Allegory of Fiesole

Giorgio Vasari's Allegory of Fiesole, in the Palazzo Vecchio, belongs to his comprehensive series of Tuscan civic allegories executed as part of the grand decorative programme for Cosimo I's seat of government in Florence. Fiesole, the ancient hilltop town above Florence, carried considerable historical and symbolic weight: it was associated with Etruscan and Roman foundations that predated Florence itself, and its elevated position made it a natural symbol of wisdom and antiquity in the context of Florentine humanist geography. Vasari personified such towns as female allegorical figures in the tradition of antique personifications of cities, each carrying attributes specific to their character and history. These allegories served as much as visual politics as art — mapping Medici territorial authority over Tuscany through the elegant, feminised bodies of personified subject towns.

The oil on canvas technique allows for the smooth, idealised figure treatment Vasari favoured in his allegorical personifications. The Fiesole allegory would share compositional conventions with the other civic allegories in the Palazzo Vecchio cycle — a standing or seated female figure, attributes referencing the town's history and geography, and a landscape or cityscape behind.