Florence Triumphant over Pisa

The wedding of Prince Francesco de’ Medici to Joanna of Austria in 1566 required grandiose decorations for the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence. The idea was thus conceived of commissioning Giambologna to create an allegorical group as a pair to Michelangelo’s Victory; its subject was to be politically relevant, Florence Triumphant over Pisa. A tiny preliminary model in wax and a larger one in terracotta (both Victoria and Albert Museum, London) show his first thoughts on the subject, while a full-scale working model in plaster (Galleria dell’Accademia, Florence) was ready in time to be painted white to resemble marble and exhibited at the wedding.

A marble version (Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence) was carved considerably later (1575), and then largely by his assistant, Pietro Francavilla. The original little wax model is wonderfully spontaneous, its elongated proportions corresponding with those of Michelangelo’s Victory, which it had to match. Its destination against a wall in the Salone del Cinquecento meant that it would be seen only from the front and sides, but its axis was arranged spirally, within a block of marble of pyramidal shape, like the Victory.