Palazzo Vecchio: Florence’s Historic Town Hall and Civic Palace
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.7
- Popularity
- Very High
- Country
- Italy
- Primary era
- Early Modern
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Classical, Medieval, Early Modern, Modern
- Civilizations
- Grand Duchy of Tuscany, Italian, Republic of Florence, Roman
- Site type
- Civic
- Remains
- Palace
On this page29 sections
History
Palazzo Vecchio is the historic town hall of Florence, Italy, standing on Piazza della Signoria. Begun in 1299 by the Florentine commune as a secure palace for the city’s magistrates, it became a central setting for the medieval and Renaissance republic, a ducal residence under Cosimo I de’ Medici, and later the seat of Florence’s municipal government.
Before the palace
In Roman Florentia, the site contained a theater whose semicircular seating faced the area now occupied by Piazza della Signoria. During the early Middle Ages, the same area was densely filled with houses and house-towers. Excavations begun in the early 2000s uncovered underground rooms and remains from several periods, including theater-stage flooring, part of a column apparently broken during demolition of the stage, later wells, coins, amphorae, jewelry, and the skeleton of a child probably dating from the first century. Three excavated rooms opened to the public in December 2008.
The republican palace
In 1299, the commune and people of Florence decided to build a more defensible palace for the city’s magistrates and a building appropriate to Florence’s growing importance. Construction was attributed to Arnolfo di Cambio, who was also associated with the cathedral and the Basilica of Santa Croce. The new palace rose on the ruins of Palazzo dei Fanti and Palazzo dell’Esecutore di Giustizia, buildings formerly owned by the Ghibelline Uberti family, which had been expelled from Florence in 1266.
The design probably followed the model of the earlier Palazzo dei Priori at Volterra. Arnolfo died in 1302, and two other masters completed the work in 1314. The first construction phase ended in 1315. From 26 March 1302, the building housed the Signoria, the principal governing council of the Florentine Republic, together with the Gonfaloniere of Justice. The priors represented the city’s guilds, while the Gonfaloniere combined functions comparable to those of a mayor and head of government, although the office was held for a short term.
The palace incorporated the pre-existing Foraboschi house-tower called La Vacca, or “The Cow.” It also absorbed older underground cavities beneath the Roman theater, known as the burelle, which were used as prisons. In 1342 and 1343, Gualtieri VI of Brienne, Duke of Athens, enlarged the building toward Via della Ninna and gave it a more strongly fortified character. A small side door and a formerly secret staircase from his apartments later helped him escape hurriedly from Florence.
Medici transformation
Major changes under Cosimo de’ Medici between 1440 and 1460 included Renaissance decoration in the Sala dei Dugento and the construction of Michelozzo’s first courtyard. The palace’s republican identity was especially visible in the Salone dei Cinquecento. Savonarola commissioned the hall after the Medici were expelled in 1494, intending it for the Grand Council. More than 1,500 citizens belonged to the council and met in rotating groups of 500.
The hall later became part of a very different political program. Leonardo da Vinci worked on his unfinished Battle of Anghiari between 1503 and 1506, while Michelangelo’s Battle of Cascina remained at the stage of preparatory drawings. During the sixteenth-century remodeling of the hall, both projects were apparently covered or destroyed, although the matter remains unresolved. Between 1555 and 1572, Giorgio Vasari and his assistants transformed and redecorated the room for Cosimo I, filling it with scenes celebrating Cosimo, Florence, and the military achievements of the Medici state.
In 1540, Cosimo I moved his official residence from the Medici palace in Via Larga to Palazzo della Signoria, which then became Palazzo Ducale. Between 1540 and 1550, Battista del Tasso and Vasari enlarged the building for the ducal court, approximately doubling its volume through additions at the rear. Cosimo transferred the ducal residence to Palazzo Pitti in 1565, and the name Palazzo Vecchio, meaning “Old Palace,” came into use. The court was officially moved there in 1588 under Grand Duke Ferdinando.
Vasari’s elevated corridor connected Palazzo Vecchio with Palazzo Pitti through the Uffizi and across the Ponte Vecchio. The passage allowed members of the ruling family to move between residences and government buildings separately from the public streets. Cosimo moved government offices and magistracies to the Uffizi, while Bernardo Buontalenti completed the final major enlargement at the end of the sixteenth century by reorganizing the rear of the palace.
The Chapel of the Signoria was built between 1511 and 1514 for the priors. Girolamo Savonarola prayed there before he was hanged and burned in Piazza della Signoria on 23 May 1498. The chapel therefore preserves a connection between the palace’s republican institutions and one of the most dramatic episodes in Florence’s political and religious history.
Municipal and national government
Palazzo Vecchio served as the seat of the Chamber of Deputies of the Kingdom of Italy from 1865 to 1871, when Florence was the kingdom’s temporary capital. Since 1872, it has housed the mayor of Florence, the city council, and municipal offices, while most of the building also functions as a museum. Restoration work between 1950 and 1960 affected several parts of the palace, including the Salone dei Cinquecento and the Studiolo of Francesco I. The studiolo, a private study and collection room, had been dismantled for decades and was reassembled during the twentieth century.
The building’s name changed as its political role changed. It began as the palace of the priors and the republican government, became Cosimo I’s ducal residence, and later became the “old” ducal palace after the court moved to Palazzo Pitti. Its influence extended beyond Florence. The town hall of Fürth, built between 1840 and 1844 to a design by Friedrich Bürklein, was intended to imitate Palazzo Vecchio, while Gino Coppedè drew inspiration from it for Castello Mackenzie in Genoa.
Remains
Palazzo Vecchio developed eastward from its original fourteenth-century block until it occupied an entire city block. Its resulting plan resembles a trapezoid, with the principal facade forming the shorter side. Rough rusticated pietraforte, a durable local Florentine sandstone, gives the exterior a powerful fortress-like appearance. The building combines medieval defensive forms, republican civic spaces, Medici court interiors, and later municipal areas.
Facade and civic entrance
The main facade
The principal facade is faced with rough rusticated stone and divided into three main levels by horizontal string courses. Two rows of marble two-light Gothic windows have trefoil arches. The present windows were installed in the eighteenth century in place of the originals. Above them, a projecting battlement gallery rests on corbels and round arches. Its Guelph crenellations have square tops, while the Arnolfo Tower carries Ghibelline swallowtail crenellations. Some arches contain machicolations, defensive openings through which stones or heated liquids could be dropped onto attackers.
Sculpted human and animal heads originally decorated the corbels, and several bronze examples remain visible. Four corner niches formerly held stone Marzocchi, heraldic lions associated with Florence. The doorway-window and the small balcony are later additions. Repeated groups of nine painted coats of arms represent the Florentine people, Guelph Florence, the union of Florence and Fiesole, loyalty to the papacy, the Signoria and civic liberty, the Guelph Party, Ghibelline Florence, the Angevin rulers Charles and Robert, and Louis of Anjou. Bronze zoomorphic forms, including lion heads, survive on the left side.
The principal entrance and arengario
The principal entrance has a marble ornamental frontispiece dated 1528. It bears Christ’s radiant monogram between two lions and the inscription “Rex Regum et Dominus Dominantium,” meaning “King of Kings and Lord of Lords.” This replaced an earlier formulation associated with Savonarola that presented Christ as Florence’s sovereign.
The raised platform in front of the palace, the arengario or aringhiera, was formerly enclosed by a railing. Giuseppe Del Rosso removed the railing during nineteenth-century restorations. The priors used the platform to watch civic ceremonies in the square. It contains or formerly contained sculptures including Donatello’s Marzocco and Judith and Holofernes, made around 1455 to 1460. Copies replaced the originals because of their value. The Marzocco is preserved at the Bargello, while Judith and Holofernes is displayed inside Palazzo Vecchio.
Michelangelo’s David stood at the entrance from 1504 until 1873, when it was moved to the Accademia. A copy has occupied its former position since 1910, flanked by Baccio Bandinelli’s Hercules and Cacus. Two marble Termini by Vincenzo de’ Rossi and Bandinelli formerly supported a chain barring the entrance. The right side of the facade also contains a roughly carved profile of uncertain origin. Popular tradition attributes it to Michelangelo and identifies the subject variously as an annoying person, a debtor, or a condemned man. A scholarly proposal made in 2020 identified it instead as a possible portrait of Francesco Granacci.
Arnolfo Tower and original entrances
Arnolfo Tower
The Arnolfo Tower was built around 1310, when the main body of the palace was nearly complete. It projects partly beyond the supporting walls, with its front side carried out in an overhanging construction. The tower is approximately 94 metres high and is offset toward the south because it rests on the earlier La Vacca tower. Blocked windows in its lower facade belong to the earlier tower.
A small prison chamber called the Alberghetto held Cosimo the Elder before his exile in 1433 and Savonarola before his execution in 1498. The bell chamber has a projecting gallery with Ghibelline crenellations, pointed arches, massive masonry columns, and an upper structure of round arches with leafy capitals. Three bells hang there: the Martinella, which summoned Florentines to assemblies; the midday bell; and the largest, the campana dei rintocchi.
A spiral stair rises around one of the bell-chamber columns to the roof. The summit carries a copy of a large Marzocco-shaped weathervane holding a staff topped by the Florentine lily, while the original is displayed inside the palace. The tower clock was originally made by the Florentine Nicolò Bernardo. In 1667 it was replaced by a clock made by Giorgio Lederle of Augsburg and installed by Vincenzo Viviani. The clock remains operational.
Porta di Tramontana and Porta della Dogana
Porta di Tramontana is the second monumental entrance of the original fourteenth-century palace. Located on the north side, it takes its name from the north wind and formerly had two Marzocco lions in its pediment. The entrance leads to the Camera d’Arme.
Near Via dei Gondi, the Porta della Dogana has Florentine and civic coats of arms and a small crenellated door in polychrome marble, the emblem of the customs office. It led to customs offices and their underground warehouses, giving the second courtyard its alternative name, the Customs Courtyard. The palace formerly contained the customs offices and their stores. After the Arno flood of 3 November 1844 seriously damaged stored goods, the customs office moved to the Casino di San Marco in Via Cavour.
Camera d’Arme
The Camera d’Arme was built by 1312 as a depot for weapons and ammunition. It is the only room to preserve its primitive structural form, with ribbed brick cross-vaults supported by pietraforte pillars. The room now accommodates temporary exhibitions and special events. During the 1910 restoration, original plaster was removed and the doorway toward Piazza della Signoria, which had been closed in 1380, was reopened.
Courtyards and later additions
First courtyard
Michelozzo designed the first courtyard in 1453. It was transformed in 1565 for the marriage of Francesco I de’ Medici and Johanna of Austria, sister of Emperor Maximilian II, and Vasari gave it an exuberant Mannerist appearance. The courtyard lunettes reproduce the insignia of Florentine churches and guilds. Lower panels show Habsburg cities including Prague, Passau, Stein, Klosterneuburg, Graz, Freiburg, Linz, Bratislava, Vienna, Innsbruck, Eberndorf, Constance, Neustadt, and Hall. Because the paintings were executed in the dry-fresco technique, their condition is poor.
The columns alternate fluting with gilt stucco decoration designed under Vasari and executed by Lorenzo Marignolli, Leonardo Ricciarelli, Santi Buglioni, Pietro Paolo Minzocchi, and Battista del Tadda. Grotesques cover the vaults. At the center stands a porphyry fountain designed by Vasari and made by Battista del Tadda and Raffaello di Domenico di Polo, probably with the collaboration of Bartolomeo Ammannati. Its parts include an octagonal base, two circular steps, a porphyry column, and a marble basin.
Verrocchio’s bronze Putto with Dolphin, made around 1470, was placed on the fountain in 1557. The original was moved to a second-floor room in 1959 and replaced by a copy. The sculpture had originally stood in the fountain of the Villa Medici at Careggi. Water still reaches the courtyard from the Boboli hill through an old system of pipes. Pierino da Vinci’s Samson and the Philistine, made around 1550 for Luca Martini’s residence in Pisa, was transferred to Florence between 1570 and 1579 and placed in the courtyard in 1592.
Second and third courtyards
The second courtyard, also called the Customs Courtyard, has massive pillars built by Il Cronaca in 1494 to support the Salone dei Cinquecento. Three stone coats of arms from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, belonging to captains of the people, remain on its left wall.
The third courtyard, or New Courtyard, was planned by Vasari and completed by Bartolomeo Ammannati and Bernardo Buontalenti during the enlargement toward Via dei Gondi and Via dei Leoni. It is open rather than arcaded and is mainly bordered by municipal offices. Its stairway leads to the mayor’s office and the city government. The former loggia and external galleries have been lost.
A large portal on Via dei Leoni was designed by Buontalenti during the late enlargements begun in 1549 and completed by Ammannati in 1596. It has rustic stonework and a large Medici coat of arms. Vasari’s monumental staircase between the first and second courtyards leads to the Salone dei Cinquecento. Opposite the entrance to the hall stands the original iron Marzocco weathervane from the tower, installed in 1493 and replaced on the tower by a fiberglass copy in 1981.
Republican and ducal state rooms
Salone dei Cinquecento
The Salone dei Cinquecento measures approximately 54 by 23 metres. Simone del Pollaiolo, known as Il Cronaca, built it in 1494, and Vasari later enlarged it. Large wall frescoes show Florentine victories over Pisa and Siena, including The Taking of Siena, The Conquest of Porto Ercole, Cosimo I’s victory at Marciano in Val di Chiana, the defeat of the Pisans at the Tower of San Vincenzo, Maximilian of Austria’s attempted conquest of Leghorn, and Pisa attacked by Florentine troops.
Vasari and his workshop created 39 ceiling panels depicting episodes from Cosimo I’s life, the city’s quarters, and Florence itself. The central panel shows Cosimo’s glorification as grand duke of Florence and Tuscany. The northern raised platform, the Udienza, was built by Baccio Bandinelli for Cosimo I to receive citizens and ambassadors and was completed under Ferdinando I between 1592 and 1594. Frescoes above it recount Pope Boniface VIII receiving Florentine ambassadors and calling them “the quintessence.”
The Udienza contains Bandinelli’s statue of Leo X, made with assistance from Vincenzo de’ Rossi, and the group Charles V Crowned by Clement VII, completed by Giovanni Caccini. Six statues of the Labors of Hercules along the walls are by Vincenzo de’ Rossi. Michelangelo’s marble group The Genius of Victory, dated 1533 to 1534 and originally intended for the tomb of Pope Julius II, stands in the central southern niche. It was removed to the Bargello in 1868 and returned in 1921.
Studiolo of Francesco I
The Studiolo of Francesco I is a small windowless room in the Mannerist style, designed by Vasari and made between 1570 and 1575. Its walls and barrel vault are covered with paintings, stucco, and sculptures associated with the four elements. Alessandro Allori painted portraits of Cosimo I and Eleonora of Toledo, while Giambologna and Ammannati made bronze sculptures.
Cabinets held Francesco I’s collection. The decorative program joined allegories of nature and human knowledge with a central image of Prometheus receiving precious materials from nature. The room was dismantled and reconstructed during the twentieth century.
Sala dei Dugento and related rooms
The Sala dei Dugento belongs to the oldest, fourteenth-century section of the palace and remains the meeting room of the city council. Its coffered ceiling, carved with the arms of Florence, was made by Giuliano and Benedetto da Maiano with assistants in 1462. Baccio d’Agnolo made its two marble portals. Tapestries of the Stories of Joseph were designed by Renaissance artists including Pontormo and Bronzino.
The adjacent Sala degli Otto is a small office with a carved ceiling decorated with cherub heads and lilies. A passage contains an Annunciation lunette by Marco da Faenza, and a nearby bathroom has grotesque decoration. These rooms belonged to Cosimo I’s private apartments, much of which was altered or destroyed during the works of 1865.
Audience Chamber and Hall of Lilies
The Audience Chamber, or Hall of Justice, accommodated the Gonfaloniere of Justice and eight priors. Giuliano da Maiano made its carved, painted, and gilded ceiling between 1470 and 1476. The marble doorway toward the Hall of Lilies is by Giuliano and Benedetto da Maiano. Francesco Salviati painted the Stories of Furius Camillus on the walls between 1543 and 1545.
The Hall of Lilies takes its name from the fleur-de-lis of the French crown rather than the Florentine lily. Its coffered ceiling and walls display gold lilies on a blue ground, recalling relations between Florence and the Angevin rulers. Inlaid wooden doors depict Dante and Petrarch. Donatello’s original Judith and Holofernes has been displayed here since 1988, while a copy occupies its former position on the arengario.
Domenico Ghirlandaio’s Apotheosis of Saint Zenobius, painted around 1482, occupies the wall opposite the entrance. It includes an illusionistic view of Florence with the cathedral and its original facade. Figures from Roman history flank the scene, including Brutus, Mucius Scaevola, Camillus, Decius, Scipio, and Cicero. A relief of the Madonna and Child fills the upper lunette, and medallions of Roman emperors occupy the intervening spaces.
Guardaroba and Vecchia Cancelleria
The Hall of Geographical Maps, or Guardaroba, was commissioned by Cosimo I during the palace’s major reconstruction. Construction began in 1563. A guardaroba in Renaissance court culture could function as a treasury, collection room, and early gallery, and this room was intended both to store objects and to present geographical and scientific knowledge.
Fifty-three surviving oil-painted maps on cabinet doors by Ignazio Danti and Stefano Bonsignori represent sixteenth-century geographical knowledge. The planned cycle contained 57 maps arranged in two horizontal rows corresponding to the hemispheres and the four continents then recognized. Dionigi Nigetti made the walnut cabinets and ceiling panels. The planned collection also included natural-history drawings, portraits, scientific instruments, and related artifacts, although the complete program was not realized.
The Guardaroba formerly included a terrestrial globe made by Bonsignori and Danti, completed in 1581 and then the largest in the world. Later restoration damaged it. The room also contained or was intended to contain celestial and terrestrial globes, a copy of Lorenzo della Volpaia’s 1484 clock made for Lorenzo de’ Medici, and armillary spheres. One armillary sphere by Antonio Santucci is now in Florence’s Museum of the History of Science, while another has been lost.
The Vecchia Cancelleria is entered through a converted fourteenth-century two-light window in the Hall of Lilies. It was probably the office of Niccolò Machiavelli when he served as secretary of the Republic. The room contains a polychrome terracotta bust of Machiavelli, probably modeled on his death mask, a portrait by Santi di Tito, and a relief of Saint George and the Dragon from Porta San Giorgio.
Salotta and Sala delle Bandiere
The Salotta contains a detached fresco attributed to Orcagna showing the Expulsion of the Duke of Athens, transferred from the demolished Stinche prison. A relief of Saint Zenobius came from the demolished Torre dei Girolami near the Ponte Vecchio. Cellini used the room to restore Medici treasures, and Cosimo I observed meetings in the Salone dei Cinquecento through a small window.
The Sala delle Bandiere was created in 1886 along the route to the upper gallery and tower. It houses a restoration workshop specializing in tapestries and belonging to the Opificio delle Pietre Dure.
Medici apartments and sacred spaces
Quartiere degli Elementi
The second floor contains the Quartiere degli Elementi and the Quartiere di Eleonora, the former private apartments of Cosimo I and Eleonora of Toledo. Cosimo Bartoli devised the decorative program. Battista del Tasso began the work, and Vasari and his assistants completed it. The staircase to the second floor has a fresco of the Fires for the Feast of Saint John by Giovanni Stradano, while Marco da Faenza decorated the vaults and domed sections.
The Sala degli Elementi contains allegories of Water, Earth, Fire, and Air, including the Birth of Venus, Offerings of the First Fruits of Earth and Saturn, the Forge of Vulcan, and Saturn mutilating Heaven. Ammannati designed the fireplace, and figures of Mercury and Pluto appear between the windows.
The Sala di Opi has a ceiling fresco of the Triumph of the Goddess Opi, sometimes identified with Cybele, and a frieze of the Months. Its white-and-red terracotta floor incorporates a central inscription dedicated to Cosimo I dated 1556. The Sala di Cerere takes its name from Doceno’s fresco of Ceres searching for Proserpina and contains sixteenth-century Florentine hunting tapestries based on cartoons by Stradano.
The Scrittoio di Calliope has a ceiling fresco of Calliope with the attributes of the Muses, a frieze with Cosimo I’s devices, and an original stained-glass window showing Venus attended by the Graces between Faith and Hope. The Sala di Giove has a ceiling fresco of the infant Jupiter being raised by nymphs and the goat Amalthea. Florentine tapestries based on Stradano’s cartoons and two later ebony cabinets inlaid with hard stones remain in the room.
The Terrazzo di Giunone was formerly open to the exterior but was enclosed under Ferdinando I by Ammannati. Its decorations include Juno on a peacock-drawn chariot, allegories of Abundance and Power, scenes involving Juno, Jupiter, Io, and Callisto, and a central niche intended for a statue of Juno. Verrocchio’s original Putto with Dolphin was once displayed there.
The Sala di Ercole has a coffered ceiling illustrating the Labors of Hercules, including Hercules strangling the serpents, the Cretan Bull, the Hydra of Lerna, the Nemean Lion, Cerberus, the theft of the Apples of the Hesperides, Hercules and Cacus, the strangling of Antaeus, and the killing of Nessus. It contains a seventeenth-century ebony cabinet inlaid with semiprecious stones and a Madonna and Child with Saint John of uncertain attribution, popularly called the Madonna of the UFO because of the unexplained flying object in its background.
The Terrazza di Saturno is an open loggia. Its ceiling depicts Saturn, stages of human life, Saturn’s arrival in Latium, Saturn and Janus building Saturnia, the hours of the day, and the four elements. The former standard-bearer sculpture called Il Diavolino by Giambologna, from Palazzo Vecchietti, was kept there and is now in the Bardini Museum.
Quartiere di Eleonora
Vasari designed the Quartiere di Eleonora for Eleonora of Toledo. The Camera Verde, named for the color of its walls, has ceiling decoration by Ridolfo del Ghirlandaio and provides access to the Vasari Corridor. Eleonora’s Scrittoio has a grotesque-decorated ceiling by Francesco Salviati.
Eleonora’s chapel was frescoed by Agnolo Bronzino in 1564 with the Stories of Moses and contains Bronzino’s Pietà. Ammannati designed its marble entrance. The Sala delle Sabine served as an antechamber for women waiting to enter Eleonora’s court. Its ceiling shows the Sabine women making peace between their Roman husbands and Sabine relatives, surrounded by allegories of Victory. Portraits of Medici princes, Florentine-school sculptures, and tapestries by Fevère remain in the room.
The Sala di Ester served as a dining room. Its ceiling shows the Coronation of Esther, painted by Stradano, with scenes from Esther’s life and Jewish history in surrounding panels. It contains a fifteenth-century marble lavabo transferred from the Palagio di Parte Guelfa in 1842 and tapestries by Van Assel representing Spring and Autumn.
The Sala di Penelope has a ceiling showing Penelope at the loom and a frieze of episodes from the Odyssey alternating with allegories of Virtues. Its walls display Madonnas by Battista Botticelli, and its fireplace is a 1921 neo-Renaissance replica. The Sala della Gualdrada was Eleonora’s private bedchamber. Its ceiling shows Gualdrada refusing to kiss Emperor Otto IV, with dancing putti and devices of Cosimo I. A hard-stone inlaid cabinet and Stradano’s detailed views of sixteenth-century Florence remain in the room.
Chapel of the Signoria
A narrow internal passage alongside the tower contains fragments of fourteenth- and fifteenth-century frescoes and leads to the Chapel of the Signoria, also called the Chapel of the Priors. Dedicated to Saint Bernard, the chapel contains a reliquary, a container for preserving a saint’s relic, and was used by the priors for prayer.
Baccio d’Agnolo built the chapel between 1511 and 1514. Ridolfo del Ghirlandaio painted its frescoes against a background imitating gold mosaic. The decoration includes the Trinity, the Annunciation, the Apparition of the Virgin to Saint Bernard, the Evangelists, and angels bearing symbols of the Passion. The altar painting of the Holy Family is by Mariano Graziadei da Pescia.
Mezzanine and collections
Michelozzo created the mezzanine in 1453 by lowering the ceilings of rooms on the first floor. Maria Salviati, Cosimo I’s mother, and young princes lived there. The mezzanine preserves the palace’s original fourteenth- and fifteenth-century ceilings most completely. It now houses the Loeser Collection, donated to Florence by the American art critic and collector Charles Loeser, who died in 1928.
The rooms contain Renaissance and medieval works including Madonnas from the schools of Lorenzo di Credi, Jacopo del Sellaio, Pacino di Buonaguida, Pietro Lorenzetti, and others. Other objects include an Adoring Angel by Tino di Camaino, a painted terracotta bust of Saint Antoninus, Romanesque capitals, a Roman mosaic of a peahen, and a painted cross dating from around 1280.
The Loeser Collection includes Bronzino’s Portrait of Laura Battiferri, Pontormo’s Portrait of Ludovico Martelli, studies related to Vasari, a bust of Saint Antoninus, a painted wooden Saint Catherine of Siena, Giuseppe Valadier’s bronze Anatomy of a Horse, a wax Autumn attributed to Benvenuto Cellini, and Giambologna’s wax Hercules and the Hydra. Paintings, sculptures, bronzes, ceramics, embroideries, and devotional works complete the collection.
Many works formerly kept in the palace were transferred elsewhere during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. These included Botticelli’s Madonna della Melagrana, Donatello’s David and marble David, works by Filippo and Filippino Lippi, and Fra Bartolomeo’s Pala del Gran Consiglio.
Inscriptions and civic memory
Palazzo Vecchio retains numerous inscriptions and plaques. A bronze plaque commemorates the plebiscite of 15 March 1860 that enabled Tuscany to join the Kingdom of Italy. Near the Biancone fountain, an external inscription issued by the Eight of Guard and Balia prohibited improper use of public water and imposed a penalty of four ducats for washing objects or throwing refuse into the fountain.
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