Neptune Fountain
Piazza della Signoria's most impressive monument, and the square's centerpiece, is the Fonte di Piazza, created by Bartolomeo Ammanati to celebrate the wedding of Francesco de' Medici, son of Cosimo I, to Princess Johanna of Austria in 1565. Because the marriage signified the Medici's rise into the ranks of Europe's great ruling houses — Francesco was to receive the title of Grand Duke — the already begun fountain suddenly became a much larger project and had to be finished in a hurry. So Ammanati and his assistants worked feverishly to make this the largest fountain in Florence, with Neptune surrounded by four horses and three tritons. They may have been in too much of a hurry, since when it was finished in 1575, the Florentines were heard to jeer "Ammanato, che bel marmo hai rovinato" — what lovely marble you've ruined, Ammanato!