- Features highly detailed photography specially taken for this
publication Palazzo Vecchio, which towers over piazza della Signoria, at
the center of Florence, is an iconic building and from the Middle Ages
to the Medici family to present day it has been the seat of civic power.
Among its most admired features are the marvelous grotesque decorations
which animate the walls and vaults of the courtyard and several rooms.
Grotesques are a type of wall decoration, in stucco or fresco, often
with the addition of gold, that developed in the Renaissance when the
vaults of the Domus Aurea in Rome, which were underground (considered
grottos hence the name), were rediscovered by artists who drew
inspiration from those designs. Palazzo Vecchio's grotesques are lively,
extravagant ornaments, generated by the creativity of artists - among
whom Ridolfo del Ghirlandaio (1483-1561) and Marco Marchetti da Faenza
(ca. 1526-1588) stand out - and they include, birds, flowers, vegetation
and many strange creatures that have a mixture of human and animal
traits.
