Florence, the Renaissance city
Entrance to the Palazzo Vecchio (“Old Palace”) of Florence. An ornamental marble frontispiece, dating from 1528, displays the Monogram of Christ, surrounded by a glory and flanked by two gilded lions, above the Latin text “Rex Regum et Dominus Dominantium” (“King of Kings and Lord of Lords”). A copy of Michelangelo's David and the statue of Hercules killing the fire-belching monster Cacus by Baccio Bandinelli (1525-1534) stand at the entrance, symbols of respectively spiritual and physical power.
Photo by Ludo Kuipers, Sun Nov 13, 1994