The story
Palazzo Vecchio has been the town hall of Florence for more than 700 years, its blunt tower rising over the Piazza della Signoria, where the city governed itself and where the reforming friar Savonarola was hanged and burned in 1498. It is still the seat of the city council today.
Its vast Salone dei Cinquecento, the hall of the five hundred, was decorated by Giorgio Vasari for the Medici dukes with wall-length battle scenes. Beneath them, some believe, may survive the remains of an unfinished battle mural by Leonardo da Vinci, painted over long ago. In the middle of the room stands Michelangelo's marble Genius of Victory, a young man twisting over a crouched captive.
Tucked in a small study nearby is Verrocchio's bronze putto clutching a dolphin, brought indoors for safety, with a copy now spouting water in the courtyard fountain below.
