Note 111 — PALAZZO VECCHIO
Reading edition
Signor Iodico Del Badia, in a note to his edition of Luca Landucci’s Diary, writes: “Out of devotion it was the custom for illustrious Florentines and also strangers of rank, such as popes, cardinals, princes, condottieri, etc., to put their own portrait made in wax of the size of life in this church. These were placed on shelves constructed on purpose. But in 1448 these were full, so the waxen images were hung by ropes from the ceiling. If by chance one of them fell down it was looked upon as an evil augury for the person or for his family. When political passions ran high the dominant party removed the portraits of their antagonists.”
Varchi also mentions that in 1527 certain youths “entered one morning very early into the church of the Annunziata, and cast down the waxen images of Pope Leo and Pope Clement; and after inflicting many wounds upon them, they carried them off; which deed was severely, and to my thinking justly, blamed by good and prudent men.”