Near the
center of Florence it is rather easy to get lost in the significance of the
past, with each turning corner. On any other normal route I stroll down a
narrow road and imagine: Where am I 400 years ago? What am I doing? Where does
my fame lie, if I had any at all? The question stimulated the desire to
discover where the splendors of the past now lie. From my curiosity, the
discovery of the Bargello Museum occurred.
Settled
near the center, the Bargello is now wrapped with city on all four corners;
however, 400 years ago it resided on the outskirts of the town. The
construction began in 1255, and was built to house first the Capitano del Popolo
and later, in 1261, the 'podestà',
the highest magistrate of the Florence City Council. This Palazzo
del Podestà, as it was originally called, is the oldest public building in
Florence. This austere crenellated building served as model for the
construction of the Palazzo
Vecchio. In 1574, the Medici
dispensed with the function of the Podestà and housed the bargello,
the police chief of Florence, in this building, hence its name. It was employed as a prison, where it
saw a grim scene of executions on a daily basis in the yard until they were
abolished by Grand Duke Peter Leopold
in 1786, but it remained the headquarters of the Florentine police until 1859.
When Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor Peter Leopold was exiled, the makeshift
Governor of Tuscany decided that the Bargello should no longer be a jail, and
it then became a national museum. The Bargello opened as a national museum (Museo
Nazionale del Bargello) in 1865, displaying the largest Italian collection of gothic and Renaissance sculptures
(14–17th century). Knowing this brings the mind into wonderment as I sat in the
courtyard thinking about all the death and grit that consumed these walls that
are now adorned with fame.
Today, the museum
houses masterpieces that made Florence known for its richness hundreds of years
ago by Michelangelo,
such as his Bacchus, Pitti Tondo (or Madonna and Child), Brutus
and David-Apollo. Its collection
includes Donatello's
David
and St. George Tabernacle, Vincenzo Gemito's Pescatore
("fisherboy"), Jacopo
Sansovino's Bacchus, Giambologna's Architectureand
his Mercury and many works from the Della Robbia family. Benvenuto Cellini is
represented with his bronze bust of Cosimo I. There are a few works from the
Baroque period, notably Gianlorenzo Bernini's
1636-7 Bust of Costanza
Bonarelli. Within a couple of hours I barely scratched the surface
of all this fame. I couldn’t help be think, “What would these men think if they
were alive today, and saw their works trapped in this prison?” The Bargello
Museum holds not only the memories of the men who deserved death – or didn’t -
in the prison, but also it mesmerizingly ensnares the Renaissance’s splendor in
a prison of art. 
