Mercato del Porcellino

There are three names by which this place is known: Loggia del Porcellino (from the famous bronze animal - actually not a piggy but a wild boar - a copy of the seventeenth-century original by Tacca in the Stefano Bardini Museum), Loggia del Mercato Nuovo ("the new market" to distinguish it from the old one, which was located in what is now Piazza della Repubblica) and the Straw Market (traditional Florentine straw hats were sold there starting from the 19th century). The architectural structure, the work of Giovan Battista Del Tasso (1550), is decorated in the corner niches with three nineteenth-century sculptures representing illustrious men from Florentine history: Michele di Lando, protagonist of the famous Ciompi Riots (the "minor" wool workers) of 1378; Giovanni Villani, well-known Florentine historiographer of the fourteenth century; Bernardo Cennini, pioneer of Florentine typography.
In addition to being a place dedicated to military functions, it was originally the site of the silk and other precious fabrics market. On the floor, in the center of the loggia, there is the so-called Scandal Stone, where insolvent debtors and traders were punished.  Today the Loggia hosts a tourist market (one of the most visited markets of Florence) selling mostly leather goods and souvenirs.