On 13 December 1569, in the Great Hall of Palazzo Vecchio, the official reading took place of the papal bull in which Pope Pius V decreed the appointment of Cosimo I de’ Medici as Grand Duke of Tuscany. Exactly 450 years later, on Friday, 13 December 2019, the special project “In Cosimo’s Palace. The Symbols of Power” opens at the Museo di Palazzo Vecchio: an initiative that brings together different forms of expression to highlight the very close relationship that Cosimo I de’ Medici had with Palazzo Vecchio, “his” ducal palace.

The initiative, curated by the Municipality of Florence and MUS.E, in collaboration with Paolo Penko and the Fondazione Arte della Seta Lisio, is part of the celebrations for the 500th anniversary of the birth of Cosimo I and Caterina de’ Medici, promoted by an organizing committee made up of more than twenty local cultural institutions and coordinated by the Municipality of Florence.

Cosimo’s Palace. The Symbols of Power, which will run until 31 August 2020, will ideally retrace, room by room, the customs, meanings, and roles of life in the Medici court palace, through a series of totems that tell the story and daily life of Cosimo I within the palace.

Appointed Duke of Florence in 1537, Cosimo I established his residence in the city government palace and moved there with his entire court in May 1540. He was responsible for important renovation and expansion works on the building, coordinated from 1555 onwards by the court architect Giorgio Vasari and carried out through a well-organized Medici building workshop.

While the Great Hall was the heart of this imposing political architecture, the setting for major events and the ideal stage for receiving distinguished guests, the rooms that today form the museum itinerary effectively combined, in the second half of the sixteenth century, propagandistic aims and practical needs: the ducal apartments were accompanied by guest quarters, while the public reception rooms were complemented by the Medici wardrobe rooms.

The Collar of the Order of the Golden Fleece, awarded to Cosimo by Charles V in 1546, was created based on its depiction in the portrait of the Duke from the Castello Odescalchi collection in Bracciano (1551). It consists of 25 intertwined firesteels, alternating with elements representing flint stones surrounded by flames; the pendant reproduces the Golden Fleece, linked to the legend of the Argonauts and the quest for the Golden Fleece.

The Grand Ducal Sceptre was made in accordance with the large slate painting by Jacopo Ligozzi (around 1590), depicting the very coronation of Cosimo as Grand Duke, which took place in Rome in March 1570, as well as with portraits of Cosimo as Grand Duke, including the paintings by Giovan Battista Naldini (Uffizi Galleries, 1585) and Ludovico Cardi, known as Cigoli (Palazzo Medici Riccardi, 1603).

The Grand Ducal Crown, a precious example of goldsmithing art, reproduces instead the design found in the Papal Bull of Pius V dated 24 August 1569, preserved in the State Archives of Florence. It features 19 points, alternating between silver and gold, embellished with gemstones and decorative elements; at the centre is the Florentine lily, enamelled in red with golden highlights.

Beneath it are an astragal with pearls and a frieze of dentils decorated with pearls and enamelled oval elements, while the central band bears the following inscription, chased and engraved with a burin:

Pius V. Pont. Max. ob eximiam dilectionem ac catholicae religionis zelum praecipuumque iustitiae studium donavit
(Pius V, Supreme Pontiff, donated it for exceptional devotion, for his zeal towards the Catholic religion, and for his very special love of justice.)

At the centre of the band stands out a sardonyx chalcedony cameo, on which the personification of the Arno River is carved. Below it is a moulding decorated with emeralds and iolites set in mounts, separated by pearls. An example of artistic craftsmanship that this initiative aims to enhance in all its expertise, in complete continuity with the outstanding artisans who surrounded Cosimo I in the mid-sixteenth century, when painters, sculptors, carvers, stucco artists, goldsmiths, and weavers worked together, each through their own artistic language, to celebrate his figure through the wonder that art is able to create.