the famous Winged Boy with a Dolphin by Verrocchio, brought to this room from the First Courtyard.
Mezzanine
Located in between the first and second floors, these rooms are occupied by Renaissance and Medieval objects given in a bequest by
The first room holds a Madonna con Bambino e san Giovannino, from the school of
The dining room holds one of the most famous works of the Loeser Collection, The Portrait of Laura Battiferri (wife of
In the corner room, three Madonna and Children paintings are on display. The first, Madonna and Child is by the Master of Saints Flora and Lucilla, from the 14th century. The second, Madonna and Child with Saint Little Saint John is a later Renaissance work by Spanish artist Alonso Berruguete from 1514 to 1518, and the third is Madonna and Child by prominent Sienese artist Pietro Lorenzetti. This room also holds Adoring Angel by Tino di Camaino from around 1321, a Bust of Saint Antonino in painted plaster from the 15th century, and an embroidery designed by Raffaellino del Garbo.
See also
- Italian Gothic architecture
- Brooklyn, New Yorkwhich has been likened to the Palazzo Vecchio.
- Baltimore, Maryland, 1911, patterned after the Palazzo Vecchio
- City Hall (Chicopee, Massachusetts), 1871, inspired by the Palazzo Vecchio
- Bradford City Hall, 1873, clock and bell tower based on the Palazzo Vecchio[14][15][16][17]
- Palazzo Pubblico, the city hall of San Marino, 1884, likened to the Palazzo[18]
- The Hydraulic Tower in Birkenhead Docks, Wirral is a replica of the Palazzo and designed by Jesse Hartley who also designed the Albert Dock in Liverpool
Notes
- ^ a b c Bartlett, 37.
- ^ Caroline P. Murphy, Murder of a Medici Princess 2003:24f.
- ^ "mega.it". mega.it. Archived from the original on 2019-06-19. Retrieved 2010-12-15.
- ^ Bush, Virginia. "Bandinelli's 'Hercules and Cacus' and Florentine Traditions".
- ^ sailko (9 June 2009). "Cortile di michelozzo, affreschi con vedute citta dell'austria". Archived from the original on 26 February 2017. Retrieved 17 March 2018 – via Wikimedia Commons.
- ^ "wga.hu". wga.hu. Archived from the original on 2018-12-16. Retrieved 2010-12-15.
- ^ https://jackrichardson.co.uk/portfolio-item/il-palazzo-della-ragione-padua/
- ^ See page 226 of the 1974 book "The Unknown Leonardo" remarks on the Battle of Anghiari (reference only copyrighted)
- ^ Bedini, Silvio The Pope's Elephant (1997) 83.
- ^ Koeppe, Wolfram. 2000. "Collecting for the Kunstkammer." New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art,. Accessed November 2016.
- ^ Rosen, Mark. 2009. "A New Chronology of the Construction and Restoration of the Medici Guardaroba in the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence." Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz (Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz) (53): 285-308.
- ^ Rosen, Mark 2015. The Mapping of Power in Renaissance Italy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- ^ Vasari, Giorgio. 1963, first published 1550. The Lives of the Painters, Sculptors and Architects. Edited by William Gaunt. London: Dent.
- ^ "BBC - Bradford and West Yorkshire - 360º - Bradford City Hall". www.bbc.co.uk. Archived from the original on 2020-02-25. Retrieved 2020-03-21.
- ^ BBC. "BBC - Bradford and West Yorkshire - In Pictures - Bradford City Hall 1". www.bbc.co.uk. Archived from the original on 2020-03-21. Retrieved 2020-03-21.
- ^ Nuttall, Keith (2012-05-14). "Bradford City Hall: Old Palace | West Yorkshire". YPhotography. Archived from the original on 2020-03-21. Retrieved 2020-03-21.
- ^ "Bradford City Hall, Bradford | 156503 | EMPORIS". www.emporis.com. Archived from the original on 2020-03-21. Retrieved 2020-03-21.
- ISBN 978-90-04-24487-0. Archivedfrom the original on 2017-03-02. Retrieved 2016-03-03.
The Palazzo Pubblico of San Marino is a Florentine Palazzo della Signoria in miniature
References
- Bartlett, Kenneth R. (1992). The Civilization of the Italian Renaissance. Toronto: D.C. Heath and Company. ISBN 0-669-20900-7(Paperback).
- The Monogram of Christ at the entrance : Florence Art Guide
External links
- Palazzo Vecchio – Musei civici fiorentini
- Association Mus.e – proposes guided tours and workshops for families
- Palazzo Vecchio floor plan
- Palazzo Vecchio within Google Arts & Culture
- Media related to Palazzo Vecchio at Wikimedia Commons