The Loggia dei Lanzi, also called the Loggia della Signoria, is a building on a corner of the Piazza della Signoria, adjoining the Uffizi Gallery

It 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

It was built between 1376 and 1382 in order to have an open, but covered, space for public ceremonies. It is a robust construction, at the same time sober and harmoniously designed.

It is known as the Loggia of the Lanzi, named after the German guards, the famous Lanzichenecchi,

who were stationed here by the Grand Duke Cosimo I

After the construction of the Uffizi, which was built onto the rear of the Loggia, Bernardo Buontalenti transformed the terrace into a sort of hanging garden (1583) from which the princes could watch ceremonies or performances in the square.

The medallions on the facade of the Loggia contain the allegorical figures of the Virtues by Agnolo Gaddi (1383-86).

On the steps of the Loggia are the Medici lions; two Marzoccos, marble statues of lions, heraldic symbols of Florence; that on the right is from Roman times and the one on the left was sculpted by Flaminio Vacca in 1598. It was originally placed in the Villa Medici in Rome, but found its final place in the Loggia in 1789.

Today we can admire a series of classical and Mannerist sculptures, as well as a 19th century Rape of Polyxena (Pio Fedi, 1866), beneath the elegant and early Renaissance style arches of the Loggia.

The classical sculptures include a group of six female figures, considerably touched up, and the Menelaus holding up the body of Patroclus (restored by Stefano Ricci).

The Mannerist groups of sculpture are particularly important: these include the extremely beautiful Rape of the Sabines (1583, the cast is in the Academy Gallery) and Hercules fighting the centaur Nessus (1599), both of them by Giambologna.

However the Perseus with the head of the Medusa is the finest work there, Benvenuto Cellini's extraordinary masterpiece in bronze(1545-54), recently restored.

The artist was given the commission to carry out the Perseus, in 1545, immediately after his return from Paris, by Cosimo I. Three years later, however, after having seen a life side model of the sculpture, the Duke tried to put Cellini off completing it because he was convinced that it would be impossible to cast it with the head of the Medusa hanging from the hands of Perseus.

Cellini was in fact careful to keep this fairly close to the body and, after several attempts, which can be read about in his memoires, he managed to complete the epic cast by throwing all his pots and pans into the furnace and feeding the flames with his household furniture.

He carried out the four statuettes in the niches of the pedestal (Jove, Mercury, Minerva and Danae) and the bas-relief with Perseus freeing Andromeda later, in 1552.

Nine years after being commissioned, in 1554, the Perseus was exhibited under the Loggia and was immediately acclaimed by the whole city.

Sound: Il silenzio - Nini Rosso Pieta, Signore - A.Stradella - Olga Pyatigorskaya

Text: InternetPictures: Daniela Iacob & InternetArangement: Sanda Foişoreanu