Tour of the Palazzo Vecchio

(This is part of our series of posts from our six-week Road Scholar Independent Living and Learning in Florence trip to Italy in Spring 2025. We have an index to all the posts from that trip here.)

Rain postponed our Road Scholar “City of Dante” walking tour, so instead our art & history guide Nicoletta toured us around the Palazzo Vecchio. An imposing, fortress-like structure built in the Middle Ages as the town hall of Florence, it was later used in the mid-1500s as a palace by Cosimo I de’ Medici and his family before they moved to the Pitti Palace some decades later.

Nicoletta talks to our group in the entrance hall of the Palazzo Vecchio.

A memorial to Anna Maria Luisa de Medici in the entrance hall. She was the last of the Medici line, and when she died without heirs in 1743, she willed the family’s vast collection of art and buildings to the City of Florence to be preserved for future generations.

The formal entrance courtyard of the Palazzo Vecchio is in the oldest section of the building, constructed in the Middle Ages.

The Salone dei Cinquecento (“Hall of the 500”). Built in 1494 and initially designed to seat the 1000 citizens who were members of the Grand Council of the Republic and who gathered in two groupings of 500 (hence the name), the Salone was enlarged by Giorgio Vasari about 50 years later to house the court of the Grand Duke Cosimo I de’ Medici. It was primarily used by the Duke for public ceremonies and as the visual centerpiece of the celebration of his glory.

The center of the ceiling of the Salone features the painting “Florence Crowning Cosimo I”, surrounded by the coats of arms of the City and its various guilds.

Michelangelo’s Genius of Victory in the Salone is one of many works representing the victory of Florence over its rivals Siena and Pisa. It is famous for its amazingly detailed depiction of human anatomy, down to individual muscles and tendons. The old man beneath Florence, representing Siena, was intentionally left unfinished to focus the viewer on the victorious figure above.

A sculpture of Pope Leo X, the first Medici pope (there were several), sits at the front of the Salone.

Sorry, but the 12-year-old boy in me just had to include this photo of one of the sculptures depicting battle scenes in the Salone dei Cinquecento. I don’t know its real name, but I’m calling it “Grabbing Your Opponent Where It Hurts”.

The studiolo (small study) of Francesco I, son of Cosimo. This small room was part of Duke Francesco de Medici’s private apartments both for use as a study and also to house the smallest and most precious family heirlooms, shown only to select visitors, which he kept in cabinets built into the thickness of the masonry walls.

The Room of the Elements depicts the origins of the four elements – air, water, fire and earth. Giorgio Vasari and his assistants decorated this room and all of the others in Cosimo I de’ Medici’s apartments, which continue the same themes, in a mere three years.

Looking over Florence from one of the opulent balconies of the Palazzo Vecchio.

Original tile floor in the Room of Opsis, dating to time of Cosimo I. (Most of the other rooms in the Palazzo have had their floors replaced, but these are the originals…Cosimo I actually walked on these same tiles.)

The Green Room in Apartments of Eleonora. When Duke Cosimo I de’ Medici moved into the palace in 1540, he assigned these apartments to his wife Eleonora. Work began to renovate the rooms, which had been built in the late 1200s to mid-1300s. Giorgio Vasari raised almost all the ceilings and decorated them in honor of Eleonora with stories of classical heroines celebrated for “equalling men’s virtue”, when not actually surpassing it. But the duchess died of malaria in December 1562, living barely long enough to see the work completed. The walls of the Green Room were once covered with frescoes of landscapes, but those have been lost to antiquity.

The private chapel of the Duchess Eleonora is one of the loftiest masterpieces of Florentine Mannerism.

Cabinet with semi-precious stone inlays in the Apartments of Eleonora.

In the Apartments of Eleonora, the Room of Esther celebrates one of the strong women in the Bible, Esther, as she begs King Ahasuerus to halt the massacre of the Jews.

Sculptural portrait of Dante Alighieri in the Palazzo.

Duke Cosimo’s Audience Chamber.

The Hall of Lilies was supposed to have frescoes on all four walls, but only this one was ever finished. The others were covered with blue paint and gold-leaf fleurs-des-lis.

Ceiling of the Hall of Lilies.

Donatello, Judith and Holofernes (1457 – 1464) in the Hall of Lilies. The lion and fleur des lis motifs are the symbols of Florence.

Portrait of Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527), hanging in the room that was his office as Chancellor. He was one of the founding fathers of modern political science.

The Hall of Geographical Maps. The notion of representing in a single room the whole of the world as it was known in the mid-16th century highlights Cosimo’s interest in geography, the natural sciences and trade; but it was also designed to celebrate the duke as lord of the universe, in a role which his very name allegorically assigned to him through its association with the Greek word kosmos (universe).

The mid- to late-16th century maps, including these of the Americas and what is now Egypt and Sinai, are surprisingly accurate considering the time in which they were made.

Mid-16th Century map of Italy in the Hall of Georgraphical Maps.

After the tour of the Palazzo Vecchio, our group headed to a nearby restaurant, Menchetti Cocktail Bar & Pizzeria, for drinks and dinner.

And it wouldn’t be a set of photos from Florence without at least one “food porn” picture! This was a delicious pizza with fresh tomato, buffalo mozzarella and prosciutto crudo.