White barble bust depicting Cosimo I de' Medici (1519-1574), Grand Duke of Tuscany, carved by Giovanni Bandini "dell'Opera" and placed at the entrance to the ancient headquarters of the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore, (which currently houses the Museum) in 1572. Cosimo I is faithfully portrayed as a man in his fifties, bearded and with a shaved skull, with protruding eyes that gaze sternly towards the horizon and dressed in old-fashioned drapery, like a Roman general. The bust is placed in an oval space in green serpentine, surrounded by a sumptuous frame in white marble, composed of scroll motifs, fruit tassels, the balls of the Medici coat of arms and, below, held by a lion mask, the collar of the order of the  Golden Fleece, the most prestigious honor granted to the European nobility. The whole is surmounted by the grand ducal crown supported by two cupids. Around the niche runs the Latin inscription: “Cosimo dei Medici Grand Duke of Etruria (Tuscany)” and in the band of the grand ducal crown a second inscription recalls the granting of the grand ducal title by Pope Pius V. The presence of the bust of Cosimo I in this place had a political significance: in the Grand Ducal period the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore, an ancient institution of the Republican era, was not abolished but weakened and subjected to the new central power. Therefore the present bust must be placed in parallel with the renovations of the Cathedral commissioned by Cosimo I: the floor, the choir by Bandinelli, the aedicules by Ammannati and the Last Judgment of the Dome.