ABSTRACT
In 1540, the year following Duke Cosimo de' Medici's marriage to the daughter of the Spanish Viceroy of Naples, Eleonora di Toledo, the Palazzo della Signoria became the ducal residence. Four years later, in the summer of 1554, the duke began to discuss an important project with the painter and writer Giorgio Vasari, who in 1550 had dedicated to Cosimo his first edition of the Lives and who had been trying since then to gain ducal patronage. The following year, Vasari, with a number of assistants, began to decorate two suites of rooms with narratives, imprese, and coats of arms of the Medici family.1 This commission was undertaken during a very delicate period for the duke. The war against Siena had just finished with a victory, but Cosimo had not yet received full recognition from the emperor for his determinant contribution to the undertaking. Furthermore, his position had been made more difficult by the election of the francophile Gian Pietro Carafa as Pope Paul IV (23 May 1555).2
