Word: signoria
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Piazza della Signoria -- one of the most beautiful squares in the world -- is, alas, in a state of upheaval. We know that you will be disappointed and would like to offer you all our apologies...
Piazza della Signoria is in a state of upheaval these days. The piazza that has been the center of Florentine life since before Medici times, the space chosen by Michelangelo for his exquisite statue David, has been ripped up and fenced in. The current David, a copy, stands forlornly in front of a partially scaffolded Palazzo Vecchio. Cosimo I, the young Medici ruler who sits mid- square atop his bronze horse, gazes down on an ugly, corrugated plastic roof covering a third of the square...
...frigidarium, or cold room, almost intact. And smack on top of that are the remnants of a tower dating from the 13th century era of the Ghibellines. With 86,000 sq. ft. of past at his feet, archaeologist Giuliano De Marinis, director of the dig, is exultant: "Piazza della Signoria is a unique occasion for reading the story of Florence. It's the first time that anyone has dug a Roman and medieval town in such a big area...
...Vanities during Carnival in Florence in 1497. Thousands of the Florentine children who were Savonarola's followers went through the city collecting what they deemed to be lewd books, as well as pictures, lutes, playing cards, mirrors and other vanities, and piled them in the great Piazza della Signoria of Florence. The pyramid of offending objects rose 60 feet high, and went up in flames. One year later Savonarola had a political quarrel with Pope Alexander VI, was excommunicated, tried and hanged. His body was burned at the stake. Savonarola went up in smoke...