Vasari also gives Orcagna the four symbolical figures in the recesses in the spandrels of the arches.

The Loggia, which took its new name from the Swiss lancers, or lanzi, that Cosimo I kept there--he being a fearful ruler and never comfortable without a bodyguard--is now a recognized place of siesta; and hither many people carry their poste-restante correspondence from the neighbouring post office in the Uffizi to read in comfort.

A barometer and thermometer are almost the only novelties that a visitor from the sixteenth century would notice.
The statuary is both old and new; for here are genuine antiques once in Ferdinand I's Villa Medici at Rome, and such modern masterpieces as Donatello's Judith and Holofernes, Cellini's Perseus, and Gian Bologna's two muscular and restless groups.

The best of the antiques is the Woman Mourning, the fourth from the end on the left, which is a superb creation.
Donatello's Judith, which gives me less pleasure than any of his work, both in the statue and in the relief, was commissioned for Cosimo de' Medici, who placed it in the courtyard or garden of the Medici palace--Judith, like David, by her brave action against a tyrant, being a champion of the Florentine republic.

In 1495, after Cosimo's worthless grandson Piero de' Medici had been expelled from Florence and the Medici palace sacked, the statue was moved to the front of the Palazzo Vecchio, where the David now is, and an inscription placed on it describing it as a warning to all enemies of liberty.