Perseus slays the dragon

Description

Read as a Pallas or Minerva by Vascellini and Soldini (1789), Danti's group was identified by Keutner (19 58) and Summers with the "seated figure" recalled by Vasari for the outer headboard of the second floor of the Uffizi: "He has then made to adorn the factory of the Magistrates of the Mint, in the headboard above the loggia that is" on the river of Arno, an arm of the Duke put in the middle by two naked figures, greater than the living, the one made for equity" and another for rigor: and from hour to hour he waits for the marble to make the statue of it signore Duca, greater much than the living, of which he has made a model; which is to be placed to sit above the said arm for the completion of that work." The Perugian sculptor probably left the work interrupted in 1573, when he left* Florence, giacche" in Niccolo' Gaddi's letter to Cavalier Serguidi in dat a November 23, 1577, it is recorded that at Pratolino Giambologna was having his workshop complete "the figure to sit that Vincentio Perugino made which is" a bonissimo termine" (Gaye). When Cosimo I died in 1574, the Uffizi statue was in fact replaced by one of Giambologna's standing figure, while the work in question was brought to Pratolino and tra sformed into Perseus with the addition of the dragon. Summers noted there rough-hewn traces of a human figure, placed at the foot of a Perseus. Danti's stylisitic characters are very well recognized. At Pratolino the group, transferred to Boboli only in 1773, was placed on a paved terrace enclosed by a balustrade, by then intended as a fountain, with the conduit still emerging from the dragon's jaws: the De' Vieri (1586), interpreted" the whole as the victory of the soul over the serpent of passions