Allegory of Architecture

This is a marble sculpture originally created the statue for the Boboli Gardens depicting a seated naked female Edoardo Piccoli has explained that the final decision to make architecture a woman “with a compass, square ruler, and plumb line apparently stemmed from a debate on drawing arts sparked in Florence in Vasari’s time. One memorable date that has at least a symbolic importance is 1565 when Giovanni Bandini was entrusted with sculpting a personification of Architecture mourning on Michelangelo’s grave. Although it was a point of arrival and not an innovation, that was definitely an authoritative reference for other works, such as Giambologna’s refined statue – a truly divine nude, dressed only with the profession’s attributes – and its models, precious ‘copies’ destined to travel across Europe from one court to the next.”