Payne's Grey · 2026

“Palazzo Vecchio a Firenze”

The fortress town hall of Florence — the crenellated mass and the soaring Arnolfo tower, drawn in ink and washed in Payne's grey.

Details

TitlePalazzo Vecchio a Firenze

PlaceFlorence, Italy

Year2026

CategoryPayne's Grey

Dimensions14.8 × 21 cm (A5)

TechniqueInk and Payne's grey watercolour on Clairefontaine paper

Palette of the work

Request information

This piece is part of my collection. Originals will soon be available to buy online — write to me in the meantime.

The subject

Palazzo Vecchio

The fortress-like town hall of Florence, with its tall off-centre tower, has watched over the Piazza della Signoria for seven centuries. This is the grey, graphic version of it — all mass and shadow.

Built from around 1299, probably to a design by Arnolfo di Cambio, the Palazzo Vecchio has been the seat of the city’s government ever since. Its battlemented block and the slender Torre di Arnolfo — nearly ninety-four metres — are, with the Duomo, the signature of the Florentine skyline.

I drew it from the square, looking up, the tower leaning out of the very top of the sheet.

Grey gives it back its original character: not a palace but a stronghold.

City: Florence
Built from: 1299
Tower: Torre di Arnolfo, ~94 m
Square: Piazza della Signoria
Role: the town hall

The Palazzo Vecchio and its tower from the Piazza della Signoria — The Palazzo Vecchio — Florence’s fortress-like town hall and the Torre di Arnolfo.Photo: Txllxt TxllxT — CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The tower of the Palazzo Vecchio floodlit at dusk — The Torre di Arnolfo against the evening — nearly ninety-four metres of stone.Photo: Petar Milošević — CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Before it was a museum it was a fortress — in grey, the stone remembers that.

Ink for the battlements, the windows and the shaft of the tower; a deep grey wash for the rusticated stone and the shadow it casts over the piazza.

There is a full-colour version of the same building in my Tuscan sketchbook; this is its severe twin.

See also · Payne’s Grey Cupola del Brunelleschi a Firenze · Palazzo Vecchio, Firenze · Porta a Montepulciano