The Marzocco is the heraldic lion that is a symbol of Florence, and was apparently the first piece of public secular sculpture commissioned by the Republic of Florence, in the late 14th century. The lion stood at the heart of the city in the Piazza della Signoria at the end of the platform attached to the Palazzo Vecchio called the ringhiera, from which speakers traditionally harangued the crowd. This is now lost, having weathered with time to an unrecognizable mass of stone.
The best known rendition is by Donatello, made in 1418–20. Donatello’s Marzocco was placed in the Piazza della Signoria in 1812, but in 1885 it was moved to the Bargello, having been replaced by the copy we see to this day.
The first Marzocco
The original that had stood since (perhaps) 1377, and is now lost, appears to have been similar to Donatello's in design, though it was fully
gilding and may have crouched over a submissive wolf representing Florence's great rival
Siena.
[ Victoria and Albert Museum, page on their replica of the Donatello] It can be seen in the background of several paintings and prints, though by the time it was replaced it was so worn that (being only medieval, not classical) it was not considered worth keeping, and disappeared. About 1460 it was given a richly sculptural socle with double
baluster-like motifs
["Resembling pairs of handleless all'antica urns arranged like the bulbs of a Roman candelabrum", according to Paul Davies and David Hemsoll, "Renaissance Balusters and the Antique" Architectural History 26 (1983:1–122) p. 4.] at the corners. The
ringhiera, once a platform from which the
Signoria addressed the people, then a focus for popular tumult, was removed at the same time as the statue was replaced by Donatello's on a pedestal in 1812.
Name
The obscure name
Marzocco, unfathomable to some scholars, would by others derive from
Marte (Mars), whose Roman statue, known as the "Roman God of War", noted by Dante
[Dante, Inferno XIII.146f, Purgatorio XXXI.58f.] and carried away by a flood of the
Arno in 1333, had previously been Florence’s emblem.
[Lo Zingarelli 2008: Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Zanichelli (2007).] The lion is seated and with one paw supports the coat-of-arms of Florence, the fleur de lys called
il giaggiolo, the iris.
Marzocco was` invoked in the Florentine
battle cry and figures in Gentile Aretino's poem "Alla battaglia":
"Saint George,[The war cry of the Republic of Genoa, which had Saint George as its patron.] Marzoccho Marzoccho
suona percuoti, forbocta rintoccho
Palle palle,[The palle or balls of the Medici coat-of-arms.] Marzoccho Marzoccho
legagli strecti e pon lor buona taglia!"["Sound the trumpets! beat the drums! ...Bind them fast and hold them to a good ransom:" discussed and printed by Timothy J. McGee, "'Alla Battaglia': Music and Ceremony in Fifteenth-Century Florence" Journal of the American Musicological Society 36.2 (Summer 1983:287–302).]
Symbol
The
Marzocco was such a powerful symbol of the Florentine Republic that the republican Florentine troops in the Siege of Florence (1529–1530) were known as
marzoccheschi, "sons of the Marzocco",
[Noted in Ulysse Robert, Philibert de Chalon, prince d'Orange, vice-roi de Naples (Paris: Plon-Nourrit) 1902:374; Benedetto Varchi, Storia fiorentina xlv remarks upon a severe skirmish with them, "una piuttosto battaglia che scaramuccia co'Marzoccheschi".] and pro-Medici besiegers of the city in 1530 held a funeral and ritually buried a representation of it, with bells tolling.
[Richard C. Trexler, Public Life in Renaissance Florence (Academic Press) 1980, p. 4 note 9, drawing upon Benedetto Varchi xi.] Prisoners of war from
Pisa were forced to kiss it in 1364.
["A still earlier Marzocco stood on this site, which the Pisan captives were forced ignominiously to kiss in 1364. The origin of the name Marzocco is unknown." Augustus Hare, Florence ( on-line text).]
At
Anghiari, subject to Florence from 1385, the 15th-century Palazzo del Marzocco faces the church; at
Montepulciano stands the
Marzocco column; at
Volterra the
Marzocco stands against the Palazzo dei Priori, seat of government; at
Livorno the 15th-century
Torre del Marzocco (
illustration, right) guards the harbor entrance; and at
Pietrasanta there are a 16th-century
Marzocco fountain and the
Marzocco column, erected in 1513 when Pope Leo X awarded the commune to Florence.
In the subjected territory of Pisa, when Charles VIII of France entered Sarzana in 1494, the Pisans took the
Marzocco, emblem of their subjugation to Florence, and cast it into the Arno.
[ Encyclopædia Britannica 1911, s.v. "Pisa"] Live lions were kept at the commune's expense from the Middle Ages until they were banished in 1771.
At times the Marzocco would be crowned according to a motto by the writer of Novella Franco Sacchetti:
"Corona porto, per la patria degna,
Acciochè libertà ciascun mantegna."["I wear a crown worthy of my country, in order that everyone might maintain liberty", according to the translation in Susan and Joanne Horner, Walks in Florence: Churches, Streets and Palaces London, Henry S. King & Co., 1877 ( on-line text).]
Donatello's
Donatello's
Marzocco was commissioned by the Republic of Florence for the apartment of Pope Martin V at Santa Maria Novella, where this traditional
insegna of communal republican defense
[Deliberations on the placement of the comparably symbolic Michelangelo's David included suggestions that it displace the Marzocco, to be shifted to the doorway of Palazzo della Signoria: see Saul Levine, "The Location of Michelangelo's David: The Meeting of January 25, 1504" The Art Bulletin 56.1 (March 1974:31–49) especially p. 42.] stood guard atop a column at the foot of the stairs that led to the
sale del papa ("Papal apartments") in the convent.
[ Donatello's original Marzocco at Hungarian Webgalleryofart.com] It is sculpted in the fine-grained gray sandstone of Tuscany called
pietra serena. The Pope lingered at Florence after leaving the Council of Constance during the
Western Schism. This staircase was demolished, perhaps by 1515.
[V&A]
The Donatello Marzocco was moved to the Piazza della Signoria in 1812,[Touring Club Italiano, Firenze e dintorni (Milan) 1964 pp. 116, 170.]
After 1812
A crowned
Marzocco, emphasizing the sovereign independence of
Tuscany, appears on Tuscany's first issue of postage stamps, 1851.
Il Marzocco was adopted for the name of a progressive weekly literary review in broadsheet format published in Florence in 1896–1932.
See also
Notes
Sources
-
Johnson, Geraldine A Renaissance Art: A Very Short Introduction, 2005, OUP Oxford, , 9780192803542, google books
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McHam, Sarah Blake, Looking at Italian Renaissance Sculpture, chapter "Public Sculpture in Renaissance Florence" (Cambridge University Press, 1998; paperback edition, 2000)
