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The figures of gods on the Loggetta - Pallas, Mercury, Apollo and Peace - were intended by the sculptor as an allegory of the government of Venice. Pallas was depicted as alert and fully armed because the wisdom of the Venetian senators was without peer. Mercury symbolized eloquence, and the part it played in the Venetian state. Apollo represented the freedom of the Venetian constitution, and, through the analogy of music, the harmony with which it was administered, while Peace was the condition which had transformed the city into the metropolis of Italy. The figures were planned as a coherent plastic scheme, with the Apollo and Mercury orientated on the entrance, and the Pallas and Peace turning their backs on the two archways at the sides.
The Loggetta gods are attenuated, slightly androgynous figures; they have a self-consciously artificial manner not unlike Giambologna's small bronzes. More than any other works these statues determined the form of the bronze statuettes that were turned out in Venice in the later sixteenth century.
The picture shows the statue of Mercury on the Loggetta.
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