From Italian 'balcone' (beam-platform), from Germanic '*balkō' (beam) — a round-trip borrowing: Germanic to Italian and back to English.
A platform enclosed by a wall or railing on the outside of a building, accessible from an upper-floor window or door; the upper tier of seats in a theater.
From Italian balcone (a large window, a platform projecting from a wall), from Old Italian balcone (scaffold, balcony), from Proto-Germanic *balkō (beam, ridge), from PIE *bʰelǵ- (beam, plank, board). The word's journey from Germanic to Romance and back to Germanic is a striking example of linguistic round-tripping. The PIE root *bʰelǵ- produced Proto-Germanic *balkō (beam, balk), which entered Late Latin as *balcus and then Italian as balcone — originally a large window opening
The word 'balcony' traveled from Germanic (a beam) through Italian (a beam-platform) back to Germanic languages: German borrowed 'Balkon' from Italian, even though the word's ultimate root is Germanic. This is called a round-trip borrowing. The most famous balcony in literature is Juliet's in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet (c. 1597), though Shakespeare's stage directions never actually mention a balcony — the tradition was created