Fountain of Neptune, Florence

The Republic of Florence, officially the Florentine Republic (Italian: Repubblica Fiorentina, pronounced [reˈpubblika fjorenˈtiːna], or Repubblica di Firenze), was a medieval and early modern state that was centered on the Italian city of Florence in Tuscany. The republic originated in 1115, when the Florentine people rebelled against the Margraviate of Tuscany upon the death of Matilda of Tuscany, who controlled vast territories that included Florence. The Florentines formed a commune in her successors' place. The republic was ruled by a council known as the Signoria of Florence. The signoria was chosen by the gonfaloniere (titular ruler of the city), who was elected every two months by Florentine guild members. During the Republic's history, Florence was an important cultural, economic, political and artistic force in Europe. Its coin, the florin, became a world monetary standard. During the Republican period, Florence was also the birthplace of the Renaissance, which is considered a fervent period of European cultural, artistic, political and economic "rebirth".The republic had a checkered history of coups and countercoups against various factions. The Medici faction gained governance of the city in 1434 under Cosimo de' Medici. The Medici kept control of Florence until 1494. Giovanni de' Medici (later Pope Leo X) reconquered the republic in 1512. Florence repudiated Medici authority for a second time in 1527, during the War of the League of Cognac. The Medici reassumed their rule in 1531 after an 11-month siege of the city, aided by Emperor Charles V. Pope Clement VII, himself a Medici, appointed his relative Alessandro de' Medici as the first "Duke of the Florentine Republic", thereby transforming the Republic into a hereditary monarchy.The second Duke, Cosimo I, established a strong Florentine navy and expanded his territory, conquering Siena. In 1569, the pope declared Cosimo the first grand duke of Tuscany. The Medici ruled the Grand Duchy of Tuscany until 1737.

The Palazzo Vecchio (Italian pronunciation: [paˈlattso ˈvɛkkjo] "Old Palace") is the town hall of Florence, Italy. It overlooks the Piazza della Signoria, which holds a copy of Michelangelo's David statue, and the gallery of statues in the adjacent Loggia dei Lanzi. Originally called the Palazzo della Signoria, after the Signoria of Florence, the ruling body of the Republic of Florence, this building was also known by several other names: Palazzo del Popolo, Palazzo dei Priori, and Palazzo Ducale, in accordance with the varying use of the palace during its long history. The building acquired its current name when the Medici duke's residence was moved across the Arno River to the Palazzo Pitti.

The Equestrian Monument of Cosimo I is a bronze equestrian statue executed by Giambologna from 1587 to 1594, and erected in 1594 in the Piazza della Signoria in Florence, region of Tuscany, Italy.

Perseus with the Head of Medusa is a bronze sculpture made by Benvenuto Cellini in the period 1545–1554. The sculpture stands on a square base which has bronze relief panels depicting the story of Perseus and Andromeda, similar to a predella on an altarpiece. It is located in the Loggia dei Lanzi in the Piazza della Signoria in Florence, Italy. The second Florentine duke, Duke Cosimo I de' Medici, commissioned the work with specific political connections to the other sculptural works in the piazza. When the piece was revealed to the public on 27 April 1554, Michelangelo's David, Bandinelli's Hercules and Cacus, and Donatello's Judith and Holofernes were already installed in the piazza.The subject matter of the work is the mythological story of Perseus beheading Medusa, a hideous woman-faced Gorgon whose hair had been turned to snakes; anyone who looked at her was turned to stone. Perseus stands naked except for a sash and winged sandals, triumphant on top of the body of Medusa with her head, crowned with writhing snakes, in his raised hand. Blood spews from Medusa's severed neck. The bronze sculpture, in which Medusa's head turns men to stone, is appropriately surrounded by three huge marble statues of men: Hercules, David, and later Neptune. Cellini's use of bronze in Perseus and the head of Medusa, and the motifs he used to respond to the previous sculpture in the piazza, were highly innovative. Examining the sculpture from the back, one can see a self-portrait of the sculptor Cellini on the back of Perseus' helmet. The sculpture is thought to be the first statue since the classical age where the base included a figurative sculpture forming an integral part of the work.

Hercules and Cacus is an Italian Renaissance sculpture in marble to the right of the entrance of the Palazzo Vecchio in the Piazza della Signoria, Florence, Italy. It has a complicated and highly political history, but the finished work is by the Florentine sculptor Baccio Bandinelli mostly from 1525 to completion in 1534. It was commissioned as a pendant to Michelangelo's David, which had been commissioned by the republican council of Florence, under Piero Soderini (gonfaloniere for life), to commemorate the victory over the Medici.

The Crossing of the Red Sea, also known as The Crossing of the Red Sea and Moses Appointing Joshua, is a fresco painting by the Italian artist Agnolo di Cosimo, known as Bronzino, finished in 1542. It depicts the Nation of Israel crossing the Red Sea from the book of Exodus and Moses commissioning Joshua to lead the Israelites into the promised land from the book of Numbers. It is housed in the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence. In 1540, Cosimo I de' Medici and/or his wife, Eleanor of Toledo, commissioned this and other frescoes for Eleanor's private chapel. Three of the four walls of the small chapel found on the second floor of the palace are covered with works telling the story of Moses.

Piazza della Signoria (Italian pronunciation: [ˈpjattsa della siɲɲoˈriːa]) is a w-shaped square in front of the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, Italy. It was named after the Palazzo della Signoria, also called Palazzo Vecchio. It is the main point of the origin and history of the Florentine Republic and still maintains its reputation as the political focus of the city. It is the meeting place of Florentines as well as the numerous tourists, located near Palazzo Vecchio and Piazza del Duomo and gateway to Uffizi Gallery.

The Medici lions are a pair of marble sculptures of lions: one of which is Roman, dating to the 2nd century AD, and the other a 16th-century pendant. Both were by 1598 placed at the Villa Medici, Rome. Since 1789 they have been displayed at the Loggia dei Lanzi in Florence. The sculptures depict standing male lions with a sphere or ball under one paw, looking to the side. Copies of the Medici lions have been made and publicly installed in over 30 other locations, and smaller versions made in a variety of media; Medici lion has become the term for the type. A similar Roman lion sculpture, of the 1st century AD, is known as the Albani lion, and is now in the Louvre. Here, the stone used for the ball is different from the basalt body. Both may derive from a Hellenistic original.

The Loggia dei Lanzi, also called the Loggia della Signoria, is a building on a corner of the Piazza della Signoria in Florence, Italy, adjoining the Uffizi Gallery. It consists of wide arches open to the street. The arches rest on clustered pilasters with Corinthian capitals. The wide arches appealed so much to the Florentines that Michelangelo proposed that they should be continued all around the Piazza della Signoria.

Palazzo Uguccioni is a Renaissance palace on the Piazza della Signoria in Florence, central Italy. The palace was built, for Giovanni Uguccioni starting from 1550. Its design has been variously attributed to Raphael, Michelangelo, Andrea Palladio, Bartolomeo Ammannati or Raffaello da Montelupo, although no proofs exists if not that its drawing came from Rome in 1549 and that its style was reminiscent of Raphael's or Bramante's, which were a novelty in Florence at the time. It is the only building in Florence with columns on its façade.The lower floors has three arcades with rustication in pietraforte, the material used for the whole façade. The upper floors have two orders of Ionic (first floor) and Corithian (second floor) columns. The latter's pedestals have sculpted coat of arms of the family. Above the entrance is a bust of Francesco I de' Medici, perhaps executed by Giambologna.

The Studiolo is a small painting-encrusted barrel-vaulted room in the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence, Italy. It was commissioned by Francesco I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany. It was completed for the duke from 1570 to 1572, by teams of artists under the supervision of Giorgio Vasari and the scholars Giovanni Batista Adriani and Vincenzo Borghini. This small room was part-office, part-laboratory, part-hiding place, and part-cabinet of curiosities. Here the prince tinkered with alchemy and kept his collection of small, precious, unusual or rare objects. The walls and ceiling were decorated with paintings showing a similar variety of subjects, some showing exotic forms of industry and others mythology. The inset paintings are now all that remains in the room of the original contents. They are rather larger than what is normally meant by the term cabinet painting. The late-Mannerist decorative program of paintings and sculpture was based on items encompassed by the collection. The object collection itself was stored in ~ 20 cabinets. In the center is a fresco of Prometheus receiving jewels from nature, commenting on the interplay of divine, nature, and humanity, that is the goal of both artistic and scientific interests.

The Pasquino Group (also known as Menelaus Carrying the Body of Patroclus or Ajax Carrying the Body of Achilles) is a group of marble sculptures that copy a Hellenistic bronze original, dating to ca. 200–150 BCE. At least fifteen Roman marble copies of this sculpture are known. Many of these marble copies have complex artistic and social histories that illustrate the degree to which improvisatory "restorations" were made to fragments of ancient Roman sculpture during the 16th and 17th centuries, in which contemporary Italian sculptors made original and often arbitrary and destructive additions in an effort to replace lost fragments of the ancient sculptures.One of the most famous versions of the composition, though so dismembered and battered that the relationship is scarcely recognizable at first glance, is the so-called Pasquin, one of the talking statues of Rome. It was set up on a pedestal in 1501 and remains unrestored. A version of the group, probably intended to represent other Homeric figures, is part of the Sperlonga sculptures found in 1957.