The Loggia dei Lanzi, also known as the Loggia della Signoria, is considered one of the most evocative open-air museums in Florence.
Born in the fourteenth century from the work of Simone Talenti, famous Florentine artist of that period, as a place to host indoor popular assemblies, only two centuries later, at the behest of Cosimo I de' Medici, it acquired artistic value and importance.
The name Loggia dei Lanzi according to accredited tradition seems to derive from the fact that at the beginning of the 16th century the famous mercenary corps of the Lansquenets stayed there, passing through the Tuscan capital before arriving in Rome, then sacked by the same in 1527.
One of the most famous works of the loggia is certainly "Perseus with the head of Medusa" by Benvenuto Cellini, a work as famous for its beauty as for the daring events of its fusion. If it was the artist himself who requested the placing of the bronze under the Loggia, a fact that recounts the importance of the place since 1545 when the artist began work, it was instead Duke Cosimo who chose the subject: Perseus, the victorious hero over the monster, was to represent the full affirmation of the Medici on the Republic.