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Urban Decorations Under Cosimo de Medici, Florence in the 1500's

The dynamic concept of urban sequences that developed during the construction work on the Uffizi, the Pitti Palace, Vasari's corridor and even the arrays along the bridal route in 1565, was also affirmed in the many "urban decorative" works that qualified existing settings and situations and served to connect them in visual sequences. Thus the fountains, columns, statues, monuments, crests or busts tended to identify a series of new references and symbolic/visual "axes" of the urban structure according to modes that could be related to similar experiences in Roman works during the same century.

The result was a selection and hierarchy of urban routes with the creation of new routes (the Uffizi, the Vasari corridor, the broad paths in the Boboli gardens), and the reinforcement and requalification in modern form (façades) of existing routes (Via dei Servi, Via Maggio, Via Tornabuoni, Borgo degli Albizi). In relation to all this it is important to take a look at the theme of public loggias, open, continuous and dynamic that were introduced into a Florence that was previously unacquainted with them (Uffizi, Loggia del Pesce, Vasari corridor, Loggia del Mercato Nuovo).

The loggias of Santa Maria Nuova (under Ferdinando I) and Del Grano (under Cosimo II) were to be built later. With reference to the new urban dynamics one must also remember that the first coaches began circulating in the city in 1534 (Cronica by Agostino di Jacopo Latini).

The column in Piazza Santa Trinita celebrates the victory against the rebels at Montemurlo. The statue is in line with the Santa Trinita bridge and with Via della Terme. If one stands in the piazza and looks down Via delle Terme, it is possible to see the tower of Palazzo Vecchio above the roofs. It marks the intersection of routes and views that converge in the Piazza along the views from Via Tornabuoni and from above the bridge.

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