Salone dei Cinquecento, Renaissance hall in Palazzo Vecchio, Florence, Italy

The Salone dei Cinquecento is a hall on the first floor of Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, measuring 54 metres long, 23 wide and 18 high. Its flat coffered ceiling, raised by Giorgio Vasari between 1555 and 1572, is covered with painted panels and gilded carving. Marble-clad walls carry large painted panels, and at the far end a raised platform with dark wooden chairs faces an altar beneath three tall arched windows.

Built between July 1495 and February 1496 by Simone del Pollaiolo, called Il Cronaca, and Francesco di Domenico for Girolamo Savonarola, the hall originally had a lower ceiling reaching the stone cornices still visible today. In 1503 Pier Soderini commissioned battle frescoes from Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, but neither was completed. From 1555 to 1572 Giorgio Vasari raised the ceiling by seven metres and covered it with painted coffers glorifying Cosimo I. The hall served as the chamber of deputies when Florence was capital of Italy, 1865–1871.

The hall takes its name from the 500-member council that once gathered here to govern Florence's republic. Walking through today, you can sense how this space was designed to showcase power and civic pride through its monumental proportions and decoration.

The hall occupies the first floor of Palazzo Vecchio, reached by the staircase from the courtyard; it is included in the palace visit. The room is 54 metres long, 23 wide and 18 high, so allow time to walk its length and look up at the coffered ceiling. The 1865-1871 parliamentary seating arrangement survives in the rows of chairs on the raised platform.

Giorgio Vasari's fresco in the hall carries the words "Cerca trova" (seek and find) on a small flag. Some art historians read this as a hint that Vasari concealed Leonardo's Battle of Anghiari behind his own work rather than destroying it; endoscopic tests have detected pigments resembling those of the Mona Lisa.