English: Two sketch models for Florence trimphant over Pisa

1565
Giovanni Bologna, known as Giambologna (1529-1608)
Italy, Florence
Wax

This wax model is the earliest recorded stage in a series of surviving models for Giambologna's colossal marble group, Florence triumphant over Pisa, now in the Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence. It represents the city of Florence, personified as a powerful but elegant female, triumphing over the crushed figure of Pisa, the nearby rival city then under Florentine rule, and clearly precedes the terracota model dated to 1565, also held in the V&A (A.24-1979). The group was originally commissioned in 1565 as a pendant to Michelangelo�s Victory, and was intended to be displayed with it in the Salone del Cinquecento of the Palazzo Vecchio at the festivities of Francesco�s marriage to Joanna of Austria in December that year. However, there was insufficient time even for the marble block to be chosen and transported from the quarry and instead the full-sized plaster model (currently in the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence) was substituted for the final work, which was not completed until 1570.