Have you ever stood in the Hall of the Five Hundred and looked up? If this is the case, you would have witnessed the room’s magnificent ceiling. However, you might not have been aware that what is above the ceiling is even more fascinating.
In his novel Inferno, Dan Brown describes the wooden beams that support the ceiling of the Hall of the Five Hundred as whole tree trunks cut and arranged horizontally and spanning 22 metres from wall to wall.
Today, a lift reserved for employees and associates sits on the top floor behind a security door protecting one of the most incredible and delicate areas of the building. The door opens into a space dimly lighted, making the atmosphere even more mysterious.
There are bolts, nails, gigantic fir and oak beams, joints, walkways, and the smell of wood. This area, located between the roof of the Palazzo Vecchio and the ceiling of the Hall of the Five Hundred, is commonly referred to as la soffitta (the garret).
The soffitta of the Hall of the Five Hundred is quite impressive, as one can taste the smell of old wood and have the impression of being situated in an artificial forest of giant trees, while being above one of the world’s finest halls.
In the garret there are two types of roof timbers: large trusses of the traditional type, clearly delegated to support the roof, and those of unusual design, placed at a lower level than the first type, clearly supporting the ceiling they hold.
Giorgio Vasari was certainly the creator (with documented advice given by Michelangelo) of the general arrangement of the exhibition, covering large trusses of the traditional type, particularly the coffered ceiling, which he painted himself during its construction beginning in 1563.
The construction of a large room, advocated by Dominican Brother Girolamo Savonarola, who was to host meetings of the Great Council (the supreme organ of the city), began in 1495, by an act of July 15. The authorship of the first project for the garret of the hall is attributed by Vasari to Simone del Pollaiolo aka il Cronaca in his Lives.
Approximately seventy years later, under the direction of Vasari, as part of the most extensive renovation program of the Palazzo Vecchio started by Grand Duke Cosimo I de’ Medici, was the dismantling of the coverage by Cronaca, the raising of the walls of the great hall and the rebuilding further up of the cover and the coffered ceiling.
The works conducted by Vasari were extended to both the structural and decorative aspects.
We know the details of these works thanks to ancient documents: Bernardo, born from Antonio and Mona Mattea, bricklayer, and Baptista Botticelli, carpenter, were in charge of raise the walls of the hall, lift the trusses, walling them, shoe them, arm them, and step on it the roof. They also carefully disassembled the existing stage to be able to retrieve the timber, nails and other ironware, and to realize the stage with dry and seasoned wood, depending on the model and the drawing made by Giorgio Vasari.
The work was carried out in less than three years.
The structures are visible today above the Hall of the Five Hundred; however, they are not all by Vasari: important maintenance work to support the garret was undertaken in 1853.
The Florentines believe that a ghost roams in the soffitta: that of Baldaccio d’Anghiari.
He was first in the service of Florence, then tried to conquer Piombino to create an independent state.
Fearing his ascent, Cosimo I de’ Medici ordered that his murder be carried out in the Palazzo Vecchio, then had his bodythrown into the Piazza della Signoria (1441).