THE PALAZZO VECCHIO MUSEUM & PIAZZA DELLA SIGNORA

Visiting Palazzo Vecchio in Piazza Signora

Today, Tonyi Tamaki and her friends have visited the Palazzo Vecchio and its museum in Piazza Signora.

This Palazzo is one of the greatest symbols of the city, especially its tower, and it is a visit that you mustn't ignore.

Before visiting thies beautiful place, The Grandma has studied a new lesson of her Intermediate Language Practice manual (Vocabulary 6).

More information: Compound Words

Piazza della Signoria is an L-shaped square in front of the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, Tuscany. It was named after the Palazzo della Signoria, also called Palazzo Vecchio.

It is the main point of the origin and history of the Florentine Republic and still maintains its reputation as the political focus of the city. It is the meeting place of Florentines as well as the numerous tourists, located near Palazzo Vecchio and Piazza del Duomo and gateway to Uffizi Gallery.

The impressive 14th-century Palazzo Vecchio is still preeminent with its crenellated tower. The square is also shared with the Loggia della Signoria, the Uffizi Gallery, the Palace of the Tribunale della Mercanzia (1359), now the Bureau of Agriculture, and the Palazzo Uguccioni 1550, with a facade attributed to Raphael, who however died thirty years before its construction. Located in front of the Palazzo Vecchio is the Palace of the Assicurazioni Generali 1871, built in Renaissance style.

Arriving to Piazza Signora, Firenze

The Loggia dei Lanzi consists of wide arches open to the street, three bays wide and one bay deep. The arches rest on clustered pilasters with Corinthian capitals.

The wide arches appealed so much to the Florentines, that Michelangelo even proposed that they should be continued all around the Piazza della Signoria. The vivacious construction of the Loggia is in stark contrast with the severe architecture of the Palazzo Vecchio. It is effectively an open-air sculpture gallery of antique and Renaissance art including the Medici lions.

The Tribunale della Mercanzia is a building where in the past lawyers judged in the trial between merchants. Here was a porch painted by Taddeo Gaddi, Antonio del Pollaiolo and Sandro Botticelli, today stored in the Uffizi gallery.

Built for Giovanni Uguccioni since 1550, its design has been variously attributed to Raphael, Michelangelo, Bartolomeo Ammannati or Raffaello da Montelupo.

More information: Visit Florence

The Palazzo delle Assicurazioni Generali was designed in the Neo-Renaissance style in 1871, and is one of the very few purpose-built commercial buildings in the centre of the city. On the ground floor of this palace is the historical cafè Rivoire.

Other palaces are the palazzo dei Buonaguisi and the palazzo dell'Arte dei Mercatanti. Various imposing statues ring this square including:

Tina Picotes in front of Palazzo Vecchio

-Michelangelo's David. At the entrance of the Palazzo Vecchio (copy)

-Equestrian Monument of Cosimo I, honoring Cosimo I de' Medici and sculpted by Giambologna (1594)

-Fountain of Neptune by Bartolomeo Ammannati (1575)

-Il Marzocco, (the Lion) with a copy of the Florentine Lily, originally made by Donatello (copy)

-The Rape of the Sabine Women, in the Loggia dei Lanzi by Giambologna

-Perseus with the Head of Medusa, in the Loggia dei Lanzi by Cellini (1554)

-Medici lions, by Fancelli and Vacca (1598)

-Judith and Holofernes, by Donatello (copy)

-Hercules and Cacus, by Bandinelli (1533)

The piazza was already a central square in the original Roman town Florentia, surrounded by a theatre, Roman baths and a workshop for dyeing textiles. Later there was a church San Romolo, a loggia and an enormous 5th-century basilica. This was shown by the archaeological treasures found beneath the square when it was repaved in the 1980s.

Even remains of a Neolithic site were found. The square started taking shape from 1268 on, when houses of Ghibellines were pulled down by the victorious Guelphs. The square remained a long time untidy, full of holes. In 1385 it was paved for the first time. 

More information: Musei Civici Fiorentini

 

In 1497 Girolamo Savonarola and his followers carried out on this square the famous Bonfire of the Vanities, burning in a large pile books, gaming tables, fine dresses, and works of poets. In front of the fountain of Neptune, a round marble plaque marks the exact spot where Girolamo Savonarola was hanged and burned on May 23, 1498. 

The Palazzo Vecchio is the town hall of the city. This massive, Romanesque, crenellated fortress-palace is among the most impressive town halls of Tuscany.

Joseph de Ca'th Lon visits Palazzo Vecchio

Overlooking the square with its copy of Michelangelo's David statue as well the gallery of statues in the adjacent Loggia dei Lanzi, it is one of the most significant public places in Italy, and it hosts cultural points and museums.

Originally called the Palazzo della Signoria, after the Signoria of Florence, the ruling body of the Republic of Florence, it was also given several other names: Palazzo del Popolo, Palazzo dei Priori, and Palazzo Ducale, in accordance with the varying use of the palace during its long history. The building acquired its current name when the Medici duke's residence was moved across the Arno to the Palazzo Pitti.

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. Arnolfo di Cambio, the architect of the Duomo and the Santa Croce church, began construction upon the ruins of Palazzo dei Fanti and Palazzo dell'Esecutore di Giustizia, once owned by the Uberti family.

Giovanni Villani (1276–1348) wrote in his Nuova Cronica that the Uberti were rebels of Florence and Ghibellines, stating that the palazzo was built to ensure that the Uberti family homes would never be rebuilt on the same location.

More information: Visit Florence

The cubical building is made of solid rusticated stonework, with two rows of two-lighted Gothic windows, each with a trefoil arch. In the 15th century, Michelozzo Michelozzi added decorative bas-reliefs of the cross and the Florentine lily in the spandrels between the trefoils. The building is crowned with projecting crenellated battlement, supported by small arches and corbels. Under the arches are a repeated series of nine painted coats of arms of the Florentine republic. Some of these arches can be used as embrasures or spiombati, for dropping heated liquids or rocks on invaders.

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; this is why the rectangular tower (height 94 m) is not directly centered in the building.

Jordi visits The Battlements in Palazzo Vecchio

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.

When Cosimo later removed to Palazzo Pitti, he officially renamed his former palace to the Palazzo Vecchio, the Old Palace, although the adjacent town square, the Piazza della Signoria, still bears the original name. Cosimo commissioned Giorgio Vasari to build an above-ground walkway, the Vasari corridor, from the Palazzo Vecchio, through the Uffizi, over the Ponte Vecchio to the Palazzo Pitti. Cosimo I also moved the seat of government to the Uffizi.

More information: Florence Museum

The palace gained new importance as the seat of united Italy's provisional government from 1865–71, 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.

Above the front entrance door, there is a notable ornamental marble frontispiece, dating from 1528. In the middle, flanked by two gilded lions, is the Monogram of Christ, surrounded by a glory, above the text in Latin: Rex Regum et Dominus Dominantium that means King of Kings and Lord of Lords. This text dates from 1851 and does not replace an earlier text by Savonarola as mentioned in guidebooks. Between 1529 and 1851 they were concealed behind a large shield with the grand-ducal coat of arms.

Michelangelo's David also stood at the entrance from its completion in 1504 to 1873, when it was moved to the Accademia Gallery. A replica erected in 1910 now stands in its place, flanked by Baccio Bandinelli's Hercules and Cacus.

More information: Museums in Florence

The Palazzo Vecchio rises before me, 

oppressive in its abrupt compact bulk, 

and I can feel upon me its heavy grey shadow.

 From the building’s crenellated shoulders soars the bell tower; 

stretching out its muscular neck into the nightfall.

It is so high that I am seized by dizziness 

as I lift my eyes towards its helmeted head.
 

Rainer Maria Rilke