Loggia dei Lanzi

Generally of a lower key than a political harangue was the parlamento, a meeting of eligible male citizens to vote on an important issue (perhaps because the outcome was usually decided in advance by the bosses). On these occasions, the Florentines heard speeches from the platform of this graceful three-arched loggia, also known as the Loggia della Signoria or the Loggia dell’Orcagna, after Andrea Orcagna, the probable architect. Completed in 1382, when pointed Gothic was still the rage, the loggia with its lofty round arches looks back to classical antiquity and looks forward to the Renaissance; it is the germ of Brunelleschi’s revolutionary architecture.

If the impenetrable, stone Palazzo Vecchio is a symbol of the republic’s muscle and authority, the Loggia dei Lanzi is a symbol of its capacity for beauty. The loggia received its name ‘of the lances’ after the Swiss lancers, the private bodyguard of Grand Duke Cosimo I.