RenEU - The Loggia della Signoria (or “dei Lanzi”) - Machiavelli, the Republic and the Medicean Signoria

The Loggia della Signoria (or “dei Lanzi”) - Machiavelli, the Republic and the Medicean Signoria

The Loggia della Signoria

Back view of the Perseus by Benvenuto Cellini

View from inside the Loggia della Signoria

In Piazza della Signoria, near Palazzo Vecchio and beside the Uffizi Gallery, is the Loggia della Signoria, also known as the Loggia dei Lanzi. In the early 16th century Niccolò Machiavelli passed through these places every day on his way to the Chancery where he worked as a political official, but this is not the main reason why the Loggia interests us. It possesses special symbolic value, representing on the imaginary level the conflict between the Republic and Medicean domination, which played a decisive role not only in Machiavelli's works but also in his personal life.

In 1350 it was decided to build a Loggia, "beautiful and impressive" to house public ceremonies and assemblies, although the work began only in 1376; the Loggia della Signoria was thus solemnly inaugurated in 1382. In view of its strictly "civic" function, we can understand the significance it assumed in Florence in the first decade of the 16th century, the time when Machiavelli could fully express his political vocation, and when Michelangelo's David was moved from the apartments of the Medici to Piazza della Signoria to exalt the Republic on the symbolic-imaginary level.

With the fall of the Republic the function of the Loggia abruptly declined. It was even used as quarters for the Lansquenets, the mercenary troops - so deplored by Machiavelli - of Alessandro I de' Medici. From this episode it acquired the appellative of Loggia dei Lanzi. After the last short-lived republic of 1527-30 and the definitive return of the Medici, the Loggia was embellished with statues, most notably that of Benvenuto Cellini - placed here in 1554 - representing Perseus with the severed head of the Medusa, symbol of the dissension the republican regime was accused of.

The Perseus of Benvenuto Cellini

Under the left arcade of the Loggia dei Lanzi stands the monumental bronze Perseus by Benvenuto Cellini. The statue represents the Greek hero Perseus standing on the slain body of the Medusa, displaying her head writhing with snakes to the public gaze. The statue, commissioned by Duke Cosimo I de' Medici and sculpted between 1545 and 1554, was designed to be placed in the Loggia, ambitiously confronting such great masterpieces as Donatello's Judith and Holofernes and Michelangelo's David, which stood nearby at the time and had become a symbol of republican liberty over the years. The Perseus instead evoked Duke Cosimo I himself, who like Perseus had managed through his own valour to take possession of a domain that was rightly due to him. Displaying the Medusa's head, with the serpents almost symbolizing the discord of the Republican regime, seemed a warning against any who might resist legitimate Medicean rule. The Perseus, aimed to consolidate and legitimate Medicean power, thus acquired a symbolic-imaginary value that was symmetrical to and opposed to the sculptures of Michelangelo and Donatello. On the expressive level, Cellini's masterpiece forcefully displays the conflict between the Republic and the Medicean Signoria, which had such dramatic consequences on the life of Machiavelli.

Niccolò Machiavelli is often recalled as an unscrupulous theoretician of 'political intrigue' who with his Prince (Il Principe) furnished valid methods to the new princes, with no concern for their legitimacy. However, this image is totally foreign to the historical figure of Machiavelli, who is the author of a work - perhaps even more important than The Prince - such as the Discourses on Livy (Discorsi sopra la prima deca di Tito Livio), revealing his ardent enthusiasm for republican government and his great admiration of the Roman Republic. Above all, Machiavelli was personally active in political life in the Florentine Republic, in the period between the death of Savonarola and the return of the Medici in 1512, although subsequently purged by the latter as a man of the previous regime. After this moment, Machiavelli lost what was most important to him, the chance to live a politically active life. Even his theoretical and literary works had for him the purpose, nearly always frustrated, of bringing him back into public life. Machiavelli was and remained a republican, despite the fact that the concept of "Machiavellism" has frequently been associated with tyranny over the centuries. The Loggia della Signoria (or dei Lanzi) reflects on a strictly public level - that of a great monument at the city's center - the public-private drama of Machiavelli. On the imaginary level, the Loggia della Signoria represents the "libertas" of Florence so dearly cherished by Machiavelli; but in spite of this, it was there that Alessandro de' Medici's mercenary troops were quartered - giving rise to the name Loggia dei Lanzi. This was at the furthest possible extreme from Machiavelli's teachings. However, these disastrous events led to the fall of the principality and the rise of another short-lived Republic - ironically enough, Machiavelli died in those very years, under the type of regime most consonant to his ideas. The radical conflict between these two political forms - for Machiavelli a real existential conflict - was to be represented by the Perseus of Benvenuto Cellini, which symbolized the victory of the Medicean Signoria over the Republic with its inner discord incarnated by the Medusa's head. This magnificent statue, which exalts the new regime, is a graphic representation of the downfall of republican ideals and their most famous and unfortunate promoter.