Column of Justice, Florence

Column of Justice (Colonna della Giustizia or di Santa Trinita or della Battaglia di Montemurlo) is an ancient Roman marble Doric column re-erected by the Florentine Medici dynasty in the Renaissance as a free-standing victory monument with a porphyry statue of Justice at the top.

The move from the river bank a few miles upriver from Pisa to Florence took nearly a year, arriving in 1563, and was supervised by Bartolommeo Ammannati.

This was replaced in 1580 by a purple porphyry statue of Justice designed by Ammannati, made from three fragments of ancient Roman sculpture in porfido rosso antico and clamped together with bronze.

Since porphyry is one of the hardest stones to carve, it took the artisan Francesco del Tadda (Ferrucci) and his son Romolo nearly 11 years to complete the statue.

In 1569, Pope Pius V had granted Cosimo the title of Grand Duke of Tuscany and the dedication was made to Justice with the present inscription.