Palazzo del Bargello - Florence, Toscana
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N 43° 46.210 E 011° 15.470
32T E 681719 N 4848823
The Bargello, also known as the Bargello Palace, Museo Nazionale del Bargello, or Palazzo del Popolo (Palace of the People) is a former barracks and prison, now an art museum, in Florence, Italy.
Waymark Code: WM14FBW
Location: Toscana, Italy
Date Posted: 06/28/2021
Views: 3
"The Bargello Palace, a beautiful example of Gothic Florentine architecture, is one of the city's oldest public buildings. It was built for the People's Captain, a kind of Prefect foreseen in the constitution of the free City of Florence developed around the middle of the 13th century.
Built about fifty years before Palazzo Vecchio, its story is strictly linked to Florence's political happenings. With the fall of the republican institutions and the return of the Medici in the second half of the 15th century (who transferred political functions and representatives to Palazzo Vecchio), the Bargello Palace first became the seat of the Council of Justice of the Wheel Judges and, as of 1574, during the princedom of Cosimo I de' Medici, was transformed into a squalid jail with torture chambers and capital executions."
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"Construction began in 1255. The palace was built to house first the Capitano del Popolo and later, in 1261, the 'podestà', the highest magistrate of the Florence City Council. This Palazzo del Podestà, as it was originally called, is the oldest public building in Florence. This austere crenellated building served as model for the construction of the Palazzo Vecchio. In 1574, the Medici dispensed with the function of the Podestà and housed the bargello, the police chief of Florence, in this building, hence its name. It was employed as a prison; executions took place in the Bargello's yard until they were abolished by Grand Duke Peter Leopold in 1786, but it remained the headquarters of the Florentine police until 1859. When Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor Peter Leopold was exiled, the makeshift Governor of Tuscany decided that the Bargello should no longer be a jail, and it then became a national museum.
The original two-story structure was built alongside the Volognana Tower in 1256. The third story, which can be identified by the smaller blocks used to construct it, was added after the fire of 1323. The building is designed around an open courtyard with an external staircase leading to the second floor. An open well is found in the center of the courtyard.
The Bargello opened as a national museum (Museo Nazionale del Bargello) in 1865, displaying the largest Italian collection of gothic and Renaissance sculptures (14–17th century)."
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