A staircase designed by Vasari leads to the second floor. This floor contains the Apartments of the Elements, Priori, and Eleonora of Toledo.
Apartments of the Elements These apartments (
Sala degli Elementi) consist of five rooms (such as the Room of Ceres) and two
loggias. The commission for these rooms was originally given by Cosimo I to
Giovanni Battista del Tasso. But on his death, the decorations were continued by Vasari and his helpers, working for the first time for the Medicis. These rooms were the private quarters of Cosimo I.
Room of the Elements The walls in the Room of the Elements are filled with allegorical frescoes
Allegories of Water, Fire and Earth and, on the ceiling, represents
Saturn. The original statue
Boy with a Fish by
Verrocchio is on exhibit in one of the smaller rooms (the copy stands on the fountain in the first courtyard).
Terrace of Saturn Named for the fresco on the ceiling. There is a southeastern view to
Piazzale Michelangelo and the
Fortress Belvedere. Also visible are the remains of the Church of San Piero Scheraggio.
The Hercules Room This room (the Sala di Ercole) gets its name from the subject of the paintings on the ceiling. Also the tapestries show stories of
Hercules. The room contains a
Madonna and Child and an ebony cabinet called a
stipo inlaid with semi-precious stones.
The Lion House Cosimo the Elder kept a menagerie of lions in a dedicated lion house in the palazzo. He often fought them or baited them against other animals in large festivals for visiting Popes or dignitaries.
The Room of Jupiter The room is named for the fresco on the ceiling. On the walls are Florentine tapestries made from cartoons by
Stradanus (16th century).
The Room of Cybele On the ceiling, the
Triumph of Cybele and the
Four Seasons. Against the walls are cabinets in tortoise shell and bronze. The floor was made in 1556. From the window one can see the third courtyard.
The Ceres Room The room gets its name from the motif on the ceiling, by
Doceno, a pupil of Vasari. On the walls are Florentine tapestries with hunting scenes, from cartoons by Stradanus.
Apartments of Eleonora of Toledo Beginning in 1540 when Cosimo moved the seat of government here, these rooms were refurbished and richly decorated to be the living quarters of Eleonora.
Sala Verde This room served as Eleonora's bedchamber and was called the Green Room because of the color of the walls. The decorations on the ceiling are by
Ridolfo del Ghirlandaio. A small door in the room indicates the beginning of the
Vasari corridor, a passageway to the Palazzo Pitti built by Vasari for Cosimo I.
Cappella di Eleonora ,'' fresco by
Agnolo Bronzino in the Cappella di Eleonora The small, richly decorated chapel adjoining the Sala Verde is painted in fresco by the mannerist
Angelo Bronzino and includes some of his masterpieces including the
Crossing the Red Sea. It was built by Tasso to be Eleonora's private chapel.
The Room of the Sabines It was named because of the ceiling decoration. At one time it was used for the Ladies-in-waiting at the court of
Eleonora di Toledo. It contains
Portraits of Medici Princes by
Sustermans, statues by a Florentine art school and a tapestry by Fevère.
Dining Room On the ceiling is the
Coronation of Esther decorated by
Stradanus, with an inscription in honor of
Eleonora di Toledo. The room contains a lavabo and two tapestries by Van Assel representing
Spring and Autumn.
The Room of Penelope On the ceiling
Penelope at the loom, in the frieze,
episodes from the Odyssey. On the walls:
Madonna and Child and a
Madonna and Child with St. John by
Botticelli.
The Room of Gualdrada This room is dedicated to Virtue as personified by
Gualdrada. The ceiling painting of Gualdrada is by the Flemish painter
Stradanus, better known under his Italian name Stradanus. Against the wall is a cabinet with Florentine mosaic designs.
Apartments of the Priori These rooms were used by the
priori (priors) representing the
guilds of Florence.
Sala dell'Udienza The Audience Chamber or Hall of Justice used to house the meetings of the priors. It contains the oldest decorations in the palace. The carved coffer ceiling, laminated with pure gold, is by
Giuliano da Maiano (1470–1476). On the portal to the Chapel of the Signoria is an inscription in honor of Christ (1529). The doorway to the Hall of Lilies has marble mouldings sculpted by the brothers Giuliano and
Benedetto da Maiano. The inlaid woodwork (
intarsia) on the doors was carved by Del Francione and depicts portraits of Dante and
Petrarch. The large frescoes on the walls portraying the
Stories of Furius Camillus by
Francesco Salviati were made in the middle of the 16th century. Since Salviati had his schooling in the circle around
Raphael in Rome, these frescoes are based on Roman models and not typical of Florentine art.
Marcus Furius Camillus was a Roman general mentioned in the writings of
Plutarch.
Chapel of the Signoria A small doorway leads into the adjoining small chapel dedicated to
St. Bernard, containing a reliquary of the Saint. Here the priors used to supply divine aid in the execution of their duties. In this chapel, Girolamo Savonarola said his last prayers before he was hanged on the Piazza della Signoria and his body burned. The frescoes on the walls and ceiling, on a background imitating gold mosaic, are by
Ridolfo Ghirlandaio. Of particular interest are
The Holy Trinity on the ceiling and
The Annunciation on the wall facing the altar. On the altar was a painting representing the
Holy Family by
Mariano Graziadei da Pescia, a pupil of Ridolfo Ghirlandaio. It is now on exhibition in the corridor of the Uffizi Gallery. Instead, there is a good painting of St. Bernard by an unknown artist.
Sala dei Gigli The carved ceiling of the Hall of the Lilies, as this room is usually called, decorated with
fleur-de-lys, and the
Statue of St. John the Baptist and Putti are all by Benedetto da Maiano and his brother Giuliano. The golden fleur-de-lys decorations on blue background on the ceiling and three walls refer to the (short-lived) good relations between Florence and the French Crown. of abtique heroes
Brutus, Gaius Mucius Scaevola and Camillus (1482–84), in the Hall of Lilies On the wall are frescoes by
Domenico Ghirlandaio, painted in 1482. The apotheosis of
St. Zenobius, first patron saint of Florence, was painted with a perspectival illusion of the background. In this background one can see the cathedral, with its original facade and Giotto's bell tower. In the
lunette above is a
bas-relief of the Madonna and Child. This fresco is flanked on both sides by frescoes of famed Romans: on the left
Brutus, Gaius Mucius Scaevola and Marcus Furius Camillus, and on the right
Decius, Scipio and Cicero. Medaillons of Roman emperors fill the
spandrels between the sections. After its lengthy restoration, the (original) statue "
Judith and Holofernes" by
Donatello was given a prominent place in this room in 1988. A door in the east wall leads to the
Stanza della Guardaroba (Hall of Geographical Maps). This door is flanked by two dark marble pillars, originally from a Roman temple.
Stanza delle Mappe geografiche o Stanza della Guardaroba The Hall of Geographical Maps or
Guardaroba was an ambitious room that set out to represent the known world of the 16th century through the display of a collection of artifacts and murals of cartography, all seen in relation to scientific instruments of time and astronomy. For various reasons, it was not seen to completion, yet the accounts of
Giorgio Vasari, the room's designer, detail the proposed purpose and visualisation of the space. The Guardaroba was commissioned by
Cosimo I de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany during his major reconstruction of the interior of the Palazzo. Construction of the
guardaroba began in 1563. The idea behind the guardaroba is similar to that of late medieval
studioli, which were small private study spaces, containing precious collected artifacts. Many courtly residences possessed similar spaces to the
guardaroba, yet the guardaroba of Palazzo della Signoria is one of the earliest examples that integrates cartography into its decorative elements.
Guardaroba best translates to a type of storage space, or ‘wardrobe’ and its purpose was to house a collection; an early
wunderkammer of sorts. Evidently, collections of artifacts and precious items existed before the Renaissance, yet it is not until the Renaissance that there consistently appeared collections which were preserved and interpreted, known as
wunderkammen. Vasari's account of the program for the guardaroba highlights Cosimo I's instructions to create a space for some of the more precious items in the
Medici collection. He had also instructed Vasari to design the space so it was fit for visitors, ultimately becoming a semi-public gallery space. Master carpenter Dionigi di Matteo Nigetti (active in Florence 1565–1579) constructed the finely crafted and carved walnut cabinets and ceiling panels that can still all be found in the room today. Each of the doors was to be decorated with an up-to-date map of a particular region. Vasari called the map murals, Tables of Ptolemy, recognising
Claudius Ptolemaeus (AD b.127–d.145) significant contributions to the history and progress of cartography. The responsibility of painting the Tables of Ptolemy was entrusted to renowned cosmographer
Egnazio Danti, who was later responsible for the maps in the Vatican Galleria,
Hall of Maps. Each map mural, of which there were to be 57 in total, was painted directly onto the cabinet doors, 53 of these Murals remain today. The regions depicted in the map would correspond to a collection of objects and artifacts within that cabinet. The map murals were arranged across the cabinet doors in two horizontal rows representing the hemispheres and navigated most of the perimeter of the room, only interrupted at the doorway and window. A layout of maps in this fashion came to be known as a "map cycle", a term Cosimo I's guardaroba likely initiated. The map cycle is divided into sections of the then known four continents, Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas. The
guardaroba was one of the more unusual projects commissioned by Cosimo I and therefore, Vasari wrote concisely on its programme and its progress. "Over the doors of those cupboards within their ornaments, Fra Egnazio has distributed fifty seven pictures about two
braccia high and wide in proportion, in which are painted in oils on the wood with the greatest diligence, after the manner of miniatures, the Tables of Ptolemy, all measured with perfect accuracy and corrected after the most recent authorities, with exact charts of navigation and their scales for measuring and degrees, done with supreme diligence; and with these are all the names both ancient and modern. ... The images of plants and animals are exactly in line with the maps. ... The terrestrial globe is marked distinctly and it is possible to use it for all the operations of the astrolabe perfectly." – Giorgio Vasari,
Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects As well as the maps on the cabinets, other images adorned the room. Up to 300 portraits of famous people of the day hung around highest perimeters of the walls and would be revealed from beneath green cloth curtains. In between the cabinets doors, were to be mounted natural history drawings of flora and fauna that, as Vasari indicated above, would have been in line with its corresponding regions on the maps in a similar fashion to the objects that are revealed from beneath their corresponding region. The collected artifacts were arranged and maintained by curators and conservators known as guardarobiere, in a similar manner to the role of the contemporary museum. The rarer an item, the more attractive it was to the collector and desired for the collection. Objects from the Americas or
New World as it was then referred to, were particularly valuable at this time as Italians were not allowed to travel there without permission from
Spain or
Portugal. Instead, they explored this region vicariously through objects and the Medici possessed a significant collection of artifacts from the Americas, largely collecting
featherwork. Vasari intended the worldly representation in the
guardaroba to be seen in relation to the larger cosmos, represented by a celestial sphere in the centre of the room and painted constellations on the ceiling. He also had grand visions of two large globes, a terrestrial and celestial hidden behind a false ceiling that could be lowered impressively via a pulley system into the room below. The room was also to display a copy of the 1484 clock made for
Lorenzo de Medici by Lorenzo della Volpaia. An
Antonio Santucci (b.? d.1613) armillary sphere that is now at the
Florence Museum of the History of Science, was also displayed in the
guardaroba along with a second, earlier armillary sphere that is now lost. It is the relationships between these objects and maps and the context for which they are shown that produces intended symbolic gestures; the clock, in relation to the maps, in relation to the celestial representations were an attempt to generate an effect of possessed knowledge over all space and time and in the case of the guardaroba, Cosimo I de Medici was to be seen as the possessor and purveyor of this knowledge, generating a narrative of his power. A digital reconstruction of the room, as it was designed and described by Giorgio Vasari can be found here.
Old Chancellery This was
Machiavelli's office when he was Secretary of the Republic. His polychrome bust in terracotta and his portrait are by
Santi di Tito. They are probably modelled on his death mask. In the center of the room, on the pedestal is the famous
Winged Boy with a Dolphin by Verrocchio, brought to this room from the First Courtyard. ==Mezzanine==