Premium Featured Accommodation

Medieval Florence - Giotto's Campanile and Orsanmichele

In the fourteenth century the most important structures were all related to developing and perfecting the great structural theme of the thirteenth-century city, along Via Calzaiuoli between Piazza del Duomo and Piazza della Signoria - Giotto's Campanile (1334-59), Loggia of the Bigallo (1352-58), Loggia of the Signoria (1374-81), the new Orsanmichele (1337-1404).

The bell tower of the Cathedral and Orsanmichele are the direct expression of the corporative organization of the new civic institutions.
In its entirety the decoration on the base of the bell tower, in the part most easily seen in detail, is based on the insertion of medallions with representations of the activities of man, while the Guilds vied with each other in decorating the loggia of Orsanmichele.

The Commune took its time about building the new Orsanmichele which replaced the one begun in 1307, on the site of the late thirteenth-century loggia which had burned down in 1304.
The work was entrusted to various architects including Francesco Talenti, Neri di Fioravante, Benci di Cione.
The loggia with its six-pointed vaults, set on twelve piers (ten along the perimeter and two in the middle) was erected between 1337 and 1357.
This served then as a base for the building which was an original version in more than one story of the typology of the thirteenth-century public palace.
The first story consists of a single pointed-vault hall with two central piers: the second story, without piers, was covered with timber trusses in 1386).
The crowning dates to 1404 and defined in height is practically equal to the bulk of Palazzo Vecchio.

Articles