Fontana di Sala Grande

Fontana di Sala Grande (1555-1563) In 1555 Ammannati was called to the court of the Duke of Tuscany, Cosimo I de‘ Medici, and so returned to Florence, where, with the support of Vasari and Michelangelo, he rose to become one of the artists most in demand at the Medicean court. Soon after his return, he was involved in one of the most important architectural projects of the Tuscan Duke – the transformation of the medieval Palazzo Vecchio into a sumptuous courtly residence. Cosimo I commissioned from him a monumental fountain that was supposed to be erected against the south wall of the huge Salone del Cinquecento, as well as the remodelling of the wall surfaces that formed part of it. As Giorgio Vasari reports in his “Lives of the Artists”, Ammannati prepared an ambitious design for this fountain, comprising many statues in marble and bronze. But the erection of the coffered ceiling of the Salone, on which Michelangelo had acted as adviser in 1560, led to the abandonment of the project, since the proportions of the planned fountain could no longer be harmonized with those of the Salone itself. Yet the sculptures for it had already been completed: Juno, who was intended to sit on a high arch and to be flanked by two peacocks; the nymph Castalia and a personification of the Arno as a bearded naked man, who were intended to be placed at either side at the foot of the arch; and a statue of Ceres, who was to be placed within the arch and form the centrepiece of the fountain together with Juno. Fiorenza and Prudentia were presumably intended to flank the ensemble. Some of the figures were later re-used by Ammannati for his fountain for the Palazzo Pitti, above the courtyard, in 1588/89. Later they were installed in the Boboli Gardens and in the Casino di San Marco, until eventually they were removed for conservational reasons and transferred to the Bargello.