During the riots which ended in the Medici being again exiled, a large stone fell from the balustrade of the alur of the palace upon an arm of Michelangelo’s statue and broke it into three pieces. For several days the fragments lay on the pavement, until two lads, Giorgio Vasari and Francesco Salviati, picked them up and took them to Salviati’s father, who sixteen years afterwards gave them to the Duke Cosimo I. In a letter from a certain Riccio, of 7th November, 1543, we find that “the people pass their time in watching the building of a scaffolding round the giant David. It is put up for the mending of his poor arm, but many think that his face is to be washed.” In 1875 the statue, which showed signs of deterioration was, after much consideration, removed to the Gallery of the Belle Arte, where it now is. Michelangelo was to have made a companion giant for the other side of the door of the Palazzo Vecchio—Hercules slaying Cacus; but Clement VII. was persuaded to give the block of marble to Baccio Bandinelli, with what result we see at the present day. That madcap, egoistical, highly-gifted artist, Benvenuto Cellini, thus described the statue to Duke Cosimo in the presence of Bandinelli, to whom he said: “You must know that it pains me to point out the faults of your statue; I shall not, however, utter my own sentiments, but shall recapitulate what our most virtuous school of Florence says about it.... Well then, this virtuous school says that if one were to shave the hair of your Hercules, there would not be skull enough left to hold his brain; it says that it is impossible to distinguish whether his features are those of a man or of something between a lion and an ox; the face too is turned away from the action of the figure, and is so badly set upon the neck, with such poverty of art and so ill a grace, that nothing worse was ever seen; his sprawling shoulders are like two pommels of an ass’s pack-saddle; his breasts and all the muscles of the body are not portrayed from a man, but from a big sack full of melons set upright against a wall. The lions seem to be modelled from a bag of lanky pumpkins; nobody can tell how his two legs are attached to that vile trunk; it is impossible to say on which leg he stands, or which he uses to exert his strength; nor does he seem to be resting upon both, as sculptors who know something of their art have occasionally set the figure. It is obvious that the body is leaning forward more than one-third of a cubit, which alone is the greatest and most insupportable fault committed by vulgar commonplace pretenders. Concerning the arms, they say that these are both stretched out without one touch of grace or one real spark of artistic talent just as if you had never seen a naked model. Again, the right leg of Hercules and that of Cacus have got one mass of flesh between them, so that if they were to be separated, not only one of them, but both together, would be left without a calf at the point where they are touching. They say, too, that Hercules has one of his feet underground, while the other seems to be resting on hot coals.”[110] On either side, nearer the door, were placed two terminal statues, which are still there; one by Bandinelli is intended to represent the power and magnanimity of Tuscany, the other, a woman about to change into a laurel, by Vincenzio de’ Rossi, the grace and intellect Tuscany has shown in the arts. They are commonly called Philomen and Baucis.
When Piero Soderini was elected Gonfalonier for life in 1502, Landucci notes in his Diary, “For the first time the wife of the Gonfalonier, by name Madonna Argentina, went to live in the Palazzo de’ Signori. It seemed odd indeed to see women abiding in the palace.” Large sums were spent in decorations, and Soderini determined that Leonardo da Vinci should paint the great Hall of Council. It seems certain that Leonardo devoted two years to this work, the beauty of which is minutely described by Vasari, who says he abandoned it because having attempted to paint on the wall in oils the colours ran. Michelangelo was then deputed to paint one side of the hall, and his cartoon excited extraordinary enthusiasm and admiration in all who beheld it. Vasari accuses Baccio Bandinelli of tearing the magnificent drawing to pieces during the riots of 1512, when the Gonfalonier Soderini was deposed and the Medici returned to power.
Giuliano de’ Medici entered Florence first, he dismounted at the Albizzi palace, as the family palace in the Via Larga had been sacked when the Medici were driven out. There he waited until joined by the Cardinal Giovanni, when they went to the Palazzo de’ Signori and established themselves there as masters. The great bell was rung to summon the people to a parliament, and at sundown on the 16th September the Signoria assembled on the ringhiera and read the new laws to the people. Landucci notes in his Diary that “on the 2nd October the Medici caused their arms to be re-painted on their palace, on the Annunziata and in many other places, they also caused the effigy of the Gonfalonier to be removed out of the S.S. Annunziata.[111]
Not content with abolishing the Great Council and the Ten of Balìa, and nominating their own people to all important posts, the Cardinal and Giuliano de’ Medici installed a strong guard of Spanish soldiers in the old palace, and to lodge them the noble hall of the Five Hundred was ruined. “At this time it pleased the new government,” writes Landucci, “to destroy the woodwork of the hall of the Great Council, besides many other beautiful things, which had been made at enormous outlay. Rooms were built for the soldiers, and a new entrance was made, which things were lamented by all Florence; not the change of government, but the loss of that beautiful woodwork which had cost so much. It had been a great glory and honour for the city to have such a splendid residence. When ambassadors came to visit the Signoria all who entered were astounded when they saw such a magnificent palace and such a multitude of citizens in council.” It must however be said that a hoarding was erected in front of the painting by Leonardo da Vinci when the hall was turned into barracks, so that it might not be spoiled. Seventeen years later the Medici were again driven out, and again there was a “tumult” in the Palazzo de’ Signori. In a very long letter[112] from that most excellent of men old Jacopo Nardi to Benedetto Varchi, who was writing his famous history, he describes the scenes at which he, as Gonfalonier of one of the quarters of the town, assisted. After stating the difficulty he had to reach the palace, he goes on: “I found a great multitude in council, without order or head, uncertain what to demand or what to desire, so that they did nought but shout, etc., as though that constituted a victory. Meanwhile the Signori were conducted, almost by force, to their usual seats, jam redacti in ordinem, with no more reverence than if they had been private persons. The Gonfalonier did not lose his head, but asked in a loud voice what they wanted, saying we had met to carry out their wishes, if they expressed them quietly and without violence. But the Compagnie, who were always arriving and entering the Council Hall, did not see what was being done and by their shouts increased the tumult; so that the Signori were not heard, nor the Gonfalonier, who declared that he was ready to propose anything, etc., and above their heads were a hundred swords and halberds. I advanced with due obeisance to the Signoria and addressed the young men, repeating in a loud voice what the Gonfalonier had proposed for their satisfaction, reproving those I knew and entreating those who were unknown to me. So at last some resolutions were put and carried with shouts by those around, one by one as they were convinced, and they were inscribed by Giuliano da Ripa, who was brought up almost by sheer force, for no other notary could be found in the palace. The resolutions carried were: that all those who had been condemned, exiled, banished (to other towns or to their villas), or imprisoned for political offences, should be pardoned and liberated; that the government should be what it was in the time of Piero Soderini, before 1512; that the great bell should again be rung for parliaments; and that the exile of the Medici be proclaimed to the sound of trumpets. I do not recollect the order in which these were voted on account of the confusion and the violence of certain youths, which was so great that, whilst I was in front of the Signoria, a blow was aimed at the Gonfalonier; the flat of the sword hit him on the shoulder near the neck, but not severely, and I put my handkerchief to his neck, fearing it would bleed.”
After the departure of the Cardinal of Cortona with Ippolito and Alessandro de’ Medici the great hall of the Five Hundred was cleared of the barracks erected for the Spanish soldiers and restored to its proper use. Niccolò Capponi, head of the ottimati party, was elected Gonfalonier of Justice and began to treat with the Pope to gain time, which incensed the popolani, or popular party, who were already angry because he showed such reverence for the memory of Savonarola. “At this time,” writes Varchi, “the Gonfalonier, either persuaded by the friars of S. Marco, with whom he consorted, or more probably to gain the party of the friars, which was considerable and of no small reputation, favoured and seconded as much as he could all that Fra Girolamo had instituted, so that he was blamed and scoffed at by many. Amongst other things he repeated almost word for word a sermon of the friar’s, in which he first predicted much evil, and afterwards much good, to the city of Florence, and at the end he threw himself on his knees and crying out misericordia in a loud voice, persuaded the whole council to repeat misericordia. Not content with this he proposed in the Great Council that Christ should be accepted as the especial King of Florence. There were twenty dissentients, and thinking that no one would ever obliterate it, Capponi had the following inscription placed above the door of the palace—
Y.H.S.
CHRISTO REGI SUO DOMINO DOMINANTUM DEO SUMMO OPTMAX
LIBERATORI MARIAEQUE VIRGINI REGINAE DICAVIT.
AN.SAL.M.D.XXVII.S.P.Q.F.
The curious thing is that Segni gives two other different inscriptions and that none of the three coincide with the one still over the door—
REX REGUM ET DOMINUS DOMINANTIUM,
with the monogram Y.H.S. in the centre of a star above.
The old palace saw stormy scenes in 1529 when Niccolò Capponi was deposed and Francesco Carducci, a leader of the Arrabiati or ultra democratic party, was elected Gonfalonier. Florence, that “most republican of all Republics,” stood alone facing the united forces of the Pope and of Charles V. After a hopeless struggle, which lasted two years, the Signoria met in the Hall of the Two Hundred to hear the death warrant of Florentine liberty. Duke Alessandro entered in state, and then the envoy of Charles V. and the Pope’s Nuncio took their seats on either side of the Gonfalonier, the Priors and other magistrates sitting below them. The envoy preached a homily on the sins of the Republic and the graciousness and goodness of the Pope and the Emperor, and then read the Brieve of Charles V. which all present swore to obey. Meanwhile the crowd in the Piazza below raised the well-known cry of Palle.Palle.Eviva i Medici.