Anyone who knows the history of the Palazzo Vecchio face?

There are the poor in Florence, secrets and legends often linked to famous men. Some so as to be hidden in sight, other half-hidden. One of the half-hidden is a face sculpted on the stone, not on any one stone, but on one of the stones of the Palazzo Vecchio. The Florentines call this face “the inappropriate” and is a name linked to the legend that surrounds it, at least one of the four legends that are told.

To find it in front of the main door of the Palazzo Vecchio, looking to his right, just behind the marble statue of Hercules and Caco of Baccio Bandinelli, you can admire the bas-relief of a human face right on a stone of the historic building.

Perhaps it is an act of vandalism, not actual vandalism did spray and colors, but a Michelangelo vandalism. The legend, indeed all four legends tell that it is a work of Michelangelo Buonarroti.

The first version has it that Michelangelo often passing from Piazza della Signoria often met his debtor, a person every time you stop to explain why he could not make the money had to borrow. Its financial woes and beyond. A weariness that was repeated each time by subtracting the time and patience to the artist. One day Michelangelo was new back in check by inopportune-talking and having a capacity of chisels hand, with his hands behind his back, he began to carve the stone behind him indelibly etching the face of this inconvenient ladies, from here the name the “inappropriate.”

Another version has it that the relief is a debtor of Michelangelo at that moment the stocks in the Piazza della Signoria just because of the debts he had contracted with many people. Michelangelo approached the guards asked how long the tome would have to endure the harassment of the people standing in the pillory. Evidently the answer contemplated a time not enough for the Buonarroti who answered peremptorily: “For too long poo. Abbisogna that the Florentines should remember longer than this man,” and he carved his face on the cold stone so that the Florentines remembered forever by never lend him money.

Another version has it that it was still a bet to determine the realization of Michelangelo’s face. It seems that Buonarroti was challenged to create a self-portrait without looking in a mirror and with his hands behind his back. The result that today it got to us I think he did win the bet to the great artist.

The latest version has it that the artist passing through Piazza Signoria upon execution of a death sentence. Struck by the expression of the offender and in the absence of sheets and pens to be able to splash and obviously could not stop the judgment, with a small chisel engraved in a hurry the portrait of the poor man on the only surface available at the time, the stone of the old palace .

I leave it to you to choose the version that you like the most. Do you want to read other stories of Michelangelo? read: David symbol of male beauty and amusing anecdotes

Jacopo Cioni