a loggia borne by four pillars, from which spring the great arches of the canopy that supports the spire; and whereas the battlements of the palazzo are square and Guelph, those of the tower are Ghibelline in the shape of the tail of the swallow.  Set, not in the centre of the square, nor made to close it, but on one side, it was thus placed, it is said, in order to avoid the burned houses of the Uberti, who had been expelled the city.  However this may be, and its position is so fortunate that it is not likely to be due to any such chance, Arnolfo di Cambio began it in February 1299, taking as his model, so some have thought, the Rocca of the Conti Guidi of the Casentino, which Lapo his father had built.  Under the arches of the fourth storey are painted the coats of the city and its gonfaloni.  And there you may see the most ancient device of Florence, the lily argent on a field gules; the united coats gules and argent of Florence and Fiesole in 1010; the coat of Guelph Florence, a lily gules on a field argent; and, among the rest, the coat of Charles of Anjou, the lilies or on a field azure.

[Illustration:  LOGGIA DE’ LANZI]

On the platform or ringhiera before the great door, the priori watched the greater festas, and made their proclamations, before the Loggia de’ Lanzi was built in 1387; and here in 1532 the last Signoria of the Republic proclaimed Alessandro de’ Medici first Duke of Florence, in front of the Judith and Holofernes of Donatello, whose warning went unheeded.  And indeed, that group, part of the plunder that the people found in Palazzo Riccardi, in the time of Piero de’ Medici, who sought to make himself tyrant, once stood beside the great gate of Palazzo Vecchio, whence it was removed at the command of Alessandro, who placed there instead Bandinelli’s feeble Hercules and Cacus.  Opposite to it Michelangelo’s David once stood, till it was removed in our own time to the Accademia, where it looks like a cast.

Over the great door where of old was set the monogram of Christ, you may read still REX REGUM ET DOMINUS DOMINANTIUM, and within the gate is a court most splendid and lovely, built after the design of Arnolfo, and once supported by his pillars of stone, but now the columns of Michelozzo, made in 1450, and covered with stucco decoration in the sixteenth century, form the cortile in which, over the fountain of Vasari, Verrocchio’s lovely Boy Playing with the Dolphin ever half turns in his play.  Altogether lovely in its naturalism, its humorous grace, Verrocchio made it for Lorenzo Magnifico, who placed it in his gardens at Careggi, whence it was brought here by Cosimo I.