Top of the World
To the right of the main door of Palazzo Vecchio, near Via della Ninna, is hidden the most famous of the secular traces that have survived to the present day. If you look carefully at the stones that form the masonry, you can see a sort of engraving: it is the profile of a human face. Legend has it that this portrait just sketched on the facade is the work of Michelangelo Buonarroti. There are two different versions on the genesis of the curious sketch, contradictory to each other but both recognized by popular tradition. The most famous tells of a man who used to annoy the great Buonarroti, pestering him with boring questions and requests that annoyed the master. One day the artist, equipped with a chisel, decided to portray the face of his annoyer on the facade of the Florentine palace. It is said that, even on this occasion, Michelangelo would have shown his extraordinary ability: legend has it that the artist, bored by the presence of the disturber, decided to carve the portrait with his hands behind his back, pretending to listen to his pedantic interlocutor. Although some believe it to be a self-portrait of the famous artist, the mysterious engraving has since gone down in history as "Michelangelo's Impediment". Another version reports instead that Michelangelo, seeing a man condemned to death about to be executed, was deeply impressed by the expression of the man and decided to immortalize his face on the facade. Because of the short time available, Buonarroti chose to sculpt it on the stone behind him.
