A BRONZE FIGURE OF MERCURY

Giambologna’s bronze figure of Mercury is perhaps his most recognisable creation. The idea appears to have originated in the early 1560s as a commission from Pier Donato Cesi, the Bishop of Narni, for a bronze figure of Mercury intended to adorn a column in the centre of a courtyard of the University of Bologna. The bronze was never erected at the university, and may have been redirected as a diplomatic gift from the Medici to the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian II, whose sister Joanna was to marry Francesco de’ Medici. The present model more closely follows a slight re-working of the theme which was executed by Giambologna and erected at the Villa Medici by 1580. That bronze is housed today in the Bargello, Florence.