Remarks
The ground floor is devoted to Michelangelo and the 16C. There is a Drunken Bacchus by the master as a young man which still bears the traces of classical influence (1497-9), a Madonna and Child with St John (1504-6), which is a transposition into marble of da Vinci's sfumato sketched-relief style, a later unfinished bust of Brutus (1540), and a David-Apollo (1530) already showing the artist's predilection in his more mature days for the adolescent flexibility of the body. In the same room, his sculpture forms a sharp contrast to works by Benvenuto Cellini (the marble Narcissus and the Perseus Delivering Andromeda) with a more supple, less sculptured pose.
The first floor exhibition starts with works by Donatello and his pupils Agostino di Duccio and Setignano (the sculptor of various versions of John the Baptist): a bronze Cupid , two statues of David (an early work in marble dating from 1412, a contemporary of the Gothic St George, and another bronze masterpiece from his more mature period(1440)), the Florentine Marzocco and a gilded bronze Nailing to the Cross, sculpted at the end of his life. On the same floor are ivories and majolicas.
The armoury with arms, shields, decorated rifles and pistols and carved saddles is on the second floor with the Della Robbia Rooms, housing a collection of glazed terracotta objects, a technique perfected by the family. On the same floor is the Verrochio Room with another bronze version of David (1476) which is similar to Donatello's statue but more delicate.