The Piazza della Signoria has such riches that one is in danger of neglecting some.  The Palazzo Vecchio, for example, so overpowers the Loggia de’ Lanzi in size as to draw the eye from that perfect structure.  One should not allow this to happen; one should let the Palazzo Vecchio’s solid nobility wait awhile and concentrate on the beauty of Orcagna’s three arches.  Coming so freshly from his tabernacle in Or San Michele we are again reminded of the versatility of the early artists.

This structure, originally called the Loggia de’ Priori or Loggia d’Orcagna, was built in the fourteenth century as an open place for the delivery of proclamations and for other ceremonies, and also as a shelter from the rain, the last being a purpose it still serves.  It was here that Savonarola’s ordeal by fire would have had place had it not been frustrated.  Vasari also gives Orcagna the four symbolical figures in the recesses in the spandrels of the arches.  The Loggia, which took its new name from the Swiss lancers, or lanzi, that Cosimo I kept there—­he being a fearful ruler and never comfortable without a bodyguard—­is now a recognized place of siesta; and hither many people carry their poste-restante correspondence from the neighbouring post office in the Uffizi to read in comfort.  A barometer and thermometer are almost the only novelties that a visitor from the sixteenth century would notice.

The statuary is both old and new; for here are genuine antiques once in Ferdinand I’s Villa Medici at Rome, and such modern masterpieces as Donatello’s Judith and Holofernes, Cellini’s Perseus, and Gian Bologna’s two muscular and restless groups.  The best of the antiques is the Woman Mourning, the fourth from the end on the left, which is a superb creation.

Donatello’s Judith, which gives me less pleasure than any of his work, both in the statue and in the relief, was commissioned for Cosimo de’ Medici, who placed it in the courtyard or garden of the Medici palace—­Judith, like David, by her brave action against a tyrant, being a champion of the Florentine republic.  In 1495, after Cosimo’s worthless grandson Piero de’ Medici had been expelled from Florence and the Medici palace sacked, the statue was moved to the front of the Palazzo Vecchio, where the David now is, and an inscription placed on it describing it as a warning to all enemies of liberty.  This position being needed for Michelangelo’s David, in 1506, Judith was moved to the Loggia to the place where the Sabine group now is.  In 1560 it took up its present position.

Cellini’s Perseus will not quite do, I think, after Donatello and Verrocchio; but few bronzes are more famous, and certainly of none has so vivacious and exciting a story been written as Cellini’s own, setting forth his disappointments, mortifications, and pride in connexion with this statue.  Cellini, whatever one may think of his veracity, is a diverting and valuable writer, and the picture of Cosimo I which