Guess the Artwork

Perseo con la testa di MedusaPerseus with the head of Medusa - 1545 bronze sculpture by Benvenuto Cellini is located in the Loggia dei Lanzi of the Piazza della Signoria in Florence.

The work was commissioned by the second Florentine duke, Duke Cosimo I de’ Medici, with specific political connections to the other sculptural works in the piazza, which included Michelangelo’s David, Bandinelli’s Hercules and Cacus, and Donatello’s Judith and Holofernes. Therefore, Cellini was competing against monumental works and wanted to make a statement for himself and his patron.

Bronze had not been used in almost half a century for a monumental work of art and Cellini made a conscious decision to use this difficult medium.The most difficult part of the work was completing the entire cast all at once. The Donatello’s Judith and Holofernes in the Loggia dei Lanzi in the westernmost arch, was made out of bronze, but Judith had been casted in several sections.

According to a legend, Cellini threw books, chairs and even tables from his own house into the furnace to raise the temperature enough to melt the bronze needed for the sculpture.

The subject matter of the work is the mythological story of Perseus beheading Medusa, a hideous woman-faced Gorgon whose hair was turned to snakes and anyone that looked at her was turned to stone.

The sculpture is thought to be the first statue since classical times to include a base with figurative sculptures forming an integral part of the work  with a small relief of the story of Perseus and Andromeda, similar to a predella on an altarpiece. 

When the piece was revealed to the public on 27 April 1554, the public received it well as Cosimo I watched the reception from a window in the Palazzo Vecchio.

The statue was removed from the piazza in 1996 for a long restoration project that lasted several years, but has since been returned to take its rightful place: just a stone’s throw away from where Michelangelo’s (original) David once stood. 

 
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