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Vasari and The Creation of Palazzo Vecchio, Florence 1555-1565:

Between 1555 and 1565 Cosimo launched major architectural and urbanistic programs. The renewed program for the ducal palace, the expansion of the Pitti palace, the Uffizi and the works done for the marriage of his son Francesco to Joanna of Austria are only the main undertakings of the period.

It is important to note that the start and realization of this vast program coincided with Vasari's and Ammannati's entry into the service of the grand duke (Vasari introduced Ammanati). These two men were able to interpret and realize Cosimo's architectural and urban "policy" in a coherent manner.

In Vasari Cosimo found the ideal artist, willing to accept his wishes and capable of enriching them with coherent imaginative form. It is unlikely that Vasari would have written The Lives, his Autobiography and other works (in Italian Le Vite, Ragionamenti, Autobiografia) if he had not been firmly convinced that he was living in an era worthy of being immortalized for posterity.
All the projects of the decade between 1555 and 1565 were assigned to Vasari who became the real superintendent, in the modern sense of the term, of the duchy's works, and to Ammannati. There were many other artist active in this period, including Cellini and Giambologna.

Vasari was an experienced man. He skillfully "managed" the countless artists who worked on the projects, he was able to comprehend and interpret the ideas and intentions of the iconographic and allegorical plans of Cosimo's humanists (Cosimo Bartoli and then Don Vicenzo Borghini); in Palazzo Vecchio he created a grandiose and rich, multifunctional and complex architectural masterpiece of the sixteenth century.

With subtle intuition he interpreted Cosimo's desire to renovate without breaking with tradition. He decided not to touch the outside of the palace and concentrated all his efforts on requalifying the interior. And from this contrast in the exterior-interior relationship he obtained a first fundamental motive for the definition of environmental situations.

In Vasari's works in Palazzo Vecchio, the concept of the "interior" assumed a new meaning rich in nuances and variations. The purity of the exterior volume was matched by the complex stratified world: enormous or tiny rooms, dilated or compressed, but always carefully configured, defined and finished. The reciprocal relationships between the rooms are complex (one behind the other, one opening onto the other, one next to the other, one inside the other, etc.

The Salone dei Cinquecento, supplementing Arnolfo's original nucleus, takes up the entire width of the palace and overlooks the square from the edge of Via dei Gondi and towards Via della Ninna where an overpass would connect it to the Uffizi; the two ends of the room are configured as parts of passages and routes on several levels). There are rooms in "cycles" and sequences (the rooms of Cosimo, Leo X, Eleonora, of the Elements) that are articulated and qualified in different ways; there are rooms open to the outside (up to the extreme solution of the Terrazzo di Saturno an open room) or completely closed; there are well studied connections between rooms on the same floor and between the floors; clever variations in the use of materials and decorations. All of this makes the palace a splendid world, complete with all the moods and values that the Mannerist style was capable of expressing.

A fundamental component in the qualification of Palazzo Vecchio's rooms was the use of the painted or sculpted image in the architectural setting, in the form of allegorical or directly realistic iconographic programs. The intent is also evident in the concepts for arranging outdoor space as seen in other projects during Cosimo's era such as the arrangements in Piazza della Signoria and the Boboli Gardens.

Iconographic representations as components of interior space were launched, as it were, in the early sixteenth century in the panels for decorating private rooms (the Bogherini and Bennintendi rooms) painted by Andrea Del Sarto, Pontormo, Bachiacca, and Franciabigio, and they were to become widely used throughout the second half of the century in city buildings and villas. The utmost limit is the study of Francesco I in Palazzo della Signoria. Images of Cosimo and other members of the Medici family populate the rooms and halls of the palace, in realistic form or in guise of mythological characters.

One very interesting aspect was the widespread use of city "views" or landscapes to decorate interiors. General views of Florence and specific parts of the city can be considered on the one hand as an expression of the awareness of the relationship between the urban layout, power and glory, and on the other as a new qualification of the interior environments through the "views".

In the Ragionamenti Vasari explains how he painted the view of Florence during the siege: "Now, Your Excellency, look at this painting which shows Florence from the mountain ridge, in a manner that deviates little from reality... It would have been very difficult to paint this scene from the natural viewpoint and in the manner generally used to draw cities and villages. They are usually drawn freely from life, but all the high structures tend to hide the lower ones from view. Therefore, if you are at the top of a mountain you cannot draw all the plains, valleys and bases of the mountains because the downward slope often cuts of the view of all those parts below that are occupied by taller things.

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