Florence's Palazzo Vecchio, (begun in1299), is also known by several other names.... the Palazzo del Popolo, Palazzo del Priori and Palazzo Ducale,
the latter being the name given it when it was occupied by the Medici Duke Cosimo 1,
who later moved the residence across the Arno River to the Pitti Palace, (now a museum).
Thus the building in this image became known as the the Palazzo Vecchio, or old palace, the name it is called today.

Cosimo 1 had a private passageway built by Giiorgio Vasari, leading from his offices in the Uffizi,
across the Arno River on an upper level over the Ponte Vecchio, to the residence in the Pitti Palace.
The Palazzo Vecchio is worth a visit to see the large council rooms, map room with its enormous globe,
and residential rooms once occupied by Cosimo 1 and his wife Eleanor of Toledo,

The Palazzo also once housed the famous Dominican preacher Savanarola in a cell in the tower,
after he was arrested for political reasons, and later hanged and his body burned at the stake.
A marker in the Piazza Signoria commemorates the place of his death in 1498.