Saturday 27 April 10 a.m. – A secret alchemical path ideally led by a ‘special’ man and woman, the heroic way to Heaven.

Palazzo Vecchio – Man, Woman and the Alchemical Path

When Cosimo I de’ Medici decided to leave the palace of Via Larga in 1540 to take up residence with Eleonora di Toledo in Palazzo Vecchio, he did so not only to transfer his political power to the ‘heart’ of the city, but to give the ancient Palazzo dei Priori a new symbolic-sapiential imprint, a solid sign of renewal that would remain visible to all.

Vasari, together with Borghini and the best artists of the time, had to put a great deal of effort into not altering the ‘foundations and material walls of this place’, but at the same time to operate that grandiose plan celebrating Cosimo, his government, and the love that bound him to Eleonora.

Vasari masterfully interpreted the Grand Duke’s thought, immortalising in those rooms an uninterrupted sequence of characters, myths, symbols and allegories that, like a subtle thread, united the ‘terrestrial gods’ with the ‘celestial gods’: a secret alchemic path ideally led by a ‘special’ man and woman who wanted to communicate, through symbol, the heroic way to reach Heaven.

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