A small audience sitting on benches on a tribune next to the equestrian statue of Cosimo I de’ Medici in Piazza della Signoria, watching a military parade of the guards of the Grand Duke Pietro Leopoldo of Lorena (1765-1790), son of the Empress Maria Theresa of Habsburg and brother of Joseph II. The soldiers, forming an L-shaped cordon and led by four battalion officers, are recognizable by their tricorns and the bayonets. At the center of the square, under the grand building of Palazzo Vecchio, stands a troop of drummers. Figures in the the foreground include a group of cavalrymen bearing a banner and followed by a cart on the right; a lady and gentleman waiting for a landau carriage at center; and a figure, maybe a soldier on look-out, watching the scene in Palazzo Uguccioni’s shadow on the left.
- Creator: Patch, Thomas, 1725-1782, artist.
- Title: [View of Piazza della Signoria in Florence with the Grand Duke’s military guard] [art original].
- Production: [Florence], [not after 1782]
Drawings P294 no. 1 Box D205
Acquired September 2022
