Palazzo del Bargello, Florence

Palazzo del Bargello is a museum housed in a former civic headquarters that later served as a prison. The building was largely created during the 13th century, and it has contained the Museo Nazionale del Bargello since 1865. [The Bargello is a national museum devoted above all to Italian Renaissance sculpture, with an exceptionally rich body of Florentine work.]

Its rooms bring together masterpieces by Donatello, Michelangelo, Ghiberti, Cellini, and Giambologna, alongside ceramics, textiles, ivory, medals, armour, coins, and other decorative arts. [The museum’s medieval chapel contains damaged frescoes by Giotto, including a full-length image of Dante.] The building itself is arranged around an open courtyard, with arcades, a well, and an external stairway added during the medieval period.

[The palace began in 1255, and its courtyard dates from 1280-1285.] The architect is Lapo Tedesco. [The Bargello served as Florence’s police headquarters until 1859, and executions took place in the courtyard until 1786.] That history gives the courtyard an unusual double identity: a setting now filled with sculpture, yet once tied to punishment and public authority.