"Corsa dei Cocchi Obelisks" - Italian Marble

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Corsa dei Cocchi Obelisks

The Obelisks of the Corsa dei Cocchi are a pair of striking 16th- and early 17th-century marble monuments standing at opposite ends of Piazza Santa Maria Novella in Florence, Italy. These tapering four-sided obelisks were designed around 1570 by architect Bartolomeo Ammannati and were finally erected in 1608 to mark the celebration of the marriage of Grand Duke Cosimo II de’ Medici to Maria Maddalena of Austria. 

Each obelisk rests on a pedestal supported by four bronze turtles cast by the Flemish sculptor Giambologna (Jean de Boulogne) or his workshop. The turtles are symbolic, often interpreted as an allegory of the Medici motto festina lente (“make haste slowly”), contrasting the slowness of the turtle with the high-speed spectacle these markers once bounded. The tops of the obelisks were later adorned with gilded bronze lilies, the emblem (giglio) of Florence, reinforcing their civic identity. 

Historically, the obelisks replaced earlier temporary wooden pyramidal posts that had defined the course of the Palio dei Cocchi, a chariot-style race introduced in 1563 by Cosimo I de’ Medici. This event—held annually on June 23, the eve of Saint John the Baptist’s feast, Florence’s patron saint—featured four horse-drawn coaches (cocchi), representing the city’s districts, racing around the piazza for three laps. The pair of obelisks served as fixed turning points or boundaries for the start and finish of the race, much like the metae of ancient Roman circus tracks. 

The Corsa dei Cocchi continued to be a popular civic spectacle for nearly three centuries, engaging all social classes, until urban changes—like the introduction of tram tracks in the mid-19th century—made it impractical to hold. Today, the obelisks remain as enduring monuments to Florence’s Renaissance tradition of public festivities and its deliberate revival of classical Roman pageantry.