Cosimo I as Augustus

In 1564 Vincenzo Danti began the Medici coat of arms with allegories of Equity and Rigour and a commanding portrait of Cosimo I for the entrance of Vasari’s Uffizi. The svelte reclining allegories are still in place, but the large seated allegorical portrait of Cosimo I that was to have topped the group ended up as a fountain in the Boboli Gardens. Danti’s second attempt, the standing, strongly idealized portrait of Cosimo I as Augustus, must have been carved in the early 1570s and was replaced about 10 years later by the present much more straightforward portrait by Giambologna.