Photo Pest: Statues Galore

Statues are to the Piazza della Signoria what advertising is to Times Square. My favorites adorn the Palazzo Vecchio and the Loggia del Lanzi.

"Hercules and Cacus" by Bandinelli (1533)

Perseus with the Head of Medusa by Cellini (1554)

Naturally, a Medici presides over the piazza, named for nine members of the council, drawn from local guilds representing the professional classes, that governed the Republic of Florence during both the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Money mattered most, even then.

Equestrian Monument of Cosimo I d' Medici by Giambologna (1594)

But the first statue I spotted upon entering the piazza en route to the Uffizi struck a more contemporary note and reminded me of one I had seen of another Black woman in one of New York City's most touristed areas last spring. Turns out Thomas J Price created her, too, and her "attitude" has made her just as controversial as her color. She's thought-provoking, that's for sure!

Despite his size, Neptune is a much bigger deal in Bologna than in Florence. Cosimo I commissioned the fountain to commemorate his gift of clean water to the city, and to celebrate the marriage of his first-born son to Grand Duchess of Austria Joanna who eventually bore him eight grandchildren. No wonder she was the model for the Statue of Abundance in the Boboli Gardens!

A replica of Michelangelo's David remains in the same spot at the entrance to the Palazzo Vecchio where my father photographed him in 1956, more than 80 years after the original had been moved to the Accademia.

The Palazzo Vecchio, originally called the Palazzo della Signoria, was once Florence's city hall and the home of Cosimo I and his wife, Eleanora of Toledo, before she purchased the Palazzo Pitti across the Arno River. Giorgio Vasari even designed an above-ground corridor that connected the two palaces via the Ponte Vecchio and the Uffizi Gallery. It allowed the Medicis to commute the kilometer distance between their home and the seat of government without having to face the hoi polloi.

Now a museum, the Palazzo Vecchio still serves as a focal point for Italian political rallies.

It sits catty corner to the Loggia del Lanzi, an outdoor sculpture gallery constructed prior to the Renaissance when it provided shelter for public ceremonies, including the swearing-in of the Gonfaloniere of Justice, the head of the Signoria. Michelangelo so admired the columns that he proposed they be constructed all around the piazza.

"Hercules and the Centaur" by Giambologna (1549-99)

"Ajax and Achilles"

"The Abduction of the Sabine Women" by Giambologna (1583)

It's no surprise that statues can be found almost anywhere in Florence's historic center. Giotto and other icons of Renaissance culture line the exterior of the nearby Uffizi.

A man encouraged tourists to deposit coins in the mouth of Porcellino and snatched them up from the fountain below as soon as they walked away.

Pope Pius IV, who considered himself a Milanese member of the Medici dynasty and was accepted by them as such without proof of bloodline, gave Cosimo I this Column of Justice (minus the statue, fabricated and added later) which required moving it from the Baths of Caracalla in Rome, no easy task given its 50-ton weight. Vasari, who seems to have had his finger in every Renaissance pie. supervised the transport. Within two generations, the Vatican would declare war on Florence.

Benvenuto Cellini holds court on the Ponte Vecchio. The goldsmith also sculpted "Perseus with the Head of Medusa" (above) and wrote an unvarnished autobiography considered among the best of the era.