| By Author | [ A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z | Other Symbols ] |
| By Title | [ A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z | Other Symbols ] |
| By Language |
|
Download this book: [ ASCII ] Look for this book on Amazon Tweet |
Title: Florentine palaces : & their stories
Author: Ross, Janet
Language: English
As this book started as an ASCII text book there are no pictures available.
*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Florentine palaces : & their stories" ***
Transcriber’s Note: Italic text is enclosed in _underscores_. Other
notes will be found near the end of this eBook.
FLORENTINE
PALACES
AND
THEIR
STORIES
BY
JANET
ROSS
[_All Rights Reserved_]
[Illustration:
PALAZZO ANTINORI. _Page 37._
]
FLORENTINE
PALACES
& THEIR STORIES
BY
JANET ROSS
[Illustration]
WITH MANY ILLUSTRATIONS
BY
ADELAIDE MARCHI
1905
LONDON
J. M. DENT & CO.
29 & 30 BEDFORD STREET, W. C.
NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON & CO.
RICHARD CLAY & SONS, LIMITED,
BREAD STREET HILL, E. C., AND
BUNGAY, SUFFOLK.
Dedication
To Cavaliere Angelo Bruschi, Librarian of the Biblioteca Marucelliana,
this book of the Palaces of his native city is dedicated in memory of
much kindness and ever-ready help by
JANET ROSS.
LIST OF PALACES
PAGE
PALAZZO ACCIAIUOLI 1
„ ALBERTI 9
„ ALBIZZI 17
„ ALESSANDRI 20
CASTELLO D’ALTAFRONTE 22
PALAZZO ALTOVITI 25
„ ANTELLA, DELL’ 32
„ ANTINORI 37
„ BARDI 39
„ BARTOLINI SALIMBENI 43
„ BARTOLOMMEI 47
„ BORGHESE 52
„ BOUTURLIN 53
„ BUONDELMONTI 54
„ BUONTALENTI, DEL (OR CASINO DI S. MARCO) 60
„ CANACCI 62
„ CANIGIANI 64
„ CAPPONI 70
„ CAPPONI (DELLE ROVINATE) 74
„ CERCHI 75
„ COCCHI 76
„ CORSI SALVIATI 77
„ CORSINI 81
„ DAVANZATI 87
„ DONATI 92
„ FERONI 98
„ RICASOLI FIRIDOLFI 99
„ FOSSI 105
„ FRESCOBALDI 105
„ GHERADESCA 108
„ GIANFIGLIAZZI 108
„ GINORI 110
„ GINORI CONTI 112
„ GINORI-VENTURI 113
„ GIUGNI 115
„ GONDI 116
„ GRIFFONI 121
„ GUADAGNI 123
„ GUICCIARDINI 129
„ LARDEREL 133
„ LEONETTI 135
„ MANNELLI 137
„ MARTELLI 142
„ MONALDI 144
„ MONTALVO, RAMIREZ DI 146
„ MOZZI 151
„ NERLI 155
„ NONFINITO 159
„ PANCIATICHI 160
„ PANDOLFINI 163
„ PAZZI 167
„ PERUZZI 175
„ PICCOLELIS 180
„ PITTI 182
„ PODESTÀ, DEL (BARGELLO) 208
„ PUCCI 234
„ RICCARDI 238
„ RIDOLFI 270
„ RONDINELLI 272
„ RUCELLAI 275
„ SALVIATI 293
„ SAN CLEMENTE 297
„ SERRISTORI 304
„ SODERINI 305
„ SPINI 307
„ STROZZI 316
„ STROZZINO, DELLO 341
„ STUFA, DELLA 342
„ TORRIGIANI 345
„ UGUCCIONE 349
„ VAI 351
„ VECCHIETTI 352
„ VECCHIO 355
„ VITALI 396
„ VIVIANI 397
„ XIMENES D’ARAGONA 398
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
PALAZZO ANTINORI _Frontispiece._
TOWER OF THE ALBERTI 8
PALAZZO BARTOLINI SALIMBENI. PALAZZO BUONDELMONTI. CORNER OF
PALAZZO SPINI 45
TOWERS OF THE GIROLAMI AND OF THE GHERARDINI 49
COURTYARD OF PALAZZO CANIGIANI 65
COURTYARD OF PALAZZO DAVANZATI 89
TOWER OF THE DONATI 93
DOORWAY OF PALAZZO FRESCOBALDI 104
DOORWAY OF PALAZZO GIUGNI 115
COURTYARD OF PALAZZO GONDI 117
DOORWAY OF PALAZZO GRIFFONI 122
PALAZZO GUADAGNI 125
DOORWAY OF PALAZZO LARDEREL 134
TOWER OF THE MANNELLI 139
PALAZZO MONTALVO 148
WINDOW OF PALAZZO NERLI 155
CORNER OF PALAZZO NONFINITO, WITH COAT OF ARMS OF THE STROZZI 158
PALAZZO PANDOLFINI 165
COURTYARD OF PALAZZO PAZZI 169
PIAZZA AND ARCO DE’ PERUZZI 177
PALAZZO PITTI 183
PALAZZO DEL PODESTÀ (THE BARGELLO) 209
WINDOW OF PALAZZO PUCCI 235
PALAZZI RICCARDI 239
PALAZZI RUCELLAI 277
PALAZZI SAN CLEMENTE 296
PALAZZI SPINI 309
PALAZZI STROZZI 317
PALAZZI UGUCCIONE 348
COURTYARD OF PALAZZO VECCHIO 354
FLORENTINE PALACES
PALAZZO ACCIAIUOLI
_Lung’Arno Acciaiuoli. No. 4._
In 1109 Guigliarello Acciaiuoli came from Brescia, where his family
had made a fortune by working in steel (acciaio)--hence their name.
He bought many houses in Borgo S.S. Apostoli and a domain in the
Val di Pesa, where he built a tower which was still standing in
1588 when Giovambattista Ubaldini wrote the _Origine della Famiglia
Acciaiuoli_. True to the Guelph traditions the family brought with
them from Brescia, Leone Acciaiuoli was forced to fly from Florence
after the Ghibelline victory at Montaperti in 1260 and his palace was
destroyed. On the return to power of the White, or Guelph, party,
Dardano Acciaiuoli became Gonfalonier of Justice, and was afterwards
sent with full powers from the Signoria of Florence, “considering his
great prudence and legal knowledge,” as Captain of the People to rule
Pistoja. When in 1282 the government of Florence was changed and the
Priors were instituted, Riccomanni degl’Acciaiuoli, doctor of law, was
elected Prior of his _Sesto_ of the city. He founded a great bank, or
commercial company, with branches in many parts of Italy, in France,
England, Greece, Africa and Asia, and sent Acciaiuolo Acciaiuoli to
manage the branch at Naples. There he became the trusted friend and
counsellor of King Robert, who made him a Baron, gave him great
estates in Apulia and the lordship of Prato in Tuscany with the title
of royal Vicario. His far more famous son Niccola, was born in 1310 at
Monte Guffoni in the Val di Pesa, and married before he was eighteen.
Three years later he took his father’s place at Naples, and being
remarkable for personal beauty, dignified in manner and gifted with a
brilliant intelligence, he soon attained such favour at court that when
the Prince of Taranto died in 1332, his widow appointed him, by the
advice of her brother-in-law King Robert, guardian of her three young
sons and of the principality. Evil tongues whispered that his good
looks had much to do with this nomination. Six years later Niccola went
to Greece, taking Louis, the eldest of Catherine’s sons, with him and
succeeded in making him the real, instead of only the titular, Prince
of Acchaia. On the death of King Robert, leaving the Kingdom to his
niece Joan, married to the coarse and illiterate Andrew of Hungary,
Niccola and Prince Louis returned to Naples. Joan fell in love with
her young cousin, and one morning Andrew was found strangled in his
bed. Acciaiuoli, who was supposed to have aided in the murder, became
all-powerful when the Queen married Louis of Taranto, and was created
Grand Seneschal of the Kingdom, Count of Melfi, etc. He acquired very
large possessions in Apulia, Sicily and Greece, and was made Count
of Malta and Gozzo, a title he ceded to his son Angiolo during his
lifetime. On the occasion of his going to Avignon as ambassador, Pope
Innocent VI. gave him the Golden Rose (the first time a private person
had been thus honoured), created him a Senator of Rome, Count of the
Campagna and Rector of the ecclesiastical patrimony. He next sent him
as envoy to Bernabo Visconti at Milan to claim the restitution of
Bologna. Finding Bernabo obdurate, Acciaiuoli led the Papal troops
against Bologna and installed the Legate there in triumph. He did not
forget his own country, for it is to him that we owe the magnificent
convent of the Certosa near Florence, where his eldest son, Lorenzo,
as handsome and as gifted as his father, was buried in great state in
1354. He also built the villa of Monte Guffone, of which only the shell
remains showing how beautiful it once was,[1] and the great Acciaiuoli
palace on the Lung’Arno of the same name, adjoining those of other
members of the family. As Orcagna was the architect employed at the
Certosa he may also have designed Niccola’s fine town house. A cousin
of his, Messer Dardano Acciaiuoli, built the church of S. Niccolò in
Via della Scala and commissioned Spinello, who, as Vasari tells us,
was then (1334) beginning to be known as a good painter, to fresco the
whole church with stories from the life of S. Niccolò of Bari. The
church was demolished but some of the frescoes are still to be seen in
the pharmacy of Sta. Maria Novella.
The Grand Seneschal Niccola Acciaiuoli is described by Matteo Palmieri
as being “of more than the ordinary height, lithe, strong, of noble
and pleasing presence, with a certain vivacity and gaiety which
rendered him a most agreeable companion. His hair was auburn, his
eyes large and brilliant, his aspect kindly and smiling; broad in
the chest and well made, he used his left hand as dexterously as his
right. He dressed well, and when attending any solemn function always
wore silk or brocade and had a large following, not, as he was wont
to say, for himself, but for the honour of his King. A great lover of
arms and of horses, of which he sought to have the best that could be
procured, he would, after breaking them in, give them as presents,
with magnificent saddles and bridles, to the great personages of the
Kingdom. Naturally inclined towards good and noble deeds he was liberal
even to prodigality. Many times he risked, not only his patrimony, but
his own and his son’s lives in the service of the King. He pardoned
far oftener than he avenged evil done to himself. He was sober in
eating and drinking, but his table was magnificently furnished for
his friends and when he gave public entertainments, as often happened
when he returned to visit his own country, where he was received with
the highest honours and would give balls, games and other festivals.
He led a pure and religious life, observing the fasts ordained by the
Church so strictly that on fast days he only ate one piece of dry bread
and drank pure water.... His life was a prosperous one, and though
he worked hard and suffered infinite privations both by day and by
night, he was seldom ill. He died at Naples on November 8, 1365, being
fifty-six years of age.”
Of his fine palace there is a delightful description in, I should
think, one of the first guide-books written about Florence:--
“In Borgo S.S. Apostoli in the houses of the Acciaiuoli are many
statues and many pictures of the greatest beauty by famous artists;
more especially in the house of Alessandro are there many things of
rare worth. For there is a writing-room adorned with pictures and
fine statues, and among them are the twelve Emperors by Giambologna,
of such beauty that they are admired beyond measure by artificers who
can appreciate them. Besides this there is a garden on strong arches
about fifteen braccia high, in a street close to the Arno and looking
due south, where the air is soft and pleasant. There in pots and on
espaliers are such delightful greenery and fruits, such as lemons
and pomegranates, that although the space is not really large, yet
the delight it gives is so great that it appears so. Above this, and
behind, rising yet higher, is another terrace filled with similar
trees; it is marvellous to see the quantity of fruit produced and what
good condition it is in. Above, and still farther back is yet another
terrace, more than thirty braccia from the ground and the view thence
is so beautiful that the soul is rejoiced; wherever a man turns he
enjoys the sweet air, full of the perfume of fruit and of flowers
which are ever abundant according to their season. Water is lifted by
ingenious devices from below up to the third floor garden, so that the
moisture when dried up by the heat can be quickly restored. In the
lower garden is a beautiful fountain of Carrara marble ornamented with
lovely statues. A room, of large dimensions, opens on to this garden,
with a fine ceiling and more than thirty portraits of the principal
ladies of our city who are famed for their beauty. The pictures, by
well-known artists, are highly praised for their execution and their
admirable likenesses.”[2]
Niccola Acciaiuoli bequeathed his castles and lands in Greece to Neri,
his nephew and adopted son, who after conquering Thebes and the whole
of Boeota drove the Spaniards out of Athens, Thebes, Corinth and
Megara. The Acciaiuoli ruled Greece for nearly a hundred years, until
Mahomet II. took the country and strangled Duke Lionardo. Vespasiano
da Bisticci, in his _Life of Neri_, declares that “others may go about
begging nobility for their family, the Acciaiuoli have enough and to
spare. They are allied to all the principal houses of the kingdom
[Naples]; to the Prince of Taranto and to other lords through the
marriages of their women; among them Madonna Andrea degl’ Acciaiuoli,
Countess of Altavilla, a woman of singular renown to whom Messer
Giovanni Boccaccio sent the book of _Illustrious Women_, she being
possessed of such high authority.”
Many were the Gonfaloniers, Priors and ambassadors, the Acciaiuoli gave
to Florence. Donato, whose mother was a daughter of Palla Strozzi,
inherited his grandfather’s love of letters, and when ambassador
to France presented King Louis XI. with the lives of Charlemagne,
Scipio and Hannibal, written by himself. He also wrote commentaries
on Aristotle’s Ethics, Politics and Physics. He died at Milan whilst
on an embassy to the Duke and his body was brought to Florence where
Cristofano Landini read the funeral oration in the Duomo. The Republic
dowered his two daughters and named Lorenzo de’ Medici and three
other citizens guardians of the young sons. One of them, “the prudent
and well-endowed” Ruberto, was sent on an embassy to Louis XII., who
bestowed on him and his descendants the privilege of adding a Lily of
France, surmounted by a royal crown, to his arms. A descendant and a
namesake of his is the hero of one of the saddest and most romantic
stories of the seventeenth century. Handsome and brave like all
his race, the son of Donato Acciaiuoli had long admired Elisabetta
Mormorai, wife of Giulio Berardi, and on her husband’s death they
agreed to marry. But his uncle the Cardinal had decided that his
good-looking nephew was to make an alliance which might be of use to
him in his designs upon the Papal chair. So he induced the Grand Duke
Cosimo III. to forbid the marriage and to order Elisabetta to enter a
convent. Ruberto immediately contracted a canonical marriage with her
by letter, and fled to Milan where he published it. At the same time he
demanded justice from the Grand Duke, the Archbishop, the Cardinal and
his own father. The validity of the marriage was upheld in Lombardy,
in Florence it was declared to be a mere engagement and not binding,
and the lady was removed from her convent and shut up in a fortress. On
the death of the Pope in 1691 Ruberto wrote to the assembled cardinals
imploring them, and the future Pope, to do him justice. All Italy
was interested in the fate of the lovers and the Cardinal Acciaiuoli
tried to throw all the blame on his relations. The Grand Duke set
Elisabetta free and she joined her husband at Venice, where Cosimo was
openly accused of arbitrary and unjust conduct, and of truckling to the
private spite of the Cardinal. He thereupon made formal application
to the Republic to deliver up Acciaiuoli and his wife on the plea of
_lèse majesté_. They fled, but were followed by his emissaries and
taken into custody at Trent disguised as friars. Ruberto Acciaiuoli was
condemned to imprisonment for life in the fortress of Volterra and to
the loss of his patrimony, whilst to Elisabetta was offered the choice
of repudiating her marriage or of being confined in the women’s part
of the same prison. In the hopes of mitigating the severity of her
husband’s sentence she chose the former, and died of grief a few months
later.
[Illustration: TOWER OF THE ALBERTI.]
The family were supposed to be extinct in 1760, but at this date
Senhor De Vasconcellos came from Madeira and proved his descent from
an Acciaiuoli who had settled in the island at the end of the XVth
century. He married the orphan daughter of the last of the Florentine
Acciaiuoli and took her name, but the family came to an end when
Monsignore Filippo, a learned prelate, died at Venice in 1834.
PALAZZO ALBERTI
_Via de’ Benci. No. 2._
Varchi tells us that the palaces of the Alberti were built on the site
of those of the ancient family of Quona, near the town gate called
after Messer Ruggieri da Quona. The picturesque little Café delle
Colonnine, which in the XVth century was the workshop of Niccolò
Grossi, marks where their loggia once stood, and the palaces of various
members of the family extended from Piazza Sta. Croce to the river, in
what was then the Via degl’Alberti. On the façade of the palace where
Leon Battista Alberti lived, which was entirely modernized in 1838 by
the architect V. Bellini, who then built the colonnade which divides
the garden from the Lung’Arno, are two engraved marble slabs with plans
of what it once was and what it is now.
The great family of the Alberti originally came from Catenaia in the
Casentino, where they owned castles and lands. It is probable that
their arms, four silver chains (catene), joined in the middle by a
silver ring, are derived from the name of their castle. Five different
families of Alberti, with different arms, are mentioned in the annals
of Florence; but the Alberti whose palaces stood near the Ponte alle
Grazie, from whom sprang that many-sided genius Leon Battista, bore
the surname of Giudici from an Alberto who held the office of judge
in Florence in the early days of the XIIIth century, and came, as has
already been said, from Catenaia. The Alberti were always Guelphs,
they went into exile after the battle of Montaperti and their houses
were destroyed. Alberto, son of Messer Jacopo, was a Prior when the
first stone of the Palazzo de’ Signori was laid in 1294 (the first
of forty-nine of his house), while the number of Alberti who were
prelates, ambassadors, gallant captains and knights of the Golden Spur,
is innumerable. The death of Messer Niccolò degl’ Alberti in 1377,
then one of the most illustrious and one of the richest citizens of
Florence, was a public disaster. He had acquired the name of Father of
the Poor and his funeral was attended by hundreds of families dressed
in black, who mourned their benefactor. Near to his house in Via
degl’Alfani (where a corner is still called Canto alla Catena from his
coat of arms) he built, after the design of Agnolo Gaddi, a hospital
called Orbetello for poor old women and fallen girls.
When in 1380 Giorgio Scali and Tommaso Strozzi attacked the Palazzo del
Podestà and set Giovanni di Cambio free, the Signori thought it was
time, as Machiavelli writes, “to liberate the city from the insolence
of Messer Giorgio and of the mob. But they deemed it necessary to
get the consent of Messer Benedetto Alberti (son of Niccolò). He was
an exceeding rich man, humane, stern, a lover of the liberty of his
country and averse to all tyrannical proceedings; it was therefore
not difficult to obtain his consent to the ruin of Messer Giorgio....
Having ascertained that Messer Benedetto and the heads of the Guilds
would side with them the Signori armed, and Messer Giorgio was taken
while Messer Tommaso fled. The following day Messer Giorgio, to the
terror of his party was beheaded.... Seeing Messer Benedetto Alberti
among the armed men, he said: ‘And thou, Messer Benedetto, allowest
that such an injury be done to me, which I, were I in thy place, would
never have permitted to be done to thee? But I tell thee that to-day is
the end of my woes and the beginning of thine own.’”
The Guelphs now ruled supreme. Executions and sentences of exile
against the _nobili popolani_ and the leaders of the people were of
daily occurrence, to the great chagrin of Benedetto who made no secret
of his displeasure. “Therefore the heads of the State,” continues
Machiavelli, “feared him, esteeming him one of the friends of the
people, and thinking he had acquiesced in the death of Messer Giorgio
Scali, not because he disapproved of his conduct, but in order to be
the sole leader.” The pomp and magnificence displayed by the Alberti
a few years later, when crowned with gold, clad in white brocade and
mounted on magnificent horses caparisoned with the same stuff, they
rode through the streets of Florence and held jousts in honour of the
acquisition of Arezzo, caused intense envy. When the name of Magalotti
Benedetto’s son-in-law, was drawn from the _borse_ as Gonfalonier of
Justice he was set aside, and Bardo Mancini, an avowed enemy of the
Alberti, was named in his stead. Not many days afterwards Benedetto
was exiled, and with him Cipriano, “a most prudent citizen.” The
former died at Rhodes in 1388, “and his bones,” says Machiavelli,
“were brought to Florence and buried with the greatest honour by those
who had pursued him with calumny and evil during his life.” When the
Albizzi became all-powerful the _popolani_ were persecuted. Benedetto’s
sons were despoiled of their possessions and two were sentenced to be
beheaded if they fell into the hands of the Podestà. Antonio Alberti
was tortured, but escaped with his life and, “in order that the Alberti
should not create disorders every day in the city,” he, his brothers
and his sons were made _grandi_, which excluded them from holding any
office. Lorenzo, another son of Benedetto, and seven of the family
were exiled to 180 miles from Florence and all males above sixteen to
100 miles, under threat of severe punishment if they approached nearer
to the city, or pledged or sold any of their property. Of course they
conspired, and in 1412 every male, down to the smallest child, was
exiled. Any Florentine who dared to harbour an Alberti was fined,
while any who killed one of the hated family above eighteen years of
age within the Florentine territory, received a recompense and the
permission to carry arms. Any citizen marrying an Alberti or allowing
his daughter to do so, was to be fined 1,000 florins; none were to
trade with them, their loggia was destroyed and an inventory made
of their property, which was seized as a guarantee that the exiles
would behave properly. After the taxes had been paid and the dowers
of the girls deducted, the income that remained was doled out to the
respective owners.
Leon Battista tells us that his ancestors met their evil fate
courageously; “meeting often and consulting together with fraternal
affection, full of charity and good offices.... Their number, their
intelligence, their assiduity in making friends by kindliness and
giving help to many men, caused them to be much liked. They despised,”
he continues, “the habit common to so many of saying that it is
enough to know how to sign one’s name and to sum up what is owing....
It became a proverbial saying in Italy when a man was courteous and
well-bred, such a one is as though born and brought up among the
Alberti.... They were merchants, trafficking in noble and honest
merchandize, and no pedlars; dealing in France and England in cloth
and wool, as do the highest and the worthiest men of the city, an
occupation that is good and honourable and he that engages in it
is well-considered and respected in the land.”[3] The Alberti had
houses of business at Bruges, Ghent, Brussels and in various French
and English towns, as well as in Greece, Syria, Spain and all the
Mediterranean ports. By their rigid integrity and their refusal to
enter into speculative loans as the Bardi, Peruzzi and others, had
done, they augmented their riches even whilst in exile. When Pope John
XXII. called upon them to pay within eight days 80,000 golden florins
deposited in their London bank, Ricciardo Alberti handed the sum to
him in Bologna on the fifth day, it having been sent from Venice by
his brother Lorenzo. Their condition however was a sad one. Fugitives,
scattered over the face of the earth and far from home and friends,
their joy must have been great, when Cosimo de’ Medici on his return
to power in 1434 recalled them to Florence. By his influence Alberto
Alberti was created a cardinal, and their name appears constantly in
the magistrature under the Medici.
Lorenzo Alberti, son of Benedetto, seems to have established himself
for a time at Genoa where Leon Battista was born, probably in 1404
(some give 1398 as the date of his birth and others 1414). He was
educated at Bologna and had a hard struggle after his father’s death
in 1421, as the relations in whose charge he and his brother were
left cheated them out of their patrimony. Brought up for the church,
he was ordained a priest and at twenty became a Canon of the cathedral
of Florence. But intense study brought on a disorder of the nerves
which caused loss of memory, and he applied himself to mathematics and
the physical sciences, and adopted architecture as his profession. He
invented several mechanical instruments, the _Reticola de’ dipintori_,
the _Bolide Albertiana_ and the _Camera optica_, a precursor of the
Camera obscura.[4] His principal prose work is the _Trattato della
Famiglia_, three books of which are said by the anonymous writer of his
life to have been composed in Rome in ninety days. “Taken in its whole
extent,” remarks J. A. Symonds, “this treatise is the most valuable
document which remains to us from the times of the oligarchy.... From
its pages a tolerably complete history of a great commercial family
might be extracted; and this study would form a valuable commentary on
the public annals of the commonwealth during the earlier portion of the
XVth century.”
Much discussion was aroused, and still continues, about the fourth
book of the Trattato, published by D. M. Manni in 1734 as the work
of Agnolo Pandolfini under the title of _Trattato del Governo della
Famiglia_. Pandolfini has champions like Signor Virginio Cortesi,
who in his _Studio Critico_ ably pleads his cause. But the _Governo
della Famiglia_ is now generally acknowledged to be by Alberti, in
whose _Trattato_ it figures as the third book, under the name of the
_Economico_, or the _Padre della Famiglia_. Professors Alessandro
d’Ancona and Orazio Bacci, in their admirable manual of Italian
literature[5] write: “It may be considered as definitely proved that
the _Governo della Famiglia_” (as it is usually called) “is nothing
more than a travestied and altered copy, often not to its advantage, of
the third book of the _Famiglia_ written about 1460.”[6] Alberti was
a strenuous advocate for writing in Italian; “I admit willingly,” he
says, “that the ancient Latin tongue is very copious and of a beauty
polished to perfection. Yet I do not see what our Tuscan contains
so hateful, that worthy matter, when conveyed therein, should be
displeasing to us.” In the dedication of his essay on painting to
Filippo Brunelleschi the same note is struck with regard to the arts.
After sorrowing over the loss of many arts and sciences and fearing
that Nature is weary and worn out, he exclaims: “But when I returned
from the long exile, in which we of the Alberti have grown old, to
this our mother city which exceeds all others in the beauty of her
monuments, I perceived that many living men, but first of all you,
Filippo, and our dearest friend Lorenzo Ghiberti, and Luca della Robbia
and Masaccio, were not of less account for genius and noble work than
any ancient artist of great fame.” Leon Battista Alberti died in
Rome in 1472, and no stone marks the spot where one of the greatest
Florentines lies, though one of his descendants put up a monument to
him in Florence.
“He indeed might serve,” writes Symonds, “as the very type of those
many-sided, precocious and comprehensive men of genius who only existed
in the Renaissance. Physical strength and dexterity were given to him
at birth in measure equal to his mental faculties. It is recorded that
he could jump standing over an upright man, pierce the strongest armour
with his arrows, and so deftly fling a coin that it touched the highest
point of a church or palace roof. The wildest horses are said to have
trembled under him, as though brutes felt, like men, the magnetism
of his personality. His insight into every branch of art was innate.
At the age of twenty he composed the comedy of “Philodoxius” which
passed for an antique, and was published by the Aldi in 1588 as the
work of Lepidus Comicus. Of music, though he had not made it a special
study he was a thorough master, composing melodies that gave delight
to scientific judges. He painted pictures, and wrote three books on
painting; practised architecture and compiled ten books on building. Of
his books nothing remains; but the church of S. Andrea at Mantua, the
Palazzo Rucellai at Florence, and the remodelled Church of S. Francesco
at Rimini attest his greatness as an architect.”[7]
The palaces of the Alberti were numerous, and they built or decorated
chapels in the churches of Sta. Croce, the Carmine, S. Miniato al
Monte, degl’Angeli and others. Their villas were superb, especially
the Paradiso degl’Alberti, described in one of Giovanni da Prato’s
tales.[8] Under the dynasty of Lorraine eight of the family attained
the dignity of Senator, and in 1758 Giovan-Vincenzio Alberti was
created a Count Palatine by the Emperor Francis. His son, named Leon
Battista after his illustrious ancestor, died in 1836 the last of his
race, leaving his name and his property to Cav. Mario Moriubaldini.
PALAZZO ALBIZZI
_Borgo degl’Albizzi. No. 12._
The name of Albizzi appears for the first time in the annals of
Florence in 1251, when Benincasa di Albizzo was an Elder. In 1282
Ser Compagno was the first of the long list of ninety-eight Priors
of the house of Albizzi who sat in the Palazzo de’ Signori. Piero,
the son of Filippo, the first Gonfalonier of Justice of thirteen the
family gave to Florence, became immensely rich and by his prudence and
sagacity obtained such preponderance in the affairs of the city that
he was the recognized head of the _nobili popolani_. Acute rivalry
between the Ghibelline Albizzi and the Ricci, who were Guelphs, had
always existed; and Uguccione de’ Ricci, thinking to crush his rivals,
advocated the revival of the magistrature of the Captains of the Guelph
party, proposing at the same time that all who professed themselves
Ghibellines should be admonished, _i. e._ excluded from all offices
of state. Piero di Albizzo, to hide his Ghibelline tendencies, not
only made no opposition, but took a foremost part in the doings of the
tribunal, which became odious to the Florentines under his presidency.
The Ciompi revolt was the direct consequence of the tyranny of the
Captains of the Guelph party, Piero was beheaded and the other members
of the Albizzi family were banished, only to return more powerful
when the old system of government was revived in 1381. According to
Passerini it was to the wise administration of Maso, Piero’s nephew,
that the prosperity and the greatness of Florence, feared and respected
by the other Italian Republics, were due. “He formed political
relations apt to preserve the prosperity of the Republic, built great
public edifices, protected nascent studies and arts and promoted the
foundation of the Florentine University, the basis of the literary
glory afterwards culled by the Medici family. The wars against the
Visconti were prosecuted with constancy and without losses; indeed
the state was enlarged, a thing which could not have happened amid
such conflicting opinions as then reigned in Florence, if the man at
the head of affairs had not been a politician of the first order.”[9]
Maso degl’Albizzi died in 1417 and his son Rinaldo inherited part of
his father’s vast wealth and his ambition, but not his caution. The
oligarchy of the _nobili popolani_ became odious under his leadership,
and the strong party led, but not ostensibly, by Cosmo de’ Medici,
divided the city into two hostile factions. The death of that wise old
citizen Niccolò da Uzzano, who had kept Rinaldo in check was, writes
Machiavelli, “a misfortune for Florence, as Messer Rinaldo, thinking
now to be head of the party, never ceased entreating and worrying
all the citizens he thought might become Gonfaloniers, to rise and
liberate the country from the man destined, through the malignity of
some and the ignorance of the many, to enslave it.” Albizzi’s friend,
Bernardo Guadagni, whose debts he paid in order to enable him to
become Gonfalonier of Justice in September, 1433, confined Cosimo de’
Medici in the Palazzo de’ Signori and then exiled him for ten years.
“Meanwhile,” writes Machiavelli, “in Florence, widowed of a citizen so
great and so universally beloved, everyone was confounded. Conquerors
as well as conquered were afeard;” and Rinaldo and his friends were
beginning to realize “that great men should not be assailed, but so be
they are assailed they should be done away with.” They attempted to
retrieve their mistake by proscribing many of Cosimo’s party, and the
government, occupied with private quarrels and enmities, became futile
and uncertain. In September the following year, a Signoria devoted
to the Medici was elected, and Rinaldo degl’Albizzi urged his party
to take up arms. Whereupon the Gonfalonier summoned him and others
of the _Grandi_ to appear before him. Instead of obeying the order
they collected their followers and with a strong armed force invaded
the Piazza. The old palace of the Signori was at once closed and
barricaded, and civil war seemed imminent.
It was averted only by the intervention of Eugenius IV. then living
as a refugee in Florence. He sent Giovanni Vitelleschi, Bishop of
Recanati, to beg Rinaldo degl’Albizzi to come to him and assured him
there was no question of recalling Cosimo de’ Medici, and that if he
went quietly home all would be well. Rinaldo was kept so long that his
followers got tired and dispersed, leaving the Signoria masters of the
situation. Sentences of banishment against Albizzi, his son Ormanno,
Ridolfo Peruzzi, Palla Strozzi and many others of the _Grandi_ were
passed, and before they left the city Eugenius sent once more for
Rinaldo and “told him,” writes Machiavelli, “that he blamed himself for
the evil that had befallen him through trusting his word; exhorting him
to have patience and to hope for a change of fortune. To which Messer
Rinaldo replied, the small confidence shewn by those who ought to have
trusted me, and the too great faith I put in you, have been the ruin of
myself, of my party. But above all do I blame myself for believing that
you, who were driven out of your own country, could keep me in mine. I
have had ample experience of the tricks of Fortune; prosperity I never
trusted much, so adversity does not affect me. I know that when Fortune
pleases she will be kinder, but should she continue unkind, I care not
to live in a city where men are above the law. For a country in which
riches and friends can be enjoyed in security, is preferable to one in
which you can easily be deprived of the former, and where your friends,
for fear of losing their all, abandon you in your direst need. It
was ever less hard for discreet and good men to hear tell of their
countries’ woes, than to see them, and an honourable rebel is more
esteemed than an enslaved citizen. So, full of ire, he left the Pope,
thinking how fruitless his counsels had been and how cold his friends,
and went into exile.” He died at Ancona in 1452.
His brother Luca, on the contrary, was an ardent adherent of the Medici
and his descendants filled important posts under the Republic. The
stern, grey palace, now divided into many houses, at the eastern end of
Borgo degl’Albizzi, under which passes a small street was, I believe,
built by him for one of his sons. The Albizzi arms, two golden rings
one inside the other under a cross of the Teutonic order, are still to
be seen on the façade. The Marquess Vittorio degl’Albizzi, to whose
memory there is an inscription on the great family palace, was the last
of his race.
PALAZZO ALESSANDRI
_Borgo degl’Albizzi. No. 15._
In 1372 Alessandro and Bartolomeo degl’Albizzi quarrelled with their
brothers, and obtained the consent of the Signori to take the name of
Alessandri and to adopt another coat of arms. They chose the emblem
of the Guild of Wool to which they belonged, adding a second head to
the well-known lamb. Later the house of Aragon bestowed upon them the
privilege of adding a golden crown and palm leaves to their shield.
Twenty-three Priors and nine Gonfaloniers of Justice of the family sat
in the Palazzo de’ Signori and many of them were sent on important
embassies. Alessandro degl’Alessandri was knighted by the Emperor
Frederick IV., while his brother Bartolomeo gained such favour with
the King of Naples that he made him Chancellor of the Exchequer. In
1439 the Emperor Paleologus bestowed the title of Count on one of the
Alessandri and some eighty years later Leo X. created them Counts of
the Holy Roman Empire, a title confirmed by Gregory XVI. in 1845.
On either side of the windows on the upper floor of this palace are
still to be seen the iron cramps which supported the frames on the
roofs for drying cloth, source of the family riches. Part of the
palace was burned during the Ciompi riots while it still belonged to
the Albizzi; the side which was saved is distinguished by the pointed
arches of the windows. The Alessandri were great patrons of horse
racing--as racing was understood in those days--and owned a famous barb
“Il Gran Diavolo,” who won for them many of the magnificent _palii_ of
cloth of gold and velvet with which some of the rooms are hung. The
ladies of the family must often have stood at the windows clapping
their hands with delight at the victory of the fiery black horses which
carried their colours, for the winning-post was just beyond the old
palace. The race in Borgo degl’Albizzi on the 24th June, the day of
St. John, patron saint of Florence, is thus described by Goro Dati.
“After dinner when midday had passed and everyone had slept, enjoying
themselves, the women and children go to where the racers, who are to
contend for the Palio, pass through a straight street in the centre
of the city where are the finest houses of the chief citizens; and
from one end to the other the said street is full of flowers, and all
the women and the jewels and the richest ornaments of the city, and
great is the rejoicing. Many lords, cavaliers and foreign gentlemen
come every year to see the fine festival, and the number of people,
foreigners and citizens, is incredible, and not to be believed save by
one who has seen them. At the sound of three strokes of the bell of the
Palazzo de’ Signori the horses start, and on the tower are stationed
boys, who by certain signals show to whom belong the horses, which
have come from all parts of Italy and are the most famous Barbary
racers in the world. The winner is he who first reaches the Palio,
which is borne on a four-wheeled triumphal car, with a lion at each
corner. So well are they sculptured that they seem alive. It is drawn
by two richly-caparisoned horses, with the emblems of their Commune.
The rich and large Palio, of two lengths of the finest crimson velvet
joined together by gold insertion a handsbreadth wide, lined with
miniver, bordered with ermine and a gold and silken fringe, altogether
cost 300 and more golden florins. But of late it has been made of
brocade woven with gold, most beautiful, and of the value of 600
florins or even more.”[10]
The old palace is still inhabited by the Counts Alessandri.
CASTELLO D’ALTAFRONTE
_Piazza de’ Giudicci. No. 1._
In 1180 Schiatta degl’Uberti, whose family had houses and towers near
the present Piazza de’ Giudicci, sold one fourth part, _pro indiviso_,
of the castle to one of the Altafronte family. The sons of Lottieri
d’Altafronte, who seemed to have been in perpetual need of money,
borrowed from various people, and were at last obliged to sell it, as
appears by an act of 1304, when Cecchino Bardi became “master of a
habitation in the parish of S. Piero Scheraggio, called the castle of
Altafronte, surrounded on all sides by streets.”
In 1333, according to Gaddi, the castle was devastated and ruined,
together with many other houses, by the terrible flood which carried
away the old statue of Mars near the Ponte Vecchio. It must have
been at once restored, as fifteen years later a certain Bencivieni
Buonsostegni, to whom it then belonged, made a will forbidding his
descendants to alienate it; in case they did so it was to go to the
Commune. His sons having to pay their sister’s dower petitioned for
leave to sell, which was granted. The Commune itself may have been the
purchaser, as there is a petition from the _Operai_, or clerks of the
works, of the Duomo, who were obliged to buy houses and lands in order
to continue the building of Sta. Maria del Fiore, complaining that the
4,500 florins promised to them, had been spent in rebuilding the walls
of the castle of Altafronte, three towers and the Porta d’Arno.[11]
It then passed into the possession of the Castellani family, one of
whom left the castle, together with a farm at Rome, to the hospital
of Sta. Maria at Ripoli. But either the family bought it back or the
testator could only leave a part of the great building, as when Matteo
Castellani died, and was buried with the greatest pomp in Sta. Croce
in 1429, “his son Francesco was publicly knighted by the side of his
father’s bier; his mourning habiliments were torn off in the church
and, habited as a cavalier, the other knights of the order accompanied
him most honourably to his palace.” Ten years later Demetrio Paleologo,
Despot of the Morea, took up his abode there when he accompanied his
brother the Emperor to the Council of Florence.
In 1558 the Grand Duke Cosimo I. bought the castle of Altafronte from
the Castellani, and fourteen years later, under the reign of Francesco
I., it became the residence of the Judges of the Ruota, and the shops
near by were turned into offices for the notaries. In 1858 many
wretched houses, with the arms of the judges and the notaries on their
façades, which had sprung up in the Piazza de’ Castellani, were swept
away, and two years later the wall of the Lung’Arno della Borsa was
built.
Opposite to the Castello d’Altafronte, which is now part of the
National Library, is a marble slab in the parapet wall of the Arno with
an inscription which often arouses the curiosity of the passers-by.
OSSA EQUI CAROLA CAPELLI
LEGATI VENETI
NON INGRATUS HERUS SONIPES MEMORANDE SEPULCRUM
HOC TIBI PRO MERITIS HAEC MONUMENTA DEDIT
OBSESSA URBE
M.D.XXX.III ID MARTII
It marks the grave of the favourite horse of Carlo Cappello, who was
the Venetian ambassador during the siege of Florence in 1529. Varchi
says, “he was most popular in the city and much loved, not only for
his many good qualities, being a man of letters, but also because when
Luigi Alamanni and Zanobi Buondelmonti were declared rebels, on account
of the conspiracy against the Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici, he gave them
hospitality in his house at Venice; and afterwards, when they had been
imprisoned at Brescia at the request of Pope Clemente, he so managed
that they were set free and sent on their way, the Venetians either not
knowing, or pretending not to know, who they were.”
The horse was buried with his fine velvet housings in the Piazza
d’Arno, close to the old city gate.
PALAZZO ALTOVITI
_Borgo degl’Albizzi. No. 18._
This palace was built by Rinaldo degl’Albizzi, Cosimo de’ Medici’s
great rival, next to that of his father, and after his exile it
was bought by the Valori. Taldo de Valore, four times a Prior, and
Gonfalonier of Justice in 1340, was the grandfather of the influential
citizen Bartolomeo, one of the _Dieci di Guerra_, and thrice
Gonfalonier. One of his sons, Niccolò, devoted to the Medici, was
elected to the most important offices under the Republic. Francesco,
his grandson, four times Gonfalonier of Justice and ambassador to
various foreign powers, was killed in 1498 when Savonarola, of whom
he was a staunch partisan, was arrested. To Filippo Valori, a friend
of Lorenzo the Magnificent and of all the circle of brilliant men
who surrounded him, we owe the publication of Marsilio Ficino’s
translation of Plato; whilst his son Baccio was “that worst of bad
citizens” who conspired against the liberties of Florence in favour
of the Medici, and was then set aside by the Duke Alesandro. Being,
as Varchi writes, “of an unquiet, prodigal, and rapacious nature and
not well off, he could not live as a gentleman and satisfy his wants,
which were infinite, without holding some high office in the city;
so his discontent was extreme.” He joined the party of the exiles
and was taken prisoner together with Filippo Strozzi at Montemurlo.
Bernardo Segni describes how “all the people ran down the Via Larga to
the house of the Medici to see the miserable and affecting sight of
Baccio on a sorry nag, in a rusty coat of mail and without a cap; he
who but a short time before had been so fortunate a Commissary-General
at the camp, and for so many months master in Florence, and afterwards
Governor of various provinces; and Filippo Strozzi, who had been
accounted the first man in Italy and honoured for every great quality,
on a similar beast, in a leathern jerkin and coarse cloth overcoat.
It seemed a spiteful, dishonest trick of fortune. Antonfrancesco
degl’Albizzi excited no less compassion. Of a most noble family and
proud by nature, he had ruled Florence like a Prince, had changed her
government, and now was led on foot meanly and had shameful words
cast at him by the onlookers. All dismounted at the fortunate house
of the Medici and were led before the Lord Cosimo, being vilified and
insulted by the sycophants and abettors of the Pallesca grandeur.
Kneeling humbly before the Lord Cosimo and before his mother, they
begged heartily for pardon; he replied in a few quiet words, with an
aspect rather kindly and benign than angry and cruel.... Five were
beheaded on that day [20 August, 1535], to wit Baccio, Filippo his
son, Filippo his nephew, Antonfrancesco degl’Albizzi and Alessandro
Rondinelli. Messer Alessandro Malgonelle, who, being one of the
Eight, was present when they were examined and tortured, with great
joyfulness said aloud in public: ‘To-day we have wrung the necks of
four thrushes and of one blackbird; the blackbird being Rondinelli,
who was inferior to the others in birth and riches.’”[12] Niccolò
Valori, member of the Platonic Academy, was Commissary at Pistoja in
1501, and soon afterwards ambassador to Louis XII. of France, who named
him a chamberlain and a councillor. In 1507 he was sent on an embassy
to Ferdinand the Catholic at Naples, and in the same year became
Commissary of the Tuscan Romagna. Five years later he was accused of
conspiring against the Medici together with Boscoli and Capponi, and
sentenced to life-long imprisonment in the tower of Volterra. His
grandson obtained his release by presenting Leo X. with the life of his
father, Lorenzo de’ Medici, written by him.
Baccio Valori, son of Filippo, who perished by the headman’s axe, was
a man of vast culture and a distinguished lawyer. He enlarged the old
palace and collected a magnificent library. In a vellum bound booklet,
beautifully printed in 1604, his son Filippo describes how Baccio,
“after enlarging his house (without departing from the ancient lines),
thought well to decorate it outside with other antiquities befitting
both the land of his birth and himself as a man of letters.” These
antiquities are fifteen busts of illustrious Florentines sculptured
in marble in alto-rilievo, and set upon termini. In the lower row are
Accursio, Torrigiano Rustichelli, surnamed de’ Valori, Marsilio Ficino,
Donato Acciaiuoli, and Pier Vettori. In the alcoves between the first
floor windows are Amerigo Vespucci, Leon Battista Alberti, Francesco
Guicciardini, Marcello Adriano, and Vincenzio Borghini. Above are
Dante, Petraca, Boccaccio, Giovanni della Casa, and Luigi Alamanni. In
the corridor, “as being a more honourable place,” observes Filippo,
were the Archbishop S. Antonino, S. Filippo Neri, Maestro Luigi
Marsili, Lorenzo il Magnifico and Bartolomeo Cavalcanti, and a bust of
Baccio Valori himself--the only one left. From the busts on the façade
the palace is generally known in Florence as the Palazzo de’ Visacci,
or of the Ugly Faces.
Alessandro, the last of the Valori, died in 1687, and his nephew,
Senator Luigi Guicciardini, inherited the palace. In 1703 he bought two
small houses with stables behind, between it and the great Pazzi palace
(pulled down to build the Banca d’Italia), and in 1723 a large house
on the other side. His only daughter, Virginia, married Giovan Gaetano
Altoviti, who incorporated the houses on either side and renovated the
interior of the palace, which then took his name. The ceilings of two
of the rooms were frescoed by pupils of Luca Giordano, and round the
walls of one room are terra-cotta medallions, portraits of the Altoviti
and the Guicciardini. One of them, wearing the well-known Florentine
_lucco_, represents the great historian, Francesco Guicciardini.
Enea Silvio Piccolomini (Pius II.), on the strength of an inscription
said to have been found at Fiesole which begins: FURIUS CAMILLUS
ALTIVITA--MAGNI FURII CAMILLI NEPOS--assigned a Roman origin to the
Altoviti; but Passerini believes the inscription is a medieval forgery.
The first mention of the family in the Florentine archives is in 1154,
when Corbizzo, son of Gollo, bought a house and a tower in the suburb
of S. Niccolò. His grandson Davanzato purchased an estate at Antella
and a tower in the suburb of S.S. Apostoli, he and his brothers having
certain rights of patronage over the church and the cemetery of S.S.
Apostoli. These rights were contested by the Prior of the church,
who challenged Davanzato to decide the question by a duel; however
Honorius III. interposed and by a decree addressed to the Podestà and
the people of Florence threatened to excommunicate anyone who took up
arms. From Davanzato’s son Altovito, a judge of considerable repute,
the family take their name. The Emperor Frederick II., to whom he was
sent on an embassy, held him in high esteem and knighted him with
his own hand in 1227. The eldest of Altovito’s sons, Guinizzingo,
commonly called Tingo, was the first of a long series of Gonfaloniers
of Justice the family gave to Florence, and during his rule the first
stone of Sta. Maria Novella was laid on May 3, 1294. Oddo, another of
Altovito’s sons, was a judge like his father and his name figures often
as either ambassador or Elder until after the battle of Montaperti,
at which he was present, his palace and tower were destroyed by the
Ghibellines.[13] But when the Guelphs returned to power in 1278, we
find him once more among the Elders, and two years later he was sent
to Pope Nicholas III. to beg him to put an end to the internecine
war between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines. Oddo degl’Altoviti took
an active part in the transactions and signed the treaty for the
Guelph party in the Mozzi palace in 1281. He warmly supported the new
law that all who aspired to office under the Republic should belong
to a Guild, so the nobles, who were chiefly Ghibellines, inscribed
themselves in the books of the Guilds without personally exercising any
trade, and thus eluded the law. The _popolani_ then rose, with Giano
della Bella at their head, and demanded reform. Oddo degl’Altoviti and
his cousin Palmiere assisted in drawing up the famous _Ordinamenti
della Giustizia_, the object of which was to exclude the nobles from
power and to ensure the summary and severe punishment of any noble
who injured a plebeian.[14] Palmiere was one of the companions of
Dante on an embassy to Boniface VIII. to beg him to try and pacify the
citizens of Florence, and like him died in exile. Oddo’s son Bindo,
took an active part in the government of the city. He was many times
a Prior and twice Captain of War, fighting against Henry VII., and
afterwards against Castruccio. At Altopascio he was made prisoner and
only regained his liberty after the death of the great Lucchese. He was
often sent as ambassador to various Italian cities, but disgraced his
name by the ferocity he showed in torturing the followers of the Duke
of Athens in 1343. One of the leaders of the revolt against the tyrant
he was foremost in inciting the people to brutal and loathsome acts of
cruelty. His niece Giovanna, married to Benci Aldobrandini, deserves
mention as a remarkable woman, of such wisdom and intelligence that the
magistrates always consulted her when in any difficulty. She was simply
called “Madonna,” as we might say, “the Lady,” and the square where her
husband’s house stood still bears the name of Piazza Madonna.
Antonio degl’Altoviti passed nearly all his life at Rome and married
a niece of Innocent VIII., whose banker he was. To him the Pope gave,
to the exclusion of the other branches of the family, the absolute
patronage of the church of S.S. Apostoli, where he was buried in 1508
in the fine tomb sculptured by Benedetto da Rovezzano for his brother
Oddo. Bindo, his son, who succeeded him in business, made an enormous
fortune, and was the friend of all the great artists of that time.
Michelangelo gave him the cartoon for one of the frescoes of the
Sistine chapel, and is said to have modelled the rare medal showing
Bindo Altoviti’s head on one side and one of his emblems, a woman
clinging to a column surrounded by waves, on the reverse. Raphael
painted his portrait as a young man, and executed for him the Madonna
dell’Impanata now in the gallery of the Pitti palace. Bevenuto Cellini
modelled and cast his bust in bronze,[15] while Jacopo Sansovino
designed a magnificent fireplace for his palace in Florence, which
Benedetto da Rovezzano decorated with delicate bas-reliefs. Vasari
also worked for him, painting the altar picture in the Altoviti chapel
in S. S. Apostoli and two loggie in his palace at Rome. A violent
antagonist of the Medici he not only expended large sums in aid of the
exiles, but sent one of his sons to fight under Piero Strozzi against
Cosimo I. at Siena. Another son, Antonio, entered the church and was
made Archbishop of Florence by Paul III., very much as an act of
hostility towards Cosimo, who retaliated by sequestering the revenues
of the archbishopric and forbidding Altoviti to enter Tuscany. It was
only in 1568, owing to the intervention of Pius V., that he was at
length enabled to take possession of his see. His entrance into the
city and his spiritual marriage with the Abbess of S. Pier Maggiore
were conducted with such solemnity and pomp that Cosimo was profoundly
irritated, and decreed that the ancient ceremony of the mystic
nuptials of the Archbishop and the Abbess should be for ever abolished.
Canon Moreni has published an account by an eyewitness of how the
guardians, or patrons, of the archbishopric, with all the clergy,
met Altoviti at the gate of the city bearing long staves, with green
garlands on their heads and gloves on their hands. One of the Strozzi
family led his palfrey and, passing through the principal streets, the
procession went to the church of S. Pier Maggiore (now destroyed).
Dismounting, the Archbishop was conducted to the high altar, when his
palfrey was taken possession of by the Abbess’s factor while its rich
housings fell to the Strozzi. After saying mass the Archbishop retired
to a room prepared for him “where was spread a sumptuous refection
suited to so noble a lord.” He then returned to the church, and
after a brief oration to the assembled nuns wedded the Abbess with a
golden ring. That night he slept in the convent in a magnificent bed,
specially prepared by the Abbess, which he took away to his own palace
next day.[16]
Giovan Battista degl’Altoviti lived chiefly in Rome and was the
intimate friend of the last scion of the Spanish family of Avila who
made him his heir, with the obligation of adding the name of Avila to
his own. With the death of the Marquess Corbizzo Altoviti-Avila, who
left no son, the ancient family is extinct.
Under a window on the ground floor of the palace is an inscription
recording a miracle performed by S. Zenobius. Here the saint met the
funeral of a young child whose mother, a lady from Gaul, was walking
beside the bier and weeping so bitterly that his heart was touched.
Bidding the men stop and put down the bier, S. Zenobius laid his hands
on the dead child and prayed, and the boy awoke and stretching forth
his hand clasped his mother round the neck. The shrine of the saint at
the corner of the Lambertesca palace is said to have been erected by
her.
PALAZZO DELL’ANTELLA
_Piazza Sta. Croce. No. 23._
This picturesque palace was built by Giulio Parigi for the Senator
Niccolò dell’Antella, who commissioned thirteen artists to fresco the
façade.[17] The upper part was painted in 1619 in fifteen days, as is
recorded on a scroll held by one of the figures, while the lower part
was finished the following year in eight. The frescoes by Giovanni da
San Giovanni were considered the best, _i. e._ the arms of the Antella
family surrounded by three _amorini_; the various deities and virtues,
amongst which is the figure of an old man with an owl by his side, the
reputed portrait of Donato dell’Antella, father of the Senator Niccolò;
and a Cupid asleep with a swan. The whole façade is sadly dilapidated,
and the frescoes are fast disappearing. Below the third window on the
ground floor is a marble disk, said by some to mark where the dividing
line was drawn across the Piazza when the game of calcio was played.
But, as far as I can understand the extremely technical account of
the game by Count Giovanni de’Bardi, surnamed il Puro in the Academia
degl’Alterati,[18] it marks the spot against which the ball was thrown
at the beginning of each game. He describes the Piazza, as fenced in by
posts and rails 2 braccia high; the length of the _campo_, or field of
play, being 172 braccia, and the width 86. One side of the enclosure
was called the _muro_, or wall, the other the _fossa_, or ditch, and
in the centre of one side the six umpires were “on an honourable and
elevated seat,” while at either end stood a pavilion draped with the
colours of the players. Of these there were fifty-four, twenty-seven on
either side, dressed in their distinctive colours, under the command of
_alfieri_, or captains, and divided as follows: fifteen _innanzi_, or
“forwards,” also called _corridori_, in three companies of five each,
who followed the ball; five _sconciatori_, or “half-backs,” whose duty
it was to prevent the _innanzi_ from getting the ball (they often gave
heavy blows, whence their name, from the word _sconciare_, to injure or
hurt); four _datori innanzi_, or “three-quarters,” and three _datori
addietro_, or “full-backs,” a kind of rear-guard to the former. I must
refer my readers to Mr. Heywood’s delightful book _Palio and Ponte_ for
a full and vivid account of the game of calcio, from which I extract
the following lines. “The object of the players was to drive the ball,
with feet or fists, over what, for convenience sake, we may term the
enemy’s ‘goal-line,’ although, as a matter of fact, in the Florentine
game there were no goals, the whole line of posts and rails, at either
end of the field of play, being open to attack. In order to score,
it was necessary that the ball should be driven over this line by a
direct punt or a fist blow. This was called a _caccia_, and the game
was won by the side which gained the greatest number of _caccie_. The
players were allowed to run with the ball, to kick, strike or throw
it; but if, when thrown or struck with the open hand, it rose above
the height of an ordinary man, this constituted a _fallo_, or fault;
and two _falli_ were equal to a _caccia_. There was also a _fallo_
when the ball was driven out of the field of play, on the side of the
Ditch, by a direct punt or fist blow; if, however, it bounced out off
the ground, there was no penalty. After a _caccia_ or two _falli_
had been scored, ends were changed.” The victors then marched with
their banner proudly displayed, while that of their adversaries was
furled and slanted earthwards. This was a dangerous moment, as the
conquered party sometimes refused to lower their banner, whereupon the
others would fall upon them and tear it to pieces, and men were often
severely wounded. The players were picked men, as “scoundrels are not
to be tolerated,” writes the Count Giovanni, “neither artificers,
servants, low-born nor infamous fellows, but honourable soldiers,
gentlemen, lords and princes. Therefore to play Calcio, gentlemen from
eighteen to forty-five years of age shall be chosen, well-matched,
handsome, vigorous, of gallant bearing and of good repute.... It is not
convenient for the player to wear aught save hose and doublet, a cap
and light shoes, because the less he is hampered the more agile will he
be, and the better able to use his limbs and to run swiftly. Above all
should every one be careful to have handsome, elegant and well-fitting
attire.”
Mr. Heywood, in the book I have quoted, scouts the notion that our
national game of football came originally from Italy, where he says it
was unknown before the XVth century. On the contrary, he suggests that
the great English Condottiere, Sir John Hawkwood, may have introduced
it into Florence. But several Italian writers declare that Julius
Pollux exactly describes it in a book he dedicated to the Emperor
Commodus, and that it has existed in Italy from time immemorial.
The game of calcio played in 1529 in order to flout the enemy, and
show how little the Florentines cared for the Prince of Orange, is
celebrated. Trumpeters were stationed on the top of the church of Sta.
Croce, so that their triumphant blasts might be heard by the besiegers,
whose gunners, fortunately for them, were not skilful enough to hit
them from Poggio Imperiale.
Tournaments, jousts, ballets on horseback, masquerades and sham
battles, often took place on the Piazza Sta. Croce. Here the Duke of
Athens was hailed as Lord of Florence by the assembled people, but
in the following year for several days he held grand jousts, and the
citizens stood sullenly aloof. In 1468, when Lorenzo the Magnificent
held the lists against all comers, “great was the concourse of
jousters,” writes Niccolò Valori, “the magnificence of the arms and the
wealth of jewels were only surpassed by the resplendent surcoats and
habits of cloth of gold.” Mounted successively on chargers presented to
him by the Duke of Ferrara and the King of Naples, and wearing armour
sent to him by the Duke of Milan, Lorenzo de’ Medici won the prize of
valour. Luca Pulci thus describes the entry of his friend and patron,
and his beautiful banner:--
“E mi parea sentir sonar Miseno
Quando sul campo Lorenzo guignea
Sopra un caval che tremar fe il terreno:
E nel suo bel vesillo si vedea
Di sopra un sole e poi l’arcobalena
Dove a lettere d’oro si leggea
‘LE TEMS REVIENT’ che puo interpretarsi
Tornare il tempo e’ l secol rinnovarsi.”
A little later Poliziano celebrated in glowing lines the tournament
held by Giuliano de’ Medici, but _La Giostra_ was never finished, for
when Giuliano was assassinated Poliziano laid down his pen.
After the death of the last of the family of dell’Antella the old
palace passed to the Biagi, and then to the Della Stufa. It now belongs
to Signor Mariani.
PALAZZO ANTINORI
_Piazza S. Gaetano. No. 3._
In 1490 Niccolò degl’Antinori bought this palace from the Boni della
Catena. It is supposed by some to have been built by Baccio d’Agnolo,
whilst others think that Giuliano da San Gallo was the architect on
account of some resemblance with Palazzo Gondi.
The origin of the Antinori is as uncertain as that of their palace, but
they are probably an offshoot of the powerful family of Buondelmonti.
Francesco degl’Antinori was the first of twenty-three Priors of his
house in 1351. His eldest great-nephew, Niccolò, bought the Boni
palace, while the second, Bernardo, was the founder of another branch
of the family whose palace is in Via de’ Serragli. Niccolò was four
times elected a Prior, in 1498 he was Captain of Arezzo, three years
later he was sent to quell a revolt at Pistoja, and then he was named
ambassador at Milan. His sons took opposite sides in politics; the two
eldest, ardent republicans, were banished when the Medici returned to
Florence in 1513, whilst the third, Alessandro, was created a Senator
by the Duke Alessandro. A like honour fell to his son Sebastiano who
was selected by Cosimo I. to revise Boccaccio’s writings. Alessandro’s
other son Lorenzo was a great traveller, a good musician and an
excellent man of business who augmented the family wealth, and his
descendants filled many important posts under the Grand Dukes of
Tuscany.[19] This fine palace still belongs to the Antinori family.
PALAZZO BARDI
_Via de’ Benci. No. 2._
The principal palace of the Bardi family in Via de’ Bardi, where the
beautiful Dianora is supposed to have lived (see p. 57), was bought by
the family of the Tempi, whose name it still bears and for whom it was
entirely altered and modernized by the architect Matteo Nigetti about
1610. Ser Benedetto di Tempo, notary to the Signoria in 1357, was their
ancestor, several of the family were created Senators, while two became
Cardinals. The Marquess Benedetto Tempi, who died in 1770, was the last
of his race, and the palace now belongs to the Marquess Bargagli; so
there is no representative of the ancient and powerful family of the
Bardi in the Oltrarno. They were lords of the castle of Ruballa near
Antella, and took their name from Pagano di Bardo, who made a donation
of land to the church of Sta. Reparata of Florence in 1112. About that
time the family settled in Florence in the Borgo Pidiglioso and built
so many palaces and strong towers that the street was called Via de’
Bardi. Gualterotto de’ Bardi, a canon, joined in the crusade of 1215
and, after fighting at Damietta, became Bishop of Acre. Geri, who bore
the standard of the Guelphs at the battle of Montaperti, was exiled
with the rest of his party by the victorious Ghibellines, and his
nephew Roberto, who wrote the life of Filippo Villani, was Chancellor
of the University of Paris for forty years. Another nephew, Cino,
fought by Dante’s side in the battle of Campaldino in 1289, but there
cannot have been much friendship between them, as Cino’s brother was
the husband of Beatrice Portinari. The fortune of their handsome nephew
Piero, Lord of Vernio and of Mangona, was so large that even after the
failure of the great Bardi-Peruzzi bank he was one of the foremost
citizens of Florence, and aroused such jealousy by his riches, valour
and remarkable personal beauty, that he was excluded from all offices.
Publicly insulted by Jacopo Gabrielli, Captain of the Guard instituted
by the oligarchy of the _Nobili Popolani_ to hold the _Grandi_ in
check, he plotted with Bardo de’ Frescobaldi, who had also been
insulted, to murder the Captain and to “reform” the city. One of his
cousins, terrified at the possible consequences, secretly revealed the
plot to the Signori, who caused the great bell of the palace to be rung
and summoned the people to arms. The Bardi and other nobles fortified
their towers, and civil war would have ensued but for the intervention
of the Podestà, who promised a full pardon for all offences if the
_Grandi_ would lay down their arms. He broke his word, and all the
nobles who had taken part in the conspiracy were banished. They only
re-entered the city after the Duke of Athens became ruler, and a few
years later made themselves so hated that, as Giovanni Villani writes:--
“On the 24th September, 1343, the people rose against the Bardi, Rossi,
Frescobaldi, Mannelli and Nerli, _Grandi_ of the Oltrarno, who at once
seized and held the bridges. The palace of the sons of Messer Vieri
de’ Bardi was strong and the tower well fortified, as was the house
of the Mannelli at the head of the Ponte Vecchio, then built of wood.
The people could not pass over it, nor could they cross the Ponte
Rubaconte (now Ponte alle Grazie), on account of the strength of the
palaces of the Bardi of S. Gregorio; so they left a guard under the
houses of the Alberti and also at the Ponte Vecchio, and then, with
many soldiers on horseback, they went to the Ponte alia Carraja which
was guarded by the Nerli. The people of S. Frediano, Cuculia and the
Fondaccio, were however so numerous that before the others arrived they
had stormed the bridge-head and the houses of the Nerli, who were put
to flight. And thus the victorious people passed over the bridge, and
joined those of the Oltrarno and furiously attacked the Frescobaldi....
The Bardi seeing themselves bereft of any aid from the Rossi and the
Frescobaldi were much alarmed, they nevertheless armed their barricades
and fought in such manner that some were killed and many were wounded
on either side; for the Bardi were well furnished with both horse and
foot and had many mercenaries, so the people tried in vain to force
their stockades. Four companies of those of the Oltrarno were then
ordered to attack them from behind by the hill of S. Giorgio. The Bardi
seeing themselves hotly besieged and assailed on all sides were much
afeard, and began to abandon their barricades on the Piazza or Ponte,
which were guarded by the tower of the Guelph party and by the palace
of the sons of Messer Vieri de’ Bardi, in order to defend themselves
against those who were coming from the cane-brakes of S. Giorgio.
Then a certain Strozza, a German captain, got inside the barricades
of the Piazza a Ponte with his brigade, with great peril to himself
on account of the many stones and bricks which were hurled at him. He
rushed to Sta. Maria Sopr’Arno, followed by the people, and was there
joined by those of this side of the Arno who had crossed the bridge
and, surmounting every obstacle on the other side, had joined with the
people of the Oltrarno. They broke down the resistance and the power of
the Bardi who fled to the Borgo S. Niccolò, imploring their neighbours
and the company of the Gonfalone of the Scala, who had already taken
possession of the palaces of the Bardi of S. Gregorio, to save their
palaces from being sacked and burnt, and their lives from being taken.
So the people who were on guard at the head of the bridge near the
houses of the Alberti, saved the Bardi from death, but all their
houses, from Sta. Lucia as far as the Ponte Vecchio, were robbed of
everything by the _popolo minuto_ ... who in their fury, after sacking
the houses set them on fire. Twenty-two rich and splendid palaces
and houses were burnt and it is estimated that the loss was more than
60,000 golden florins. Thus ended the resistance of the Bardi, in their
great pride and power, against the people.”
Piero scornfully rejected the conditions imposed on the _Grandi_ by
the People and retired to his estate of Vernio where he died in 1345.
His sons Sozzo and Notto were created Imperial Vicarii of the county
of Vernio by the Emperor Charles IV., and the diploma was ratified
by the Emperor Leopoldo in 1697 in favour of their descendants. It
was abrogated by the treaty of Vienna in 1814, when Vernio became an
integral portion of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. As long as Florence
had been republican none of Piero de’ Bardi’s family entered the
city, but under Cosimo I. his grandson Alberto settled there, whose
son Pandolfo played the ugly part of confidant between Francesco de’
Medici and Bianci Cappello, whilst another son was the Franciscan
friar who performed the first (secret) marriage of the Grand Duke and
his mistress only a few days after the death of the Grand Duchess
Joan of Austria. Alberto’s brother Camillo took up his residence in a
palace in Via de’ Benci, bought by his ancestors from the old family
of the Busini in 1482, and here his descendants still live. It is
said to have been built by Brunelleschi and has a pretty courtyard
surrounded by an arcade. The windows of the second floor are untouched,
but the mural paintings (graffite) on the façade, believed to have
been the first done in Florence, have been restored. A grandiloquent
inscription records that Giovanni Bardi, Count of Vernio, founded in
the XVIth century the society whose object was to reform recitative and
melody; the first fruits of which were _Dafne_, with Peri’s music, and
_Euridice_ with music by Caccini.
PALAZZO BARTOLINI SALIMBENI
_Piazza Sta. Trinita. No. 8._
In 1516 Messer Lorenzo Bartolini, Apostolic Pro-notary, and his brother
Giovanni, bought five-eighths of a shop from Girolamo Deti, and a
year later several more shops from heirs of other members of the same
family. Two years afterwards garrulous old Giovanni Cambi notes in his
Diary, “at this time Giovanni Bartolini began a small palace at the
corner of Porta Rossa and the Terma, on the Piazza di Sta. Trinita,
where was the tavern of the Camel, and painters, shoemakers and a
baker. It will be a great ornament to the city, as it is in a good
position. Some of the shops belonged to the Soldanieri, who have been
for long away from the Florentine dominion, and now will have more
reason than ever to remain abroad, as the sale was made without their
consent.”
The Bartolini took possession of the property, and their _pulchrum
edifitium_ as the notary termed it, was already far advanced when
the Venerable Maestro Berdardino d’Oderigo Soldanieri, a Dominican,
arrived in Florence after a long absence. He lost no time in attacking
Bartolini for having taken unlawful possession of three-eighths of the
shop which belonged to his family, and was appeased with difficulty.
However finally all was arranged and Lorenzo Bartolini took up his
abode in the palace in 1521. Baccio d’Agnolo (Baglioni) was the
architect, and Vasari tells us, “this was the first edifice built with
square windows having frontispieces, and of which the columns of the
door support the architrave, the frieze, and the cornice; therefore the
Florentines derided these novelties with jibes and with sonnets, and
they hung it about with garlands of boughs as is done in churches for
the festivals, saying that it was more like the façade of a church than
of a palace; so that Baccio was nigh losing his reason: however knowing
that he had followed good examples and that the building was beautiful,
he took heart.” I may add that he revenged himself by inscribing over
the door, CARPERE PROMPTUS QUAM IMITARI, as a lesson to the people of
Florence.
Vasari again mentions this palace in his life of Cronaca, blaming
Baccio for having, “in order to imitate Cronaca, placed a huge antique
cornice, in fact the frontispiece of Montecavallo, on the top of a
small and elegant façade, so that nothing could be worse, and all
for lack of knowledge; it looks like a large hat on a small head.”
However he admits that “nevertheless the building has always been much
praised.” It has also been imitated, for the palace of the Duc de Retz,
in the Rue Montmartre in Paris, is copied from it. The origin of the
remarkably pretty friezes which surround the house under the first and
the second floor windows, of three poppies tied together, and the motto
_per non dormire_, which forms an architectural ornament, is said to
have been a trick attempted on Messer Bernuccio di Giovanni Salimbeni
of Siena, whose descendants came to Florence and took the name of
Bartolini. He was a great silk merchant, and with other friends passed
through Florence every year to go to the fair of Sinalunga with his
Florentine acquaintances. They determined to steal a march on Messer
Bernuccio, and one year mixed poppy juice with the wine served at the
banquet, intending to start at daylight and thus obtain the pick of the
market. But old Salimbeni was warned, and managed to change the flasks,
thus turning the tables on the Florentines to the great advantage of
the Sienese. He then invented the device and the motto, with which his
descendants ornamented their palace.
[Illustration: PALAZZO BARTOLINI SALIMBENI. PALAZZO BUONDELMONTI.
CORNER OF PALAZZO SPINI.]
In 1868 the palace was sold to Prince Ercole Pio di Savoia; whose
daughters still own it, and many readers will doubtless remember
it as the old Hôtel du Nord. Inside is a very pretty loggia and the
rooms are well-proportioned. It is sad to see one of the most exquisite
buildings in Florence falling to ruin.
Opposite the palace, on the Piazza di Sta. Trinita, stands the column
described by Evelyn in his Diary as being “of ophite, upon which is a
statue of Justice, with her balance and sword, out of porphyry, and
the more remarkable for being the first which had been carved out of
that hard material, and brought to perfection, after the art had been
utterly lost; they say this was done by hardening the tools in the
juice of certain herbs. This statue was erected on that spot, because
there Cosimo was first saluted with the news of Siena being taken....
Looking at the Justice, in copper, we are told that the Duke, asking a
gentleman how he liked the piece, he answered, that he liked it very
well, but that it stood too high for poor men to come at.”
PALAZZO BARTOLOMMEI
_Via Lambertesca. No. 11._
The old palace of the Lamberteschi, with which the tower of the ancient
family of the Gherardini had been incorporated, was bought in 1640 by
Anton Maria Bartolommei, and to it was added, according to an entry in
the catasto, “in 1824 a building, called the tower of the Girolami,
at the corner of Via Lambertesca and Via Por Santa Maria, bought by
the Marquess Girolamo Bartolommei from the heirs of Count Covoni,
whose wife was the last of the Girolami. According to tradition the
progenitor of the Bartolommei was Marcovaldo, who came into Italy with
the Emperor Frederick I., and was created Marquess of Ancona and Count
of Romagna. His descendant Sigismondo was Captain of War in Perugia
in 1358; beaten by the Pontifical troops, he fled to Florence, where
his son Bartolommeo obtained the citizenship and gave his name to the
family. His son Girolamo was implicated in the conspiracy against the
Medici with Orazio Pucci and Zanobi Girolami, and sentenced to death
_in contumaciam_; another son fled to Lyons, where he made a large
fortune in trade, which eventually came back to the family. Thus Anton
Maria was enabled to buy the palace and restore the adjoining church
of S. Stefano. Girolamo de’ Bartolommei, a poet of the XVIIth century,
was Consul of the Florentine Academy in 1648, and published two volumes
of tragedies, but his best known work is _America_, a poem written in
honour of Amerigo Vespucci. Mattia, created Marquess of Montegiove by
Fernando II., was ambassador at Paris under Cosimo III., and from his
son descended the late Marquess Ferdinando Bartolommei, last of the
family, who was one of the factors of United Italy.[20]
The Gherardini, whose old tower was incorporated in the Lamberteschi
palace, were Guelphs; many of them fought at Montaperti, while eight
signed the peace of the Cardinal Latino in 1280. Andrea Gherardini, one
of the leaders of the White Party, was exiled together with Dante, and
his brother Lotteringo was killed in a street skirmish by adherents
of Corso Donato. They were a fighting race; five of them fell at the
battle of Montecatini in 1315, and the two last scions of the family
died in battle, one in the Seven Years War in Germany, the other in
Flanders. Passerini affirms that a Gherardini went to Ireland in the
XIIIth century, and was the progenitor of the great family of the
Fitzgeralds.[21]
[Illustration: TOWERS OF THE GIROLAMI AND OF THE GHERARDINI.]
The Girolami whose tower adjoins that of the Gherardini claimed
S. Zenobius, Bishop of Florence in the VIth century, as belonging to
their family, and on the 25th May his statue in a niche in the tower
used to be decorated with garlands of flowers, with great ceremony and
much blowing of trumpets. The family possessed the ring of the saint,
held in such estimation as a wonder-working relic that Lorenzo the
Magnificent sent it in 1482 to Paris to Louis XI. The king was cured of
a severe illness after touching it, and sent it back in a jewelled box
of great value which the Gherardini sold, and founded a rich canonry in
Sta. Maria del Fiore with the proceeds. In 1523 Raffaello de’ Girolami
was Gonfalonier of Justice, and five years later Commissary of War.
Condemned to death after the capitulation of Florence, the sentence
was commuted at the request of Don Ferrante Gonzaga to imprisonment
for life in the fortress of Pisa, where he was poisoned by order of
Pope Clement VII., as soon as the Imperialists left Tuscany. One of his
sons fought as a lad against Cosimo I. at Siena under Strozzi, and was
sentenced to lose his head, but escaped to France. Another obtained
permission to return to Florence after long years of exile, and as
all his estates had been confiscated, left nothing to his son save
the family hatred of the Medici. He joined Orazio Pucci and Girolamo
Bartolommei in conspiring against the Grand Duke, and was condemned to
death _in contumaciam_. Raffaello de’ Girolami founded the Academy of
the Sapienza in Rome, and became a Cardinal in 1743, and the last of
the family died about forty years later, appointing the sons of his
sister, married to Count Covoni, his heirs.
PALAZZO BORGHESE
_Via Ghibellina. No. 110._
This palace is chiefly interesting because part of it (corner of Via
de’ Giraldi and Via de’ Pandolfini) was built where once stood the
house of Giovanni and Matteo Villani. The Salviati bought it with some
others, and Silvani erected for them a large palace, which afterwards
became the property of Prince Camillo Borghese. He purchased many
adjoining houses, and enlarged it in 1823, when he must have spent a
fortune on the magnificent internal decorations. It now belongs to the
Borghese Club.
The family of the Villani came from Borgo S. Lorenzo in the XIIIth
century, and took their name from Villano, son of Stoldo. Giovanni, the
famous chronicler, was the eldest son of Villano, and superintended
the building of the campanile of the Badia of Florence and of the
doors of S. Giovanni. He was also Master of the Mint, and sat several
times as Prior in the Palazzo de’ Signori. In 1325 he fought at
Altopascio, and soon afterwards was imprisoned for debt as a partner
of the Buonaccorsi, whose bank was ruined by the failure of the Bardi.
His delightful _Cronica_, picturesque, pure and elegant in style,
and wonderfully impartial, has been a mine of wealth to all students
of the history of old Florence. It was continued, after he died of
the plague in 1348, by his brother Matteo, until he fell a victim to
the same malady in 1363. Matteo’s eldest son Filippo added forty-two
chapters to the chronicle, but of very inferior interest, bringing it
down to 1365. He was also the author of a commentary on Dante, and of
_Philippi solitarii de origine civitatis Florentiæ, et ejusdem famosis
civibus_, which remained in manuscript until 1747, when the second
part, containing the lives of various famous persons, was published. He
died in 1404, and the last descendant of his brother Giovanni in 1617.
PALAZZO BOUTURLIN
_Via de’ Servi. No. 15._
Bastiano, son of Zanobi Ciaini, also called Montaguto or Montauto, from
his castle at Santa Maria a Montauto, made a large fortune in trade.
In 1540 he bought several houses in the Via de’ Servi, and summoned
Domenico, son of Baccio d’Agnolo (Baglioni), who Vasari declares to
have been an architect of no common merit, “besides carving most
excellently in wood,” to build him a palace. A brother inherited
it, who must have had losses as in 1572 the house was let to Messer
Raffaello de’ Medici, a knight of San Stefano, and four years later
was sold to Messer Giovanni Niccolini, who after his wife’s death was
created a Cardinal through the influence of the Medici.
Giovanni added to the palace, filled it with costly works of art,
and fitted up one room for his fine collection of coins. Beneath the
architraves of two doors on the ground floor, under the loggia, is
still to be seen his name, IOANNES NICOLINUS AUG. CARD. F. As Giovanni
Dosio was the architect employed by him to build the fine Niccolini
chapel in Santa Croce, it is probable that he also made the additions
to the palace. Filippo, his son, again enlarged it, and inscribed the
date, A.D. MDCLV. on the central arch of the gallery above the loggia.
About the same time the Grand Duke created him Marquess of Ponsacco and
Camugliano, with remainder to collateral relations in case he had no
children. In 1666 Lorenzo, a descendant of his great-uncle, inherited
the palace, and added to it, as is shown by the inscription above a
door in the courtyard, LAUREN. NICOLINI. PONTIS. SACCI. MARCHIO. He
bought some small houses and adjoining land to make a garden, and tied
up the palace and its contents upon his heirs male. But his son Filippo
left it to his sons in common, and they sold the old family palace
in 1824 to Count Demetrio Bouturlin, Privy Councillor and Chamberlain
to the Emperor of Russia, whose descendants still own it. In 1854 the
façade was plastered from the first floor upwards, and decorated in
_graffite_, and with paintings. During the few years that Florence
was the capital of Italy, Palazzo Bouturlin was the residence of the
British ambassador, Sir Henry Elliot.
PALAZZO BUONDELMONTI
_Piazza Sta. Trinita_
Ancestor of the great and powerful family of the Buondelmonti was
Sichelmo, who lived about 905, and whose son Azzo, Lord of Petrojo, was
the grandfather of Giovanni, founder of the Vallombrosan Order. His
other son, Rinieri Pagano, ruled the whole Val di Pesa and from him
descended Uguccione and Rosso, whose feudal castle of Montebuoni was
taken and razed to the ground by order of the Commune of Florence in
1135 at the instigation, it is said, of the Uberti who were jealous of
their power. Half in derision, half in fear, they were called the Buoni
del Monte (Good men of the Mountain) by travellers who dreaded being
waylaid. Uguccione and Rosso were forced to come and live in Florence,
and from Buondelmonte, son of Uguccione, the family took their name,
while Rosso’s son Scolajo, founded the family of the Scolari.
Buondelmonte’s three sons, all hard fighters, were made knights of the
Golden Spur, and it was the murder of his grandson and namesake by the
Amidei, that plunged Florence into civil war in 1215.
Buondelmonte de’ Buondelmonti was among the young men invited by Messer
Mazzingo Mazzinghi to a banquet at his castle near Campi, to celebrate
his receiving the honour of knighthood. During dinner the buffoon of
the house snatched a plate from before Uberto Infangati, a friend of
Buondelmonte, who curtly reproved the jester’s insolence. Oddo Fifanti
defended the man, and losing his temper, took the plate from him and
hurled it at Infangati. Young Buondelmonte then rose from the table
and attacked Fifanti with his dagger. Friends made peace between them
and a marriage was arranged between Buondelmonte and a daughter of
Lambertuccio Amidei and of Fifanti’s sister. A few days before the
wedding the bridegroom rode under the windows of the Donati palace and
Forese Donati’s wife, Madonna Gualdrada, called to him and bade him
come up. She laughed him to scorn for a coward, who out of fear of the
Uberti and the Fifanti was going to marry an ugly girl. “All the more
do I grieve,” she added, “because I had intended your old playmate,
my daughter, to be your bride.” Saying this she led him into the next
room where her daughter “the most beautiful maiden in Florence,” writes
Villani, sat singing. Buondelmonte, as the old saying is, “lost his
intellect through his eyes,” and forgetting his plighted word asked for
her hand. The wedding was fixed for the 10th February, the very day he
was to have married the daughter of Lambertuccio Amidei. Furious at
the insult offered to their house, the Amidei summoned their relations
to meet in the church of S. Stefano, and Schiatta degl’Uberti proposed
to slice the fair face of young Buondelmonte and spoil his beauty. But
Mosca Lamberti replied in the well-known words: “Before thou beatest
or woundest, dig thine own grave. Give him what he deserves. A thing
finished is done with.” And so his death was determined.
On Easter morn 1315 the handsome young bridegroom, clothed in white
with a garland of flowers on his head, was riding over the Ponte
Vecchio on his favourite white palfrey. As he debouched into Por
Sta. Maria the great doors of the Amidei palace flew open, and the
murderers, led by Schiatta degl’Uberti who gave the first blow and
knocked Buondelmonte off his horse, killed him near the old statue of
Mars at the corner of the bridge. Well may Dante exclaim:
“O Buondelmonti! what ill counselling
Prevail’d on thee to break the plighted bond?
Many, who now are weeping, would rejoice,
Had God to Ema given thee, the first time
Thou near our city camest. But so was doom’d:
Florence! on that maimed stone which guards the bridge,
The victim, when thy peace departed, fell.”
Par. Canto xvi., _Cary’s_ trans.
“This day witnessed the beginning of the destruction of Florence,”
writes an old chronicler. The beautiful young bride, seated on the
funeral car with her dead husband’s head in her lap, went through the
streets calling for vengeance on his murderers. The city was divided
into two factions and Guelphs and Ghibellines flew at each other’s
throats. After some years of incessant strife another marriage was
arranged. This time it was the daughter of a Buondelmonti who wedded
an Uberti. But at a banquet in the same old castle of the Mazzinghi at
Campi, a quarrel arose in which Schiatta degl’Uberti was killed, while
Oddo Fifanti had his nose cut off and his mouth slit from ear to ear.
Neri degl’Uberti thereupon sent back his wife to her father saying he
would not beget children from the daughter of a race of traitors.
The Buondelmonti were all handsome, which probably accounts for the
love stories connected with their name. Not many years passed ere all
Florence was keenly interested in the fate of Ippolito Buondelmonti,
the hero of a manuscript Latin tale and of a ballad printed in the
XVIth century. In the _Osservatore Fiorentino_ the story is told as
follows. “Ippolito Buondelmonti, one of the handsomest and most polite
youths of Florence, saw the young daughter of Amerigo de’ Bardi at the
feast of S. Giovanni, and was seized with such love for the maiden
that her grace and beauty were ever present to him. When he heard
who she was, in despite of the bitter hatred between the two houses,
he studied in what way he could please her, passing often under her
windows and following her when she went out. Then reflecting on the
great difficulties arising from the enmity of their parents, he was the
most sorrowful man in the world. At length consumed by continual grief
he became so ill that he lay in bed and no doctor could discover his
malady. His mother, who loved him tenderly, implored him to say what
was the cause of his thus wasting away, and after long resistance he
confessed his love for Dianora de’ Bardi. She, who cared for nought
save to restore her son to life, went to an old friend, Madonna
Contessina, a cousin of the Bardi, who lived in a villa at Montecelli
half a mile from the city, and entreated her so earnestly that at last
Contessina promised to help her.
“It being September a solemn feast was to be celebrated in that
district, and Dianora was invited with many other girls, her friends
and relations. After a joyous midday meal the girls went to repose in
various rooms, and Dianora was led into one where Ippolito had been
hid since the day before. The maiden was much alarmed but he, with
submissive and gentle manner, said he would rather die than cause her
any fear, and offered her his dagger to pierce his heart. The end was
that she promised to accept him as her lord on the condition that
everything was to be kept secret from her parents. It was arranged
between them that the next night she would let down a cord from her
window to which he was to attach a silken ladder, and so they parted.
At midnight Ippolito stole cautiously across the Ponte Vecchio with the
ladder hid in his cap, but as he reached Amerigo’s palace in Via de’
Bardi, the Bargello, or head of the police, with his guard, came down
the street from S. Niccolò. Ippolito fled up the Costa, losing his cap
as he ran. As ill-luck would have it another patrol was coming down
from the Porta S. Giorgio and he was seized and taken to the Palazzo
del Podestà. To shield Dianora he declared that he had intended first
to rob and then set fire to the palace of the enemy of his house. The
Podestà refused to believe him and sent for his father, before whom he
repeated his words, and the next morning the banner of Justice on the
old palace and the tolling of the great bell, announced that a culprit
had been condemned to death. Ippolito obtained as a last favour to be
led to execution past the palace of the Bardi, whose pardon he declared
he wished to ask, but really in hopes of gazing once more on the face
of his love. Dianora saw him from her window, and casting aside all
maidenly modesty rushed down into the street exclaiming: “He is my
affianced husband and only risked his life out of his great love for
me.” The procession was stopped and word was sent to the Podestà, who
stayed the execution and summoned the lovers and their families before
him. There Dianora pleaded for the life of her lover and for her own
love so successfully, that not only was the marriage allowed, but the
Bardi and the Buondelmonti swore friendship. The whole city rejoiced
and Ippolito and Dianora lived most happily for many years and were the
parents of many children.”
In June 1378, when the _Arti_, or Guilds, rose against the nobles, and
to the cry of _Viva il Popolo_ sacked and burnt many of the old towers
and palaces, those of the Buondelmonti, which extended from the Piazza
Sta. Trinita some way down the Borgo S.S. Apostoli, were destroyed. The
façade of the present palace, which must have been far more imposing
before the great loggia at the top was bricked up and divided into
many rooms, was frescoed by Jacone early in the XVIth century, with
subjects from the life of Pippo Spano,[22] but all traces of his work
have perished. The name of Buondelmonti occurs frequently in the annals
of Florence among her soldiers and her ambassadors, while Esau, son of
Manente who married a sister of the Grand Seneschal Acciaiuoli (see p.
2) and followed his brother-in-law to Naples where he was made Lord
High Chamberlain, attained the dignity of King of Rumenia and Despot of
Arta, but died childless.
Zanobi Buondelmonti was implicated in the plot to assassinate the
Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici, and on hearing of the arrest of Alamanni,
one of the conspirators, he hurried home to conceal himself in one
of those secret hiding places which existed in all large houses. But
his wife, with courage “more worthy of a man than of a woman,” writes
Nardi, drove him almost by force out of the house, gave him all the
money she could gather together, and told him to make haste and cross
the frontier. As he left the city he met the Cardinal returning from
his afternoon drive, and barely escaped being seen by dashing into
the shop of a sculptor. He reached the frontier in safety and went
to his friend Ludovico Ariosto, then Podestà of Castelnuovo in the
Ferrara territory, who had always been Buondelmonti’s guest when he
came to Florence. Varchi says that he was also an intimate friend of
Machiavelli “whose virtues he acquired without being tainted by any of
his vices.” He was eventually pardoned, and died with his whole family
of the plague at Barga, where he was Commissary. Andrea, one of the few
of the family who entered the Church, was Archbishop of Florence. The
family came to an end in 1774 when the Senator Francesco Giovacchino
de’ Buondelmonti died, and the palace is now the property of Signor
Adami.
PALAZZO DEL BUONTALENTI
(CASINO DI SAN MARCO)
_Via Cavour. No. 63._
Ottaviano de’ Medici, whose house adjoined the Orti Medicei, bought,
in order to obtain an exit into Via San Gallo, a house, courtyard and
loggia, from the Compagnia dei Tessitori di Drappi, an offset of the
Guild of Silk. The beautiful loggia in Via San Gallo, which Signor
Iodico del Badia attributes to Giuliano da San Gallo, was walled up,
but has recently been opened and well restored.[23] Ottaviano was held
in such high esteem by the Medici family that Clement VII. made him
administrator of all their property in Tuscany, and guardian of the
young Duchess Caterina, the orphan daughter of Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino,
who afterwards became Queen of France. When Ippolito and Alessandro
de’ Medici were forced to fly the city in 1527, Ottaviano took up his
abode in the great Medici palace, in order to protect it from being
looted. With the accession of Alessandro his duties ceased as far as
the palace and the villas were concerned, but it was only when Cosimo
I. ascended the throne that he was called upon to hand over the vast
territorial possessions. He was found to be a debtor of 5,106 ducats,
and in payment of this sum he ceded to the Duke his house adjoining the
Orti Medicei.
When Francesco I. succeeded his father he commissioned Bernardo
Buontalenti to build him a palace in the Orti, where he had a chemical
laboratory and a furnace for smelting different metals in the hopes
of discovering how to make gold, and part of Ottaviano’s house was
incorporated with it. The Grand Duke left the palace to Don Antonio,
his supposed son by Bianca Cappello, and Ferdinando I. confirmed
the donation on the condition that he never married. Don Antonio
embellished the interior, and made a beautiful garden, which he
decorated with marble and bronze statues. He took a great interest
in printing and had a private press, and continued the chemical
experiments of the Grand Duke Francesco. Galileo was a friend of his,
and Count Pier Filippo Covoni, to whose pamphlets we are indebted for
the account of this palace, cites several of the Prince’s letters to
him.[24] After his death the Casino passed to the Cardinal Carlo de’
Medici, who employed Matteo Rosselli and other artists to fresco some
of the rooms which he filled with pictures. These were distributed
among the various galleries of Florence by his heir, Cosimo III.; the
statues and busts were sent to the gardens of Boboli, Petraja and
Castello, and the fine cabinets and tapestries were removed to the
Pitti palace. For many years the house remained empty; then it was used
as barracks for the bodyguard of the Grand Duke, and in 1846 it became
the custom house. During the few years that Florence was the capital
of United Italy, the Foreign Office was installed in the Casino, which
then assumed the more serious name of Palazzo del Buontalenti. It now
is the seat of the Court of Appeal, and of the Assize Court.
PALAZZO CANACCI
_Piazza S. Biagio. No. 3._
The Canacci came originally from S. Stefano ad Ugnano, and took their
name from a certain Lapo surnamed Canaccio. That they were rich is
proved by their fine old palace, which has just been restored. Ser
Giovanni was notary to the Republic in 1422, but the name of Canacci
would have remained comparatively unknown if the Duke Jacopo Salviati
had not fallen in love with the beautiful wife of Giustino. I cannot do
better than tell the sad tale in the words of an anonymous writer of
the time, whose manuscript is in the Marucelliana library in Florence.
“There was in Florence a gentleman of the old and honourable family
of the Canacci, named Giustino, well known to me and to others still
alive. He was considered a man of but little sense, because having
several grown-up children by a former wife, and being near seventy
years of age, he took to himself a second wife, Caterina, inferior to
himself in rank, but endowed with marvellous beauty. Now Giustino was
the ugliest, most tiresome, and the dirtiest man in Florence, which
encouraged many to solicit the good graces of Caterina, who apparently
led a modest life until they say she listened to Lorenzo Serzelli
and Vincenzio Carlini. There were also two youths, friends of Jacopo
Salviati, Duke of Giuliano, the greatest personage for birth, enormous
wealth and other admirable qualities, in the city of Florence (always
excepting the princes of the ruling house), who a few years before had
taken to wife Donna Veronica, daughter to Don Carlo Cybo, Prince of
Massa and Carrara. This lady had not much beauty, but such pride and
conceit that the Duke was driven to seek for comfort elsewhere.... It
was rumoured that the Duchess entered S. Pier Maggiore one morning,
and as though by chance placed herself by the side of Caterina. In a
few words she bade her never again speak to her husband, and Caterina
replied, perchance with more arrogance and spirit than became her
condition, thus increasing the ire of the Duchess and ensuring her
own ruin. The Duke’s love grew every day, and the Duchess determined
to cut the thread. Rumour has it that she tried to poison Caterina,
but failed, and determined to take vengeance in another way. She sent
for the brothers Bartolomeo and Francesco Canacci, youths of about
twenty-four or so, who, though they did not inhabit, yet frequented
their father’s house. After representing to them that Caterina’s
licentious life brought ignominy on themselves and their posterity,
and that as persons of birth and consideration it behoved them to free
themselves of her presence, she promised to give them every help if
they would do this, and to protect them from any future peril.... The
Duchess hired four assassins from Massa, who entered the city one by
one to avoid suspicion, and were kept by her until the time was ripe
for effecting her abominable project. On the night of 31st December,
1638, Bartolomeo Canacci, accompanied by the aforesaid bandits, who
stood at the opposite side of the street in the shade, knocked at
his step-mother’s door. Her maid looked out of the window and asked
who was there, and on his answering _friends_, recognized his voice,
and drew the cord of the latch. Bartolomeo and the assassins rushed
upstairs with such fury that Serzelli and Carlini, who were sitting
with Caterina, suspected some evil thing and, springing to their
feet, fled by another staircase on to the roof, whence they got into
a neighbouring house. Caterina was then murdered by these infamous
executors of the barbarous cruelty of the Duchess, together with her
maid, probably to prevent her giving evidence. After this the bodies of
these two most unfortunate women were cut to pieces, and carried into
a carriage. Parts of the bodies were thrown into a well, others into
the Arno, where they were found the next day, but the head of Caterina
was taken to the Duchess.... On Sundays and holidays she used to send
to the Duke’s room a silver basin covered by a fair cloth, containing
collars, cuffs and such like things. But on this first of January the
present was of a different kind. Taking the head of poor Caterina,
which still preserved the beauty which had been the cause of her death,
Donna Veronica placed it in the basin, covered it with the usual cloth,
and sent it by her waiting-woman, who knew naught of the business, into
the Duke’s room. When he rose and lifted the cloth to take his clean
linen, let his horror be imagined at seeing so pitiful a sight. Knowing
full well that his wife had done this deed, he would have no more of
her, and they say he never was seen to smile again.” The account then
describes how Bartolomeo Canacci was beheaded, while the real assassin,
the Duchess, went unpunished, and ends with the reflection, “Whoso
foregathers with great people is the last at the table and the first at
the gallows.”
The last of the Canacci family died in 1777, and the palace now belongs
to the Commune of Florence.
PALAZZO CANIGIANI
_Via de’ Bardi. Nos. 22, 24._
This palace consists of two separate houses; the one adjoining the
church of Sta. Lucia was a hospice for pilgrims in 1283, and tradition
says that S. Francis of Assisi and S. Dominick met here; history,
however, affirms that the saints were never together in Florence. More
interesting is the connection of both church and palace with Dante,
who is said to have often dined with the brethren of the Ospizio de’
Pelegrini after hearing mass in Sta. Lucia on Sundays and holidays. The
other palace, with a most picturesque staircase and a fine well-head,
belonged to a branch of the Bardi family who assumed the name of
Ilarione, or Larione. They became bankrupt, and it was sold to Giovanni
Canigiani in 1465; and here the mother of Petrarch, Eletta Canigiani,
is said to have been born. The hospice had degenerated into two small
houses, which also belonged to the Larione, and were sold at the same
time to another of the Canigiani. They were afterwards rebuilt and made
into one house.
[Illustration: COURTYARD OF PALAZZO CANIGIANI.]
The tradition is that the Canigiani left Fiesole when the town was
destroyed, and settled in Florence, where they became one of the great
Guelph families; their ancient houses, towers and loggia, were in the
Via de’ Bardi, near the Ponte Vecchio. After the defeat of their party
at Montaperti in 1260, they took refuge in Lucca, until the Guelphs
regained their supremacy in Florence, when twelve of the family became
Gonfaloniers of Justice, and fifty-five were Priors. Messer Piero
Canigiani is mentioned in the _Decameron_ as being Chancellor to the
Empress of Constantinople, and on his return to Italy he filled many
important posts. With the exception of Bernardo, who joined Filippo
Strozzi and was hanged, the Canigiani were devoted adherents of the
Medici. Cosimo I. created a cousin and namesake of Bernardo’s, one of
the founders of the Academia della Crusca, a Senator, and Alessandro
Canigiani was made Archbishop of Aix through the influence of Queen
Catherine de’ Medici. The family became extinct in 1813, when the
Giugni succeeded to the name and estates, and to the fine palaces.
On the wall opposite to the Canigiani palace is an inscription
recording the landslip in Via de’ Bardi, in which Bernardo Buontalenti
nearly lost his life. Twice before the hill had slipped, in 1284 and
in 1490, overwhelming the houses built on the slope of the hill of S.
Giorgio. In a manuscript in the Magliabecchiana library is an account
of what happened on the 12th November, 1547, written probably by one of
the Nasi family; perhaps by Lorenzo Nasi, for whom Raphael painted the
Madonna del Cardellino, now in the Uffizi. The picture is said to have
been dug out from under the ruins of his house.
“I will tell how my house fell, and how we were saved. I rose early as
is my wont, and went into my study. Many years before I had noticed
that the house had somewhat suffered on the side against the hill, but
never did I imagine that there was any danger of its falling. A man
from Campiglio was staying with me, and being ill with fever he could
not sleep. All night long he heard ceilings cracking and bits of mortar
falling, so he rose at daybreak, and seeing certain fissures in the
walls, dressed as well as he could and came to warn me. I, believing
that these were old cracks, paid small attention to him, and continued
my writing. But he being alarmed, left the house. Soon afterwards I
heard a great noise, and felt the house tremble, and I left my room to
find out the cause of the noise, when my people told me that a large
stone pilaster at the foot of the stairs was broken, which alarmed me.
Whilst I was thinking what was to be done, and whether we ought to
leave the house, I felt a very great shaking, and saw cracks opening in
the window-sills, doorways and walls. So with great fear I thought only
of saving our lives, and began to shout aloud that every one was to fly
with me. Seizing one child in my arms, taking another by the hand, and
giving others to my people, shouting and calling I ran to the stairs.
Some had already given way, and mortar was falling on all sides. In yet
greater terror I rushed down the stairs and out of the house, and took
refuge in Sta. Lucia. By my side and behind me ran others, and the last
one to come was my wife. I being on the steps of Sta. Lucia, and she
still in the street, I caught her by the arm and helped her to mount
the steps of the church. Hardly was she safe inside when our house
fell all at once with such impetus against the façade of the Canigiani
palace and of Sta. Lucia, that I thought the church and all the houses
by the river would have been knocked down. No bit of wall higher than
one foot remained standing; the vaults gave way, and the houses were
ruined to their foundations. Two horses were buried under our house,
and all our clothes, linen, and furniture, of every description. It was
only by the especial grace of God that of the seventeen persons in our
house none were lost. Had we lingered long enough to say a _credo_, or
had Sta. Lucia been shut, we should all have been killed.”
Only three persons lost their lives in this catastrophe, a fourth, a
boy of eleven, was saved by a beam falling against the wall, under
which he remained unhurt. Baldinucci tells us that “while the child
was crying for help under the ruins, and people were throwing bread
and other food down an aperture, in order to keep him alive while they
tried to remove a huge mass of stones, bricks and wood, a servant of
the Duke Cosimo passed by. Horrified at what he saw, he went to the
palace immediately and told his master. The Duke ordered that every
effort should be made to liberate the wretched boy, and when he was
free he took him into his palace, and ever after protected and aided
him.” The boy grew up, and became that excellent and universal genius
Bernardo Buontalenti.
PALAZZO CAPPONI (NOW FARINOLA)
_Via Gino Capponi. No. 29._
Many were the palaces owned by the Capponi family in Florence, now
only two bear their name. One in the Via de’ Bardi belonging to the
Counts Capponi (see p. 71), and this, built by Fontana in 1705 for
the Marquess Alessandro Capponi, the largest private palace in the
city, with a handsome staircase and a fine garden. Here in 1876 died
the Marquess Gino Capponi, one of the makers of United Italy, last of
his branch of the family, regretted by his fellow-citizens, who had a
great admiration for his noble character. His _Storia della Republica
di Firenze_ has a world-wide reputation. The palace now belongs to his
daughter, Marchioness Farinola.
The Capponi family is said to have come from Lucca about 1216, and
gave no less than ten Gonfaloniers and fifty-six Priors to the city of
their adoption, in whose history they played an important part. With
Gino Capponi, born in 1364, began a series of remarkable men. Sent by
the Republic of Florence in 1405 to take possession of the citadel of
Pisa, and of her two outlying fortresses, he accomplished his task,
and left a garrison of hired troops in the citadel. Soon after his
departure the Pisans rose and retook the citadel, to the great dismay
of the Florentines, who had paid a goodly sum to Visconti and his
French ally for the possession of the prize they had long coveted.
When Pisa appealed to Florence, as a sister Republic, to return the
two fortresses, promising to make good all expenses, Gino remarks in
his Commentary, “With these and like phrases they talked in such a
disgusting manner that every man in Florence determined he would go
naked rather than not conquer Pisa.”[25] In March the following year
he and Maso degl’Albizzi were appointed Commissaries of the army
before Pisa, and the famine-stricken city surrendered in October, when
Gino Capponi was named governor. He died in 1451, leaving three sons;
Agostino, from whom descend the branch of the Counts Capponi in Via
de’ Bardi; Lorenzo, whose son of the same name established himself in
trade at Lyons, and for his charity and munificence during the famine
of 1573 was called the father of the poor; and the more famous Neri.
He and Cosimo de’ Medici were the two most powerful men in Florence.
“Neri was the wisest; the other, Cosimo, was the richest,” writes
Cavalcanti. Riches proved to be of more avail, as Neri’s friend and
fellow-soldier, Baldaccio d’Anghiari, was murdered, probably with
the connivance of Cosimo; and his opposition some years later to the
Florentine, or rather Medicean, policy in Lombardy was useless. His
son Piero made a large fortune as a merchant when quite a young man,
and though his family had always belonged to the popular party as
opposed to the Medici, Lorenzo the Magnificent entrusted him with many
political missions. In 1494 he sent him as Commissary of the Republic
to the camp of Alfonso of Aragon, who was fighting against the Pope
and the Venetians; the Neapolitan army was in full retreat when the
civilian Capponi placed himself at the head of the troops, rallied
them, and led them to victory. The merchant and the diplomatist showed
that he was a born leader, and when Piero de’ Medici was driven out of
Florence, he was the man to whom her citizens turned. His proud answer
to Charles VII. of France is a matter of history. The King, holding his
ultimatum in his hand, declared that if it was not accepted he would
order his trumpets to sound; whereupon Piero Capponi started forward,
and seizing the paper tore it from top to bottom, exclaiming, “If you
sound your trumpets we will ring our bells.” Those present were aghast,
but Capponi knew Charles wanted money; moreover, Nardi tells us the
French were alarmed, as some days before they had seen what a crowd
of resolute, well-armed men, the ringing of a bell had brought forth.
So the King turned off his threat with a bad joke on Capponi’s name.
When Piero Capponi was killed at the head of his men during the siege
of the little village of Sojana, Guicciardini says that many of the
Florentines, whom he had served so well, openly rejoiced because he was
regarded as the head of the party opposed to Savonarola.
His son Niccolò was chief of the _Ottimati_ party, and Baccio Valori
advised the Cardinal Passerini, who governed the city for Clement VII.,
to arrest him, but he was afraid. After the flight of the Cardinal with
his two wards, Ippolito and Alessandro de’ Medici, Niccolò Capponi
made a long speech in the Great Council, but his prudent advice, a
reconciliation with Clement VII. through the intervention of the
Emperor Charles V., which implied the restoration of the Medici as
citizens of paramount authority, but not as absolute rulers, was not
taken. In 1527 he was elected Gonfalonier of Justice, and according
to Varchi, the citizens were soon divided into several parties. The
_Ottomati_, or richer nobility who followed Capponi, the _Popolani_,
or popular party, some of whom were called _Adirati_, being decidedly
adverse to Capponi, and the more violent section of the latter, the
_Arrabiati_, who advocated the destruction, root and branch, of the
Medici and of their adherents. Niccolò had a difficult part to play
and his extraordinary proposal, after reciting nearly word for word a
sermon of Savonarola’s in the Great Council, to proclaim Jesus Christ
King of Florence was probably, as Varchi suggests, a move to gain the
support of the _Frateschi_, a party of considerable consequence. In
spite of many intrigues he was re-elected Gonfalonier of Justice the
following year, “when it appearing to many, and with reason,” writes
Varchi, “that the authority of the Ten was too great, and therefore
dangerous, fifteen citizens of the greater and five of the lesser
Guilds were added to the Great Council.” They were called the _Arroti
alla Pratica de’ Dieci_, and sat for six months. Hearing that the
Gonfalonier, through Jacopo Salviati, corresponded with the Pope, a law
was enacted, in spite of his protestations that what he did was for
the good of the Republic, that no one, for good or for evil, should
communicate with the Pope. Capponi tendered his resignation, which
was not accepted, and he secretly continued his correspondence with
Rome, which nearly cost him his life. One day in the Council Chamber
he dropped a letter from a friend of Salviati, which was found by a
_Popolano_, a violent antagonist of his, and in a few hours the city
was in an uproar. He was deposed and imprisoned, and Carducci, an
_Arrabiato_ and his personal enemy, named in his stead. At the end
of three days’ imprisonment Niccolò Capponi was brought before the
magistrates, and Varchi describes how he entered the Council Chamber,
“with a black cloak, and his hood thrown back on his shoulders for
greater deference, showing on his usually placid countenance signs
rather of anger than of fear.” His long speech to “the Magnificent
Gonfalonier, the noble Signori, the most honoured magistrates and
citizens, my judges,” is an able piece of special pleading, neither
admitting nor denying his guilt. Varchi declares that the letter,
which contained nothing of very great importance, was not lost by
Capponi at all, but that Francesco Valori dropped it by order of the
Pope, who was tired of Niccolò’s beating about the bush, and wanted to
sow discord in the city, hoping once more to obtain the sovereignty
for his family. Anyhow Capponi was acquitted and must have recovered
some of his old popularity, as in the late autumn he formed part of a
deputation to the Emperor at Genoa to try and soften his heart towards
Florence. Charles was civil, but obdurate; Florence must be reconciled
to the Pope, and open her gates to the Medici. On his way home
Capponi met Michelangelo, who was going to study the fortifications of
Ferrara, who told him what a desperate state Florence was in. Already
ill and over-strained, Niccolò Capponi lay down and died, as the old
chroniclers tell us, of grief and despair, in the small village of
Castelnuovo, in the Garfagnana. His nephew Luigi was the husband of the
beautiful Luisa Strozzi who was poisoned probably by the orders of the
Duke Alessandro de’ Medici.
Piero Capponi’s palace in Florence was on the Lung’Arno Guicciardini.
PALAZZO CAPPONI (DELLE ROVINATE)
_Via de’ Bardi. No. 28._
In former times the Arno flowed at the foot of this palace, but a large
part of it was cut off to make the Lung’Arno Torrigiani in 1866. It was
built for that wise and honest citizen Niccolò Da Uzzano by Lorenzo de’
Bicci, and some traces of the ancient architecture can be traced here
and there in the interior. The Da Uzzano were men of note in the time
of the Emperor Henry VII., and for the part they took in the defence of
Florence were placed under the ban of the Empire. Niccolò Da Uzzano,
born about 1359, was thrice Gonfalonier of Justice; as an ardent lover
of liberty he opposed, but without success, the election of Giovanni
de’ Medici to this office and while he lived held the balance of power
between Rinaldo degl’Albizzi and Giovanni’s son, Cosimo the Elder. His
famous speech to Niccolò Barbadori, given by Machiavelli in his _Storia
di Firenze_, is that of a far-seeing statesman, and shows that the
Florentines were right in saying that his death was a public calamity.
His only daughter married a Capponi and the palace belongs to their
descendant Count Luigi Capponi. The surname of “delle Rovinate,” or
the ruined, by which this branch of the family is known, arose from the
landslip nearly opposite the palace (see p. 68). The church of Sta.
Lucia close by bears the same appellation.
PALAZZO CERCHI
_Via Condotta_
Before the building of the Palazzo de’ Signori in 1292 the Priors met
in the Cerchi palace in Via del Garbo, now divided into many houses.
Only vestiges of their towers, and of their once famous loggia, can
still be traced at the corner of Via de’ Cerchi and Via de’ Cimatori.
Piero Monaldi writes in his manuscript history of the ancient family
of the Cerchi that they came from Acone, “of which place they were
lords and also of Ripozzano. In Florence they owned towers, a loggia
and sumptuous palaces, which were destroyed during the civil strife
and discord. A noble race they were, rich and powerful in the city,
with many retainers, munificent and lordly in the country side. But
fate, enemy of their felicity, divided their house in the time of Pope
Boniface VIII. Some became heads of the White party whilst others
remained of the Black, so that they were undone and many of their
records were lost wherein were mentioned numerous honourable lords.
But the fame of Vieri de’ Cerchi remains, one of the greatest knights
of his day and Prince of the White party. When called to Rome by Pope
Boniface to try and pacify the said parties he went thither with many
men at arms, all his own followers, which rather alarmed the Pope.
There were also Niccolò Gentile and Borrigiano and all were knights of
the Golden Spur.”[26] Vieri de’ Cerchi was the great antagonist of
Corso Donati, head of the Black party, and “Florence,” writes Giovanni
Villani, “was kept in such turmoil and danger by their enmity, that the
city was often in an uproar, and every one was under arms.”
The palace came into the possession of the Bandini family, and it is
said that the details of the Pazzi conspiracy were arranged here in
the time of Bernardo Bandini [1478], and that his descendant Giovanni
betrayed Florence to the Imperialists by signals from the top of the
tower in 1530.
PALAZZO COCCHI
_Piazza Sta. Croce. No. 1._
The name of Cocco di Donato occurs among the inhabitants of the
quarter of Sta. Croce in 1328, and his descendants, Borghini and
Francesco Cocchi, having made a large fortune in trade decided to build
themselves a fine house. From the friars of the abbey of Fiesole they
bought a house on the Piazza Sta. Croce and erected the palace we now
see, which came into the possession of Borghini’s nephews after his
death in 1474. It has often been attributed to Baccio d’Agnolo, and
Vasari names it amongst the fine palaces built in Florence after 1470,
but does not mention the architect. Signor Iodico Del Badia believes
that part of the original house bought from the friars was incorporated
with the more modern building; particularly the pilasters up to the
spring of the arches, and the jambs in Via de’ Cocchi.[27] These jambs
are supposed by some to be portions of the ancient walls of Florence
destroyed in 1078, placed by the Peruzzi at one end of the street which
traversed the old Roman amphitheatre. Cinelli however declares that the
Cocchi bought the palace from the Dei family, for whom it was built by
Raffaello del Bianco on the site of other houses and of the ancient
loggia de’ Risaliti.
In the XVIIth century it was enlarged by the addition of some small
houses in the rear, and remained in the possession of the Cocchi until
the last of the family, Maddalena, married Marchese Pucci. It now
belongs to her grandson Count Agostino Della Seta of Pisa.
PALAZZO CORSI SALVIATI (NOW VISCONTI ARCONATI)
_Via Tornabuoni. No. 20._
The powerful and rich “consorteria,” or clan, of the Tornaquinci had
their palaces, towers, loggie and shops, where now stands this palace.
Their origin is lost in obscurity, but we know that the Emperor Otho
I. allowed them to erect dams in the bed of the Arno near their
houses. When the second circle of walls was built round Florence the
gate, afterwards called S. Pancrazio, and a square, where now stands
the Palazzo Strozzi, bore their name. Figliocaro Tornaquinci was
Consul of the army in 1166 and in 1215, and his descendants fought at
Montaperti on the side of the Guelphs in 1260. They divided into five
different families in the XIVth century, of whom only the head of one
branch, Simone, who took the name of Tornabuoni in 1393, interests
us. His son Francesco was Commissary with the army of Carlo Malatesta
and later was sent to Venice, to try and induce the Venetians to
enter Lombardy against the Duke of Milan. A keen man of business, he
stood high in favour with Cosimo de’ Medici and zealously worked to
promote his return from exile in 1434. His daughter Lucrezia married
Piero de’ Medici and their son, Lorenzo the Magnificent, owed much to
her prudence and sagacity and inherited her poetic talent. Giovanni
Tornabuoni, her brother, was treasurer to Sixtus IV. and head of the
Medici bank at Rome, where his wife Francesca died in childbirth in
September, 1477, and his letter to Lorenzo de’ Medici shows how deeply
he mourned her. Vasari tells us that having caused a sepulchre to be
made to her in the Minerva “he willed also that Domenico Ghirlandaio
should paint the walls of the chapel wherein she was buried.”[28]
Giovanni afterwards gave him the commission to paint the wonderful
frescoes in the choir of Sta. Maria Novella, which we know from the
diary of Luca Landucci were begun in 1486 and finished in 1490; not as
Vasari states between 1481 and 1485.
Luca Landucci’s son Benedetto, who knew many of the people figured
in the frescoes pointed them out in 1561, when he was eighty-nine
years old, to Vincenzio Tornaquinci, who fortunately noted down his
words.[29] Giovanni Tornabuoni is to the right of the great central
window, kneeling bareheaded with his hands crossed over his breast, and
opposite to him kneels his wife Francesca, her hands folded in prayer,
with a white kerchief on her head. Signor E. Ridolfi exposes another
of Vasari’s mistakes, which has often been blindly copied without
verifying the dates.[30] Vasari states that “Ginevra de’ Benci, then a
beautiful maiden” is one of the women in the fresco of the Visitation
of Our Lady to S. Elizabeth. Ginevra was born in 1557, married to
Luigi Niccolini in 1573 and died on the 17th August in the same year,
so she could not have been painted by Ghirlandaio between 1486–1490.
The beautiful maiden is Giovanni Tornabuoni’s daughter-in-law, the
lovely and accomplished Giovanna degl’Albizzi, whose marriage to
Lorenzo Tornabuoni was celebrated with such pomp in Florence in 1486.
Two years later Niccolò Fiorentino made six medals of the Tornabuoni
family. Two of Giovanni, one of his son Lorenzo, one of his daughter
Lodovica, and two of his daughter-in-law Giovanna, and the latter
indubitably represent the same person as the slender, swan-necked girl,
in a splendid dress of gold brocade in Ghirlandaio’s fresco. She died,
fortunately for her, before the plot to reinstate Piero de’ Medici was
discovered. “On the 17th August, 1497,” writes Luca Landucci, “the
_Pratica_ met, and were in the palace from morning until midnight; they
were more than one hundred and eighty. And by vote it was determined
that they [the accused] should die, and all they had be confiscated.
Five were executed; first Bernardo del Nero, and then Niccolò Ridolfi,
Giovanni Cambi, Gianozzo Pucci and Lorenzo Tornabuoni, and all the
people grieved for them. Every one wondered that such a thing should be
done and could scarcely believe it. They were executed that very night,
and I shed many tears when I saw the youth Lorenzo on a bier passing
Tornaquinci just before daybreak.”
From Niccolò Fiorentino’s medals Signor Ridolfi has been able to
identify the young girl visiting S. Anne as Ludovica, Giovanni
Tornabuoni’s daughter, who was then about thirteen. Like her
sister-in-law she is clothed in gold brocade and has her hair dressed
in the same fashion. It seems impossible that Ghirlandaio did not paint
Lucrezia de’ Medici among the other members of the Tornabuoni family,
the more so that he chose for the subject of his fresco the life of S.
John the Baptist, which she had translated into _ottava rima_. She
died, it is true, three years before he began the work, but there must
have been portraits of her in existence, although none have come down
to us. Even after the death of her husband Piero, Lucrezia exercised
more authority than usually fell to the share of Tuscan women; both
Poliziano and Pulci praise her poetic gifts and Niccolò Valori writes:
“she was very eloquent, as can be seen in her translations into our
tongue of parts of Holy Writ.” He adds: “Lorenzo was most deferential
to her, and after his father’s death loved and honoured her; showing
in all his actions not only the affection borne to a mother, but
such respect as is given to a father; it was hard for any to discern
whether he most loved or honoured her.” Her nephew Lorenzo Tornabuoni
was decapitated, and his family exiled, in 1497, for plotting against
the liberty of the Republic in favour of the Medici. A descendant of
his, Niccolò, Bishop of Borgo S. Sepolcro and ambassador to France
towards the end of the XVIth century, introduced the tobacco plant into
Tuscany, which for some time was called “l’erba Tornabuoni” after him.
Lorenzo Ridolfi bought the Tornabuoni houses and incorporated them
into one large palace in the beginning of the XVIth century, but when
he rebelled and his son was decapitated in 1575, all his estates
were confiscated and the palace became the property of the Cardinal
Alessandro de’ Medici. He sold it to the rich citizen Jacopo Corsi, a
friend and protector of Peri, and here, in a theatre built on purpose,
his opera _Dafne_, with words by Rinuccini was given for the first time.
The Corsi are said to have come from Dicomano and one of the family
fought under the Ghibelline standard at Montaperti and was exiled in
1268. Their name first appears in the magistrature of Florence in
1354, when Bardo Corsi was the first of nine Gonfaloniers of Justice
and two years later the first of twenty-eight Priors of the family.
Giovanni, his descendant, was entrusted by Clement VII. with the care
of Alessandro de’ Medici, and with him, Ippolito and the Cardinal
Passerini, he left Florence in 1527. After the capitulation of the
city he was elected Gonfalonier of Justice and showed great cruelty
in sentencing his fellow-citizens who were anti-Medicean. His brother
Bardo made an enormous fortune in trade at Naples, and in 1617 bought
the feudal estate of Cajazzo, when Philip of Spain created him a
Marquess with remainder to his nephews, the sons of Jacopo, who
purchased the old Tornabuoni palace. His granddaughter Laura married
the Marquess Salviati and the palace then took the name of Corsi
Salviati. When in 1864 it was decided to widen Via Tornabuoni the
façade was thrown back many feet and the pretty little loggia, built
by Cigoli, was moved from the southern corner of the palace opposite
Palazzo Strozzi to the northern. It now belongs to the Marchioness
Visconti Arconati.
PALAZZO CORSINI
_Via Parione, No. 7; and Lung’Arno Corsini, No. 10._
The great palace of the Corsini family was built in the XVIIth century
by Ciro Ferri and Pierfrancesco Silvani for the Marquess Filippo
Corsini, where once stood the houses of the Compagni, the Segni and the
Ardinghelli; the last had become the property of the Cardinal Giovan
Carlo de’ Medici, and was sold after his death to pay his debts. The
façade and chief entrance of the palace is in the Via Parione, but in
the last century the terrace joining the two wings was erected in the
Lung’Arno Corsini, with a large gateway into the courtyard, thus the
palace now has two façades.
Neri, father of Bonacolto, from whose son Corsini the family took
their name, came from Poggibonsi in the XIIIth century, writes the
family historian Matteo. The ancient house in the Via Maggio, in
which S. Andrea Corsini was born, is now a police station. Corsini’s
son Neri was Consul of the _Arte della Lana_, or Guild of Wool, in
1270, twenty years later he was the first of fifty-six Priors of his
family, and in 1295 Gonfalonier of Justice, an honour enjoyed by seven
of his descendants. His nephew Tommaso, one of the greatest jurists
of his day, expounded civil law as a young man at the University of
Siena. He served the Florentine Republic in many embassies, and was
successful in promoting treaties of peace with Siena, Perugia and
Arezzo. Appointed to all the highest offices of his native city, he is
mentioned by Villani as a most eloquent orator, whilst his reputation
for honesty stood so high that Queen Joan of Naples named him her
proxy for the sale of Prato to Florence. His last public act was in
1352, when Gonfalonier of Justice he made peace with the Visconti, and
then retired to the monastery of S. Gaggio, of which he had been the
principal founder. He died in 1366, leaving a large fortune to his
sons. They erected in the adjoining church the fine monument by Orcagna
to his memory, now in the Corsini chapel in S. Spirito.
His eldest son Giovanni, knight of the Order of S. John, sent by the
Grand Master on an embassy to the Greek Emperor at Constantinople, by
his beauty and his engaging manners won the heart of the Empress, and
she persuaded her husband to make him Grand Seneschal of Armenia, in
order to keep him at her court. His cousin and contemporary Matteo
records that he was sent by the Pope and the Emperor jointly as
ambassador to the King of Cyprus, and in 1380 was Governor of the
Island of Rhodes. Pietro, the second son, was Bishop of Florence, but
resigned his see on being made a Cardinal, and used all his influence
to make peace between Florence and Gregory XI., which was at last
concluded, chiefly through him, by Urban VI. Tommaso’s third son
Filippo was a great jurist, like his father, and began his public
career at twenty-six as ambassador to Siena, and then to Antwerp. The
Emperor Charles IV. bestowed on him and his heirs after him the title
and the prerogatives of a Count of the Holy Roman Empire. When the
Ciompi riots broke out in 1378, Filippo Corsini was nigh losing his
life, his house was sacked and burnt by the mob, and he fled the city
until order was once more re-established. Though five times elected
Gonfalonier of Justice, he was not often in Florence, as the Republic
always turned to him when an ambassador was needed in those troubled
times. He died in 1321, leaving to his children an honoured name and
immense riches. The gentle Andrea, who at fifteen entered a Carmelite
monastery, was his cousin. After taking the vows he was sent for a time
to Paris to study theology at the Sorbonne. When the terrible plague
of 1348 devastated Florence, his charity and devotion to the sick made
him so popular that the people of Fiesole elected him their bishop, a
choice ratified by the Pope. He lived for the poor and for his beloved
cathedral, which he restored, and of which he built the façade, and was
beatified soon after his death, and canonized in 1629 by Urban VIII.
His younger brother Matteo went as a lad to London in 1342, where his
uncle was Master of the Mint, and made a considerable fortune in trade.
On returning to Florence twenty years later he began the family history
already mentioned, and wrote the _Rosaio della Vita_, often quoted in
the Della Crusca dictionary for purity of style.
Amerigo Corsini was the first Archbishop of Florence, as Martin V.
raised the See to an archbishopric during his tenure, and the great
dome of the cathedral was begun [1423] in his lifetime. His brother
Bertoldo filled various high offices under the Republic, and was a
devoted adherent of the Medici; while Luca, Bertoldo’s eldest son,
was the Prior whose name is famous as shutting the door of the Palazzo
della Signoria in the face of Piero de’ Medici after he had ceded Pisa
and other towns to Charles VIII. of France in 1494. Another son, Piero,
a gallant soldier and a good engineer, was Commissary of several of
the small wars of the Republic and built the first fortifications of
Leghorn, which withstood all the efforts of the Emperor Maximilian.
Gherardo, another son, was a wealthy wool merchant, and four times one
of the _Dieci di Guerra_. He became an adherent of the Medici, and his
son Bertoldo was so trusted by the Duke Alessandro that he made him
Governor of the newly-erected fortress of S. Giovanni. After the murder
of the Duke he offered to give up the arms and ammunition to the people
in order to fight for the liberty of the city. Such an offer from a
well-known Pallesco, as the friends of the Medici were called, was
regarded with suspicion, and Bertoldo fell between two stools. Banished
as a rebel by the young Duke Cosimo I. and ruined by the confiscation
of all he possessed, he joined the exiles, fought at Montemurlo, Siena
and Orbetello, where he was taken prisoner and sold to the Duke for 600
scudi. He was decapitated in March 1555.
With the rich merchant Bartolommeo, elected a Senator in 1601, the
Corsini entered into the ranks of the great landed proprietors. He
bought the large feudal estates of Sismano, Cavigliano and Civitella,
in the Roman States, and many of the fine villas still belonging
to the family in Tuscany were either built or enlarged by him. His
nephew Filippo, created Marquess of Sismano, etc., by Urban VIII.
in 1629, was a partner in the Medici bank at Rome, besides having a
rich silk and wool business of his own. He married Maria Maddalena
Machiavelli, a rich heiress, who bought the house in Via Parione,
afterwards incorporated in the large Corsini palace, where the Cardinal
Giovan Carlo de’ Medici had a private theatre, and used to hold most
unclerical orgies. The Grand Duke Ferdinando II. created him a Senator,
and in 1644 made his son Bartolommeo Marquess of Laiatico, a title
still used by the family, as is that of Marquess of Giovagallo, an
estate in the Lunigiana bought by Bartolommeo from the Spanish crown.
His son Filippo was a friend of the young Prince Cosimo de’ Medici, and
accompanied him on a tour through Europe. The description he wrote,
illustrated with water-colour drawings of the principal places they
visited, is in the Laurentian library, and has been translated into
English. The large palace was built by him after the design of Silvani,
and the gallery augmented by the purchase of many fine pictures.
His brother Lorenzo was destined to raise the fortunes of his house
still higher. Elected Pope in 1730, under the name of Clement XII.,
it is said that he implored the cardinals to let an old, half-blind
man die in peace, and to choose another pope. Clement XII. began his
pontificate by dismissing Cardinal Coscia, the venal favourite of
his predecessor, by reforming the administration of justice, and by
replacing the debased currency by an emission of new coin. He founded
the gallery of the Campidoglio, restored the Vatican, and built the
fountain of Trevi, the façades of S. Giovanni de’ Fiorentini, S.
Giovanni in Laterano, and several other churches. But much of this was
done with money derived from the abominable _giuoco del lotto_, called
by Mocenigo, the Venetian ambassador, “the curse and the ruin of the
people.” It had been abolished by Benedict XIII., when Clement, under
the specious pretext that his subjects would gamble and therefore had
better spend their money at home, restored it. He would have left
a greater name had he shown less partiality to his own family. His
two nephews were summoned to Rome. Bartolommeo was created Prince of
Sismano, Duke of Casigliano, and Captain-General of the Papal Guards;
he identified himself entirely with the Spanish party, seduced by
Charles III., who hinted that Spain would renounce in his favour her
claims on Tuscany and Parma if he aided her in securing the Kingdom of
Naples. The Congress of Vienna put an end to these ambitious projects,
and as some consolation he was made Viceroy of Sicily and a Grandee of
Spain. Neri, brought up as a page of Cosimo III., showed considerable
ability in pleading his master’s cause at various foreign courts, and
when the future of Tuscany was discussed at Cambray in 1723. On his
return he was named Captain of the Guards and when his uncle became
Pope, the diplomatist and soldier was suddenly transformed into a
Cardinal. He practically ruled the Papal States, not only under Clement
XII., but under three of his successors. The great Corsini palace at
Rome was built by him, and filled with a fine collection of works of
art. Intensely hostile to the Jesuits, he used all his influence to
obtain the suppression of the Order, but died before the decree against
them was promulgated. An infant of the family was made a Knight of
Malta while still in swaddling clothes and Prior of Pisa at four years
old, to the indignation of the Grand Master of the Order; another was
Apostolic pro-notary while a lad, and a Cardinal at twenty-four.
Prince Tommaso Corsini began life as Chamberlain to the Grand Duke
Pietro Leopoldo, but when Florence was occupied by the French and
“Death to the aristocrats” was the popular cry, he fled to Sicily. When
Tuscany had been transformed into the Kingdom of Etruria he returned,
and became Master of the Household to the Queen Maria Louisa, who
sent him to receive Napoleon I. at Bologna. He impressed the Emperor
so favourably that he made him a Senator and a Count of the Empire,
and entrusted him with the difficult mission of introducing the
French code of laws into Rome. During the exciting days of 1848 he
was Senator of Rome, but when Pius IX. abandoned the popular party,
Prince Corsini had to fly for his life, and only re-entered Rome with
the French troops. A man of considerable culture, he enriched the
celebrated library in the palace on the Lungara, and added many fine
pictures to the Corsini galleries in Rome and in Florence. His brother
Don Neri was one of the most popular men in Tuscany. He advocated her
independence at the Congress of Vienna, and obtained the restitution
of most of the art treasures which had been carried away to Paris. As
Minister of the Interior under Ferdinando III., he devoted himself to
ameliorating the condition of the people, made new roads, and gave a
great impulse to the great work of draining the Val di Chiana. A strong
free-trader, he successfully withstood his colleagues who wished to
impose a heavy tax on corn; and imbued with a distrust and dislike of
the Jesuits, he resolutely set his face against their re-admittance
into Tuscany. His nephew and namesake Don Neri, Marquess of Laiatico,
was sent as Governor to Leghorn in 1847, when the city was on the brink
of a revolution. By his tact he succeeded in restoring peace, but the
Grand Duke and his counsellors did not approve of his liberal ideas,
and he was recalled. His son Don Tommaso, the present Prince Corsini,
is immensely popular, and by his learning and kindly hospitality has
endeared himself to all his fellow-citizens.
PALAZZO DAVANZATI
_Via Porta Rossa. No. 9._
The stern old Davanzati palace is more like a huge tower intended for
defence than a house to live in. The fine doorway, with Donatello’s
magnificent coat-of-arms high above it, leads into a curiously-shaped
courtyard, from which a covered staircase zigzags from one balcony
to another up to the loggia at the summit. The palazzo is a splendid
example of the architecture of the XIVth century, but who designed
it is not known. Sadly defaced by shops which crowd the ground floor
it has an air of squalor, which, however, does not detract from its
massive grandeur. The Davanzati built their palace on the site of
houses and towers which belonged to the ancient and powerful family
of the Bostichi, who had already fallen from their high estate before
Dante wrote. Later, Bernardo Davanzati, the translator of Tacitus,
added their name to his own, and attempted to claim an illusory
descent from them. He might have been satisfied with going back to his
gallant ancestor Davanzato, who fought in the ranks of the Guelphs at
Monteperti in 1260. His son Lottieri was five times a Prior, thrice
one of the Buonomini, and thrice Gonfalonier of his quarter; while
forty-four of the family sat at various times as Priors in the Palazzo
de’ Signori. Niccolò Davanzati founded the beautiful convent of Doccia
on the slopes of Fiesole in 1413,[31] and he probably also built this
fine palace.
[Illustration: COURTYARD OF PALAZZO DAVANZATI.]
The Davanzati must have been a clear-headed, well-spoken race, as
their name often appears among the ambassadors sent by Florence to
other states. In 1434 Giuliano, the son of Niccolò, “a strong man with
a fluent tongue,” Ammirato calls him, came to great honour. He was
Gonfalonier of Justice when Eugenius III. consecrated the cathedral
of Sta. Maria del Fiore, and during the service the Pope dubbed him
a Knight of the Golden Spur with his own hands. In memory of this a
shield with the arms of the Pope was placed, and still exists, on the
central pillar in the courtyard, with _Ex privilegio Eugenii III. D.
Julianus Davanzati eques_ inscribed below the coat-of-arms. Three of
the family--Giovanni, who fought at Poppi against the Prince of
Orange in 1529, his brother Piero, who was one of the Two Hundred in
1532, and Antonfrancesco, son of Giuliano, who was charged to provide
funds for provisioning the besieged city--were zealous patriots. The
latter was banished and died no one knows where, leaving his wife,
Lucrezia Ginori, with a little son, to whom, perceiving his uncommon
intelligence, “as fertile land left uncultivated produces more weeds
than sterile soil,” she gave an excellent education. Bernardo was put
into the bank when a lad, but devoted all the time he could spare from
business to classical and economic studies, and at eighteen was already
a member of the Academy of Florence.
Grazzini, better known as Lasca, one of the founders of the Academy,
quarrelled with his fellow-academicians and wrote a sarcastic poem, in
which young Bernardo Davanzati is the only member he does not abuse.
“Quel garzonetto non ha’n corpo fiele;
Poi fa si belle e si dotte orazioni,
Che chi non l’ama e ben goffo e crudele.
Calate omai le vele,
O tutti voi dal maggiore al minore,
Che siete dolci e di mezzo sapore.
E se bramate onore,
Fate nell’academia sopratutto
Favellar sempre e legger quel bel putto.”[32]
Bernardo Davanzati’s translation of Tacitus is remarkable for
conciseness and force of language, though occasionally lacking in
dignity. He also wrote one of the first treatises on coinage, _Della
Moneta_, another on Tuscan agriculture, and a history of the separation
of England from the Church of Rome, _Storia della Scisma_. “He was,”
writes Francesco Rondinelli, “of small stature and dark complexion.
His eyes were bright, his hair black, and he had but little beard. The
forehead was furrowed and lined, as were his cheeks, and his aspect
was somewhat stern. In dress he favoured the parsimony and decorum of
ancient times; sober in eating and drinking, curt and straightforward
in speech, for words, like coins, are more esteemed when they contain
large value in a small compass. By some he was called _Peppercorn_,
it may be from his brown and wrinkled face, but more likely from the
knowledge, sharp wit and learning contained in so small a body. He
was impatient of praise, never esteeming his work perfect. The errors
of others he blamed by silence rather than by correction, and often
lamented that fortune did not favour those honest, good and modest
men, who doing much and asking little, are not appreciated; but rather
certain presumptuous people, who have an excellent opinion of and
praise themselves, though they are of small account. Besides Latin, he
knew Greek, and was a good arithmetician; his judgment was so excellent
in all things that he enjoyed the singular happiness of hearing his
works praised during his lifetime. It was said by a man of great
learning that he collected the jewels of Florentine speech from the
pebbles of the Arno, to set in the gold of Tacitus.”
Bernardo’s grandson and namesake came to an untimely death by throwing
himself off the top of the tower of the old palace into the courtyard
below. The family, by a curious fatality, came to an end by the death
of Carlo Davanzati in 1838, in the same way and at the same spot. The
palace now belongs to Signor Volpi.
PALAZZO DONATI
_Piazza S. Piero Maggiore._
But little remains of the many palaces and towers of this once powerful
family. Several stood in the Corso, nearly opposite to those of the
Portinari, where two of their grey towers still frown defiance at
passers-by and a small square bears their name. Here lived Manetto
Donati, whose daughter Gemma became the wife of Dante. Forese Donati
was one of the poet’s dearest friends, whilst his brother Corso, of
whom more anon, became his deadliest enemy. Their sister, the beautiful
Piccarda, who took the habit of S. Clare as a young girl, but was torn
from her quiet convent and forced by Corso Donati to break her vows and
marry, is one of the most touching figures in the _Paradiso_. Other
Donati palaces, amongst them that of the famous Corso, stood round the
church of S. Piero Maggiore founded by the family in the IXth century.
Several of them joined the Crusades and died in the Holy Land, and
many were made Knights of the Golden Spur by the Emperors Henry II.
and Conrad of Swabia. Rivalry had always existed between the Donati
and the Cerchi; it became acute when the Neri, or Black Party, came
from Pistoja to seek aid from Corso Donati, and the Bianchi, or White
Party, turned for help to Vieri de’ Cerchi. “The Priors and other good
citizens,” writes Machiavelli, “feared every hour that they would
come to blows, and the city be divided into two camps. They therefore
appealed to the Pope, praying him to use his authority and put an
end to these quarrels with which they were unable to cope. The Holy
Father sent for Messer Vieri, and commanded him to make peace with
the Donati. At this he expressed astonishment, saying he bore them no
malice, and as making peace implied the existence of war, he could not
see why, there being no war, it should be necessary to make peace.
So Messer Vieri returned from Rome without concluding anything, and
the ill-feeling grew apace.... Men being in this excited state, it
happened that the Cerchi and the Donati met at a funeral service, and
from words came to blows; but for the moment the tumult was appeased.
Then the Cerchi decided to attack the Donati, but were repulsed by the
bravery of Messer Corso, and many of their followers were wounded.
The whole city was in a tumult, the Signori and the laws were trodden
under foot by the fury of the more powerful. The Donati and their party
were afraid because they were the weaker, so Messer Corso summoned
the heads of the Blacks and the Captains of the Party, and it was
decided to ask the Pope to send one of royal blood to reform the city,
thinking thereby to break the power of the Whites. The meeting and its
deliberation was notified to the Priors, and magnified by the adverse
party into a plot against liberty. As both sides had armed the Signori,
of whom Dante was one [1301], animated by his advice and tranquil
courage, called the people to arms, and then forced the leaders of the
opposite factions to disarm, and banished Messer Corso Donati with many
of the Black Party.”
[Illustration: TOWER OF THE DONATI.]
Messer Corso went to Rome and persuaded the Pope to send Charles of
Valois, brother of the King of France, who was on his way to Sicily,
to pacify Florence. After swearing solemnly to preserve peace Charles
armed his followers, and the alarm in the city was not lessened by the
arrival of Corso with all the exiles. The prisons were burst open, the
Priors relegated to private life, and for five days the houses of the
White Party were given up to plunder and arson. A new Signoria was
elected, entirely formed of the Blacks, and Charles named Cante di
Gabbrielli, one of his adherents, Podestà. Proscriptions commenced, and
one of the first names on the list was that of Dante.
Machiavelli describes Corso Donati as “a promoter of every disagreement
and every tumult; all who desired to attain anything extraordinary
turned to him, so that he was hated by many citizens of repute.... But
the authority wielded by him was such that he was feared by all. To
deprive him of the popular favour it was spread about that he sought
to seize the State, to which his magnificent way of living, far beyond
the ordinary, lent colour. After he had taken to wife the daughter of
Uguccione della Faggiuola, head of the Ghibelline and the White Party,
and most powerful in Tuscany, this report gained more credit. The
marriage encouraged his enemies and induced the people to abandon him,
and many joined his adversaries. Their leaders were Rosso della Tosa,
Pazzino de’ Pazzi, Geri Spini and Berto Brunelleschi who, with their
followers, and a great concourse of people, went armed to the palace of
the Signori. The Signori ordered Piero Branca, Captain of the People,
to accuse Messer Corso of desiring to make himself tyrant of Florence
by the aid of Uguccione. He was cited to appear, and then condemned
as a rebel _in contumaciam_, and only two hours elapsed between the
accusation and the condemnation. After the delivery of the sentence the
Signori and the Compagnie of the People, with their banners, went to
take him. Messer Corso, whose courage failed not when he saw himself
abandoned by many and heard of his condemnation, was not abashed by
the authority of the Signori or the number of his assailants, but
fortified his houses, hoping to be able to defend himself until the
arrival of Uguccione, to whom he had sent for help. His houses and the
streets near by had been closed by him and fortified by his adherents,
and their defence was so valiant that the people, although numerous,
could not advance. The struggle was great, with dead and wounded on
both sides. Seeing that nothing was to be done in the open the people
took possession of the houses adjoining his and, breaking through the
walls, burst into his house. Finding himself surrounded by enemies and
despairing of victory, or of aid from Uguccione, Messer Corso decided
to try and save his life. Placing himself and Gherardo Bordoni at the
head of some of his strongest and most trusted friends, he charged the
enemy with such impetuosity that they fell back, and fighting he was
able to pass through their ranks and leave the city by the Porta Sta.
Croce. Many, however, pursued him, Gherardo was killed on the banks of
the Affrico by Boccaccio Cavicciulli, whilst some Catalan horsemen,
soldiers of the Signoria, came up with Messer Corso at Rovezzano and
took him prisoner. On the way back to Florence, to avoid meeting his
victorious enemies face to face and being tortured by them, he threw
himself off his horse, and thus, lying on the ground, was killed by
one of his captors. The monks of S. Salvi found his body and buried it
without any honours. Such was the end of Messer Corso, to whom both
his country and the Black Party owed much good and much ill. Had his
disposition been of a gentler kind, his memory would be more honoured.”
Dino Compagni says that Corso Donati was ill and suffering from gout
at the time of his flight. “Much talk there was of the evil manner
of his death, according as to whether they were friends or enemies,”
continues the old chronicler, “but to speak truthfully his life was
perilous [for the quiet of Florence] and his death was blameworthy.
He was a knight of great courage and of old name, of gentle blood and
well-mannered, very handsome, even in his old age, finely built, with
delicate features and a pale complexion; a pleasant, wise and ornate
speaker, and always occupied with important affairs, a consort and a
friend of great lords and noble persons, counting many adherents and
renowned throughout Italy. He was an enemy to the people and to popular
government, well-loved by his partisans, but full of evil designs,
wicked and astute.”
PALAZZO FERONI (NOW AMERIGHI)
_Via de’ Serragli. No. 6._
A peasant named Balducci, from Vinci, was the ancestor of the Feroni
family. One of his descendants, of the name of Ferone, established
himself at Empoli as a dyer, and had dealings with Holland, where
his grandson Francesco Feroni made a large fortune. Prince Cosimo de’
Medici made his acquaintance during his travels, and when he became
Grand Duke summoned him to Florence, made him a citizen and a Senator,
and in 1681 Marquess of Bellavista. He left an enormous fortune to his
descendants, one of whom bought several houses in Via de’ Serragli, and
built this large palace, which the Marquess Ubaldo Feroni enlarged in
1778. It was afterwards again considerably augmented by the addition
of the suppressed church and monastery of S. Giuseppe, when another
entrance into the spacious courtyard was made from Via S. Frediano. In
the same year his brother the Marquess Alessandro bought the larger
half of the ancient Palazzo Spini, which is sometimes called Feroni. In
another palace in the Via Faenza they had a gallery of pictures, which
the last of the family bequeathed to the city of Florence in 1850.
PALAZZO RICASOLI FIRIDOLFI
_Via Maggio. No. 7._
The fine palace now inhabited by the Baroness Ricasoli Firidolfi and
her children was built by the Ridolfi family on the site of houses
belonging to various families, in the XVth century, and bought in 1736
by Maria Lucrezia Firidolfi for her sons. The architect is unknown,
but the palace, with its fine courtyard, evidently dates from the XVth
century. On the first floor is a tiny chapel, entirely painted in oils
by Giorgio Vasari in a manner very different from his usual style.
Above the altar is a marble bas-relief of the Madonna and Child with S.
John, by Rossellini.
The history of this family is a complicated and a curious one. Divided
in the XIIth century into three branches, of which one retained the old
name of Firidolfi, whilst the other two took that of Ricasoli, they
were again reunited after eight hundred years in the person of the late
Baron Giovanni Ricasoli Firidolfi. His mother was the only daughter
of the great statesman Baron Bettino Ricasoli, his father the sole
surviving son of Giovanni Francesco Ricasoli di Meleto, who married the
only daughter of the last of the Firidolfi, whose name he added to his
own.
One of those long-bearded northmen (Longobardi), who came into Italy
in the VIth century, is said to have settled in the Mugello. But the
first of the family of whom we have documentary evidence is Geremia,
son of Ildebrando, lord of great estates in the Mugello and of nearly
the whole province of the Chianti, who being old, and without children,
made large donations to the Church. On the death of his first wife he
married a young girl, by whom he had one son, Ridolfo, inscribed among
the great Barons of Tuscany in a deed of 1029. From him the family took
the name of Firidolfi (de filiis Rudolphi). Ranieri Firidolfi fought
under Frederick Barbarossa, and obtained in fief the castles of Campi
and of Tornano, and, according to a tradition in the family, the strong
castle of Brolio. This originally belonged to Bonifazio, Marquess of
Tuscany, who in 1009 gave it to the monks of the Badia of Florence, a
donation confirmed by the Emperor Henry II. in 1012, and by Henry IV.
in 1074. Henry VI. not only confirmed his father’s gifts to Ranieri,
but added to them the castles of Moriano and of Ricasoli, not far from
Fiesole, from which the most powerful branch of the family took its
name.
Alberto Ricasoli, Ranieri’s son, served under the Emperor Otho IV., who
increased the privileges bestowed by former emperors, and in 1230 he
was elected Podestà of Siena. From his sons Ranieri and Ugo descended
the Ricasoli di Meleto of Ponte alla Carraja, and the great baronial
family. Ugo fought in the Guelph ranks at Montaperti, and in revenge
the Ghibellines destroyed his castle of Ricasoli, for which he obtained
compensation when his party returned to power. Bindaccio, his grandson,
showed such valour at the battles of Montecatini and Altopascio that
the Bolognese chose him as their Podestà, and Cardinal Albornoz made
him Captain-General of the Papal forces. One of his sons was a Bishop
of Florence, whilst another, Albertaccio, was so gallant a soldier
that at his death in 1335 the Republic gave him a public funeral, and
decreed that his arms, with the banner of the people and of the Guelph
party, should be placed above his tomb in Sta. Croce.
Ranieri Ricasoli di Meleto, a strong partisan of the Medici, was sent
to Flanders after the Pazzi conspiracy to sequester the monies in their
banks in Bruges, Ghent, etc. He was a very rich merchant, and built
the stately old Ricasoli palace on the Lung’Arno Corsini in 1480, said
to have been designed by Michelozzi (now the Hotel New York). Cinelli
describes the fine collection of pictures, and the beautiful garden
and loggia opposite (where now is the Hotel Bristol), then connected
with the palace by a passage under the street.[33] One of Ranieri’s
descendants was an intimate friend of Alfieri, whose tragedy Saul was
first acted in the private theatre of the Ricasoli palace.
Simone Ricasoli, son of Ranieri, was brought up with Lorenzo the
Magnificent, and when the young Cardinal Giovanni, his son, went
to Rome, Lorenzo confided him to the care of his devoted friend.
On Giovanni becoming Pope as Leo X., he summoned another Ricasoli,
Antonio, to direct the iniquitous war which despoiled the Della Rovere
of the Duchy of Urbino in favour of his own nephew Lorenzo de’ Medici.
The assault and capture of the strong fortress of S. Leo was famous
in the annals of that time. In 1526 he was Commissary of the war with
Siena, and the defeat of the Florentine troops was attributed to him;
so on the exile of the Medici the following year he was condemned to
death and his estates were forfeited. He escaped to Rome, and found
an asylum with Clement VII. until Florence was once more ruled by the
Medici, when he was created a Senator. After the battle of Montemurlo
he sat as one of the judges, and was distinguished for the harsh
brutality of his sentences on the wretched prisoners. His sons served
Cosimo I. well by sowing discord in Siena, and when the city fell into
the hands of the Duke he rewarded Giulio Ricasoli by restoring to him
the old feudal castles of Trappola, Rocca Guicciarda and Sagona, which
the Florentine Republic had confiscated in 1395. Giulio then reassumed
the old title of Baron, which his ancestors had refused to exchange for
the higher one of Count. The name of Ricasoli is connected with the
island of Malta, as Giovanfrancesco, a knight of the Order, gave such
large sums towards building the fortifications that one of the forts
was named after him.[34]
The life of Bettino Ricasoli, one of the makers of United Italy, is too
well known to need repetition here, and would take up too much space.
“Il fiero Barone” (the proud, or great, Baron), as the Florentines
called him (he was, I believe, the only Baron of Tuscany), died in
an old family palace in the Via del Cocomero, now, according to the
baneful habit they have in Florence of altering the names of ancient
streets, and thus sweeping away the historical landmarks of the city,
the Via Ricasoli.
PALAZZO FOSSI
_Via de’ Benci. No. 20._
Nearly all the palaces on the eastern side of Via de’ Benci once
belonged to the Alberti and the street was called after them, until the
Benci crossed the Arno and established themselves here, when it became
Via de’ Benci. This palace was bought from Francesco degl’Alberti
in 1456 by Duccio Mellini, whose family were rich bankers and great
patrons of the arts. The fine pulpit in Sta. Croce by Benedetto
da Majano was erected by them. Michelangelo has been named as the
architect of the characteristic and elegant palace, but it bears no
resemblance to his handiwork, and evidently dates from the middle of
the XVIth century. It is one of the few which still preserves, though
in a sad state of ruin, a frescoed façade, painted by Stalf, a Flemish
artist, after the designs of Francesco Salviati. The Mellini sold it in
1634, since when it has changed hands often, and now belongs to Signor
Fossi.
[Illustration: DOORWAY OF PALAZZO FRESCOBALDI.]
PALAZZO FRESCOBALDI
_Piazza de’ Frescobaldi. No. 1._
Many were the houses belonging to the great family of Frescobaldi
in the Borgo S. Jacopo and in the Via S. Spirito, besides the great
palace in the Piazza de’ Frescobaldi. Opposite to the latter stood one
of their towers and their loggia, of which a capital remains built
into the wall of a small house. Another tower was near the church of
S. Jacopo. The old palace in the Piazza in which Pope Gregory lodged
in 1272 was burnt during the popular rising in 1343, but was rebuilt
with greater magnificence. Afterwards it became a monastery, but when
Florence became the capital the monks gave place to the Admiralty. It
is now a communal school, and the fine façade is fast falling to pieces.
According to Verino, the Frescobaldi came originally from Germany.
They were lords of several castles in the Val di Pesa in very early
times, and their name appears among the first Consuls and Elders of
Florence. One of them, Messer Lamberto di Fresco di Baldo, built the
first bridge (of wood) of Sta. Trinita across the Arno in 1252. His
sons Lapo and Neri fought at the battle of Montaperti on the side of
the Guelphs, and their cousin Berto rode by the side of King Charles of
Anjou and bore his banner at the famous battle of Campaldino in 1282.
Three years later Ghino de’ Frescobaldi was created a Prior, but the
power, military fame and riches, of the family aroused the jealousy of
the popular party. As _Grandi_ they were declared incapable of holding
any office, which they bitterly resented; and were driven to fury by
the exile of Teglia de’ Frescobaldi, who had led the Florentine army
to victory in 1303, and was too popular with his soldiers to please
a republican government. Swearing to be revenged, he took service
with Castruccio Castrocane, Lord of Lucca, and attempted to seize
Montelupo and Capraja, while some of his relatives conspired to open
the gates of Florence to her enemy. All those who were implicated in
the plot were banished, and the cruelty and injustice of the newly
created magistrate, “the Preserver of Peace,” drove the _Grandi_ to
desperation, and ended in the revolt of the great Oltrarno families,
so graphically described by Villani (see p. 40). For some hours the
Frescobaldi defended their Piazza and palaces, but were at last forced
to capitulate. Their houses and towers were destroyed, and those
members of the family who were not beheaded or imprisoned, were
banished.
There must also be mentioned the poet Dino de’ Frescobaldi, called by
Boccaccio “famosissimo dicitore in rima in Firenze.” The world owes
him a vast debt of gratitude, for he contrived to save the first seven
cantos of the _Inferno_, when all that belonged to his friend Dante was
confiscated, and sent them after him to the Marchese Malaspina’s castle
in the Lunigiana. Matteo, Dino’s son, was also a poet, and Lionardo,
whose interesting account of his travels in Egypt and the Holy Land in
1383 has been published, was, it is believed, a descendant of his.
Battista de’ Frescobaldi conspired against Lorenzo the Magnificent and
was beheaded, and his brother Giuliano died by the side of Ferruccio
Ferrucci in the battle of Gavinana. Bartolomeo was so ardent a
republican that he withdrew from the world when the Medici attained
to power, but his descendant Matteo was made a Senator in 1645. The
present representative of the Frescobaldi lives in one of the old
family palaces in Via S. Spirito.
PALAZZO GHERADESCA
_Borgo Pinti. No. 93._
The historian Bartolommeo Scala, son of a miller of Colle in the Val
d’Elsa, built this palace. Cosimo de’ Medici, and his son Piero after
him, paid for his education, and he became Chancellor of the Republic
of Florence and was Gonfalonier of Justice in 1486. His learning was
undeniable, but Lorenzo the Magnificent evidently was not satisfied
with his Latin style, as he privately made Poliziano correct the
despatches and letters written by Scala in the name of the Republic.
At length the Chancellor suspected who was the real author of the
corrections and a deadly hatred ensued between the two men. The
hatred was embittered by the refusal of Scala’s beautiful and clever
daughter Alessandra to listen to Poliziano, and by her marriage with
Michael Tarcagnota, an inferior poet, but a better-tempered and a
better-looking man than the famous Agnolo Poliziano.
Guido Scala, Bartolommeo’s grandson, died childless in 1581 and left
the palace to Alessandro de’ Medici, Archbishop of Florence, afterwards
Pope Leo XI. It then became the property of the Counts Gheradesca who
laid out a beautiful garden and now it belongs to the Meridionale
Railway Company.
PALAZZO GIANFIGLIAZZI
_Via Tornabuoni. No. 1._
The palace, or rather the palaces, of the great family of the
Gianfigliazzi faced the Ponte a Sta. Trinita at the corner of the
Lung’Arno Corsini and the Via Tornabuoni. As Guelphs they were
expelled the city after the battle of Montaperti in 1260, but returned,
and three of them signed the famous peace of 1280. Eight years later
their palaces were nearly destroyed by the terrible flood which did
so much damage in Florence. The palaces Nos. 2 and 4 on the Lung’Arno
Corsini also belonged to them; in the former, with the lion of the
Gianfigliazzi carved by Desiderio da Settignano in the coat of arms on
the façade, the great poet Alfieri lived for some time, and there he
died.
At the beginning of the XVth century they bought from the Fastelli the
palace adjoining the church of Sta. Trinita, with a tower which had
been built by the Ruggerini, a Guelph family who were ruined in 1260.
The arms of the three different owners are still on the façade. The
loggia of the Gianfigliazzi, on the opposite side of the church at the
corner of the Via di Parione, was only closed and turned into a shop in
1732.
The Gianfigliazzi descend from a Giovanni son of Azzo (Gianni figlio
d’Azzo), who signed a convention with Siena in 1201. Two of the family
sat in the Council of Elders in 1278 and 1279; a few years later they
were excluded from office as nobles and their name only appears again
among the magistrates of the city after the departure of the tyrant
Duke of Athens. Geri de’ Gianfigliazzi was a poet and a friend of
Petrarch; Rinaldo, sent as Commissary of War against Visconti, was
created a Count of the Holy Roman Empire by the Emperor Robert in 1402;
and Bongianni, another gallant soldier, was publicly knighted by the
Signoria in 1467 and died at the head of his troops under the walls
of Pietrasanta. His son Jacopo was one of the twelve citizens named
by Clement VII. to “reform” the State and elect Alessandro de’ Medici
absolute ruler of Florence. Several of the family were Senators under
the Medici, until the family became extinct in 1764.
PALAZZO GINORI
_Via de’ Ginori. No. 2._
The Ginori palace once belonged to Bacio Bandinelli who died there in
1559. There is a fine courtyard and the large saloon on the first floor
is handsome; the building has been restored but not much spoiled. The
Ginori descend from a notary who came to Florence from Calenzano, in
the Val di Marino, in 1304, and lived close to the present palace of
his descendants. His son Gino was the first of twenty-six Priors of the
family and from him they took their name. Piero his grandson, the first
Gonfalonier of five of his house in 1423, was an important person in
the city and a friend of Giovanni de’ Medici, with whom he contributed
towards the building of S. Lorenzo.
Benvenuto Cellini tells us that for Federigo Ginori, “a young man of a
very lofty spirit,” he made a medal “with Atlas bearing the world upon
his shoulders, and applied to Michelangelo for a design. Michelangelo
made this answer: ‘Go and find out a young goldsmith named Benvenuto;
he will serve you admirably, and certainly he does not stand in need of
sketches by me. However to prevent your thinking that I want to save
myself the trouble of so slight a matter, I will gladly sketch you
something; but meanwhile speak to Benvenuto, and let him make a model,
he can then execute the better of the two designs.’ Federigo Ginori
came to me, and told me what he wanted, adding thereto how Michelangelo
had praised me, and how he had suggested I should make a waxen model
while he undertook to supply a sketch. The words of that great man so
heartened me, that I set to work at once with eagerness ... and when
Michelangelo saw it, he praised it to the skies. This was a figure, as
I have said, chiselled on a plate of gold; Atlas had the heaven upon
his back, made out of a crystal ball, engraved with the zodiac upon a
field of lapis-lazuli. The whole composition produced an indescribably
fine effect; and under it ran the legend _Summa tulisse juvat_.”[35]
Federigo was killed during the siege of Florence and his brother
Leonardo, a spendthrift and a gambler, was the husband of the beautiful
Caterina Soderini, whose story is a sad one. Forced by her father to
forget her early love the poet Luigi Alamanni, and married to Leonardo
Ginori, who had to fly to Naples to escape from his creditors, she was
exposed to the persecutions of the Duke Alessandro de’ Medici, and was
the innocent cause of his murder (see p. 263). Her son Bartolommeo,
famed for his strength and great stature, was chosen by Giovan Bologna
for the model of the young man in his group of the rape of the Sabines.
From him descended the Senator Carlo Ginori who founded the well-known
china manufactory at Doccia near Florence in 1740. He chartered a
ship for China and she brought back, not only models and specimens of
the various earths used in making china, but many rare plants and the
first gold fish that were seen in Europe.[36] The present Marquess
Ginori lives in the old palace, and the Doccia factory, which has
become a Company under the name of Richard Ginori, still keeps up its
reputation.
PALAZZO GINORI CONTI
_Via Cavour. No. 7._
From the Riccardi palace to Via Guelfa nearly all the houses once
belonged to various members of the Medici family, who migrated from
their original dwellings in the centre of Florence to settle near S.
Lorenzo, and in this palace, often mentioned as “la casa vecchia”
(the old house), Cosimo the Elder was born. In those days the upper
storeys of most of the buildings projected over the street, supported
on brackets of stone or of wood, until in 1536 peremptory orders were
given to demolish all the over-hanging façades in Via Larga and to
rebuild them straight up from the ground floor, for the entrance into
the city of Margarita of Austria, the bride of Duke Alessandro de’
Medici. The house was sold by Ferdinando II. to the Ughi, and after
changing hands several times was bought by Giovacchino Rossini, to
whose memory an inscription was placed on the front of the house. It
now belongs to Prince Ginori Conti.
The often repeated story that Lorenzino de’ Medici’s house was
destroyed and a street, called the Chiasso del Traditore, made where
it stood, is entirely opposed to all documentary evidence. In 1537
Lorenzino was condemned as a traitor and according to old custom
the front of his house, or rather of the room in which he murdered
his cousin Alessandro, was torn down. In 1568, 1604 and 1611, when
the “old house” and that of Lorenzino passed from one member of the
Medici family to another, the latter is always mentioned as “partly
destroyed.” When the two houses were sold to Alamanno Ughi in 1646 the
description runs: “a large house in Via Larga, with the destroyed part
adjoining the said house and the rooms which are in the said destroyed
part.” The new proprietor let the ground floor “under the ruined part
of the small house” as a shop in 1648, but fifty years later the
shop was turned into stables. It was only in 1736, as we learn from
the _Diario_ of Settimanni, that “Ughi finished restoring his house
in Via Larga adjoining the palace of the Marchese Cosimo Riccardi.
This was the house which belonged to Lorenzo di Pier Francesco di
Lorenzo de’ Medici, who exactly two hundred years ago murdered the
Duke Alessandro.... Until this restoration the hole, over sixteen
braccie wide, which had been made in the front of the house was to
be seen.” There is no mention of any street, nor of any prohibition
as to building on the site of the house in which the murder had been
committed. Signor Corrazzini however states that Ughi, having heard a
rumour that some such prohibition existed, petitioned the Grand Duke
to affirm that he and his heirs were at liberty to build on the site
as they pleased, and this Ferdinando did.[37] The house is No. 5. Via
Cavour, with three windows, wedged in between the Palazzo Riccardi and
the palace of Prince Ginori Conti.
PALAZZO GINORI-VENTURI
_Via della Scala. No. 89._
This palace was built by Bernardo Rucellai on the site of an old leper
hospital, and annexed to it were the celebrated Oricellari gardens,
meeting place of the Platonic Academy founded by Cosimo the Elder.
Vasari states that Leon Battista Alberti “designed the house and the
garden of the Rucellai in Via della Scala, the house is built with
great knowledge and is most convenient, having among other things two
loggie, one to the south, the other to the west, both are beautiful.”
But Vasari is wrong, as the gardens were bought and the house was
built in 1482, two years after the death of Alberti. In these gardens
Machiavelli read aloud his _Discourses_ on the First Decade of Livy
to the assembled academicians, and Giovanni Rucellai’s _Rosmunda_ was
acted before Leo X. on his first visit to Florence after his election
as pope. When the conspiracy against the Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici
was discovered, in which Machiavelli was implicated, and which cost
two of the members their lives, the Academy was suppressed. The palace
and the gardens were confiscated by the Medici in 1527, but given back
to the Rucellai four years later by the Duke Alessandro. In 1537 Palla
Rucellai was despoiled of all his possessions for opposing the election
of Cosimo, son of Giovanni delle Bande Nere, to the throne. Palace and
gardens then became the abode, first of Eleonora degl’Albizzi, mistress
of Cosimo I., and afterwards of Bianca Cappello, the account of whose
wonderful entertainment to the Grand Duke Francesco I., her lover, is
curious reading.[38] It then passed to the Orsini, and in 1640 became
the property of the Cardinal Giovan Carlo de’ Medici, whose wild orgies
and bacchanalian feasts made a strange contrast to the philosophical
discussions of the academicians of former days. On the death of the
Cardinal, leaving immense debts, gardens and palace were bought by
Ferdinando Ridolfi, Marquis of Montescudaro. The Strozzi inherited the
property, and sold it to Prince Orloff. It now belongs to the Marquis
Ippolito Ginori, whose wife is a descendant of the original owner,
Rucellai; but the Oricellari gardens have been barbarously cut in two,
and their glory has departed.
PALAZZO GIUGNI
_Via degl’Alfani._
[Illustration: DOORWAY OF PALAZZO GIUGNI.]
Bartolomeo Ammannati built this palace for the rich merchant Simone
da Firenzuola in 1577. He died soon afterwards, leaving a will
forbidding his sons, or their heirs, “to dare, or to presume, either
_inter vivos_, or by last will or testament for any reason whatever,
to sell, give away or alienate, the said house.” In case his sons had
no children the property was to go to the descendants of his brother
Carlo, and failing them, to those of his daughter Virginia, married to
Vincenzio Giugni. None of his sons had any children, so in 1640 the
palace came into the possession of his Giugni grandchildren. The Giugni
claimed descent from Junius Brutus, and were always Guelphs. The first
Prior of fifty they gave to Florence was Ugolino, in 1291, and his
descendant Bernardo, a man of great ability and consummate prudence,
was the chosen spokesman when there was a popular tumult. Messer
Galeotto Giugni, a staunch republican, was exiled, and together with
his son, murdered at Rome by emissaries of Cosimo I. Vincenzio Giugni,
husband of Virginia Firenzuola, became a Senator in 1600, a dignity
also conferred on his son Niccolò, who married Cassandra, the last of
the noble house of Bandini of Rome. The fine collection of ancient
statues belonging to her uncle, Cardinal Ottavio Bandini, was brought
to Florence and placed in the garden of the palace. Cinelli gives an
account of them, as well as of the pictures in the gallery, in his
_Bellezze della Città di Firenze_.
In 1830 the palace was sold to the Della Porta family, who still own
it, and in 1871 it was admirably restored by the architect De Fabris,
who scrupulously avoided adding to, or altering, the work of Ammannati.
The coat-of-arms of the Firenzuola, a tiger girt with a golden girdle
and holding a sickle in his right paw, is on the façade. In the
latter half of the last century Palazzo Giugni was much frequented by
English visitors to Florence, as Mr. Spence, a popular and well-known
personage, inhabited the second floor during the winter.
PALAZZO GONDI
_Piazza S. Firenze. No. 1._
The progenitor of the great family of the Gondi, whose descendants
played an important part in French history, was a certain Bellincozzo,
who owned a house and a tower in the XIIth century near Sta. Maria
degl’Ughi, in Florence. One of his descendants, Forte, signed the peace
with Genoa in 1201, and from his grandson Gondo the family took their
name. Geri de’ Gondi lent money to the Republic of Florence, his name
appearing as a large creditor in 1324, and a few years later that
of his son Simone, who solemnly swore allegiance to the Guelph party
in 1351. But seven years afterwards he was accused of intriguing in
favour of the Ghibellines, and he and his descendants were declared
incapable of holding office. This sentence was annulled in 1438 in
favour of his grandson, Simone, who was elected Gonfalonier of Justice,
and lent 8,000 golden florins to the State. His brother Leonardo sold
the old family house and tower near Sta. Maria degl’Ughi to Palla
Novello Strozzi in the XVth century, and in 1488 his son Giuliano
began to build the fine palace in Piazza San Firenze; Giuliano da San
Gallo, with whom he had made a close friendship at Naples, being his
architect. He rendered such services to King Ferdinando of Naples that
he offered him a large pension, but Gondi, being, as the Florentines
say, “all of one piece,” refused, on the plea that no citizen of a free
republic should accept money from a foreign potentate. So Ferdinando’s
son, King Alfonso, bestowed on him the privilege of placing a ducal
crown in his coat-of-arms. Giuliano was twice Gonfalonier of Justice,
and died in 1501, before his magnificent palace was finished.
[Illustration: COURTYARD OF PALAZZO GONDI.]
A cousin of his, Giovanbattista Gondi, went to Paris, became a
naturalized French citizen and married a lady-in-waiting of Queen
Catherine. Having no children he adopted his nephew Girolamo, a clever
politician employed by the Queen and her sons after her in various
delicate missions. He received Henri IV. and his bride on their entry
into Paris in the fine Hôtel de Gondi built by him, but which his son
Jean Baptiste was forced to sell. It was bought by the King, who gave
it to the Prince de Condé. He also built a palace in Florence near
Sta. Maria Maggiore, which was sold to the Orlandini. Another Gondi,
Alberto, married the _gouvernante_ of the royal children, widow of the
Baron de Retz. A distinguished soldier he was in such favour at Court
that he was sent by Charles IX. as his proxy to marry Elisabeth of
Austria. In 1573 he became a Marshal of France, and some years later
was one of the hundred noblemen of high birth who first received the
Order of St. Esprit. In 1584 he was created Duc de Retz, and was in
command of the troops when Henri IV. entered Paris. His eldest son
Charles, Marquis de Belle-Isle, married the Princesse Antoinette
d’Orleans, daughter of the Duc de Longueville and of the Princesse de
Bourbon, and was killed before Mont St. Michel when only twenty-seven.
Another son, Henri, in whose favour his uncle the Cardinal de Gondi
retired, became Bishop of Paris. The youngest was the first Archbishop
of Paris, and his nephew Jean François Paul, the famous Cardinal de
Retz who joined the ranks of the Fronde after incurring the enmity of
Mazarin, succeeded him. Imprisoned by order of the King in the castle
of Nantes, he contrived to escape to Spain, and embarked on a galley
lent to him by the King for Piombino. After passing some years in Rome
he resigned his archbishopric, and was allowed to return to France in
1662, when the King made him Abbot of St. Denis, where he wrote his
well-known memoirs.[39]
But to return to the stately palace in Florence which Giuliano de’
Gondi began in 1488, and by will charged his sons to finish. The
courtyard and the balustrade of the staircase, decorated with delicate
carvings of animals and foliage, are among the finest things San Gallo
ever did. In the large room upstairs is a handsome wooden ceiling, and
a beautiful fireplace with a _frontone_, or mantel-front, also by San
Gallo, representing the triumph of Neptune, and two statues of Hercules
and of Samson. “It is so richly carved and so varied in style, and so
beautiful,” writes Vasari, “that naught like it had been seen before,
nor one with so many figures.” The old Roman statue in the palace is
mentioned in a letter from Giuliano da San Gallo’s son, Francesco, to
the head of the hospital of the Innocenti. “My father told Michelangelo
that the statue in the house of the Gondi represents a Consul, and was
found when the foundations for the palace of the Guelph party were
being dug, where once existed the baths. He carried it to the Gondi
palace, which he was then building, with the intention of placing it at
the corner in the Piazza. But this was not done, as the palace was not
finished.”
The fountain in the courtyard was erected by the descendant and
namesake of Giuliano de’ Gondi, and by special grace he was allowed by
the Grand Duke Ferdinando I. to take water from the fountain in the
Piazza della Signoria. When Florence became the capital of Italy the
Via de’ Gondi was too narrow for the increased traffic, and a large
portion of the old palace was taken off, but the southern façade was
admirably rebuilt. The palace still belongs to the Gondi family.
PALAZZO GRIFFONI (NOW GATTAI-BUDINI)
_Via de’ Servi. No. 57._
[Illustration: DOORWAY OF PALAZZO GRIFFONI.]
About 1250 the Servites bought so much more land than was necessary
for their church, convent and orchard, that a large space was left in
front of the church. In winter the mud was knee deep, and in summer
the faithful were enveloped in clouds of dust when they went to mass.
So the friars petitioned the Captains of the Guelph party to make a
paved road from the Via de’ Servi to the S.S. Annunziata. In 1464 the
Prior of the Order decided to sell some of the waste land near the
Via de’ Servi, and the first buyer was Puccio Pucci. He did not carry
out the covenants of the sale, and the land was sold to Roberto de’
Ricci in 1515; some thirty years later his sons ceded their rights to
the brothers Griffoni. Ugolino Griffoni, secretary to Ramazzotto, the
confidential adviser of Cosimo I., held, among other rich benefices,
that of Maestro dell’ Altopascio and had the title of Monsignore as
an Apostolic Pronotary. He, like many of the Duke’s courtiers, called
in Bartolomeo Ammannati as his architect, and the contract between
them of 4th September 1563 still exists in the State archives.[40] Ten
years later the marble coat-of-arms, which is now on the façade in
the Piazza, was placed above the central window in Via de’ Servi. The
balcony was one of the first works by Gian Bologna, but the palace was
only entirely finished in 1772 by Pietro Griffoni.
Cinelli writes in the _Bellezze della Città di Firenze_, “This
beautifully proportioned and ornate palace, with a fine frieze under
windows of the Doric order, was built by Bernardo Buontalenti;” but
he cannot have seen the above-mentioned contract, nor can Vasari have
known of it, as he states that the architect was Giuliano di Baccio
d’Agnolo. This is impossible, as Giuliano died two years before Ugolino
Griffoni demolished the shops belonging to the first owner of the
land. Additional proof that Ammannati was the architect of the fine
palace, one of the few instances in Florence of an unplastered red
brick building, exists in the Riccardiana library, in a book treating
of arithmetic, geometry, etc., in which Ammannati made architectural
sketches. Among them are a sketch of chimney-piece, the plan of a
loggia, and some drawings of doors, all marked “for I’Altopasso.”
In 1800 Gaetano Griffoni sold his family palace to the Marquess
Ferdinando Riccardi at whose death it went to his heir the Marquess
Mannelli (who took the name of Riccardi). He sold it to the Antinori
family in 1847. When, about forty years later, the palace was bought
by Cav. Gattai and his son-in-law Signor Budini, but little remained
of the beautiful friezes; the stone-work of the windows was crumbling
away, and the cornice had not been completed. The palace has been
admirably restored by the architect Boccini, who among other things did
away with the shutters, which disfigured the façade and were destroying
the fine ornamentation of the windows.
PALAZZO GUADAGNI
_Piazza S. Spirito. No. 11._
This noble palace, with its arched windows and its beautiful loggia
supported by fine columns, was built for Rinieri Dei towards the end
of the XVth century by Cronaca, on the site of houses belonging to the
ancient family of Bischieri. The lantern at the corner resembles those
of the Strozzi palace, and is probably by the famous Niccolò Grosso,
surnamed il Caparra.
The first of the Dei family to attain eminence in Florence were
Giovanni di Deo, one of the twelve Buonomini in 1445, and his brother
Domenico, ambassador to the Court of Naples. Miliano was a Prior
in 1743, and his brother Benedetto went, amongst other places, as
ambassador to Constantinople, where he stayed seven years and was
so trusted by the Sultan that he despatched him on a mission to
Damascus. He has left an interesting chronicle of contemporary events
in Florence. The magnificent palace at the corner of the Piazza S.
Spirito was let in 1568 by Rinieri’s son for two years to Don Garcia di
Toledo, brother of Eleonora, wife of Cosimo I. Giovanni, last of the
Dei family, died in 1683, and left his patrimony to the Buonomini di S.
Martino, a confraternity which still exists and does much good among
the poor who are ashamed to beg. They sold the palace the following
year to Donato Guadagni.
[Illustration: PALAZZO GUADAGNI.]
Progenitor of the Guadagni, according to Passerini,[41] was Guittone,
son of Migliore of S. Martino di Lubaco, a village on the slopes of
Monte Croce in the diocese of Fiesole. The Guadagni arms, a cross edged
with thorns, confirms this, that particular spot being called Croce
alla Spina. Ser Guadagno di Guitto, his descendant, must have attained
a foremost position in Florence, as he was one of the three Priors of
Guilds who, together with the Consuls, ruled the city in 1204, and his
son Gianni was an Elder fifty years later. The Guadagni were Guelphs;
and Gianni and his young son Pierotto fought at Montaperti in 1260,
and were exiled with so many of the other great Florentine families.
On the return of his party to power, Pierotto, who was one of the
richest bankers in Florence, was twice elected Gonfalonier of Justice;
but before his death in 1298 the bank failed, and his palace close to
the Duomo, near the old Porta a Balla, was let to Antonio Orsi, the
warlike Bishop of Florence.
The Guadagni seem to have been a hot-headed, quarrelsome race.
Migliorozzo fought with distinction against Henry VII, and again at
Montecatini and at Altopascio. In 1327 he attacked and wounded his
cousin Gherardo, and then attempted to poison him and his wife. The
latter died from the effects of the poisoned cakes, and Migliorozzo was
fined and condemned to lose his right hand and his left foot, but was
pardoned at the intercession of Gherardo. Lapo Guadagni was beheaded
in 1344 for attempting to assassinate his cousin Filippo and killing
a priest who defended him. In 1410 Antonio Guadagni also lost his
head for trying to defraud the Commune of Florence by swearing that a
certain Gaspero was the son of Francesco da Carrara, Lord of Padua, who
had been strangled by the Venetians, to enable him to draw out money
deposited by his supposed father in the _Monte_.
Bernardo Guadagni is well known as the man whose debts were paid by
Rinaldo degl’Albizzi, in order that he might be elected Gonfalonier
of Justice and sentence Cosimo de’ Medici to exile, who only escaped
a worse fate by bribing the Gonfalonier. Antonio, his son, fought
with distinction against both Visconti and Paolo Guinigi, Lord of
Lucca, but the return of Cosimo in 1434 was fatal to all the adherents
of the Albizzi. Declared a rebel for not taking up his residence in
Barcelona, to which place he was exiled for ten years, Antonio was
taken prisoner at Fermo in 1436 and beheaded. The curious thing is
that twenty-two years later he was again condemned to death as a
rebel, and the sentence had to be revoked as impossible of execution
against a dead man. A cousin of his, Tommaso, born in Savoy and
married to a Frenchwoman, made so large a fortune by trade that “riche
comme Gadagne” became a proverbial saying in Lyons, where he built a
magnificent hospital and a fine house in the street named after him.
He left his money and many domains to his nephew and namesake, whose
descendants became French citizens with French titles, Conte de Verdun,
Baron de Beauregard, de Champeroux, etc.
Jacopo, a nephew of Tommaso, remained in Italy, and bowed his neck to
the yoke of the Medici. He was made a Senator in 1561 by Cosimo I. and
occupied himself, as did also his two sons, in adorning the Guadagni
palace near the Duomo. His grandson, Pierantonio, began the splendid
gallery, the library and the museum of antiquities, which became
famous in the XVIIIth century and in the beginning of the XIXth, after
his father had bought the splendid old palace of the Dei. Ortensia
Guadagni married a nephew of Pope Leo XI. and after his death became
lady-in-waiting to Vittoria della Rovere, Grand Duchess of Tuscany,
whose education she had superintended. Created a Marchioness in her
own right, an unheard-of thing in the Grand Duchy, she was invested
with the feudal estate and castle of S. Leolino del Conte, with the
obligation of furnishing sixty-nine soldiers to the State, and was
allowed to leave her title to her brother Tommaso’s eldest heirs male.
He it was who employed Gherardo Silvani to build the palace which
afterwards passed into the possession of the Dukes of San Clemente (see
p. 303), and his son Francesco was a patron of the arts and an intimate
friend of Salvator Rosa. Alessandro, great-nephew of the Tommaso
Guadagno who settled in France, assassinated Andrea Davanzati in 1566,
and was condemned to death _in contumaciam_. After some years Catherine
de’ Medici obtained his pardon from her uncle the Grand Duke Francesco
I., and he returned to Florence, where he built, after the design of
Gherardo Silvani, says Passerini, a fine palace on the site of the old
houses of his family on the Piazza del Duomo, which now belongs to the
Marchese Strozzi of Mantua. Baldinucci, however, only mentions the
coat-of-arms on the palace as being the handiwork of Silvani. Marquess
Neri Guadagni, who died in 1862, left an only daughter, married to
Marchese Dufour Berte, whose son now owns the great palace in Piazza S.
Spirito.
PALAZZO GUICCIARDINI
_Via Guicciardini. No. 13._
This gloomy large palace was entirely rebuilt by Gherardo Silvani for
the Guicciardini, “changing it from the old to the modern form and
creating a fine staircase,” writes Baldinucci. It stands on the site
of several houses belonging to the Benizzi, where S. Filippo Benizzi,
General of the Servite Order, who out of humility declined the Papal
tiara, was born in 1233.
The Guicciardini came from Poppiana in the Val di Pesa in the XIIth
century, and at once took their place among the rich bankers of
Florence. Forty-four of the family were Priors and sixteen became
Gonfaloniers of Justice, among them Luigi, who was accused of lack of
energy at the time of the Ciompi riots. By a whimsical coincidence the
mob insisted on knighting him in the Piazza della Signoria, whilst his
house was being plundered and burnt. His son Giovanni was Commissary
of War with the army of the League in Lombardy and again at Lucca in
1430, when the defeat of the Florentine troops was attributed, not only
to his want of prudence, but to his love of gold. He was tried and
acquitted; and there is little doubt the accusation was false, promoted
by Cosimo de’ Medici whom Luigi had always opposed. Piero Guicciardini
on the contrary favoured the ambitious designs of Cosimo, and his son
Luigi, when Podestà of Fermo in 1435, captured Antonio Guadagni, the
great enemy of the Medici, and sent him to Florence, where he was
beheaded. Some years later Francesco Sforza made Luigi Podestà of
Milan. With the exception of the few months, during which he was at
different epochs Gonfalonier of Justice, most of his life was spent out
of Florence as ambassador to various Italian princes and towns. His
brother Niccolò married the daughter of the famous condottiere Braccio
di Fortebraccio, Lord of Perugia. He was one of the fifteen citizens
elected to govern Florence after the death of Leo X. who were dismissed
as too republican when Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici arrived in the
city. Niccolò was in danger of losing his head after the capitulation
of Florence, as he had been one of the most active of the _Dieci di
Guerra_ who conducted the defence. His son Braccio, taken prisoner at
Montemurlo, was condemned to imprisonment for life in the fortress of
Volterra.
The celebrated historian Francesco Guicciardini, nephew to Niccolò,
was born in 1482. At twenty-three he was already so able a lawyer
that the Signoria appointed him to read the Institutes in public; he
then began to practise at the bar and his reputation for eloquence,
acumen and gravity, obtained him the post of ambassador to Ferdinand
the Catholic of Aragon, from whom his enemies say he accepted a
bribe. “Certain it is,” writes Symonds, “that avarice was one of his
besetting sins, and that from this time forward he preferred expediency
to justice, and believed in the policy of supporting force by clever
dissimulation.” In 1513 Leo X. came to Florence, and discerning the
ability of Francesco Guicciardini appointed him Governor of Reggio
and Modena, to which Parma was added in 1521. Two years later Clement
VII. made him Viceroy of the Romagna, and in 1527 Lieutenant-General
of the Papal army with supreme authority. This, Passerini declares,
was the chief cause of the sack of Rome and the imprisonment of the
Pope, the Duke of Urbino disdaining to take orders from a mere lawyer.
In the same year he fruitlessly strove to uphold the Medicean cause
in Florence, only incurring the hatred of his fellow-citizens and the
bitter reproaches of the Pope, who accused him of want of energy.
Retiring to his villa near Arcetri he began his famous History, but
alarmed at the aspect of things in Florence, he fled to Rome in 1529
and was declared a rebel. Three years later he returned as one of the
twelve magistrates who “reformed” the city according to the commands
of Clement VII. and the Emperor, “when,” as Varchi tells us, “Messer
Francesco Guicciardini was more cruel and more ferocious than the
others” [in punishing and proscribing the anti-Palleschi citizens]. He
was elected to the Senate of the Eighty, and undertook to defend the
cause of the Duke Alessandro de’ Medici before Charles V. at Naples,
“which he did with such ardour,” writes Bernardo Segni, “confuting
the accusations one by one with such contempt ... that the exiles
styled him Messer Cerrettieri.”[42] He won the cause and Alessandro
returned to Florence as absolute ruler. After the murder of the Duke,
Guicciardini thought that the young Cosimo would be easily led, and
supported his candidature to the throne with all his might. But for
once the astute lawyer had misjudged his man. Cosimo I. made him
understand that his advice was not wanted and that he intended to
be sole master in Florence, and Pitti writes: “when the Duke Cosimo
dismissed him together with certain of his colleagues his rage was
great.... Astonished and deeply hurt he retired to his villa of Sta.
Margarita at Arcetri where, carried away by anger, he re-wrote much
of his History to prove that he did not belong to the sect of the
Palleschi; and where he could, he attempted to show that he was but an
instrument of the Republic.”[43] He spent the last year of his life in
writing his famous histories and died, aged 58, on 22nd May, 1540.
Varchi says of him: “Messer Francesco, besides his noble birth, his
riches and his academical degree, and besides having been Governor
and Viceroy for the Pope, was highly esteemed and enjoyed a great
reputation; not only for his knowledge, but for his great practical
acquaintance with the affairs of the world and the actions of men. Of
such he would discourse admirably, and his judgment was sound. But
his conduct did not tally with his speech; being by nature proud and
curt, he was swayed sometimes by ambition, but oftener by avarice, in
a manner unbecoming to a well-bred and modest man.” For an analysis
of Guicciardini’s masterly _Istoria d’Italia_ and _Opere Inedite_, I
cannot do better than refer my readers to J. A. Symonds’ brilliant
pages in the first volume of his _Renaissance in Italy_. The actual
representative of the family, Count Guicciardini, descends from a
brother of the great historian and lives in the old palace in which he
was born and brought up.
PALAZZO LARDEREL
_Via Tornabuoni. No. 19._
[Illustration: DOORWAY OF PALAZZO LARDEREL.]
The Giacomini were among the illustrious families in olden days in
Florence, and their coat of arms is still to be seen on an angle of
this beautiful little palace. Messer Gherardo Tebalducci, a prominent
citizen in 1280, had several sons, one of whom, for some unknown
reason, dropped the family name and adopted his own Christian name
Giacomino as a surname, which often occurs in the lists of the Priors.
Antonio Giacomini was a brave soldier who in 1498 saved Poppi from
falling into the hands of Alviano, four years later he acted as
Commissary-General of the forces in the war with Pisa and the following
year he was sent with 500 men into the Romagna against the Venetians.
In 1504 he again fought the Pisans, seized Ripafratta and other strong
castles, and then marched against his old antagonist Alviano, who was
advancing to the help of Pisa, and routed him at Campiglia. Jacopo
Nardi tells us that notwithstanding such great services the Republic of
Florence let her old servant die in extreme poverty.
The Giacomini were zealous upholders of freedom. Francesco, one of the
_Dieci di Guerra_ in 1529, was so violent in his hatred of the Medici,
that he denounced Carlo Cocchi for saying that it would be better not
to expose the city to the horrors of a siege and to capitulate at once,
because after all she belonged to the Medici. This ill-considered
speech cost Cocchi his life. Another of the Giacomini, taken prisoner
at Montemurlo with Filippo Strozzi, was beheaded in the Bargello.
A branch of the family must however have been fortunate in trade,
as Settimanni notes in his Diary, “on the 10th October, 1580, the
beautiful house of the Giacomini at S. Michele degl’Antinori was
begun.” It is curious that neither he nor any other contemporary writer
gives the name of the architect of the “Palagetto degl’ Giacomini,”
as the Florentines lovingly called the building they admired so much,
but it is most probably the work of Giovanni Battista Dosio of San
Gemignano. It remained in the possession of the family until the
death of Lorenzo, last of the Giacomini, in 1764, who left it to his
widow for life and then to the Michelozzi Boni. After passing through
various hands the palace was bought in 1839 by Count F. de Larderel,
a Frenchman who made a large fortune in borax at Volterra, and whose
daughter Countess Mirafiore now owns it.
PALAZZO LEONETTI (NOW DE WITTE)
_Lung’Arno Guicciardini. No. 1._
A love-story, ending in a happy marriage, is symbolized in the quaint
ornamentation of the palace. Bernardo Vettori, surnamed “il Biondo”
(the fair-haired) died, leaving his widow Ginevra with one daughter,
heiress to a large fortune. Piero Salviati married the young widow and
induced her to affiance little Maddalena to his own son by a former
marriage, but before Maddalena was of marriageable age her intended
husband was killed in battle. In summer, like most Florentines, the
Salviati went to their villa which was near to one owned by young
Lodovico Capponi. He fell passionately in love with the golden-haired
Maddalena, and she with him. Her step-father opposed the marriage as
he wanted to keep her fortune in his own family, and he had influence
enough at court to induce Duke Cosimo I. to forbid it. In spite of her
mother’s entreaties Maddalena was put into a convent and every effort
was made to provoke her lover, whose fiery temper was well known,
into committing some act of violence. Ginevra at last succeeded in
interesting the Duchess Eleonora in her behalf, who asked Maddalena to
stay at the Pitti palace for a few days. Instead of days she remained
months and, by order of the Duke, Lodovico Capponi’s name was always
mentioned with contempt and contumely, while Sigismondo de’ Rossi, a
favourite of Cosimo, was lauded to the skies. Lodovico, thus separated
from Maddalena, determined that at any rate he would see her from afar
and took a house belonging to the Gianfigliazzi at Santa Trinita, from
the windows of which he could see the court pass over the bridge.
The Florentines took such interest in the lovers that a crowd always
assembled to watch the stolen glances they exchanged.
The Duchess was touched by the unhappiness and constancy of Maddalena,
and it is supposed that it was by her suggestion that one morning at
daylight an old woman appeared at Capponi’s bedside and bade him go
at once to the palace and fetch Maddalena, and to prepare everything
for the marriage. “In twenty-four hours,” writes an old chronicler,
“Lodovico, among other magnificent things, caused an artist to paint
a splendid and large shield with his arms and those of Maddalena,
surrounded with olive branches and the word OPTATA, a motto of his own
invention much praised for its brevity and its meaning; she being a
Vettori, and peace, symbolized by the olive, following on the victory
gained by her after war.” The wedding was a gay one and the house
not being large enough Piazza Santa Trinita was used as a ball-room.
“Comfits fell thick as hail in spring, and wine flowed like water.” The
triumph of true love was very popular among the nobles, who feared the
Duke would interfere in other marriages had he succeeded in preventing
this one.
The lovers went to live in the old Vettori palace and amused themselves
by decorating it in charming and symbolical fashion. Above the two
large windows was inscribed LODOVICUS CAPPONIUS, to show that he was
now the master of the palace and of its mistress, while the olive
with the word OPTATA served as a decoration to the capitals of the
pilasters, which bore at their base the Capponi arms on one side, the
Vettori on the other. The motto OPTATA and the olive branches appeared
also on the ornamented frieze under the first-floor windows, while on
the smaller windows, in lieu of the ornaments generally used, were the
arms of the two families.[44]
The name of the architect is unknown, but Bernardo Buontalenti, a
friend of Capponi’s, did other work for him, so he may have aided in
carrying out this memorial of faithful love; although as Signor Iodico
Del Badia remarks, nothing in the façade recalls his style.[45] In the
large saloon there is a stone fire-place, decorated with the arms, the
motto and the olive branches, and the whole room is finely frescoed by
Bernardo Poccetti with episodes from the lives of the Capponi family.
Lodovico died in 1614, and by the marriage of his grandson’s daughter,
Cassandro Capponi, the palace went to the Riccardi who sold it in 1803.
Since then it has changed hands several times, and the last owner,
Count Leonetti, sold it to M. de Witte.
PALAZZO MANNELLI
_Via de’ Bardi. No. 40._
The Mannelli lay claim to be descendants of the great Roman family
of the Manlii. They certainly are among the most ancient families of
Florence, and in old times were known as the Pontigiani, probably
because having built the first wooden Ponte Vecchio they had the right
to demand toll, and were the custodians of the bridge. They also bore
the names of Piazzegiani and of Capo di Ponte, from living close to the
Piazza of Sta. Felicita and on account of the position of their palace,
and of their tower which abuts on the bridge and was built about the
XIIth century.
Already a powerful family in 1173 when Mannello di Bellondino was
created a knight of the Golden Spur for services rendered to his native
city, they became yet stronger when his two sons Abate and Rinuccio
attained the position of Elders of the Republic. They were Ghibellines,
and intermarried with the great family of the Uberti. But several of
Abate’s sons went over to the opposite faction, and to the valour of
Messer Coppo was attributed the victory of the Guelphs at the battle of
S. Jacopo in the Val di Serchio in 1256. He and his brother Mannelino
fought against their cousins, sons of Rinuccio, at Montaperti, and had
to fly from Florence with the other Guelph nobles. Six years later the
Ghibellines were beaten, and when the “Peace of the Cardinal Latino”
was proclaimed in 1280, members of the Mannelli family were found in
both camps. Among the signatories of the peace was Lapo, son of Messer
Coppo, who had fought gallantly at Campaldino and was knighted in
1292. He had many sons, all distinguished soldiers whose names figure
in the long list of battles fought during the first half of the XIVth
century. His grandson, Amaretto, was deputed to guard the Val d’Elsa
against the Pisans. Amaretto declared himself a _popolano_ in 1361, and
assumed the name of Pontegiani; sixteen years later he was one of the
Buonomini, but being “admonished” by the Captains of the Guelph party
he joined in the Ciompi riots and was knighted by the mob in 1380. When
the nobles returned to power he was exiled, and to while away time
wrote a history of the world. By his wife, Maria Strozzi, he left two
sons, Francesco and Raimondo; the elder, to whom the world owes a large
debt of gratitude, was probably an ecclesiastic. An intimate friend
of Boccaccio, he made a copy of the _Decameron_ which would otherwise
have been lost. Boccaccio left his own manuscript by will to Fra
Martino of Signa for his life, and then to the monastery of S. Spirito
in Florence. It is supposed to have perished either in the fire which
destroyed the church in 1471, or more probably in Savonarola’s bonfire
of “obscenities and vanities” in which so much that was beautiful and
precious went into smoke and ashes. Boccaccio must often have been a
guest in the Mannelli palace, and one regrets that his friend Francesco
was not endowed with the pen of a Boswell, to have preserved for us
the personality of Giovanni Boccaccio. Francesco Mannelli only
finished his copy nine years after the death of his friend; it came
into the possession of the Medici, but disappeared, and was fortunately
discovered and bought by Messer Baccio Baldini, doctor to the Grand
Duke Cosimo I. and librarian of the Laurentian library, where it now
is. At the end of the manuscript is written: _Qui finisce la decima
e ultima Giornata del libro chiamato Decameron cognominato Principe
Galeotto, Scripto per me Francesco d’Amaretto Mannelli di 13 d’Agosto
1384. Deo sit laus et gloria, in ecternum ad honorem egregi Simacu
Spinis et beneplacitum, et mandatum._
[Illustration: TOWER OF THE MANNELLI.]
Raimondo, his brother, was a sailor, and distinguished himself in an
engagement against Spinola, admiral of the fleet of Filippo Visconti,
who then held Genoa. The allied fleets of Venice and Florence met
the enemy off Rapallo on the 27th August, 1431, but the wind was
unfavourable and many of their ships found great difficulty in getting
out of Porto Fino. Raimondo, seeing his friends hard pressed, urged on
his crew with threats, ran down Spinola’s galley and took him and sixty
of his men prisoners. He was shabbily treated by the Venetian admiral
in command, who took, not only the honour and glory, but the prisoners
and consequently their ransom, from him. Mannelli’s portrait is painted
among other seafaring worthies on one of the ceilings in the Pitti
palace. Messer Coppo’s posterity died out in the XVIIth century, and
the present branch of the family descend from his brother Nerlo, whose
son Chele was surnamed Gorget, from his uncomfortable habit of wearing
that part of his armour by day and by night. He was a good soldier, and
at San Casciano killed with his own hand the leader of a strong body
of French troops sent by Henry VII. to raid the Florentine territory.
Jacopo Mannelli took a prominent part in the revolt against the Duke of
Athens, and was named custodian of the bridge of Sta. Trinita, but one
of his descendants, Filippo, a canon of the cathedral, disgraced the
name of Mannelli by revealing the deliberations of the Council of the
Republic to the enemy. He died by the hand of another priest in 1536.
The old palace and the tower ran great risk of destruction, or at the
least of alteration when Vasari made the corridor between the Pitti
palace and the Uffizi. “In order to make the corridor straight,” writes
Mellini, “it was necessary to pass through the house of the Mannelli
by the Ponte Vecchio, at the end of the Via de’ Bardi; so he [Cosimo
I.] sent for the owners of the said house and asked if they were
courteously inclined to permit him to make the passage. On the plea
that it would spoil their house they refused, and he then placed it as
we now see on stone brackets, passing by a sharp turn round the outside
of the house. But he bore them no rancour, saying that every one was
master of his own.”[46] Two of the family, Jacopo and his son Ottavio,
were made Senators in the XVIIIth century, and the family still own
and inhabit the palace and the stern old tower which guards the Ponte
Vecchio.
PALAZZO MARTELLI
_Via della Forca. No. 8._
The Martelli descend from an ancient family who owned the castle of
Stabbiello in the Val di Sieve, one of whom, Martello, came to Florence
early in the XIVth century, and from him they took their name. From
what Migliore writes, their houses were in Via degl’ Spadai (of the
armourers), but as they became more numerous and powerful the name
of the street was changed to Via de’ Martelli.[47] When the present
palace was built, or by whom, is not known.
Ruberto de’ Martelli, a rich Florentine banker, was created a Count
Palatine by the Emperor Paleologus in 1439; some years later Nicholas
V. made him Depositary of the Apostolic Chamber, and in 1455 the
Republic of Florence sent him to Rome to assist at the Conclave
which elected Pope Calistus III. But his name is better known as the
patron and friend of Donatello, whom he took into his house as a lad
and brought up. “The Martelli have,” writes Vasari, in his life of
Donatello, “many objects in marble and in bronze, amongst others a
David three braccie high, and many other things, most liberally given
by Donatello in attestation of the service and love he bore them; more
especially a S. Giovanni, a statue in marble of three braccie high,
all finished by him, a most rare piece, now in the house of the heirs
of Ruberto Martelli, who made it an heirloom, ordering that it should
never be pawned, sold, or given away.” Domenico, brother to Ruberto,
was a friend of Cosimo the Elder, who employed him in many embassies,
and in 1476 he was Gonfalonier of Justice, one of the nine the family
gave to Florence, besides thirty Priors. His son Braccio was among the
first of the adherents of the Medici to turn against them when Piero
fled the city. He then became one of the _Dieci di Guerra_, in 1495
he was Commissary of the war against Siena, and later of the siege of
Pisa. Pietro, his son, a munificent patron of men of letters, had a
considerable reputation as a mathematician. His cousin Lodovico was a
poet, whose tragedy _Tullia_ is said to have been admired. If true,
it only shows that people had more patience in those days, and were
content to listen to speeches of intolerable length and tedium. He led
the band of Florentine scholars who impugned the genuineness of Dante’s
_De Eloquio_, found and published by Trissino. Another Lodovico was the
hero of the duel with Giovanni Bandini, fought at Poggio Imperiale in
the presence of the Prince of Orange in 1530, so minutely described by
Varchi.[48] Lodovico died of his wounds, and his portrait was placed in
the Uffizi gallery amongst other patriots, though patriotism had little
to do with the duel, which was fought for love of Marietta de’ Ricci.
Camilla Martelli had the misfortune to attract the notice of the Grand
Duke Cosimo I., who was induced by Pius V. to marry her in 1560, thus
legitimating their daughter Virginia. He soon afterwards retired to the
Villa di Castello, virtually abdicating in favour of his son Francesco,
who inherited the cruelty and the vices of his father without his
ability. The years Camilla spent at Castello with Cosimo can hardly
have been happy, but after his death her life was a miserable one; shut
up as a prisoner in a convent, out of which she only emerged for a few
hours to assist at her daughter’s wedding with the Duke of Modena in
1586, she died, worn out with grief, four years later. Several of the
Martelli entered the Church. Francesco became Patriarch of Jerusalem
in 1698 and died a Cardinal, and Giuseppe was Archbishop of Florence
in 1732. He belonged to the Academy of the Crusca, and was a great
collector of books. The Martelli still live in the old family palace,
and possess Donatello’s works.
PALAZZO MONALDI
_Via Porta Rossa. No. 20._
The majestic tower of the Monaldi (which has been restored), with part
of the old house attached, stands nearly opposite Palazzo Davanzati.
I cannot do better than tell the history of the family, mentioned by
Dante as among the oldest in Italy, in the words of Piero Monaldi,
whose manuscript history has been kindly lent to me by one of his
descendants. “Our family comes from the Monaldeschi of Orvieto, and
took its origin from the Duke and Baron Monaldo, connected with
the famous house of Anjou, who governed Tuscany for the Emperor
Charlemagne. His descendants were lords of Orvieto and of many other
places in the Tuscan land.... Civil discord between them and the
Filippeschi drove Monaldo and his family to Florence; he settled in
the parish of Porta Rossa, and built a tower of square hewn stone
430 braccie in height. In this spot they had so many houses that the
street was called de’ Monaldi [now Via Monalda]. The houses extended
from the Piazza di Sta. Trinita and Porta Rossa as far as the church
of Sta. Maria Ughi, until in 1346, on the day of S. John the Baptist,
they were nearly destroyed by a very great fire, with the loss of
much property, and of the lives of some of the family, as is related
by Giovanni Villani. They were at once rebuilt, for the said houses
are mentioned in the first _catasto_ of the citizens of Florence as
belonging to the sons of Antonio di Guido, who was an ancestor of mine.
I note that as _Grandi_ of the city we had not much to do with the
government, being in opposition to the people; so that when in 1378 the
mob became masters, our family was admonished and condemned; Lipozzo di
Mangieri, who was then Podestà of Terra Nuova, being exiled together
with his sons. When the recall of the exiles was talked of in 1395, we
were again admonished and banished, and some went to Pisa and became
citizens of that city, where to this day their ancient monuments can
be seen. Buonfiglio Monaldi, a saintly man, one of the seven founders
of the Servite Order, was of our family; his brother Buonconte, a
knight, captain of Arezzo in 1260, was chosen by Cardinal Latino as one
of the guarantors of the universal peace between the Guelphs and the
Ghibellines in 1280. Ugo, knight of the Golden Spur, was captain of
the cavalry of the King of Hungary, and is mentioned by Verino in his
second book, _De Illustratione Urbis Florentie_.
Gloria Folcorum Federicus et Impiger Ugo
Pannoni Regis Turmas ductavit equestres
Pluraque Turcarum caepit Castella Monaldus, etc.
His magnificent tomb in Sta. Maria Novella was destroyed when the
church was enlarged, but the old stone of our vault can still be
seen in the pavement, on which is inscribed: _Hic jacet_ [_sic_]
_Ossa Nobilis Militis Ugonis de Monaldis equitis Florentini et eorum
Descendentium_.
“Piero, my grandfather, was captain under the lord Tommaso de’ Medici.
Alessandro was captain in 1530, and took the city of Volterra.
Another was Archbishop of Rieti, but at present there only remain Fra
Francesco, a Cappucin, and Piero di Giovanni, writer of this notice,
and of this family history. Our arms have a white peacock on a red
field, emblem of the city of Orvieto, from whence we came. Some add a
silver rose, given by the King of England to Giovanni Monaldi.”[49] The
tower of the Monaldi now belongs to Signor Majolfi.
PALAZZO RAMIREZ DI MONTALVO
_Borgo degl’Albizzi. No. 24._
In 1540 a page named Antonio Ramirez di Montalvo came from Spain in
the train of the Cardinal Don Giovanni di Toledo, Bishop of Burgos
and uncle to the Duchess Eleonora, wife of Cosimo I. de’ Medici. The
Cardinal passed some weeks in Florence, and when obliged to proceed
to Rome left the lad Antonio, who was ill, in the charge of the
Duchess. She took him into her service, and the clever young Spaniard
gained the good graces of the Duke, became tutor to the young Prince
Francesco de’ Medici, and married Donna Giovanna di Ghevara, one of
the ladies-in-waiting of the Duchess. In 1568 he bought a house with
a tower and a garden, in Borgo degl’Albizzi, from Giovanni Bonafedi,
and afterwards two or three smaller ones adjoining, and then built the
palace we now see. By the Duke’s order the overseer of the works at
the Duomo supplied him with the wood necessary for the roof, doors,
windows, etc., and it appears that Cosimo also gave considerable sums
towards the cost of building. With good reason, therefore, the grateful
Spaniard placed his master’s arms, instead of his own, on the façade
with the inscription: COSMOS;MAGN;FLOR;ET;SEN;D;II.
[Illustration: PALAZZO MONTALVO.]
The palace is decorated in _grafite_, and on a line with the arms are
the favourite emblems of the Duke, a capricorn, a tortoise with a sail
and two crossed anchors. It has always been attributed to Bartolomeo
Ammanati, though neither Baldinucci nor any other contemporary writers
give the name of the architect. But as Ammanati was at that time
(1566–1569) engaged in rebuilding the bridge of Sta. Trinita, and was
Cosimo’s favourite architect (he built the courtyard of Palazzo Pitti),
it is more than probable that he was also employed by his courtiers.
When Cosimo I. instituted the order of S. Stefano Don Antonio Ramirez
di Montalvo was one of the first knights created, and was given a
rich _Commenda_ in perpetuity. The name of his grand-daughter, Donna
Leonora, is well-known in Florence as the foundress of the convent of
Le Quiete, the great school where the daughters of the nobility are
educated by nuns called the Signore della Quiete, all ladies of good
birth who do not take solemn vows. The life of Donna Leonora, written
in 1740, is curious reading. As a baby she reproved her nurse if she
was idle, and as a girl she must have been a trial to her father
confessor from her scruples and incessant fears that everything was
a deadly sin. She had visions, during which Our Lord and the Virgin
Mary talked with her; she predicted the restoration to health, or the
death, of many people and performed many miraculous cures. A singular
mixture of Spanish bigotry and Tuscan common-sense was Donna Leonora.
Many of the rules she laid down for the teaching of the young ladies at
Le Quiete would be considered admirable at the present day. “Let them
be trained to order,” she writes, “and to cleanliness. Teach them to
put away their clothes properly.... Let them not be lazy or negligent,
but sprightly and diligent. They should know how to sweep and clean
a room, how to make a bed, to take charge of the linen and woollen
things, and of what pertains to the furniture of the house. They should
learn how to nurse a sick person with care, according to the doctor’s
orders, and how to prepare all kinds of milk dishes, cordials, candied
fruit and sweet pastry. It would be well, too, that they should know
how to sew and wash fine linen, such as is used in a sacristy. Not that
they are to perform such fatiguing duties, save for exercise and their
own pleasure; on the contrary, I desire that they should be served in
seemly fashion, but so that in case of necessity they may be able to
direct how things ought to be done, for that is most necessary for the
good ruling of a household.”[50] After all these excellent, but rather
commonplace, precepts, the bewildered reader is suddenly plunged into
chapter after chapter of prophecies made, and miracles worked, by Donna
Leonora; the miracles continued even after her death in 1659. She did,
however, good work in founding the convent of the Signore della Quiete.
Her brother, Don Antonio, died in 1581, and was succeeded by the eldest
of his five sons. According to his friend Vasari, he drew well, and was
a munificent patron of art. The last of the family, another Antonio,
inherited the tastes of his ancestor. He was President of the Academy
of Drawing in Florence, and Director of the Palatine gallery in Palazzo
Pitti; it was under him that the gallery was first thrown open to the
public on Sundays and half-holidays in 1833.
In 1739 the palace was let to Baron von Stosch, an antiquary, and a
spy in the service of the English government to watch the doings of
the Pretender. That delightful old gossip, Sir Horace Mann, notes in
1757, “Baron Stosch is dead at last.... His effects consist only in
his Collection, which is very great, and worth a large sum. It is to
be offered to the Emperor. He has appointed me and Abbé Buonacorsi
his executors, and has left him a picture, and me a cameo, which I
might have bought some years ago for six zecchins.” The palace still
belongs to a collateral descendant of the old Spanish family, the Count
Matteucci Montalvo.
PALAZZO MOZZI
_Piazza Mozzi. No. 3._
When the second line of walls was built round Florence in 1173, the
Oltrarno consisted of suburbs, and was chiefly inhabited by the poor.
But early in the following century rich and powerful families began to
build their houses and towers there, and among them were the Mozzi.
“Mozorum prisca paucide stirpe superunt
Area sola tenet nomen vicina fluente,”
writes Verino. In 1260 Jacopo di Cambio Mozzi was one of the leaders
of the Florentine army, and after the defeat of the Guelphs the houses
and towers of the Mozzi were sacked and destroyed, for which the city
paid them an indemnity. They then built a palace on the same spot,
where they received Pope Gregory X. and his whole court in magnificent
fashion, when going to the Council of Lyons. All the prelates of
distinction who passed through Florence were guests of the Mozzi, as
they, together with the Spini, were bankers of the Pope, and farmers
of the revenues of the Holy See. For that reason they had houses or
correspondents all over the world.
The Pope arrived on the 18th June, 1273, with Charles of Anjou, King
of Naples, and Baldwin of Flanders, who styled himself Emperor of
Constantinople, “and, as the sojourn of Florence pleased them,” writes
Villani, “because of the goodness of the water, the salubrity of the
air and the comfort to be found in the city, they determined to spend
the summer there. The Pope observing that so fine a city suffered by
reason of the parties (for the Ghibellines were in exile), willed that
they should return and make peace with the Guelphs, and it was done.
On the 2nd July the said Pope, with his cardinals, King Charles, the
Emperor Baldwin, all the barons and courtiers, and the Florentine
people, collected in the dry bed of the Arno at the foot of the bridge
of Rubaconte [now alle Grazie]; and the illustrious and great people
took their places on huge scaffoldings of wood which had been erected.
And there the Pope judged between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines,
under pain of excommunication to whomsoever did not obey. He caused the
leaders of each party to kiss each other on the mouth and make peace,
and give bail and hostages; and all the castles held by the Ghibellines
were to be given into the hands of King Charles.” The peace was but
short-lived, as the Ghibellines, warned of the evil intentions of the
King towards them, left the city four days later.
Things in Florence went from bad to worse, so that Pope Nicholas III.
was begged to send a legate to promote peace. Once more Palazzo Mozzi
“became a second Rome,” for the Cardinal Fra Latino Frangipani was an
honoured guest there in October 1278. His first task was to reconcile
the Guelphs, who had fallen out among themselves, and then he made
peace between them and the Ghibellines. The “Peace of Cardinal Latino”
was signed, amid general rejoicing, in the Piazza Vecchia of Sta. Maria
Novella in 1280.
In 1314 King Robert of Naples sent his brother Piero, Count of Gravina,
with three hundred horsemen, at the urgent request of the Florentines,
to help them against Uguccione della Fagiuola, whom the Pisans had
taken into their pay. The young Count dismounted at Palazzo Mozzi in
August, and Ammirato describes him as “prudent and discreet. He showed
no sign of the pride and haughtiness of royalty in his dealing with the
citizens, behaving courteously to all.... To these qualities were added
the natural advantages of remarkable beauty both of face and person.”
The Florentines were delighted with him, and his death at the battle of
Montecatini the following year was sincerely mourned. Seven years later
the old palace opened its doors to a very different guest. Walter de
Brienne, Duke of Athens and Count of Lecce, who was to become the hated
tyrant of Florence, stayed there for some time when he first arrived as
Vicario of the Duke of Calabria.
Several of the Mozzi were gallant soldiers, and became knights of
the Golden Spur. Vanni fought against the Pisans in 1292, and three
years later was sent as ambassador to the Pope, to beg him once more
to intervene in the internal dissensions of the city. Luigi Mozzi was
amongst those sent to Venice to negociate a treaty in 1337, and four
years later he was one of the twenty citizens of Florence who treated
for the purchase of Lucca. Afterwards he arranged a league with Siena
and Perugia. Marcantonio, canon of the cathedral of Sta. Maria del
Fiore in 1707, a man of considerable learning, was an “Arcadian,”
under the name of Dariseo Gortinano, and Archconsul of the Academia
della Crusca. His brother, Pier-Giannozzo Mozzi, was created a Count of
the Empire by Napoleon I.
It must have been a grandson of Pier-Giannozzo whom Sir Horace Mann
mentions as the friend of the eccentric Lady Orford. She died at
Pisa in 1781, and Mann writes: “Mozzi brought me her writing-box,
which I opened in his presence, and of a lawyer’s, in which I saw a
paper sealed with her seal, and, wrote on the cover by her, ‘A copy
of my last will.’... She has left everything she was possessed of to
Mozzi.... He is one of the most antient families among the nobilità
here, and not poor for this country. She, to be sure, chose him for
his beauty, which was then great and in its prime, but she wished it
to be thought that his learning (for which he is distinguished, and he
has just published some approved works on Mathematicks) biassed her
choice.... Mozzi’s attention has been greatly rewarded.” In 1784 Sir
Horace notes that “Florence is much amused by the marriage of Lady
Orford’s old Cicisbeo, Cavaliere Mozzi.”
The old palace and its large garden was sold by the last of the family
a few years ago to the Dowager Princess Carolath Beuthen.
PALAZZO NERLI
_Via de’ Servi. No. 10._
[Illustration: WINDOW OF PALAZZO NERLI.]
This quaintly shaped palace with a fine courtyard, and ending in a
sharp angle at Via de’ Castellaccio, belonged to the ancient family of
the Nerli, praised by Dante as still living soberly according to the
good old fashion.
“... The sons I saw
Of Nerli, and of Vecchio, well content
With unrobed jerkins; and their good dames handling
The spindle and the flax. Oh happy they.”
In the XIth century they had houses and a tower in the centre of old
Florence and took their name from one Nerlo, son of Signorello di
Ridolfo d’Ildebrando di Leone, who lived in 1079. Another Messer Nerlo
was Consul of the city of Florence in 1196 and again in 1202. The
Nerli joined the sect of the Paterines, and when Fra Piero da Verona
preached a crusade against the heretics they fled and took refuge in
France. Not being able to burn the living, the Friar desecrated the
family tombs and burnt the corpses and the bones of their ancestors.
The Nerli remained in France for a hundred and fifty years and must
have abjured their heretic faith, as Cosimo the Elder recalled
Francesco de Nerlo to Florence, and caused him to be made a _Popolano_
and a Prior, the first of his house. His son Tanay became a man of
great consequence in the city, and was one of the chief adversaries of
Savonarola. It was at his instigation that the bell of S. Marco, with
which the friars had summoned the people to their aid when Fra Girolamo
was arrested, was taken to S. Miniato. Tradition says it was never
tolled there but once, and that was for the funeral of Tanay Nerli.
One of his sons was a good Greek scholar to whom we owe the first
edition of Homer. Another son was father to the historian Filippo Nerli
(1485–1536), whose Commentary is a model of pure and elegant Italian,
but marred by too great a partiality to the Medici, to whom he was
related through his wife Caterina Salviati, aunt of Duke Cosimo I. The
descendant of another son was Archbishop of Florence and a Cardinal in
1669. About the same time his brother, Senator Nerli, bought the estate
of Rassina from the Altieri with the title of Marquess, and one of his
sons succeeded his uncle as Archbishop and as Cardinal. The palace now
belongs to Signor Fiaschi Cuccoli.
[Illustration: CORNER OF PALAZZO NONFINITO, WITH COAT OF ARMS OF THE
STROZZI.]
PALAZZO NONFINITO
_Via Proconsolo. No. 12._
“In 1592,” writes Baldinucci in his life of Matteo Nigetti, “Alessandro
Strozzi bought a house from Camillo de’ Pazzi, that same Camillo who
was father to S. Maria Maddalena, and a small one adjoining with a
shop, at Canto del Papa, so-called in olden times from a family who
lived there, but afterwards called the Canto de’ Pazzi; near to where
the first wall of Florence ended towards the east with the Porta S.
Pietro.” They were bought with the intention of building the fine,
but unfinished, palace we now see, and Alessandro charged Bernardo
Buontalenti not only to make the design but to superintend the work.
Nigetti worked under him for seven years, until the façade as far as
the sills of the first floor windows on the side towards the Duomo was
finished. “The kneeling windows and the door in Borgo degl’Albizzi
show how great was the talent of Buontalenti,” says Vasari; “he only
built the first floor of the palace, as a difference arose with the
owner about a certain staircase proposed by Santi di Tito, who did
what little he knew and no more, and the building was then entrusted
to other hands.” Scamozzi the Roman architect was at that time in
Florence and continued the work for Ruberto Strozzi. When he left,
Caccini became the architect and sculptured the fine coat of arms at
the corner, shown in the drawing. After his death Nigetti was once
more called in to superintend, and Cigoli designed the courtyard. The
Guasti family bought the palace in the XVIIth century, and the entrance
court, which till then had been open, was roofed over. With so many
architects it seems strange that the palace should have remained in
such a condition as to have merited the special name of Nonfinito
(the Unfinished) in a city where but few of the great buildings are
completed. It is possible that some dispute arose between the Strozzi
and the Salviati, whose palace was opposite, about the height; in which
the latter, connected with the Medici by the marriage of Maria Salviati
with Giovanni delle Bande Nere, would have gained the day.
In 1814 the palace was bought by the Grand Ducal government, and
Fossombroni, the enlightened minister of Fernando III., inhabited it
for some time. It then became the office of the head of the police, and
now is the central telegraph office of Florence.
PALAZZO PANCIATICHI
_Via Cavour. No. 2._
This palace was built by Carlo Fontana for the Cardinal Bandino
Panciatichi and is celebrated for its fine staircase, the incline
of which is so gradual that one of the Panciatichi, an officer on
the staff of the Arch Duke of Austria, used to ride upstairs. It was
erected on the site of the houses of the Della Casa family, who would
not merit special mention if Monsignore Giovanni Della Casa, born in
1503, had not belonged to the chief academies of the day and written
_Galateo_, that elaborate essay on good manners whose title has passed
into a proverb. He was Archbishop of Benevento in 1544 and soon
afterwards Nuncio at Venice. The scandal caused by his burlesque poem
_Capitolo del Forno_ probably prevented his being made a Cardinal.[51]
The story of the Panciatichi family would be almost a history of
Pistoja, as for more than three centuries the little town was torn to
pieces by the bloody feuds between them and the Cancellieri. According
to tradition they descend from a Roman Consul:
“Et genus et nomen gens haec Panseatica sumpsit
E Pansa eximio Consule magnanimo;
Belligeri Tuscam Pistori venit ad urbem
Cum cecidit fato consul uterque pari,”
wrote Giovanni Navarra in the XVth century; and in public acts and
ancient inscriptions the Panciatichi called themselves _Pansea
progenies_. They were lords of many strong castles and townlets in the
Apennines; amongst others of San Marcello, which from time immemorial
paid them a yearly tribute of 100 lbs. of cheese, 50 loads of beech
wood and 3 bushels of chestnuts. The oldest existing document about the
family is dated 1057, and relates to Pansa, or Pancio, son of Bellino
a knight of the Golden Spur who conceded to the Bishop of Pistoja the
right of allowing the friars of S. Salvatore to collect certain tithes.
Infrangilasta Panciatichi went to the crusades in 1190 and was taken
prisoner by Saladin, but after some months he escaped and returned to
Pistoja, where in fulfilment of a vow he gave lands to the church of
S. Angelo in Gora.[52] The documents relating to his sons Inghiramo
and Lanfranco are curious as showing the feudal rights enjoyed by a
great Ghibelline family. Ridolfo Panciaticho, his sons and his brother
Angelo, were created knights of the Golden Spur in 1329 by the Commune
of Florence, and a few years afterwards the latter was made a citizen.
His son Diliano was ambassador to the Emperor Charles IV., and a
descendant of his, Bartolomeo, was a most successful merchant at
Lyons. His son and namesake, a friend of the artists and men of letters
of his day, was himself a poet. In France, where he was ambassador for
some years, he became a Protestant, and on his return to Florence was
imprisoned by the tribunal of the Inquisition. After suffering torture
he publicly abjured in 1552 and was received again into the Roman
Catholic Church after long and wonderful ceremonies. The portraits of
himself and his wife Lucrezia by Bronzino, are in the Uffizi. His son
Carlo, a man of violent temper, was condemned to death for murdering
his servant, but was pardoned by Cosimo I. on the condition that he
married his mistress Eleonora degl’Albizzi, of whom the Grand Duke was
tired after she had borne him a son.
Niccolò Panciatichi, a member of the Academia della Crusca who won some
fame as a writer, inherited the palace from his uncle the Cardinal,
and married the rich heiress Caterina Guicciardini. He increased the
fine library, collected many valuable pictures, and probably placed
the Madonna and Child, of the school of Mino da Fiesole, on the corner
of the palace. His grandson Niccolò was a great botanist (a taste
inherited by the Marchioness Paulucci, his great-granddaughter) and
his garden at the Villa La Loggia, where exotic and rare plants were
cultivated with wonderful success, was celebrated. In 1762 he married
Vittoria, the last of the great Portuguese family of Ximenes d’Aragona,
who brought him a large fortune, besides the Marquisates of Esche in
Bavaria, of Saturnia in Southern Italy, a palace in Florence, etc. The
Panciatichi then added her name and her arms to their own (see p. 398).
PALAZZO PANDOLFINI
_Via S. Gallo. No. 74._
This beautiful, but unfinished, palace was begun by a son of Pandolfo
Pandolfini, who went to Naples in 1465 as ambassador of the Florentine
Republic. He was so popular there, and became such a favourite with
the King, that his son Gianozzo, described as a “jocund and liberal
man, honoured by all who knew him,” was made Bishop of Troia. When
the Cardinal Giovanni de’ Medici became Pope he summoned Gianozzo
Pandolfini to Rome, and created him Governor of Castel Sant’Angelo. But
Florence was the place he loved, and he often came to stay in a house
he had hired in the Via S. Gallo from the monks of Monte Senario. After
improving the house, and turning part of the orchard into a garden, he
wanted to buy it, but the monks refused to sell, alleging that in the
orchard stood an oratory, or small church, which had once formed part
of a convent of Benedictine nuns. Leo X. came to the aid of his friend
the Bishop, and by a Papal Bull, dated 28th May, 1517, followed by a
Brieve in Feb. 1520, conceded to him, and approved of the sale to him,
of the house, land and church, allowing him to suppress and transfer
the latter elsewhere if it so pleased him. The Pope at the same time
sent some fine marbles from Rome to be used in the decoration of the
house. Thereupon Bishop Pandolfini addressed himself to his “most
dear friend Raffaello da Urbino,” who, as Vasari tells us, “made for
him a design for the palace he wished to build in Via S. Gallo, and
Giovanfrancesco da San Gallo was sent from Rome to begin the work,
which he did with all possible diligence.”
Bishop Gianozzo died in 1525, so Vasari is in error when he states
that the building, which had been interrupted by the death of the
architect and the siege of Florence in 1530, was continued by him, with
Bastiano da San Gallo, surnamed Aristotle, as his architect. It was
most probably Ferrando Pandolfini, a man of considerable learning, to
whom his uncle ceded his bishopric of Troia, and to whom he also left
the palace, who went on with it, and who caused the inscription to be
placed under the cornice, JANNOCTIUS. PANDOLFINIUS. EPS. TROIANUS.
LEONIS. X. ET. CLEMENTIS. VII. PONT. MAX. BENEFICIIS. AUCTUS. A.
FUNDAMENTIS. EREXIT. AN. SAL. M. D. XX. The original design by Raphael
is said to have been curtailed, so that the part which now consists of
ground-floor rooms, covered by a large terrace, ought to have formed an
integral portion of the edifice. But the building is so beautiful as it
stands that one can hardly regret what was left undone.
The entrance door, the windows, especially those of the first floor,
which are Ionic, while the lower ones are Doric, and the capitals of
the columns surrounding the loggia, are very fine. In 1616 the palace
passed to a descendant of Bishop Gianozzo’s third brother, who finished
it and laid out the garden, which had been neglected. He also dowered
the oratory of S. Silvestro which had been incorporated with the house
and not transferred. Roberto Pandolfini, his nephew, inherited the
palace in 1655, and it is still in the possession of descendants of
the family. Count Alessio Pandolfini restored it in excellent taste
in 1875, when the outer door of the small church, or oratory, was
made into a window. Florence owes to Battista, another brother of
Bishop Gianozzo Pandolfini, the fine doorway of the Badia, which he
commissioned Benedetto da Rovezzano to build, and he also erected the
tomb to his grandfather, another Gianozzo Pandolfini, in the same
church.
[Illustration: PALAZZO PANDOLFINI.]
PALAZZO PAZZI
_Via del Proconsolo. No. 10._
The Pazzi, who claim a Roman descent, came originally from Fiesole,
and were always Guelphs. Excluded by Giano della Bella, in 1292, from
all participation in the government of the city, it was only after
Cosimo de’ Medici’s return from exile that Andrea de’ Pazzi became a
Prior in 1439; when Cosimo gave his granddaughter Bianca in marriage
to Gugliemo, Andrea’s grandson. The houses of the various members of
the Pazzi family, who all made large fortunes in trade, once extended
for some distance along both sides of Borgo degl’Albizzi. But when,
towards the middle of the XVth century, the Florentine nobles began to
erect palaces in lieu of their old fortified houses, Messer Andrea de’
Pazzi commissioned Filippo Brunelleschi, who designed the beautiful
chapel for him in the cloister of Sta. Croce, to build a palace.
Poliziano’s statement that Jacopo, Andrea de’ Pazzi’s son, destroyed
his father’s house to build this palace, is controverted by documents
found by Signor Iodico Del Badia in the archives of the old _catasti_,
which show that Jacopo only incorporated an adjoining house he had
bought with the one inherited from his father. The splendid palace
cannot, however, have been completed when Andrea died in 1445, as his
son employed Giuliano da Majano and his brothers to finish it. Another
reason for attributing the building to Messer Andrea de’ Pazzi, and
not to his son Jacopo, is that the sail, an emblem always used for
indicating that the proprietor had made his fortune in trade, is among
the ornaments in the centre of the arches of the windows. On the
capitals in the courtyard are the dolphins, the arms of the Pazzi, and
the vase containing the Holy Fire. This, according to ancient custom,
was lit by means of certain stones, brought from the Holy Sepulchre by
Pazzino de’ Pazzi, said to have been the first to scale the walls of
Jerusalem in one of the crusades.
Under Lorenzo il Magnifico the Pazzi found themselves excluded from
office, and their animosity was further aroused by the loss of a
lawsuit involving the large fortune of Giovanni Borromeo, whose
only daughter had married Giovanni de’ Pazzi, Andrea’s nephew. By
Florentine law the daughter should have inherited from her father who
died intestate, but it was assigned to her cousin, Carlo Borromeo.
Guicciardini makes Pier Capponi say, “Tyrants are forced to watch
the action of every one, and to cast down those who seem to them
too powerful or too intelligent. Hence arose the wronging of the
Pazzi, by an iniquitous law which deprived them of the inheritance
of the Borromei, and the varied persecutions of the family, so that
desperation drove them into that conspiracy whence came such infinite
evils.” Francesco de’ Pazzi, Giovanni’s brother, described by Poliziano
as “a man of blood who, when he meditated any design, went straight
to his goal, being hindered by no regard for morality, religion,
reputation, or fair fame,” quitted Florence and went to Rome, where
the Pazzi had a banking house. He knew Sixtus IV. and was aware of his
hatred of the Medici, a hatred he gratified by appointing Cardinal
Francesco Salviati, a man of evil reputation and bitterly hostile
to Lorenzo, to the See of Pisa. At Rome Francesco de’ Pazzi became
intimate with the Pope’s so-called nephew, Count Girolamo Riario, Lord
of Imola; and Stefano Infessura, the well-informed Roman diarist,
affirms that “these things [_i. e._ the murder of the Medici] were
ordered by Pope Sixtus, together with the Count Girolamo and others,
in order to take away the dominion from Lorenzo and to confer it on
the Count Girolamo.” The dying confession of one of their instruments,
Giovanbattista di Montesecco, captain in the papal service, fully
confirms this.
[Illustration: COURTYARD OF PALAZZO PAZZI.]
Advantage was taken of the presence at Pisa of Riario’s nephew,
Raffaello, who had just been created a Cardinal. He was summoned to
Florence, and Lorenzo, as was his wont, invited him to an entertainment
at the Medici villa at Fiesole. The conspirators then determined to
murder the two brothers, but Giuliano, being ill, did not go, so the
attempt was postponed. Cardinal Raffaello expressing a desire to
hear mass in the cathedral of Florence, Lorenzo invited him to go on
Sunday, 26th April, and to dine at his palace in Via Larga afterwards.
The conspirators then settled, that at the elevation of the Host,
when it is customary for all to kneel, the deed should be done. Their
design was nearly frustrated by the refusal of Captain Montesecco to
commit a murder “where Christ would surely see him.” His place was
hastily filled by Stefano da Bagnoni, parish priest of Montemurlo, and
secretary to Jacopo de’ Pazzi, and by Antonio Maffei of Volterra, an
Apostolic notary, who were to kill Lorenzo; while Francesco de’ Pazzi
and one of his braves, Bernardo Bandini, were to fall on Giuliano.
Montesecco’s scruples proved fatal to the success of the plot, as the
two ecclesiastics blundered and only wounded Lorenzo slightly in the
neck. Francesco de’ Pazzi did his work with such fury that he inflicted
nineteen stabs on Giuliano, and wounded himself on the thigh. While
this was going on in the cathedral, the Archbishop Salviati went to
the Palazzo della Signoria, which he intended to seize, while Jacopo
de’ Pazzi was to incite the people to revolt. Cesare Petrucci, the
Gonfalonier, a shrewd man devoted to the Medici, was struck by the
Archbishop’s embarrassed manner and confused speech; so he suddenly
left the room, locked the door behind him and went to look out on
the Piazza. There he saw Jacopo de’ Pazzi and his followers shouting
“Liberty! liberty!” and at once ordered the gates of the palace to
be closed. Citizens came running with the news of the assassination
of Giuliano, and without a moment’s hesitation Petrucci seized the
Archbishop and hung him from the column of a window overlooking the
Piazza. Some of his followers, including Jacopo Poggio, son of the
historian, were hung beside their leader, the rest were cut down on the
staircase or in the courtyard. Francesco de’ Pazzi was seized in bed
at his own house, and naked and bleeding from the wound in his thigh
was hung by the side of the Archbishop, in whose shoulder he is said to
have fixed his teeth in his death agony.
Gugliemo Pazzi, who knew of, but did not participate in, the plot,
took refuge from the popular fury in the palace of his brother-in-law
Lorenzo de’ Medici. He was banished. Giovanni de’ Pazzi, the husband of
the Borromei heiress, eventually died in prison at Volterra, and the
seven sons of Francesco de’ Pazzi’s brother Piero were either hung,
condemned to perpetual exile, or to imprisonment for life. Jacopo was
caught while crossing the frontier into the Romagna, brought back to
Florence, and executed. His body was laid in the family vault in Sta.
Croce, but the mob disinterred it, dragged it through the streets to
his palace and battered the head against the door, amidst ironical
shouts that the master wanted to come in. At length the body was thrown
into the Arno, followed, as it floated down stream, by a jeering crowd.
In 1498 the fine palace was bought by Francesco Cibo, son of Pope
Innocent VIII. and at his death went to his son Lorenzo, whose wife
Ricciarda Malaspina was one of the many ladies admired by the base-born
Duke Alessandro de’ Medici. Her brother-in-law, the Archbishop of
Marseilles, then determined to murder the Duke. Varchi relates that
“when Alessandro went to the palace he used to sit on a certain chest
which was in the room of the Marchesana, very close to the bed in which
she slept. So the Archbishop planned to fill a similar chest with
gunpowder, and to set it in the place of the one the Duke was wont to
use, and it was to be so made that he might easily set fire to the
powder inside when the Duke sat on it. This he did because it seemed to
him that the close friendship and great familiarity between the Duke
and the Marchesana was a matter of reproach and most shameful. But
while all things necessary for carrying out his evil intent were being
prepared, the plot was discovered. He was imprisoned until the Emperor
came to Florence, when he was released and allowed to go where it best
pleased him.”
Some ladies of the Cibo family were the first to introduce carriages
into Florence in 1536, but Tommaso Rinnuccini writes: “They were
not common even in the beginning of the present [XVIIth] century,
and many of the nobility did not use them. Little by little, with
the excuse of a marriage, or other such pretext, many adopted them;
some with four, the richest even with six horses. At first they were
small, made of leather both inside and out, and placed immediately
over the axle, so that the movement was most uncomfortable; then they
were hung on straps, to be less rough, and finally the straps were
attached to carved bands of well-tempered steel which, yielding to any
shock, made them still more easy. The handsomest are of black, or of
coloured velvet, with fringes inside and out and the tops gilt inside.
Till the middle of the century some of the richer inhabitants of the
city used a _cocchio_, which was generally lined with rose-coloured
velvet and covered with purple cloth; on the top were eight gilt-knobs
(_pomi_), but these have gone entirely out of fashion. In 1672 a style
of carriage, hung on long straps, was introduced from Paris, which
swung and swayed to and fro; they are called _poltroncine_ (small
arm-chairs), because they are so comfortable.... At the time I write a
sort of covered chair, placed on two long poles, has been imported from
Paris; in front the poles rest on the back of a horse, and behind on
two wheels, and they swing much. To this chair has been given the name
of _calesso_, and in 1667 there were already near a thousand in the
city.”
Alberigo Cibo sold the fine old palace in 1593 to Lorenzo Strozzi, in
whose family it remained until bought by the Marquess Niccolò Quaratesi
in 1760. The family came originally from Castello di Quarata, and Vanni
Quaratesi took the side of the people, and was created a knight during
the Ciompi riots. Castello, who held high office at various times
in the first half of the XVth century, is said to have founded the
monastery of S. Salvadore at Monte San Miniato. But dates do not agree,
and Signor Passerini is probably right in suggesting that Castello
Quaratesi built a small convent for the Franciscans at S. Miniato after
the “Operai” of S. Croce refused to allow him to affix his arms on
the façade he had intended to build for the church. He left his large
fortune to the College of the Guild of Merchants, with a special clause
recommending the convent to their care, and they probably carried out
his wishes and erected the present church and conventual buildings,
designed by Cronaca towards the end of the XVth century. The first
Quaratesi houses were on the other side of the Arno, near the church
of S. Niccolò, where they lived until the Marquess Niccolò bought
the magnificent Pazzi palace built by Brunelleschi. In 1843 it again
changed hands, and passed into the possession of the Baron de Rast, who
left it by will to a charitable institution in Gotha.
It is curious that the well-known Pazzi arms, the three dolphins, said
to have been carved by Donatello, are still _in situ_ at the corner of
Borgo degl’Albizzi, for a decree of 1478 ordered them to be destroyed
all over the city. It is hardly likely that this shield was replaced
after the banishment of Piero de’ Medici, when the decree permitting
the descendants of Andrea de’ Pazzi to again put up their arms was
passed, because the palace no longer belonged to them. It is, however,
still called by their name, and the street corner to this day is known
as the “Canto de’ Pazzi.” It is here that the famous colombina, or
dove, beloved by all Florentines, flies on Holy Saturday along a cord
stretched from the door of the Bank of Italy, built on the site of the
greatest of the Pazzi palaces, to the wondrous old painted car, and
sets fire to the squibs and crackers piled high upon it.
PALAZZO PERUZZI
_Borgo de’ Greci. No. 10._
The first mention of the Peruzzi family occurs in 1150, when Ubaldino,
son of Peruzzo of the Porta della Pera, appeared as a witness about a
contract with the convent of S. Salvi. At Montaperti the Peruzzi fought
on the side of the Guelphs, when Arnoldo was knighted on the field of
battle, and with the rest of their party were exiled until peace was
made between Ghibellines and Guelphs in 1280. Nine years later the name
of Arnoldo’s son Pacino is mentioned in the archives of the Commune,
as receiving rent for certain prisons in his palace on the site of the
old Roman amphitheatre, where 800 Aretines and Ghibellines taken in the
battle of Campaldino were immured. The name of the street behind S.
Firenze, Via di Burella (prison or den), still records their existence.
No doubt these were the dens of the wild beasts under the ancient
amphitheatre in which S. Miniatus was twice exposed to lions under the
Emperor Decius. The circular form can still be traced in the thick
walls of the old Peruzzi houses in the Piazza. In 1293 Pacino appears
as a purchaser from the Commune of that part of the old walls of the
second circuit of Florence which stood where now is Via de’ Benci
and the Arco de’ Peruzzi.[53] Four years later he was one of the nine
Gonfaloniers of Justice of the family, who also had fifty-four Priors.
They were among the richest and most powerful citizens of the XIIIth
century, and when King Robert of Naples came to Florence in 1310 he
was lodged and magnificently entertained for twenty-four days in their
palaces in Piazza de’ Peruzzi. Here was their loggia, used as a kind of
private exchange, to which the Arco de’ Peruzzi may have belonged. It
stands either on the very spot, or at all events close to where once
was--
“The gateway, named from those of Pera.”[54]
Vasari tells us that Paolo Uccello frescoed the arch “with triangles
in perspective, and on the corners in the square spaces he painted
the four elements, each represented by an appropriate animal. For the
earth a mole, for water a fish, for fire a salamander, and for air a
chameleon, which lives thereon and assumes every colour. As he had
never seen a chameleon he painted a camel with its mouth wide open
inhaling the air to fill its lungs. Showing certes great simplicity.”
[Illustration: PIAZZA AND ARCO DE’ PERUZZI.]
Many of the houses on the western side of the Via de’ Benci belonged to
the Peruzzi, others were in Borgo de’ Greci, where the present palace
stands, and in the Via dell’Anguillara, the Via de’ Rustici, etc.,
the well-known coat-of-arms with six pears is still to be seen here
and there on the façades. In 1339 the Peruzzi were ruined and forced
to sell their lands and many of their houses. They and their partners
the Bardi had lent money to Edward III. of England, who, owing to his
wars with France, was unable to pay his debts. A decree dated 6th May,
1339, orders the suspension of all payments to the King’s creditors,
“not excepting his well-beloved Bardi and Peruzzi,” to whom he owed
1,355,000 golden florins. The failure of the great banking house of
Bardi Peruzzi was a calamity from which Florence did not recover for
some time, and Dino Compagni, who suffered severely himself, exclaims:
“O cursed and insatiable avidity, born of the vice of avarice which
reigns amongst our blind and mad citizens who, for the sake of gaining
from those above them, place their own and other people’s money in
their power. For this was lost the strength of our Republic, as but
little wealth remained to our citizens, save to some artificers and
money-lenders who by usury consumed and gathered to themselves the
scattered remnants of the poverty of our citizens.”
The Peruzzi houses must have been used by the Signoria for lodging
distinguished guests, as Villani writes: “On the 10th March [1345]
the wife of the Prince of Taranto, daughter to the Duke of Bourbon,
who called herself Empress of Constantinople without possessing an
Empire, passed through Florence on her way to France. Great honour
was paid to her, she being met and accompanied by many knights and
ladies. She dismounted at the house of the Peruzzi, the Commune paying
all the expenses of her coming and her going and of the two days she
stayed in the city;” and nearly a century later, when the Greek Emperor
Paleologus and the Patriarch came to attend the council of Florence
“the whole circuit of the houses of the Peruzzi were assigned to them
as their residence.” It is said that the street was called Borgo de’
Greci in memory of the Emperor’s visit; Passerini, however, thinks the
name was older, and derived from a family called Greci, who lived there.
Ridolfo Peruzzi joined Rinaldo degl’Albizzi in opposing the return
of Cosimo the Elder, and, like him, was banished, and all he had
confiscated. He died in exile at Aquila in 1440, and as long as the
rule of the Medici lasted the name of Peruzzi no longer appears among
the magistrates of Florence. Among those of the family who found
it impossible to live under them was Antonio, “a noble citizen of
Florence,” writes Vasari, “who went to Volterra to live more quietly,
and there after a time married in 1482, and in a few years had two
children, a son named Baldassare, and a daughter, Virginia. But it
happened that war, persecuting him who sought only peace and quiet,
broke out, and Volterra was sacked; so Antonio was forced to fly
to Siena, where, having lost nearly all he possessed, he lived in
poverty.” Baldassare Peruzzi’s whole life was a perpetual struggle, he
was miserably paid, and his name as painter, architect and decorator,
stood higher after his death than during his life. He died at the age
of fifty-eight, probably of poison.
In the latter half of the last century the name of Ubaldino Peruzzi was
a household word in Florence. An honest politician and a kind man, he
had a great deal of the peculiar Florentine humour and his favourite
saying, “Gente allegra, Iddio l’aiuta,” was typical of the man. His
wife was as popular as himself, and in their old palace in Borgo
de’ Greci one was sure to meet every distinguished Italian and any
foreigner of mark who chanced to be in Florence.
PALAZZO PICCOLELIS
_Via de’ Pucci. No. 1._
Towards the end of the XVIIth century Paolo Falconieri built this
palace for the Marquess Lodovico Incontri on the site of houses
belonging to a branch of the Vespucci family. The Incontri were Lords
of Acquaviva near Volterra. Antonio fought at Montaperti, was taken
prisoner by the Ghibellines, but escaped and joined Charles of Anjou
at Naples, who knighted him and gave him the command of 200 horse, when
he fought against Manfred and Corradino. On his return to Volterra he
volunteered to lead his fellow-citizens against the Pisans and was
killed in a skirmish near Pontedera in 1291. Attilio Incontri married
the daughter of a courtier of the Grand Duke Ferdinando I. and settled
in Florence, and his son Ferdinando was made a Senator and Marquess of
Monteverdi and Canneto in 1665; his other son was Lodovico who built
the palace which now belongs to the Marquess Piccolelis.
The Vespucci to whom the original houses belonged came from Peretola
and took their name from Vespuccio, a wine merchant, who was the
first of twenty-five Priors of his house in 1350. Giuliano Vespucci
was Gonfalonier of Justice in 1462, and his son Piero commanded the
Florentine galleys on the coast of Barbary and of Syria. From him no
doubt his young cousin Amerigo, who gave his name to America, heard
many seafaring tales. Born in 1451 and brought up by his uncle, a
learned Dominican in S. Marco to whom Marsilio Ficino entrusted the
revision of his Platonic Theology, Amerigo studied languages, physics
and geometry. Admitted to the Platonic Academy he became intimate with
Toscanelli, who expounded to him his ideas as to the existence of
another hemisphere. Amerigo was manager of the Medici bank at Seville
when Columbus made his first discoveries, and entreated King Ferdinand
of Spain to take him into his service as chief pilot of another
expedition. When the news of his triumphant return after an eighteen
month’s voyage reached Florence, the Signoria ordered his house, now
incorporated in the hospital of S. Giovanni di Dio, in Borgognissanti,
to be illuminated for three nights, an honour rarely accorded by the
Commune.
PALAZZO PITTI
_Piazza Pitti_
Buonaccorso Pitti, in his delightful chronicle,[55] tells us that the
Pitti, being Guelphs, were expelled from the castle of Semifonte by
the Ghibellines in 1202, when they divided into three branches. “We of
the third branch,” he writes, “settled at Castelvecchio in the Val di
Pesa, where we bought large and rich estates.... A few years later our
ancestors came to live in Florence, and their first houses were those
which now belong to the Machiavelli in the parish of Sta. Felicita.
I have heard tell by Neri, my father, that one of our ancestors,
named Bonsignore, went to the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem and to Sta.
Caterina on Mount Sinai; he never came back, nor is it known where he
died. When he left Florence his wife was with child, and she bore a son
who was called Bonsignore after his father. From him sprang Maffeo, who
was a rich, powerful and honourable citizen, and from the book in which
the names of all who have been Priors are written, it appears he was
a Prior in 1283. Maffeo had, amongst others, two sons; the eldest was
Ciore, the second Buonaccorso ... according to reliable accounts was a
good and trustworthy man.... By his wife Monna Giovanna degl’Infangati
he had six sons and three daughters.... Neri his son, our father, made
a very large fortune in the wool trade. I find that every year he made
eleven hundredweight of cloth, most of which was sent to Apulia. He
was most industrious and active in his business, and the French wool
that came into our workshops was turned into perfect cloth. His last
building was the Tiratoio,[56] which cost about 3,500 florins. It
seems he did not care about taking office under the Commune, but he
was twice Prior. He was a handsome man, three braccie in height, not
fat, but with good bone and muscle; his hair was reddish, and he was
healthy and vigorous and lived sixty-eight years, may God give him
eternal rest. His wife, my mother, Monna Curradina degl’ Strozzi, was
a handsome, clever woman, of dark complexion; she lived sixty-six
years. I, Buonaccorso, married Francesca degl’Albizzi ... and till now
Francesca and I have had eleven children, of whom seven are alive,
Luca, Ruberto, &c., &c.”
[Illustration: PALAZZO PITTI.]
Numerous were the adventures of Buonaccorso Pitti. Rich, able and
of fine presence, he was constantly employed on embassies to divers
sovereigns and sister Republics. An inveterate gambler, but with a
keen eye to business, generous to his family and friends, but keeping
a minute account of his daily expenses, well educated, a good Latin
scholar, a bad poet and an amusing boon-companion, Buonaccorso was a
typical Florentine of the XVth century. His son, Luca, born in 1398,
founder of the splendid palace which still bears his name, began his
political career when most lads are still at college, and his enormous
wealth gave him considerable power in his native city.
About 1440 Luca Pitti commissioned the great architect Brunelleschi
to build for him a palace more magnificent than that of the Medici
in Via Larga (now Palazzo Riccardi). “Not only,” writes Machiavelli,
“did citizens and private persons contribute, and aid him with things
necessary to the building, but communes and corporations lent him
help.” As Gonfalonier of Justice he was able to do signal service
to Cosimo de’ Medici by causing Girolamo Machiavelli, Carlo Benizzi
and Niccolò Barbadori, who had lifted up their voices to warn the
Florentine citizens against the ambition of the Medici, to be murdered
in prison. Cosimo in return used his influence to obtain a public
decree, ordaining that Luca Pitti should be created a Knight of the
People in S. Giovanni with great pomp; in memory thereof Luca added the
red cross, emblem of the People, to his arms. On the death of Cosimo,
who was succeeded by his infirm and gouty son Piero, Luca thought his
opportunity had come. Together with a far abler man, Diotisalvi Neroni,
he put himself at the head of the anti-Medicean party and Florence
was divided into two camps, the party of the Hill, so-called because
Luca’s palace stood on the highest point of the city; and of the
Plain, because the palace of the Medici was on the flat. But discord
soon broke out among the Hill party, as Luca perceived that if the
Medici were beaten Neroni, and not himself, would be the head of the
Republic; so in 1466 he made peace with Piero de’ Medici after which,
as Machiavelli tells us, “friends and relations avoided saluting him
in the streets. The superb edifices begun by him were abandoned by
the builders, the benefits bestowed on him in the past were changed
to injuries, the honours to insults. And many of those who had freely
given something of great value now demanded it back, as having been
merely lent; others who had been wont to praise him to the skies,
blamed him as an ungrateful and violent man. Wherefore too late did he
repent that he had not believed Niccolò Soderini, and sought rather
to die honoured with arms in hand, than live dishonoured amongst his
victorious enemies.”
Brunelleschi’s original design for Palazzo Pitti had only seven windows
to the front, and Herr von Fabriczy in _Filippo Brunelleschi Sein Leben
und Seine Werke_ writes: “The choice of such dimensions (59 metres wide
and 38 metres high) shows that he immediately grasped the advantages
of a position on sharply rising ground and knew how to use it as a
mighty factor for the desired effect.... In order to gauge the talent
with which Brunelleschi turned to signal advantage what in other hands
would have been a cause of failure, one need only imagine any one of
the Florentine palaces, with the exception of the Palazzo Vecchio,
in the place of the Pitti palace, to realize what a miserably meagre
impression they would make as the crowning edifice on the summit of the
steep hill.”
Vasari tells us “that Brunelleschi began and directed the building
up to the second-floor windows,” so it cannot have been roofed in
when Luca’s descendant Buonaccorso sold the huge unfinished pile to
Eleonora of Toledo, wife of Cosimo I., for 9,000 golden florins (about
£5,400) in 1549. In the following spring Niccolò Braccini, better
known by his surname of Tribolo, began to lay out the adjacent garden,
the Grand Duchess having bought much land to enlarge it. The origin
of the name--Boboli--is unknown. Some say it is an Etruscan word,
others that a family called Borgoli owned the land, which then became
commonly known as Bogoli and, as often happens in Italy, the “g” was
changed into a “b.” Or it may be derived from the Tuscan name of the
hoopoe--bubula--which frequents the garden in spring uttering its
weird note hoop, hoop, hoop, among the ilex groves. However that may
be, Tribolo made a wonderful garden that has been the delight of many
generations.
The original plan by Brunelleschi having been lost, the famous
architect Ammannati was called in. He made considerable changes in the
interior, in the windows of the first floor, and, according to an old
manuscript, “finished the façade up to the roof.” He also built the
magnificent courtyard, but did not change the length or the height
of the palace, as is proved by a ground plan drawn twenty-four years
after his death, which shows the front with Brunelleschi’s original
seven windows. “In June, 1566,” writes Agostino Lapi in his Diary,
“was begun the splendid and imperial building of the magnificent
Palazzo Pitti of the city of Florence; that is to say, the new part in
the courtyard which is opposite the convent and the monastery of Sta.
Felicita--the façade and all the part facing the street and S. Spirito
being ancient, while the right and left sides of the courtyard are
modern and were begun in this century. Nearly all the stone, at least
all that is of good quality, used for the ‘bozzi’ and the pilasters and
suchlike, was quarried in the courtyard of the palace, the rest came
from the Belvedere and other parts of the garden; so that the stone
which adorns and beautifies the palace was quarried in the courtyard
or in various places in the garden, a thing most convenient for the
building. In the courtyard the old building on the side towards the
Porta a S. Pier Gattolini was demolished. There were many fine rooms
in the said courtyard, and a deep drain more than two feet wide which
received all the rain water and that which came from the kitchens and
other places, and passing under the said palace it carried off all
filth.... Maestro Bartolommeo Ammannati, the principal architect of the
new palace, told me that he had found the date of the commencement of
the old building, 1466, carved on a stone.”
In July, 1558, the marriage of Lucrezia de’ Medici, Cosimo’s daughter,
was solemnized in the chapel of the palace. One hundred and ten ladies,
resplendent in brocade dresses and many jewels, were assembled to
see the masquerade in five parts acted by young Florentine nobles.
First came twelve Indians, alarming, but very gorgeous; then twelve
Florentines habited as in ancient times; twelve Greeks in fine armour
followed; then twelve emperors blazing with jewels; finally came twelve
pilgrims with long mantles of cloth of gold, on which were emblazoned
cockle shells of silver, and music proper to the different character of
each masquerade was played by hidden musicians.
Later in the same year, Isabella, the most beautiful of Cosimo’s
daughters, was married to Paolo Giordano Orsini, Duke of Bracciano. Her
beauty was enhanced by her many talents. She was a good musician; spoke
and wrote elegant Italian, Latin, French and Spanish; was a poetess and
an _improvisatrice_, and accompanied herself on the lute. Her father
doted on her, and opposed her departure for Rome with her husband.
The name of the beautiful young Duchess was soon coupled with that of
Troilo Orsini, her husband’s cousin, who had been left by him as her
guardian. Troilo became jealous of a handsome page, Lelio Torello,
whom he stabbed one night in the garden. After the death of Cosimo the
scandal reached the ears of Isabella’s husband, who came from Rome, and
with the connivance of her brother, the Grand Duke, strangled her at
his villa of Cerreto but a few days after her brother, Don Pietro, had
killed his lovely young Spanish wife at Cafaggiuolo.
The birth of the only son of Francesco I. and of Joan of Austria,
supposed to have been poisoned a few years later by Bianca Cappello,
was celebrated with great rejoicings; money was showered down among
the crowd from the windows of the Palazzo Pitti, and great butts of
wine were broached on the balustrade of the Palazzo Vecchio. Not only
did every man drink at will, but Settimanni declares that the Via
Vachereccia and the Mercato Nuovo ran with wine as far as the Ponte
Vecchio. Poor ugly, misshapen Joan had no happy life with her Medici
husband, who was completely under the dominion of the handsome and
dissolute Bianca Cappello, to whom he was secretly married in his
private chapel very soon after his wife’s death. A few months later
the Venetian Republic proclaimed Bianca a daughter of Venice, and the
marriage was then solemnized with great pomp in the cathedral, while a
tournament was held in the courtyard of the palace in her honour.
Montaigne, who was in Florence in 1580, notes in his delightful
_Journal_: “On Sunday I saw the Pitti Palace, and among other things
a mule in marble, which is the effigy of one that is still alive;
this honour has been paid on account of its long services in carrying
materials for the building, at least so says a Latin inscription. We
saw in the palace the Chimæra (antique), which has a head with horns
and ears coming out of its shoulders, and a body like a small lion.
On the preceding Saturday the Grand Duke’s palace was thrown open
and filled with peasants, to whom nothing was closed; they danced
in every corner of the large saloon. The concourse of this class of
people is, it seems to me, emblematic of their lost liberty, which
is thus evoked every year during the principal festival of the town”
[24th June, St. John’s Day]. The Grand Duke invited Montaigne to dine
at the palace, and he was evidently astonished at seeing Bianca take
the place of honour above her husband. “This Duchess is handsome,” he
writes, “according to the Italian idea, with an agreeable but imperious
countenance, a coarse figure and breasts to match. She seems to have
entirely subjugated the Prince, and to have had him under her dominion
for a long time.”
Torquato Tasso evidently admired the Grand Duchess, to whom he
addressed many madrigals and sonnets, often playing fancifully with her
“bel nome” Bianca, and praising her golden hair.
“Voi rosati e bei labri
E rosate le guancie avete ancora,
Come vermiglio Aurora,
E dorate le chiome
E bianca sete come il vostro nome.”
She must have been kind to the unhappy poet, who wrote, when sending to
her fifty madrigals in manuscript: “Had your Highness not experienced
both good and evil fortune, you would not so well understand the
misfortunes of others.” Her husband, Francesco de’ Medici, however,
declared he did not want a madman at his court; and when Tasso
returned to Florence in 1590 his patroness was dead, and he is
described as wandering about the Palazzo Pitti like a spectre, and the
Florentines wrote, _actumi est de eo_.
Francesco I. had a particular liking for fountains and grottoes. He
ordered four unfinished colossal statues, rough-hewn out of marble
by Michelangelo, to be used as supports for a mass of rockwork in a
grotto near one of the entrances to the Boboli gardens. These are
generally supposed to be four of the prisoners destined for the tomb
of Pope Giulio II., but according to J. A. Symonds, “this attribution
involves considerable difficulties. In the first place the scale is
different, and the stride of one of them, at any rate, is too wide
for the pedestals of that monument. Then their violent contortions
and ponderous adult forms seem to be at variance with the spirit of
the captives.... Their incompleteness baffles criticism; yet we feel
instinctively that they were meant for the open air and for effect at a
considerable distance.”
After the deaths of Francesco I. and of Bianca Cappello within a few
hours of each other at Poggio a Cajano, Cardinal Ferdinando de’ Medici
succeeded to the throne. Quitting the ecclesiastical state, he married
Christine of Lorraine in 1589, and to amuse his young, good-looking
French wife, gave entertainments which put to shame anything attempted
in our days. Buontalenti, that most ingenious of men, painter, sculptor
and architect, transformed the great courtyard of the Pitti palace
into an amphitheatre covered in with scarlet cloth, and erected a
castle on the side next the garden, while in the middle stood a
stockade containing fireworks. On the firing of a cannon a triumphal
car appeared, in which sat a magician who performed tricks of sleight
of hand, and told fortunes to those who desired. Then followed a huge
dragon drawing a chariot in which were the Duke of Mantua and Don
Pietro de’ Medici attended by musicians, who sang sweet songs in praise
of the bride. After them a mountain advanced without any visible
motor power; it opened in front of the Grand Duchess, and two knights
sprang out and challenged the others to mortal combat. “They fought,”
writes Baldinucci, “with lances and then with swords, and meanwhile
appeared the other masquerades, each one more beautiful and singular
than the last. To make our story short, there were fountains, clouds,
forests, shells, images of animals on chariots, ships, rocks, sirens,
birds and elephants of extraordinary size; then came a great mountain,
a crocodile and a conjurer, followed by a triumphal car, in which sat
Don Virginio Orsini with eight nymphs, who offered beautiful vases
filled with flowers and a programme of the festival, to the princes and
princesses, the ladies and the cavaliers. A garden then glided into
the amphitheatre, expanding and advancing without any visible agency,
and in a short time admirable designs, formed out of clumps of myrtle
and of box, such as ships, towers and castles, men, horses, pyramids
and the like, were seen, such as we make of plants in our gardens,
while the theatre was filled with sweet melody from the birds among the
trees. Don Virginio descended from his car and attacked an adversary
with his lance, whereupon all the other knights joined in the fray
until separated by the explosion of the fireworks, and this finished
the tournament. It was already four o’clock in the night when the
princes, the noble ladies and the cavaliers, were conducted into the
palace to a sumptuous banquet, and meanwhile the courtyard was filled
with most limpid water to the depth of four feet.... No less than
eighteen ships, large and small, among them a galleon of three decks,
arranged themselves in line of battle. To the sound of drums, pipes,
cymbals and other instruments used in naval warfare, and the firing of
cannon, the spectators again took their seats, wondering exceedingly at
the change that had taken place in so short a time. Thereupon a frigate
advanced towards the castle and was saluted by two cannon shot, when
with proper demonstrations of alarm she fled and returned to the fleet.
The Turks sent out four galleys, and then began a fierce battle, during
which fine set pieces of fireworks went off, burning even in the
water. Horrible cries of wounded Turks and imprecations in the Turkish
language were heard, as some fell into the artificial sea, and fought,
whilst swimming, with Christians who had also lost their footing. Soon
the water was covered with disabled ships and men who, acting their
parts well, attempted to save themselves by swimming.... In a short
time the Christians were victorious. They set fire to a Turkish galley,
of which the captain, soldiers and crew, with loud cries swam to the
castle, whilst the other ships surrendered. It was pretty to see how
the Christians, withdrawing somewhat after their victory, occupied
themselves in clearing the decks of their ships of broken tackle, and
in giving meat and drink to their crews before advancing in two lines
against the castle, firing so many broadsides that the air was filled
with smoke. Casting lines with hooks at one end, they scaled the walls,
and a hand-to-hand struggle took place ere the Christian soldiers
reached the top of the castle, where they hoisted their flag. Then with
joyous music, singing and dancing, the festival ended only just before
the break of day.”
Rejoicings in honour of the marriage continued for a month, during
which time more than two thousand strangers lived at the expense of
the court; nine thousand barrels of wine were emptied, and 6,056 scudi
were spent on sweetmeats. On the 12th June the Grand Duchess Christine
received the homage of the Florentine Senate in the beautiful saloon
of the Nicchie in the Palazzo Pitti, and thus ended the series of her
marriage festivities.
Ferdinando I. found full scope for exercising his love of splendour and
pomp when MM. de Sillery and d’Agincourt came to Florence to ask the
hand of his niece, Maria de’ Medici, for Henry IV. The contract was
signed on the 25th April, 1600, and on the 30th was solemnly announced
to the senate, nobles and principal citizens, in the throne room. The
bride, dressed with extraordinary magnificence, sat on the throne,
while the Grand Duke and Duchess sat below her. After the contract had
been read aloud the Grand Duke rose and, as is quaintly described,
“laying aside all air of majesty and sobbing for joy, was the first
to bend the knee and kiss the hem of his niece’s dress, as Queen of
France. After him followed the Grand Duchess and the dignitaries of the
court in their proper order, and then the whole court, the senate and
the nobility, accompanied the Queen in triumph, amid the acclamations
of the people, to the church of the S.S. Annunziata to give thanks to
God.”
Never did the Florentines pass such a summer. Every day brought some
entertainment more magnificent than that of the day before, and the
Palazzo Pitti resounded with music and gaiety. In October arrived
the Cardinal Aldobrandini, sent by the Pope to perform the marriage
ceremony. Don Antonio de’ Medici met him some miles outside the city
at the head of five hundred cavalry, and at the town gate he was
received by the Grand Duke under a velvet baldaquin, who escorted him,
walking on his left, to the palace. Cannon fired, trumpets sounded and
people cheered, as the Cardinal, followed by high dignitaries of the
Church and an enormous train of barons and cavaliers, passed through
Florence. On the 5th October Ferdinando I., as proxy for the King of
France, espoused his niece, Maria de’ Medici, and the inventive talents
of Buontalenti and of Giovanni da Bologna were taxed to the utmost
to provide extraordinary and unheard-of feasts and entertainments.
The former painted and arranged the wonderful scenery for Rinuccini’s
_Eurydice_, which was performed in the big saloon, with music by Jacopo
Peri, the inventor of recitative and the forerunner of Pergolesi,
Jomelli and Cimarosa.
Eight years later the palace witnessed yet more splendid entertainments
in honour of the marriage of Ferdinando’s eldest son Cosimo with Maria
Maddalena of Austria, and but a few months afterwards Ferdinando died,
and his body lay in state in the large hall of the palace.
During the brief reign of Cosimo II., Giulio Parigi, according to
Baldinucci, added to Palazzo Pitti on either side “by a design of regal
magnificence.” He increased Brunelleschi’s façade from seven windows to
thirteen; and his son, Alfonso, who succeeded him as chief architect
under Ferdinando II., again lengthened the palace by two large windows
on the ground floor on either side and five on the first, in which
state it remained for more than a hundred years, as can be seen in the
engraving by Zocchi, done in 1746. It was fortunate that so clever and
resourceful a man as Alfonso Parigi was court architect, for Baldinucci
tells us that “about 1640 the façade of the oldest part of the Palazzo
Pitti, from the second floor upwards, was seen to be out of the
perpendicular, inclining towards the Piazza more than 8 inches. This
might have been very serious had not Alfonso with talent, knowledge
and prompt courage, suggested a radical and efficacious remedy, and
effected it by drawing back the colossal wall, faced with huge rustic
stones, to its original place; securing it in such manner that it might
never again present so alarming a spectacle, and he did it in this way.
First he bored the wall of the façade in as many places as were needful
for placing certain large iron ties made on purpose by Pietro Zaballi,
a famous worker in iron of that time; these were secured with the usual
bars, only very big and strong, which afterwards were hidden under the
stone facing. He passed the ties under the floors and walls of the
passages and rooms of the said second floor, and at the extremities of
these same ties, at the back of the building, he placed the wonderful
instruments furnished with screws invented by himself. With these, by
means of certain levers, first one and then another was tightened and
pulled, so that this great force was exercised little by little, and
always equally. Thus almost insensibly, with the labour of but few men,
the great wall returned to its place, and to insure it for ever from
any new danger the ties were clenched also in the courtyard.”
About the same time Ferdinando II. ordered Pietro da Cortona and his
scholar Ciro Ferri to fresco the five large rooms on the first floor of
the Palace (now part of the picture gallery). “Each room,” Inghirami
tells us, “was distinguished by the name of a planet, and alluded to
the five principal virtues of his father, the Grand Duke Cosimo II. The
first, called Venus, signified benignity; the second, Apollo, stood
for splendour; the third, Mars, for strong government; the fourth,
Jupiter, for regal majesty and the recompense of merit; the fifth,
Saturn, signified prudence and profound knowledge. In such guise the
painter united mythology with history. The merit of these inventions
is due to Michelangelo Buonarroti, a writer of much merit, surnamed
the ‘Younger,’ to distinguish him from the famous artist of this name,
who was his uncle.” In these rooms the Grand Duke hung his favourite
pictures, and ordered the director Puccini to bring several back from
the Uffizi, which had at various times been removed from the Pitti.
Among these were the Madonna della Seggiola, and the portrait of Leo
X. by Raphael. The beautiful Madonna del Granduca, also by Raphael,
was bought by the Grand Duke for 300 zecchins, and the fine pictures
inherited by his wife Vittoria della Rovere from her father, the Duke
of Urbino, increased the treasures of the gallery, which may be said to
have been begun by Ferdinando II.
John Evelyn, who was in Florence in 1644, evidently thought the
lengthening of the Palazzo Pitti an improvement, as he writes in his
diary that it had been “of late greatly beautified by Cosimo with huge
stones of the Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian orders, with a terrace
at each side having rustic uncut balustrades, with a fountain that
ends in a cascade seen from the great gate, and so forming a vista
to the gardens. Nothing is more admirable than the vacant staircase,
marbles, statues, urns, pictures, court, grotto, and waterworks. In
the quadrangle is a huge jetto of water in a volto of four faces,
with noble statues at each square, especially the Diana of porphyry
above the grotto. We were here showed a prodigious great loadstone.
The garden has every variety, hills, dales, rocks, groves, aviaries,
vivaries, fountains, especially one of five jettos, the middle basin
being one of the longest stones I ever saw. Here is everything to make
such a paradise delightful. In the garden I saw a rose grafted on an
orange-tree. There was much topiary-work, and columns in architecture
about the hedges. The Duke has added an ample laboratory, over against
which stands a fort on a hill, where they told us his treasure is kept.
In this palace the Duke ordinarily resides, living with his Swiss
guards, after the frugal Italian way, and even selling what he can
spare of his wines, at the cellar under his very house, wicker bottles
dangling over even the chief entrance into the Palace, serving for a
vintner’s bush.”
In honour of the visit of the Princess Anna de’ Medici with her
husband, the Archduke Ferdinand of Austria and his two brothers,
and of the Duke of Mantua and his wife, who was a Medici, splendid
festivals were given in the Palazzo Pitti, while a ballet on horseback,
led by Cosimo, the youthful heir to the throne, was performed in the
amphitheatre in the Boboli gardens by fifty-two cavaliers magnificently
dressed and mounted on well-broken horses. Little did the spectators
think that the young prince, who made his barb curvet so proudly, would
become an odious bigot and the laughing-stock of Europe, on account of
his dissensions with his wife, Marguerite Louise of Orleans. The old
palace has witnessed many strange scenes, but few stranger than that
of a French princess amusing herself by tickling her cook. Vincenzio
Martinelli, in letters written in Italian chiefly to English friends,
and published in London in 1758, gives a curious description of the
tom-boy games of Marguerite Louise. “Cosimo had obliged the Grand
Duchess to send back to France all the gentlemen and ladies of her
court, and only one Frenchman, a cook, remained. The Grand Duke gave
himself up to devotion and solitude and governed his family, as he did
his state, like Tiberius, and allowed his wife no amusement save a
small concert for two or three hours every evening. The Grand Duchess,
who was very young, found these concerts monotonous, or perhaps, being
born in France, did not care for Italian music, so as a diversion she
used to send for her French cook, who came with his long apron and
white cap, just as he was dressed for cooking the dinner. Now this cook
either dreaded, or pretended to dread, being tickled, and the princess,
aware of his weakness, took great pleasure in tickling him, while he
made all those contortions, screams and cries proper to people who
cannot bear to be tickled. Thus the princess tickled the cook, and he
defended himself, shouting and running from one side of the room to the
other, which made her laugh immoderately. When tired of such romps she
would take a pillow from her bed and belabour the cook on the face and
on the body, whilst he, shouting aloud, hid himself now under, now on,
the very bed of the princess, where she continued to beat him, until
tired out with laughing and beating she sank exhausted into a chair.
While these games were going on the musicians stopped their music, and
as soon as the princess sat down they recommenced. This noble amusement
continued for some time before the Grand Duke knew of it; but one
evening it happened that the cook was very drunk, and therefore shouted
louder than usual, and the Grand Duke, whose apartments were five or
six rooms distant from those of the Grand Duchess, heard the noise and
went to discover the cause. As he entered the room the Grand Duchess
was just beating her cook with a pillow on the grand-ducal bed, and the
Prince, horrified at so novel a sight, instantly condemned the cook to
the galleys (but I believe he was eventually pardoned), and scolding
the lady with the utmost severity, with a bearing more princely than
marital, he forbad her ever again to indulge in such conduct. The
princess resented being thus taken to task in the presence of the
musicians, perchance with less consideration than she thought due to
her high rank, and was exceedingly angry. After passing the whole night
in fury and in tears she determined to return to France, and sent one
of her gentlemen to the Grand Duke to inform him of her resolution. He,
who desired nothing better, as he feared his family might multiply like
that of Priam, coldly replied that the Grand Duchess had better reflect
on the consequences of such a step, which he would in no way oppose.”
It ended by the Grand Duchess returning to France, leaving two sons and
a daughter, who were the last of the great house of Medici.
After the death of Giovan Gastone in 1738, last surviving son of Cosimo
III., Tuscany was given by the treaty of Vienna to Francesco, Duke of
Lorraine, husband of the Empress Maria Theresa of Austria, in exchange
for his hereditary estates which were ceded to France. Tuscany was
then governed by regents, and of one of these, Marshal Botta, Sir
Horace Mann writes to his friend Walpole: “He has made sad work in the
Palazzo, and in the garden. His arrangement of the pictures is to make
it depend, first upon the freshness of the gilding upon the frames,
and then upon the position of the figures in each picture, which
figures must not turn their back to the throne. Luther and Calvin, by
Giordano, were turned out with a most pious contempt, as not worthy
to stand in the presence of so orthodox a prince as is coming here.
His mother (Maria Theresa) will not permit any picture to hang in her
apartment that shows either a naked leg or arm. This ill agrees with
the Medici taste, or the collection they have left. Imagine that grave
matron (Maria Theresa) running the gauntlet through the gallery. Ah!
quelle horreur!... A famous picture, by Titian, was turned out of the
room where the canopy is, because the figure almost turned its back to
it, and none are to be admitted there but such as respectfully present
their faces to it. The picture of Luther and Calvin was dismissed with
a Catholick fury, and, I fear, will find no better place than in that
horrid ill-painted room of Hell, at the end of the apartment, that
the young prince may see how the enemies of the Church ought to be
treated. You will think I exaggerate, but what I have said is literally
and ludicrously true. Botta tells the Florentines who criticise his
operations, that he knows more of architecture and painting than Andrea
del Sarto, or their ancestors who invented their Tuscan Order. Such
are his occupations, for as to government, _célà va son train_. Nobody
interferes, and nothing can be taxed higher than it is.... The farmers
of the revenue, though Tuscans, are more rigorous than the receivers
or collectors used to be under the Medici, who were indulgent to their
subjects, and spent their revenues amongst them. This will not be the
case for some time, though a young prince is coming, for the emperor
will still have the principal share.”[57]
Botta had been busy for some time arranging the Palazzo Pitti, which
had been untenanted since the death, in January, 1743, of the Princess
Palatine, last of the Medici. Like all her family she had artistic
tastes, and the Dutch pictures now in the Uffizi were collected by her
and left to Tuscany. Huge pier glasses and Rococo furniture were bought
to furnish the empty rooms on the first floor (where now the picture
gallery is), “but,” writes Mann, “everything is calculated for the
Meridian of Germany--nay, of Muscovy. Stoves and chimneys in every
room. For the furniture the _gout_ is not less Gothick.”
A few days after the marriage of Leopoldo of Austria with Maria
Louisa of Spain, his father died suddenly at Innsbruck, and the fate
of Tuscany was changed. The Emperor Joseph II. ordered his brother
Leopoldo to be proclaimed Grand Duke, instead of Regent, and Mann
writes, “The Florentines seem very sensible of their good fortune in
having a prince again to live among them, after thirty years’ bondage
under unexperienced Lorrain ministers and others, so little fit and
desirous to contribute to their welfare.”...
Though Marshal Botta made “sad work” inside the palace, he employed
a good architect, G. Ruggeri, for the outside, who in 1764 began the
great loggiata, or projecting colonnade, at the north end of the
façade, where now is the entrance to the picture gallery. To him is
also due the credit of taking advantage of the steep slope to create
the bastion or terrace, but of a different shape from what we now see.
The corresponding bastion on the opposite side was added by the Grand
Duke Leopoldo I. in 1783 under G. Paoletti, who also designed and half
finished the Palazzina della Meridiana, an adjunct to the Palazzo Pitti
on the garden side, where he cleverly took advantage of the lie of the
land to make the entrance on a level with the second floor of the great
palace.
The Palazzo Pitti had already been despoiled of many of its valuable
contents accumulated by the Medici, and Leopoldo I. though an able
administrator and lawgiver, must have been sadly lacking in taste,
as during his reign many of the fine old ceilings were abolished in
favour of sham vaults made of lath and plaster. On succeeding his
brother as Emperor of Austria in 1790, his second son, Ferdinando, was
made Grand Duke of Tuscany, and when General Napoleon Bonaparte came
to Florence in 1796, Ferdinando III. asked him to dine, and received
him with almost royal honours. Not long afterwards General Sérurier
occupied Lucca, where he levied a tax of seven millions, and a few days
later he requested the Grand Duke of Tuscany to supply him with the
same amount--but as a loan. Convinced that it would never be repaid
and unwilling to burthen his people with heavy taxes, Ferdinando III.
emptied the coffers of the state, took the reserve of silver bars from
the mint and, to make up the sum, melted down a quantity of gold vases
and plate which he collected from the various grand ducal villas, and
from the Palazzo Pitti.
Three years later the French troops entered Florence with General
Gaulthier at their head. He dismounted at the Palazzo Riccardi, and
immediately sent a company of soldiers with colours flying and band
playing to mount guard at the royal palace. At eight o’clock next
morning the Commissary-General for Tuscany, M. Reinhard, drove to the
Palazzo Pitti and presented his credentials from the Directoire to the
Grand Duke Ferdinando, with an order that he was to leave Tuscany at
once. The Grand Duke met him on the threshold, received the letter,
turned on his heel and re-entered the palace without saying a word.
The night was spent in hurried preparations for departure, and before
sunrise next morning a sad little procession of court coaches left
the Palazzo Pitti. That afternoon a tree of liberty was set up in the
Piazza Sta. Croce, and another in the Piazza Sta. Maria Novella, amid
the shouts of half drunken French soldiers.[58]
A new kingdom--Etruria--was then created by Napoleon and bestowed
on Don Lodovico of Bourbon, son of the Duke of Parma, married to a
daughter of Charles IV. of Spain. The bridegroom and bride went to
Paris, and were received by the First Consul and his wife Josephine
with great honour. They became so intimate that the young King of
Etruria lost his shyness, and amused the court after dinner by turning
somersaults and playing leap-frog with the officers. Murat, the
brilliant husband of Caroline Bonaparte, Napoleon’s favourite sister,
went to Florence in January, 1801, to prepare for the sovereigns of
the new Kingdom of Etruria, which the Tuscans declined to believe in.
Every Friday, when the _fattori_, country priests and peasants, came
in to the market at Florence (as they do to this day), they looked to
see if the arms of Ferdinando III. were still above the portal of the
Palazzo Vecchio, and returned home declaring that the King of Etruria
was an invention of the French, in order to remain a little longer in
“la bella Firenze.”
The manner of proclaiming the King was original and worthy of his
reputation for turning somersaults. On the evening of the 28th July
came news that the sovereigns were at Parma on their way to Florence. A
serenade was immediately improvised, and Murat was greeted with shouts
of “_Viva la Francia, Viva Giovacchino_,” to which he answered, “_Viva
l’Etruria, Viva il Re d’Etruria_.” He then went to the Pergola, where
the favourite Nunziatina Pastori was dancing in a ballet called the
“Kingdom of Terpsichore.” As he entered the royal box she improvised
a new _pas_ (no doubt already carefully rehearsed beforehand), and
bounded on to the stage holding three cards, on which something was
written which she carefully concealed from the public and from her
companion, a well-known dancer named Berti, who represented Mercury.
Mercury chased Terpsichore and when at last he caught her, she drew a
dart from his belt and threw it at the cards she had let fall in her
flight. Escaping from Mercury, she seized the card pierced with his
dart and showed it to the house. On it was written _Viva Lodovico I. Re
d’Etruria_ in large letters. She was greeted with tremendous applause
and Murat exclaimed, “Qu’elle est charmante, la petite Nunziatine,
qu’elle est jolie; c’est touchant, n’est ce pas, cette façon
d’annoncer l’arrivée du Roi d’Etrurie.”
At last, on the 10th August, the King and Queen entered Florence in
great state, and greeted their new subjects from the balcony of the
Palazzo Pitti. Soon afterwards Murat and his beautiful wife left with
an immense suite for Bologna, to the delight of the Florentines who
hoped to be delivered from the French occupation which was eating up
the country.
The young sovereigns found an exhausted treasury and an impoverished
peasantry, and were forced to make a loan of 800,000 francs at the
enormous interest of 37 per cent., to pay which they pledged the
revenues of the post-office and the custom house. Lodovico had never
been strong. He died in May, 1802, leaving Maria Louisa Regent,
who presented the little King to his subjects from a window of the
Palazzo Pitti. In the autumn Pauline Bonaparte and her husband, Prince
Borghese, came to Florence, and nothing was spoken of but the beauty
and grace of the woman of whom Canova declared “that her figure, the
shape of her skull, and the way her head was set on her shoulders,
had never been equalled since the days of Diana and Calypso.” The
Queen of Etruria received her with royal honours, and memoirs of that
time describe her entrance into the throne room as a wonderful sight.
Dressed in flowing white robes and covered from head to foot with
jewels, Pauline slowly walked, or rather glided, towards fat little
Maria Louisa who, weighed down by a heavy black velvet dress, looked
anything but royal. In 1807 the Emperor Napoleon curtly signified to
the Queen that Etruria had ceased to exist, and now formed part of the
French Empire. Her prayers and entreaties were in vain, and on the 10th
December again a sad little procession left the palace, escorted by
French cavalry.
General Menou, who now governed Tuscany, made himself ridiculous by
his passion for an awkward and vulgar dancer, to whom, when at last
convinced that dancing was not her strong point, he had singing lessons
given in his apartments in the Pitti palace, at which he assisted.
He ostentatiously attended mass and affected great deference to the
clergy, but his conversion to Islam in Egypt, where he had changed his
name to Abdallah and married a Turkish lady, Zebedeeh el-Bahouad, had
made too great a sensation for his new-born piety to have much effect.
The Emperor’s sister Elisa, married to Felix Baciocchi, who was already
Princess of Piombino, was created Grand Duchess of Tuscany in March,
1809. She despatched her favourite equerry, Cenami, to Florence with
orders to turn General Menou and his mistress out of the Palazzo
Pitti, and prepare for her arrival. But with Napoleonic impulsiveness
she left Lucca the following evening with her husband, escorted by
a few French soldiers, and at daybreak entered the Palazzo Pitti.
The shutters were thrown open and Elisa walked proudly through the
magnificent rooms which were now to be her home. An officer was sent to
order a salvo of twenty-one cannon to be fired as an intimation to her
astonished subjects of her arrival. That evening she went in state to
the Pergola and was vociferously cheered. Her likeness to the Emperor
was remarkable, and she held herself majestically. “Of all our three
sisters,” said Joseph Bonaparte, “Elisa was the one who, morally and
physically, most resembled Napoleon.”
Elisa soon won the hearts of the people, but many of the aristocracy
and the higher bourgeosie, encouraged by the clergy, held aloof. She
was much annoyed at the position held by the Countess of Albany, who
was treated as the widow of a royal personage, and openly professed
Alfieri’s sentiments about France and encouraged seditious language
at her house. So Elisa privately obtained from Fouché, then head of
the police, an order of banishment against the Countess, and charged
General Menou to tell her of the decree, and to express the sorrow
and astonishment of the Grand Duchess at so stringent a measure. Menou
suggested to the Countess to ask for an audience, which was arranged
with some difficulty as she insisted on being received as the widow of
the King of England. She drove up to the Palazzo Pitti in her state
coach, and was conducted through a suite of rooms into a small boudoir
where Elisa, under pretence of sudden indisposition, lay in bed. She
only saluted the Countess, in return for her formal curtseys, by an
inclination of the head, and after listening to her with assumed
interest and sympathy brusquely exclaimed, “Why, dear Countess, was
Alfieri so declared an enemy of France?” “You show me that he was
perfectly right,” answered the Countess of Albany, rising, and turning
her back on the Grand Duchess, she walked out of the room without
another word. Two days later she was exiled, and all Florence took her
part. A magnificent _fête_ was given at the Pitti palace to celebrate
the victory of Wagram. The gardens were illuminated and a balloon, in
the shape of the imperial eagle holding a thunderbolt, was sent up;
but the court of the Grand Duchess was forsaken, and the common people
amused themselves by making a cock drunk and hunting it through the
streets.
The disastrous retreat of the Grande Armée from Moscow was followed by
General Nugent’s proclamation to the Italian people, promulgated at
Ravenna on the 10th December, 1813, and the advance of the Neapolitan
troops under Murat, who appeared at the gates of Florence on the 13th
January, 1814. He was received with shouts of joy by the populace, who
rushed to the Palazzo Pitti, and would have forced an entrance but for
the intervention of the Syndic. Like the Queen of Etruria, the Grand
Duchess had to fly, but her escort were forced to draw their swords
to protect her from the mob. In September Ferdinando III. re-entered
Florence, to the joy of the Tuscans, sick to death of foreign rulers,
who hoped for a period of peace and quiet under a prince born in the
Pitti palace, whom they regarded as a Florentine. In 1818 he bought so
many pictures at the Gerini sale that another room, the Hall of the
Iliad, frescoed by Sabatelli, was added to the great Pitti gallery. In
1824 he was succeeded by his son, Leopoldo II., under whose reign the
architect P. Poccianti made great changes in the palace. Various small
rooms were conveted into the fine atrium, or entrance hall, leading
into Ammannati’s superb courtyard, and at an enormous expense the great
staircase was built, in lieu of the old, narrow, steep one.[59] The
superb gallery was thrown open to the public on Sundays and holidays in
1833.
Leopoldo was incapable of grasping the new ideas then surging
throughout Italy. Too late he was induced to grant a free constitution,
revolution burst out in Florence, the Republic was proclaimed, and in
1839 the Grand Duke fled, only to be reinstated a few months later.
Nine miserable years of foreign occupation followed, until in 1848
Leopoldo quitted the Pitti palace by the side gate of the Boboli
gardens. Driving out of the Porta Romana, and round the city walls to
the Porta San Gallo, he went on his way to Vienna. Not a hat was raised
as the hated Austrian passed; in dead silence carriages and escort went
by at full gallop, as though afraid of hostile demonstrations.
Very different was the scene on the 16th April, 1860, when King Victor
Emanuel entered Florence amid such enthusiasm as has seldom been seen.
The closing words of his speech to the parliament a fortnight before
had struck a chord which vibrated in every heart. “La patria, la quale
non è piu l’Italia dei Romani, nè quella del Medio Evo; non deve essere
piu il campo aperto delle ambizione straniere, ma deve esere bensì
l’Italia degl’Italiani.”
PALAZZO DEL PODESTÀ (BARGELLO)
_Via Ghibellina._
After the battle of Figline in 1250, when the Guelphs obtained so
decided a victory over the Ghibellines, it was decided to create a
Captain of the People and a Council of Elders; and soon afterwards the
erection of a palace worthy of the new government was decreed. Many
houses (built both of stone and wood), towers, and plots of land were
bought, the last chiefly from the monks of the Badia. The contracts for
these still exist, stating that they were bought _a edificatum est pro
particula palatium populi fiorentini_, one of the houses belonged to
the brothers Riccomanni, and its tower is the one we still see crowning
the fine old building. Another house belonged to the Boscoli, in which
the Captain of the People temporarily took up his abode. In 1255, as
is recorded by an inscription, building was commenced. According to
Vasari the first architect was Arnolfo di Lapo, but some ten years
later the Dominican friars, Fra Sisto da Firenze and Fra Ristoro da
Campo, who together built the church of Sta. Maria Novella, were called
in. Whether the palace was ever inhabited by the Captain of the People,
or when it was finished, is not known, but in 1261 Guido Novello, the
Podestà who ruled the city in the name of King Manfred, was living
in it, and named the street Ghibellina, after his party. By law the
Podestà had to be a “foreigner,” _i. e._ not a citizen of Florence, or
of any town within fifty miles of Florence, as he might be supposed
to be influenced by friendship or by fear. He remained in office for
one year and took precedence of every one in the city, administering
civil and criminal justice, but not interfering in political matters.
In 1282, when the city of Florence was “reformed,” the Podestà and
his councillors met in the loggia which led into the great hall, so
that the heads of the Guilds and the principal citizens could assist
at their deliberations. The first notice we find of any internal
decoration being attempted in the palace of the Commune, as it was then
called, where the Podestà lived, to distinguish it from the palace of
the People, the residence of the Priors, is in 1292, when the painter,
Fino di Tedaldo, painted certain images above the door of the hall and
above the judge’s seat. These frescoes probably perished three years
later when, as old Villani tells us, the Podestà absolved Corso Donati
who had been accused of treacherously murdering a Florentine burgher,
an adherent of Simone Galastrone. “No sooner was the sentence read
condemning Messer Simone Galastrone as the perpetrator of the deed,
than the _popolo minuto_ shouted ‘death to the Podestà,’ and rushed
out of the palace crying, ‘To arms, to arms, long live the People.’
Many seized their weapons, and went to the house of their head man,
Giano della Bella who, they say, sent them with his brother to the
palace of the Priors to follow the Gonfalonier of Justice. But they
went not thither, but to the palace of the Podestà, which the said
people furiously assaulted with arms and arquebuses; they stormed the
palace and set fire to the doors thereof, and entering, they took the
Podestà and his followers prisoners and robbed them without shame.”[60]
Dino Compagni, who was an eyewitness of the storming of the palace,
however says that the Podestà with his wife, “who was greatly esteemed
in Lombardy, and of wonderful beauty, hearing the shouts of the mob
calling for their death, fled to an adjacent house and were taken in
and hid. The next day the Council met and decided, for the honour of
the city, that what had been stolen from the Podestà should be given
back to him and his salary be paid. This was done, and he departed.”
The damage done was great, and the loss of prestige suffered by the
Podestà almost greater, so the Commune decided to fortify the building.
Three rooms for the use of the judges of the Sestieri of S. Pier
Scheraggio, Borgo and the Oltrarno were added, and a new entrance
was constructed on the south side (Via della Vigna Vecchia) with the
Keys, the arms of the Holy See, sculptured above, those of the house
of Anjou immediately beneath them, the Cross, emblem of the People, to
the right, and to the left, the Lily of Florence. The two empty shields
may, Passerini thinks, have borne the arms of Messer Antonio Galluzzi,
who held the office of Podestà while the repairs were being done.
These were probably effaced in obedience to a law of 1329, forbidding
any Podestà, or any Captain, to have his portrait painted or his arms
inscribed in the palace, and ordering any then existing to be effaced.
Paintings of Our Saviour and of the Madonna, the arms of the Church,
of King Charles of Anjou, of the Commune and of the People, were alone
allowed. But a Podestà was allowed to place his arms within the palace,
if they commemorated any notable event, or in the courtyard of the
palace, or in the apartments of the tribunals of the Sestieri.[61]
Canti de’ Gabrielli of Gubbio was installed as Podestà in 1298 by
Charles of Anjou, and four years later the crier of the Republic called
Dante degl’Alighieri to appear before the Podestà’s court to hear the
sentence of banishment with the loss of all his worldly goods and
possessions pronounced against him.
[Illustration: PALAZZO DEL PODESTÀ (THE BARGELLO).]
The new fortifications did not prove strong enough to withstand the
furious onslaught of a mob led by the Adimari, which broke into the
palace in 1304, liberated Messer Talamo from prison and forced the
Podestà, Messer Gigliolo de’ Puntagli, of Parma, to fly for his life.
The Commune was then engaged in war, and did not begin to repair
the palace until peace was made with Pisa, thirteen years later. The
work must have continued for two years, as in August, 1319, eighteen
golden florins were expended in order to render the house of the
Cerchi a fit habitation for the Count of Battifolle, Vicario of King
Robert of Naples. He only took up his abode in the Palazzo del Podestà
the following year. Even then the masons were still busy, as in the
State archives a deed exists showing that the loggia on the first
floor was then altered to its present form by an architect called
Toni di Giovanni; at all events as far as regards the columns and the
pilasters. The vaulted roof, as Passerini points out, was finished
later, during the tyrannical rule of Walter de Brienne, Duke of Athens,
as his arms are on the keystones. In 1326 the Duke of Calabria, who
had been elected ruler of Florence after the disastrous defeat of the
Florentine arms at Altopascio, held his court in the renovated palace,
until his death, two years later, freed Florence from his hated rule.
The Commune then voted thirty golden florins to restore the palace to
its pristine condition, an additional sum was spent for desks in the
audience chamber, for a rostrum in the great hall and for a fire-place.
But in the terrible conflagration of 28th February, 1332, as Villani
tells us, “the palace of the Podestà caught fire, the entire roof of
the old palace was burnt and two-thirds of the new, from the first
vault upwards. So the Commune ordered that it should be rebuilt and
every room be vaulted up to the very roof.” After fire came water,
for in the same year the Arno rose to an unprecedented height, and
devastated the city and the surrounding country. “The water stood 6
braccie deep in the courtyard,” reports Villani. Neri di Fioravanti, a
skilful architect, whose name often occurs in the books of the Commune
as superintendent of the principal works of the city, was called in to
restore, or rather, to rebuild the palace. Vasari attributes this work
to Agnolo Gaddi, and writes that, “according to his orders all the
rooms in the palace of the Podestà were built with vaults instead of
flat ceilings, so that, besides being more beautiful, they should not
again be exposed to damage from fire as had happened not long before.
And afterwards, by the advice of Agnolo, the battlements we still see
were built round the said palace, of which there had formerly been no
trace.” The name of Gaddi, who was then a mere youth, does not however
exist in the account books of the work done in the palace, only _Nerio
Fioravantis magister lapidum et lignaminum_, is mentioned.
The reader may have wondered why the frescoes in the chapel of the
palace have not yet been mentioned; “where,” writes Vasari, “Giotto
depicted amongst others, as can be seen to-day, Dante Alighieri, his
contemporary and very great friend, no less famous as a poet than was
Giotto as a painter.” The theory is that Giotto painted the chapel in
1295, or between 1300 and 1304 when Florence was at peace, thanks to
the mediation of the Pope’s Legate, Cardinal Aquasparta. Now every one
acquainted with Florentine history knows that the city was then in a
state of internecine warfare and that the well-intentioned efforts of
the Cardinal were abortive. The Bianchi were driven out in 1302 when
furious faction fights ensued between the “Grandi” and the “Neri,”
or popular party, ending in the murder of Corso Donati. The Italian
translation of the old chronicler Filippo Villani’s booklet, _De
origine civitatis Florentiae et eiusdem famosis civibus_, is often
quoted to prove that the portrait of Dante is by Giotto; it says:
“He, [Giotto] painted himself, by the aid of a looking-glass, and his
contemporary the poet Dante Alighieri in the chapel of the palace of
the Podestà, on the wall.” Now the original Latin text runs: _pinxit
insuper speculorum suffragio semetipsum sibique contemporaneum Dantem
IN TABULA alteris cappelle palatii potestatis_, that is to say, he
painted his own and Dante’s portrait in the altar picture on panel.
This picture was still extant in 1382, as it is mentioned in an
inventory then made of the contents of the palace. Many other cogent
reasons, too long to quote here, against the possibility of the fresco
being by Giotto are given by Milanesi, in his notes to Vasari’s life of
Giotto, and both he and Passerini agree that no mural paintings could
have survived the terrible fire which devastated the building in 1332.
The altar picture, on the other hand, must have been saved, or it would
not have been mentioned by Filippo Villani, or be in the inventory.
Signor Milanesi suggests that it was painted about 1326, when large
sums were being spent on the decoration of the palace to fit it for
the reception of the Duke of Calabria, and Florence was beginning to
recognize the genius of the man she had exiled and vilified. Certainly
it is unlikely that Giotto, however great his friendship for Dante may
have been, would have painted the portrait of a condemned exile, as
Dante was in 1302, in a picture destined for an altar in the palace of
the chief magistrate of the city. The frescoes on the east wall of the
chapel, divided by a window, represent Paradise in three divisions. The
King standing in front of the almost entirely repainted effigy of Dante
probably represents Robert of Anjou, King of Naples, and the cardinal
on the opposite side of the window, Messer Bertrando del Poggetto; at
his feet a kneeling figure, part of whose face and head is effaced,
may be the Bishop of Florence. The figure beside Dante is supposed to
be his master, Brunetto Latini. Above the entrance door the wall still
bears faint traces of Hell. Episodes from the life of S. Mary Magdalene
are painted on the right hand wall and continued on the opposite
one, where the two windows are divided by a pilaster on which is
painted S. Venantius, whose name is almost illegible. Below is another
inscription (with many abbreviations) which indicates the date of the
frescoes,[62] as Messer Fidesmini da Varano was Podestà of Florence in
1337, the year of Giotto’s death.[63]
Work was still going on in the palace in 1342 when Baglione Baglioni
was installed as Podestà by Walter de Brienne, Duke of Athens and Count
of Lecce, whose arms, a lion with two tails, are still to be traced on
the large windows of the courtyard. When the Florentines rose against
the tyrant, Baglioni fled and took refuge with the Albizzi while the
people sacked the palace, burst open the prisons, made a bonfire of
all the archives and carried off everything that was portable, even
the windows. Six citizens were elected to govern the city in the place
of the Podestà, and took up their abode in the palace. They effaced
the Duke’s arms and summoned, writes Vasari, Tommaso di Stefano,[64]
commonly called Giottino, to paint him and his followers “in infamous
fashion, hanging by the neck,” on one side of the tower, with verses
descriptive of their evil deeds attached to each figure.[65]
This was not the first time that malefactors were thus held up to
public execration. In 1288 Ciampollo di Cantino and Andrea di Guido
Cavalcanti, whose lives were spared at the intercession of the
ambassadors of Siena, were condemned to lose all their possessions
and to be painted on the walls of the Podestà’s palace. In 1308 Carlo
Ternibili of Amelia, who stole the seal of the Commune, was not only
painted on the tower with the seal in his hand, but on the gates of the
town.
In 1345 Neri Fioravanti, with seven _maestri_ under him, one of whom
was Benci di Cione, finished the great Hall of Council, restored
various rooms and the vaultings of others, which were painted by
Bartolo di Corso and Jacopo di Baldo, artists of whom nothing, save
their names, is known, and put battlements round the top of the walls;
while the eastern door and the magnificent staircase, which was only
completed in 1367, were begun. Under the lion at the foot of the
staircase are the arms of Baruffaldi de Griffis, who was Podestà at
that time.
Hardly had the palace risen from its ashes when the Ciompi riots broke
out and once more the mob devastated the building. Uccelli gives a
curious extract from an old manuscript written by an eyewitness of
the doings on the 21st July, 1378. “Then the people sent for all the
Minor Guilds, some came, some did not; and when there were about
seven thousand men with arms collected together, they took counsel
and decided to do much mischief. But it pleased God that rain should
fall in such abundance that none could go about the streets. So they
remained until the third hour and then deliberated amongst themselves
to attack the Palazzo del Podestà, and moving all together they went to
the said palace and surrounded it. The followers of the Podestà, who
were on the tower, began to throw stones and hail arrows on the people
and the artificers, who then said that if the palace was not given up
to them they would have the blood of all within. Bowmen climbed up into
the campanile of the Badia and shot with arquebuses at the followers
of the Podestà, but little harm did they do; none could get near the
palace by reason of the shower of stones. So the people took tables
out of the taverns and, getting under them, advanced to the door of
the said palace and set fire to it with many faggots. Some citizens,
neighbours of the Podestà, then made signs to him with their hoods not
to throw any more stones, and said that if the palace was given up all
the persons therein should be saved. He answered that he was willing
to surrender the palace, save only the chamber of the Commune. And
they replied that they were content. He descended with his followers
in great fear, begging in God’s name for mercy; the people entered and
he left without any harm being done to him. They went up the tower
and there placed the emblem of the smiths, that is, a pair of pincers;
and all the other emblems of the Great Guilds and of the Minor Guilds
were placed in the windows of the palace, save that of the Guild of
Wool. Everything that was in the palace was thrown out, and every book
or written page was burnt. All that day and night much people remained
in the palace for the honour of God, and rich and poor stayed to guard
each one the banner of his Guild.”[66]
The great bell _La Montanina_, which tolled when the Podestà and
the judges administered justice, was injured and had to be re-cast,
after which it rang every evening, to notify that no man could leave
his house unarmed or without a lantern, and also whenever a prisoner
was executed. Some two hundred years later a law was passed that
any servant, unless he was with his master, who was found armed in
the streets after the last stroke of the bell at ten at night in
winter, and twelve in summer, should lose his hand. The law fell into
abeyance, but the deep notes of the bell were heard every night until
1848, when the ringing was abolished. The Podestà of 1457 was a great
admirer of Dante, and in the Magliabechiana library is a copy of the
Divine Comedy, curious as having been written in the old Palazzo. It
belonged to “the noble and illustrious lady Madonna Marina, wife of the
magnificent knight and noble Count Messer Cristofano degli Amieri of
Pesaro, which book the aforesaid M. Cristofano had written in the city
of Fiorenza at the time when he was Podestà of the excellent and noble
city of Fiorenza, where, on account of his good government, he received
great honours.” The honours conferred on him are set forth and the
inscription concludes: “this book the aforesaid M. Cristofano has had
written in his office with great affection for his wife to whom he gave
it, and whom he loves beyond aught else. And it was written by the
hand of the worshipful man maestro Lodovico de Bella, a soldier from
Savoy in the city of Fiorenza. He began to write it on the first day of
September, 1457, and finished it on the sixteenth day of November of
the same year.”
That traitor to his country, Ridolfo Varano, Captain-General of the
Republic during the war with Gregory IX., who went over to the Pope,
was also figured, hung by the feet, in 1377, not only on the tower of
the palace, but on the gates of the town. But when peace was made with
Urban VI., the painting was effaced. Eleven years later Bonaccorso di
Lapo Giovanni, who had been three times a Prior and twice Gonfalonier
of Justice, intrigued with Gian Galeazzo Visconti against the Republic,
and was condemned to death _in contumaciam_. As a warning to all
traitors his effigy was painted at the foot of the tower of the Palazzo
del Podestà, hung in chains and surrounded with devils.[67] The old
palace must have been covered with these ghastly frescoes when, at the
instigation of Cosimo de’ Medici, Albizzi, Peruzzi and Strozzi, who
had taken up arms to oppose his return to Florence in 1434, were also
gibbeted as traitors to their country. Nearly fifty years later, after
the conspiracy of the Pazzi, Vasari tells us: “the Signori passed a
resolution that the portraits of all those concerned in the conspiracy
should be painted on the façade of the Palazzo del Podestà. The work
was offered to Andrea del Castagno who, as a servant of the house of
Medici and much indebted to them, willingly accepted the commission
and performed it so well that it was a marvel. It is impossible to
describe the art and the judgment displayed in these figures which were
nearly the size of life, hanging by their feet in strange attitudes,
all varied and of great beauty. This work was so pleasing to the whole
city, particularly to those who were learned in the art of painting,
that Andrea was ever after called Andrea degli impiccati (of the
hanged), instead of by his own name Andrea del Castagno.” In 1480,
when peace was made with Sixtus IV., these paintings were effaced,
as amongst them were his nephew Girolamo Riario, Francesco Salviati,
Archbishop of Pisa, and a priest, Stefano di Bagnone. Fourteen years
later, when the Medici were driven out of Florence, the portraits of
Albizzi, Peruzzi and Strozzi were also destroyed.
In 1502 the powers of the Podestà were curtailed by the institution of
a Council of Justice, the _Ruota_, which necessitated great changes in
the old palace. Room had to be found for the five judges constituting
the council, and Baccio d’Agnolo and Giuliano da San Gallo were the
architects selected by the Signoria to do the work. They abolished an
old staircase which led up into the great hall (now filled with the
works of Donatello) where the 300 citizens, forming the council of the
Commune, used to meet, and built a new hall of audience looking out
on the Piazza S. Apollinare (now Piazza S. Firenze). Fourteen rooms
were decorated by the painters Agnolo Donnini and Domenico di Marco,
while Bernardino of Settignano sculptured the windows and the doors.
The judges’ rooms were on the ground floor, near the prisons and the
torture chambers.[68] There were also a few underground cells, and in
the courtyard suspected people, whom the Podestà wished to have under
his own eye, were kept, but he could not detain them more than three
days. A chain near the doorway marked the limit beyond which they were
forbidden to go, under pain of severe punishment. In a curious and
rare little pamphlet a list is given of the malefactors condemned to
death in Florence from 1328 to 1759, and their crimes. Three hundred
and three names, many of them of the most illustrious Florentine
families, are set down; some were burnt alive, others hung and others
decapitated. Such names as Alberti, Strozzi, Ridolfi, Salviati,
Vitelli, Soderini, etc., are nearly all followed by the short sentence,
“for affairs of state,” or “for speaking ill of the Republic,” or “for
unknown reasons.” There are also common robbers and thieves and some
heretics, the latter were always condemned to the stake.[69] Massimo
d’Azeglio has taken one of the political “delinquents,” Niccolò de
Lapo, as the hero of his well-known novel. But far more interesting is
a description by Luca della Robbia, great-nephew of the famous Luca,
of a night he passed in the Bargello with his friend Pietro Pagolo
Boscoli, who was condemned to death. It is so curious a human document
that I have translated the greater part.[70]
“I record how on the 22nd Feb. 1513, Agostino di Bernardo Capponi
and Pietro Pagolo di Giachineotto Boscoli were condemned to death as
conspirators against the house of Medici, for wishing to free the city
and to kill Giuliano, Lorenzo and Messer Giulio. On the evening of
Tuesday I, Luca di Simone di Marco della Robbia, having heard that they
were to die and being impelled by a desire to console Pietro Pagolo,
my great friend, went to the Bargello and remained there the whole
night.... At about 2 the said Boscoli, having supped, was brought
with his legs in irons into the chapel where were the Brethren of
the Black Confraternity and others. The Captain in a low voice, not
like one of the vulgar, spoke but two words, so that few were aware
of what he said; until Pagolo exclaimed: Oh, Pietro Pagolo! Oh, poor
Pietro Pagolo, whither hast thou been led! Then I, moved to great
compassion seeing my beloved friend in such agony, as affectionately
as I could, with gestures of sorrow went towards him and thus saluted
him: God preserve thee, dearest of friends. _Noli timere eos qui
occidunt corpus, animam autem non possunt occidere._ And he, as though
he knew me not, only said: I wish for Fra Zanobi Acciaiuoli, I asked
the Signoria, in case I had to die, to let me have a confessor for
four hours and they promised; see that he comes. And I, comforting
him, said he should be satisfied. Then came news that Fra Zanobi was
not in Florence, and he said: Get me one from there [S. Marco], as
I want a learned and a good man. I answered: Do not fear, it shall
be done. And he continued: I have but little time and I have supped
too heartily and of salted things; so that I seem unable to lift my
spirit to God. And louder; God have mercy upon me, they have given
me too much food. Shame on them! Had they told me before supper, I
should have taken but a few mouthfuls. Agostino Capponi, also heavily
ironed, then came up, and thinking Pagolo was lamenting, said: O Pietro
Pagolo, Pietro Pagolo, do you die unwillingly? What are you about?
And he replied: O Agostino, I die willingly, but I grieve for two
things: one is that Anton Serristori and Piero Ridolfi held out to me
this morning hopes of life, and in a manner I believed and clung to
this hope; the other is that they have given me over-much food. How
can I turn my heart to God? And Agostino: Never fear, we will die all
the more merrily. Boscoli, sitting down, then said to me: You see,
dear Luca. And I answered: Yes, dear friend; adding, some time ago I
became convinced of a thing which, if you can sincerely believe, will
doubtless aid you to take this step, which is a terrible one, with less
pain. It is that not a leaf falls but by the will of God. He answered:
I certainly believe so. But see, Luca, that I get this confessor, for
time is very short and I have a great load. It is true that I owe no
man anything. Then I: That is good. And he continued: O Luca, I have
ever been ungrateful to God and have offended him in every way; yet I
trust in his mercy. I answered: That is the important thing. _Quare
igitur tristis est anima tua, et quare conturbat te? Spera in Deo
quoniam adhuc confiteberis illi, salutare vultus tui, et Deus tuus._
Then he said: ’Tis well. And raising himself from the chair he placed
himself on the mattress with his chained legs, and continued: Since
it pleases God that we are to be the first to give an example to the
people, let us begin. But Luca, this confessor? And I: Yes, but you
understand that I am not sure if you can have a friar of S. Marco, you
know they are gravely suspected and I doubt if they will come here.
Is there no one in the Badia you would like? Who is there? he asked.
There is the Abbot, Don Giovanni Battista Sacchetti, I replied, and
some others who are held to be good confessors. Then he said: I need
a man who can touch my heart, see if I can have such a one. Stefano
the miniature painter came up and offered to go to S. Marco, in order
that he might be contented; then another said: Messer Jacopo Manegli
is here, you can have him. But with loud and clear voice he answered:
I will not have Messer Jacopo, and turning to Stefano said: Go to S.
Marco and fetch him of Lucca (meaning Fra Santi). And I added: If he
cannot come, bring Fra Serafino (a friar whose nature I considered was
much allied to Boscoli’s). Then addressing those around he said: I pray
you do not confuse my head (for one or another was ever going up to
him), Luca suffices, he knows my character; if I want anything I can
tell him. And taking from his sleeve a paper written by him in prison
for his brothers, he told me to give it to them, saying: All my wishes
are written here. I leave no burthen on any one, save to pray to God
sometimes for me.... Then naming his mother he said: Who will console
her in such affliction? Poor woman, the blow will be a hard one. So I
replied: Pagolo, I have spoken with her. And he: Is it true? Yes, I
answered, I have been there every day since last Sunday, and although
the body is weak, nevertheless the spirit is upheld by God; for you
know she is of high quality. He answered: Yes, truly she is of high
quality.... Now Luca, help me to drive Brutus from my head, that I may
die like a good Christian. And I: That will not be difficult as you
desire to die a Christian. Besides you know these Roman stories are not
written simply and nakedly, but dressed out with much art. He replied:
And even if true, what matter they to me as they do not contain the
true faith. And I: See, you have answered and helped yourself. Luca, he
said, do not praise me. And I: I am here to aid you. Tell me all your
wants, with God’s help, I will try to comfort you; and yet, ’tis you
who comfort me. He replied: My intellect, but with difficulty, believes
in the true faith and desires to die like a Christian. But my heart
seems hard, and I cannot explain my thoughts even to myself. And I: I
understand; you desire a tender love of God, with tears and sobs, and
that your intellect should accept the true faith. Then he: Yes, that
is so. And I: Pietro Pagolo, this last is necessary for salvation, but
’tis well also to have the former. You must force your intellect to
submit to the faith; I am sure you will soon find it needs no forcing,
and then tears will come, because you will be helped by confession,
communion, indulgences and the prayers of those around. Fear not, let
all your thoughts be concentrated on God, for does he not say: _fili,
præbe mihi cor tuum_. Give him your heart and leave the rest in his
hands. He replied: If that be sufficient, I do so; but is it? Adding:
Lord, I am thine, do with me what thou wilt, if only I am pleasing to
thee.... O Luca, you must have known I was lost when you heard I had
been seized. And I: You may believe I knew the danger; I prayed to God
for you and shed many tears. Then I said to myself, if Pagolo saw me
he would reprove me, and say that friendship should not be weak and
effeminate. He answered: You know full well that death has no sting
for me, for we must all die; but my Mother stands ever before me. Am
I not even to see my brothers? And I: Christ is your mother and your
brothers according to Scripture.... I have scant time, Luca, he said,
I should need to be for a month with the friars, then might I become
full of faith; but I trust that God will help me this night. Then he
asked for water to quench the thirst arising from the salt food, and
drinking with a good grace, he said: Luca, they put me eight times to
torture, and then I understood that I was lost: nevertheless, thanks
to God, I feel no spark of hatred against any citizen.... I asked him:
Shall we say a psalm? And he: Luca, I can only say paternosters and
_Ave Maria’s_; meaning that he knew no psalms by heart--and this he
said with sorrow. And I: That is the best prayer there is: say, if it
pleases you, a paternoster to yourself. And with great devotion he did
so.... Then to me: Read me the Creed of St. Athanasius; and when I had
found it, he said: It will be better I read it myself, and holding the
booklet between his handcuffs, he read about twelve verses with such
expression that all around cried.... Seeing me cry, he said: Luca, do
not do so, help me this little while, and when I am dead pray to God
for me. And I, restraining my tears as well as I could, said: I will;
and when you are among the Blessed, where I trust surely you will go,
remember me. He answered: I will, adding: What death are we to die? And
I: I know not. He said: God’s will be done, and then suddenly: Luca,
I have a fantastic wish to know when I spoke to you last before I was
taken? And I: It was on Friday evening about 24 o’clock, in the shop
of Pier Guicciardini, and Lorenzo Segni was there. I held your hand
awhile, desiring to accompany you to the Palace whither you were bound,
and you refused. About 2 I think you were taken. He answered: It was
then in the evening? I said: Yes. And he: ’Tis true, I now remember
well. Luca, do not abandon me; you are put to great trouble. I said:
Ah, Pietro Pagolo, abandon you! why am I here? You know the love I have
always borne you. And he: It is reciprocal, and not without reason.
’Tis well, read me a passage, what you will. So I took S. John, but
before I began to read he said: Whenever an explanation is needed,
make it. And I: Pagolo, that is a heavy load for my shoulders; I have
not the knowledge, neither am I well exercised in Holy Writ. This is
no time for ceremony, he answered; do as I tell you, and what God
inspires you say. And thus I began to read, and where I thought well,
God aiding, I spoke, and it seemed to comfort him.... Then reading
the passage where S. Peter denies Jesus, I stopped, and motioned the
others to withdraw a little, and in an undertone said: Pagolo, a man
of great worth was once in the same position as yourself--Savonarola.
And he: I understand you. I continued: Whilst explaining the _Misere
mei Deus_ and meditating over the denial of S. Peter, he obtained
faith that God would pardon him, therefore take you courage and have
faith.... And he: Fools that we are! Lord have mercy on me, for I will
follow thee this night as well as I can. O Luca, these explanations
have entered into me. Fra Hieronimo was a great man; he was learned;
but I am not as he. I replied: Here is no question of learning, only of
faith, hope and charity. He was in the midst of religion in a convent
studying the Scriptures, and so it is no great wonder that he died
with discernment. It is enough for you that God gives you grace to
take this step for his honour, that is for the love of him, repenting
of your sins.... I was then called away to see the confessor, Fra
Cipriano of S. Marco.... Returning to Pagolo I said: The confessor has
come. His name is Fra Cipriano, son of a peasant at Pont’ a Sieve, a
learned and a good man; God has sent him to you, I doubt not he will
satisfy you. And he: God be praised! bring him to me. So Fra Cipriano
came to Boscoli, who received him with every mark of respect; for lying
on a mattress, with his legs manacled and handcuffs on his hands,
he raised himself as far as he was able and uncovered himself with
both hands, replying to Fra Cipriano, who had said God preserve thee
beloved brother: And you also, my father, you are most welcome. Then
turning to me: Arrange things a little, so that he may be as much at
ease as possible. And we did so, and then retired a little so that he
might confess in secret.... The Black Brethren now began, as is their
custom, to sing the penitential psalms and to recite; whereupon Pagolo
in a quick, loud voice exclaimed: Fathers and brethren, I dislike
such noise, it much annoys me. I have but a short time: I pray you be
silent so that I may make my confession, your singing disturbs me. If
you will pray to God for me in your hearts, I shall be beholden to
you. And Fra Cipriano added: Yes, pray each one silently, that will be
as good and not disturb us.... Pagolo called me several times during
his confession, recalling his life, and once said: Luca, as a youth I
made a vow to go on foot to Santa Maria Impruneta, which I have not
fulfilled. I pray you take my vow on yourself; I impose it on you
_jure amicitiæ_. I answered: I accept it. Another time he said: Luca,
I commend my Mother to you; be to her a third son. Console her with
all your strength, she needs it; go and visit her often during her
life, which will not be long, for I know she will soon follow me. Go to
the house, talk to her, exhort her to have patience, tell her I die
willingly and that she is to pray to God for me. And I, with tears,
promised.... Seeing that preparations were being made to give him the
communion he turned to Fra Cipriano, saying: Will not the sacrament
I am about to take give me greater courage? You well know that it
will, answered the friar; _ambulabis in fortitudine cibi isitus usque
ad montem Dei Oreb_. And he: I trust so.... The Holy Sacrament was
then brought, and Pagolo exclaimed: O infinite goodness! O boundless
charity! O salvation of the world! Be merciful to me. And the tears
streamed from his eyes with such devotion and tenderness that he
seemed a young girl.... Agnolo, the bookseller, came up afterwards
and he said: O my Agnolo, kiss me. And when Agnolo consoled him with
loving words, he said: Agnolo, I am prepared to die, but I would give
myself entirely up to God and I cannot. I cannot satisfy myself. I
wish to meet death without fear and to attain God with my intellect.
Then Agnolo, and Giovanni Covoni who had joined us, both said: Pagolo,
have no fear; have faith and do not lose yourself in subtleties.
The Lord is merciful; give yourself to him, that is sufficient. I
do, he answered, adding: _Deus in adjutorium meum intende, Domine
ad adjuvandum me festina. In te, Domine, speravi; non confundar in
æternum._ O Giovanni, pray God to give me strength, for the time is
drawing nigh.... Turning to Fra Cipriano, he said: Do not leave me till
the last; aid me to complete the sacrifice; God will repay you for me.
And the friar: Have no fear, my brother. I shall be with thee, and
Luca, thy beloved friend, will also aid thee. So be it, he replied, I
entreat thee, Luca. And I: Eh! we will not fail thee; but put thy hope
in God. _Viriliter age, confortetur cor tuum, et sustine Dominum._ And
the time having come he rose with great courage, and when one of the
police wished to put the cloak on him, he exclaimed: There is no need
for the cloak, and turning to me with a gesture of affection said:
Farewell, and nought else. And the word nigh broke my heart, I felt
such grief; and could only reply: _Vale_, God is with thee. Thus we
went down, the friar comforting him with verses from the psalms....
And as he descended the stairs he kept his eyes on the little picture
and with most loving accent said: Lord, thou art my love; I give to
thee my heart; I love thee only and therefore I love all things, for
I love all for love of thee. Here am I, Lord; I come willingly; grant
me courage and strength. And this he said with such tenderness that
all who heard were in tears.... And half-way down the stairs he met
the Crucifix of the Brotherhood, and said: What ought I to do? And the
friar replied: This is your captain, who comes to arm you. Salute him,
honour him and pray that he may give you strength. Then he: _Salve
Domine Jesu; adoro te in croce pendentem_. Let me, I pray thee, partake
of thy passion. True Lord, I beg for peace. And whilst descending the
second flight of steps, he ceased not to pray, saying: _In manus tuas,
Domine, commendo spiritum meum. Redemisti me, Domine, Deus veritas._...
The head executioner, advancing to blindfold him, asked his pardon
and offered to pray for him, and Pagolo answered: Do what thou hast
to do; but when thou hast placed me on the block let me remain for a
short while, and then finish me; that thou prayest to God for me, I
accept.... Before he was placed on the block he drew himself up very
straight and standing firmly said: I submit myself in the faith of
Jesus Christ and desire to die in it; and although my offences against
the divine goodness have been infinite, nevertheless I hope to be saved
through the blood of Christ and by nought else. As it is pleasing to
thee, Jesus mine, that I suffer this death, I accept it willingly for
love of thee, and he knelt down. The executioner, giving him but a very
short reprieve, severed his head at one blow, and for a time his mouth
twitched somewhat. Then Agostino, fervently praying, advanced with
great courage, and the executioner cut off his head with two strokes.
The Brethren then took the body of Boscoli, and his head was like that
of an angel. He was borne to his vault in the Badia, and I begged to be
allowed to carry the head, and it was granted to me. Thus I was able
to fulfil the demands of friendship, and perhaps, or rather certainly,
those of patriotism. He was buried amid the tears of all, many of the
monks being present. I saw Agostino also after death, and his face
still bore a sort of sneer. He was buried in his vault in S. Spirito.
God be merciful to them. This is the truth, in memory thereof I have
writ these pages, foolish perhaps, but true....”
Notwithstanding the execution of Boscoli and Capponi, another plot
to assassinate the Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici was discovered a few
years later. A French courier was arrested in Florence, and although
nothing of a treasonable nature was found upon him he was condemned
to death. A police spy, dressed as a friar, was sent to hear his last
confession, and learned that the wretched man had a letter, pieces of
which were sewn in his cloak. The courier disappeared, and the letter
went to the Cardinal. In the evening Jacopo Diaceto, already ill looked
upon because he frequented the Rucellai gardens, where the Alamanni,
Buondelmonti and others hostile to the Medicean rule met, was arrested.
At the first turn of the rack he confessed everything, and answered
every question. When at the point of death, Nardi tells us that the
poor young fellow begged his confessor, in the hearing of the Black
Brethren, to inform the judges that he had been driven by fearful
torture to inculpate Tommaso Soderini, who was innocent. The poet Luigi
Alamanni was at his villa near Figline, and a friend took horse and
rode hard to warn him of his danger. He got away to Urbino, but his
cousin and namesake, who was at Arezzo, was seized, brought to Florence
and beheaded, together with Jacopo Diaceto, in the courtyard of the
Bargello on 7th June, 1522. Zanobi Buondelmonti escaped, thanks to his
wife’s presence of mind (see p. 59).
During the siege of Florence in 1529, Vasari says, “On the feast of
the Resurrection portraits of three citizens were uncovered on the
façade of the palace of the Podestà; Alessandro di Gherardo Corsini,
in mantle and hood; Taddeo di Francesco Guiducci, blind of one eye,
in like dress; and Giorgio Ridolfi, hung by the leg; and the name of
each was written below, with TRAITOR TO HIS COUNTRY added in capital
letters.”[71] After the surrender of the city these were whitewashed
over; only the portraits of the Duke of Athens, of his followers, and
of Giovanni Bonaccorso, were left as a warning to all tyrants and
traitors.
In 1574 the Podestà and the judges of the _Ruota_ moved into the old
castle of Altafronte, which Cosimo I. some twenty years before had
bought from the family of the Castellani, and the captain of the city,
or head of the police, called the Bargello, took up his abode in the
Palazzo del Podestà. The fine building was barbarously maltreated. The
arcades of the courtyard and of the beautiful loggia were walled up,
and turned into cells, and three floors, each containing many cells,
were put into the magnificent hall. The same was done in the chapel,
where the frescoes disappeared under many coats of whitewash; the lower
floor, being next to the kitchen, was turned into a pantry, and above
were cells. The very name of the palace was lost, for henceforth it
took the name of its new inmate, and was known as the Bargello. Uccelli
says the word is derived from the debased Latin _Barigaldus_ (Barachel
in Spanish), meaning head of the police, _princeps apparitorum_. The
Roman _apparitores_ were the administrators of justice who preceded
the magistrate, called by the Longobards _berrovieri_. The word was
shortened, the “e” became an “i,” and thence the familiar Tuscan
appellation of _birri_, a name of opprobrium given by the criminal
classes to the police.[72]
In 1841 an Englishman and an American, Mr. Seymour Kirkup and Mr.
Wilde, applied for permission to uncover the frescoes in the chapel
of the Bargello. After infinite delays the government decided to do
the work itself, but unluckily employed an incompetent artist who
“restored” the portrait of Dante. A nail had been driven into the
eye, and when pulled out it brought away a piece of plaster; this he
restored, and then heightened the colour of the face to suit his own
eye, altered the shape of the headdress and changed the green of the
white, red and green dress, into a dingy brown. Mr. Kirkup fortunately
made a tracing and a coloured sketch of the head when it was first
uncovered, which was published by the Arundel Society of London, and
thus a record of the real portrait exists.
In 1847 the people rose against the _birri_, who had made themselves
odious by their insolence and violence, and would have released the
prisoners in the Bargello if the civic guard had not been called out.
Ten years later the Grand Duke gave orders that the building should be
restored, and all the prisoners removed to the Murate. In 1860 it was
finally decreed that the weatherbeaten, stern old Palazzo del Podestà
should be turned into a national museum.
PALAZZO PUCCI
_Via de’ Pucci. No. 4._
The great Pucci palace was built by Paolo Falconieri for Orazio Roberto
Pucci in the middle of the XVIIth century on the site of several old
houses belonging to the family. In 1664 Orazio was created Marquess
of Barsento by the King of Spain, a title still borne by the present
representative of the family. Progenitor of this once powerful house
was Puccio, son of Benintendi, a poet of the XIIIth century. His
descendant, Antonio, inscribed in the Guild of Carpenters, was the
first of twenty-nine Priors the Pucci gave to Florence, but as an ally
of the Alberti he was soon afterwards banished. Puccio Pucci his son,
the intimate friend and adviser of Cosimo the Elder, was Gonfalonier of
Justice in 1447. He died two years later leaving an enormous fortune to
his sons, of whom Antonio was several times Gonfalonier of Justice, and
as Commissary-General at the siege of Pietrasanta distinguished himself
by heading the troops at the final assault and by his care of the
wounded soldiers. By his wife, a daughter of the celebrated Giannozzo
Manetti, he left many sons. Giannozzo, the eldest, was beheaded for
conspiring with Bernardo del Nero in 1497 in favour of the Medici;
Puccio married Girolama Farnese, sister of Pope Paul III., and was
distinguished as a jurist; Lorenzo entered the Church, was Bishop of
eight Sees, Archbishop of Amalfi and Chief Penitentiary. Denounced by
Luther for selling indulgences, only the death of Adriano VI. and the
accession of his friend Giulio de’ Medici to the papal chair saved
him from severe punishment. Antonio’s nephew, Pandolfo, was a worthy
boon-companion to the infamous Duke Alessandro. Cosimo I. dismissed him
with ignominy from his court and he then plotted against the Duke’s
life, but for one reason or another did not succeed in accomplishing
his purpose. When the plot was discovered Pandolfo Pucci and his
companions were hung without trial from the iron bars of the windows of
the Bargello, in January, 1560.
[Illustration: WINDOW OF PALAZZO PUCCI.]
Nearly all Pandolfo’s sons died violent deaths. Orazio, the eldest,
attempted the life of Francesco I. and was hung fifteen years after his
father, at the same window of the Bargello. Another fled to Rome, found
favour with Clement VIII., and was about to be made a Cardinal when he
died of poison, administered by order of the Cardinal Ferdinando de’
Medici. A third was killed by a madman.
The present branch of the family descend from Saracino, a brother of
Puccio, who also made a large fortune under Cosimo the Elder. One of
his sons, implicated in the Pazzi conspiracy, was hung; another, named
Priore, cautiously kept aloof from politics and occupied himself with
commerce. His descendant, Niccolò inherited the riches of the eldest
branch of the family, married an heiress and left a large fortune to
his grandson, who built the palace, and owned many houses and villas,
on which the moor’s head (the Pucci arms) is to be seen. The Marquess
Pucci still inhabits the old palace.
PALAZZO RICCARDI
_Via Cavour. No. 1._
The first of the great house of Medici, according to Passerini, was
Giambuono, an ecclesiastic. He lived in the XIIth century, and his
son Chiarissimo owned houses and a tower in Florence near S. Tommaso.
Admirers of the Medici attributed to them a far more magnificent
origin--Perseus; a Roman Emperor; a learned physician who saved the
life of Charlemagne; or Averardo de’ Medici, a brave knight who slew
Mugello, a giant who was the terror of Tuscany. Their enemies, on
the other hand, assert that the son of a poor charcoal-burner in the
Mugello who became a doctor (medico) was their progenitor, and point to
the well-known balls, or pills, on the Medici arms as confirming their
story; whilst to their admirers they represent golden apples from the
gardens of the Hesperides, or dents in Averardo’s shield, made by the
mace of the giant Mugello.
[Illustration: PALAZZO RICCARDI].
The name of Medici occurs occasionally in the early annals of Florence,
but the real history of the family begins with Salvestro. In 1352 he
led the Florentine troops against the Archbishop of Milan, and was
knighted on the field of battle. In 1370 he was Gonfalonier of Justice
and again in 1378, in spite of the efforts of the old nobility and of
the Guelph party whose power he had sought to diminish by a new law.
Their opposition to his suggestions brought about the Ciompi riots, and
Salvestro de’ Medici was the first citizen knighted by the mob on the
Piazza della Signoria. His grandson, Giovanni, born in 1360, became the
first banker of Italy, and is described by Machiavelli as “most kind of
heart, not only giving alms to all who begged of him, but aiding many
poor people without being solicited. He was kindly towards all men,
praising the good, and pitying the wicked. Never suing for honours,
he obtained them all. He never went to the palace unless summoned. He
loved peace, and always sought to avoid war. When men fell into trouble
he gave them help, and aided those who had attained prosperity. Hostile
to public peculation, he worked for the common good. As a magistrate he
was gracious in manner, not eloquent, but of extraordinary prudence.
Of a melancholy countenance, yet was he pleasant and witty in
conversation. He died rich in the goods of this world, but richer in
good repute and in the good-will of his fellow-citizens.”
Cosimo de’ Medici, for whom Michelozzo Michelozzi built the great
palace in Via Larga (now Palazzo Riccardi), is described as tall,
of dark complexion and of imposing presence. He applied himself so
strenuously to increase the political power of his house, “that those
who had rejoiced,” writes Machiavelli, “at Giovanni’s death, now
regretted it, perceiving what manner of man Cosimo was. Of consummate
prudence, staid, yet agreeable presence, he was liberal and humane.
He never worked against his own party nor against the State, and was
prompt in giving aid to all. His liberality gained him many partisans
among the citizens.”
After his marriage with Contessina, daughter of Giovanni Bardi, Count
of Vernio, he bought and rebuilt the villa of Careggi, and soon
afterwards, as Vasari tells us, charged his intimate friend Michelozzo
Michelozzi “to make the design for the house and palace which is at
the corner of Via Larga, opposite to S. Giovannino; as it seemed to
him that the one made, as has been said elsewhere, by Filippo di Ser
Brunelleschi, was too sumptuous and magnificent, and would rather
attract the envy of his fellow-citizens, than add to the beauty and
ornament of the city and to his own convenience. Being therefore
pleased with Michelozzo’s design, he bade him carry it out in the
form we now see.... Michelozzo’s merit is the greater, as this is
the first palace built in Florence in the modern style, containing
suites of rooms both useful and beautiful. The cellars are four
braccie below ground and three braccie above, so as to afford light,
and near them are store rooms and pantries. The ground floor consists
of two courtyards with magnificent loggie, out of which open halls,
drawing-rooms, waiting-rooms, studies, bakeries, kitchens, wells,
and commodious public and secret staircases. On the upper floors are
apartments for a family, with every convenience that can serve, not
only for a private citizen, as Cosimo then was, but for a magnificent
and powerful king.” The palace was begun in 1444, according to Gianozzo
di Bernardo Galviati.[73]
A more detailed account of the palace is given in _Firenze Antica e
Moderna_, where it is described as having “originally been a square
building of the rustic order up to the first floor, with large
protruding ‘bozzi.’ The two upper floors are Doric and Corinthian, with
hammered and flattened ‘bozzi.’ The windows have double arches with
composite columns in the centre, and in the triangles are sculptured
alternately the Medici arms with seven balls and the device of Cosimo
Pater Patriae, a ring with a diamond encircling two feathers, to which
was added later a third feather and the motto _Semper_, the device
of the Magnificent Lorenzo. The palace was at first built with four
doors, but only the one in Via Larga was retained, the three others
being turned into kneeling windows designed by Michelangelo. They are
said to be the first made after such fashion in Florence, and are
highly praised for their beauty and good proportions. Before these
windows were made the two doors at the angle, or at all events the one
opposite the church of S. Giovannino, were always open, and led into
a large internal loggia, called the Loggia de’ Medici. At the angle
of the palace is a magnificent shield containing their well known
arms, with the Lily of France, granted to the Medici by Charles VII.,
on the centre ball. The balls were removed when they were driven out
of Florence in 1527 and the Cross, emblem of the People, put in their
stead; but on the restoration of the family the balls were replaced.
Entering the first courtyard, surrounded with an arcade, are to be seen
columns of pietra serena with composite capitals, and in the frieze are
eight medallions of marble copied from antique cameos and trophies of
medals, by that famous artist, Donatello.”
It will ever remain a mystery why Michelozzi made so small and so
dark a chapel for such a noble palace. It almost seems as if he had
forgotten it in the original plan, and had then placed it where it
would not interfere with the fine suites of rooms. Resting almost
entirely on the vaulted rooms of the ground floor, it is in a corner
of the building, and is built of brick. But all the defects of the
architect vanish before the vivid beauty and the grace of Benozzo
Gozzoli’s frescoes.
On either side of the window (enlarged in 1837) in front of which stood
the altar with the picture of the Madonna adoring the Infant Christ, by
Filippo Lippi, now in the Berlin gallery, are groups of adoring angels
with peacock wings, and behind them stand others singing. The landscape
is worthy of the angels. From the flower-spangled grass rise hedges of
roses and pomegranates, huge stone pines and slender cypresses; in the
distance are grey towns with many towers, and in the sky above angels
float amongst the clouds. Brilliantly coloured birds are flying here
and there, while others perch on the ground at the feet of the kneeling
angels. The walls of the chapel are entirely covered with the story of
the Magii; only the Kings and their attendants are portraits of the
time and the landscape is purely Tuscan.
The centre figure on the north wall is a handsome, fair-haired youth,
wearing a curious turban-like jewelled crown and riding a high-stepping
white horse on whose gorgeous trappings are embroidered the Medici
arms. He is supposed to be Lorenzo, the darling of his grandfather
Cosimo. Behind him rides his father, Piero, grasping a lock of his
horse’s mane with one hand and attended by a serving-man, evidently
a portrait. Cosimo Pater Patriae rides beside him on a mule, a black
slave running at his stirrup. Other members of the Medici family are
no doubt depicted in the train of followers, amongst whom one discerns
the stern, sagacious face of the painter himself, with _Opus Benotii_
written on his cap. A long line of horse and footmen are seen in the
distance winding down the hills in a rocky landscape with here and
there a tall cypress tree, denuded of its lower branches in the fashion
still dear to Tuscan hearts. A hind is rushing up a slope chased by
greyhounds and huntsmen. On the west wall, opposite the window, is
another King on a splendidly caparisoned white horse, wearing a long
green tunic of Oriental cut and a jewelled crown on his head with the
points curving inwards. He is the Emperor John Paleologus who came to
Florence to attend the Council, and round him are graceful, lithe,
young pages on foot, while others follow on horseback crowned with
wreaths of pink roses. The landscape is rocky and broken, winding roads
lead up to fortified hill-towns and castles, and rivers rush down to
the plain. A window has been cut in this wall, but without doing the
irreparable damage committed by the Marchese Francesco Riccardi who, in
order to widen the staircase leading from the courtyard up to the first
floor, cut a corner out of the chapel. Part of the wall was utterly
destroyed and the figure of the third King, the portrait of the Greek
Patriarch, is cut in two. His mule has lost one leg, and the upper
part of the fresco on the wall which was moved forwards is a daub by
some inferior artist. Fortunately the lower part suffered less. The
Patriarch wears a crown with high points, and is clothed in a cassock
with a mozzetta of red velvet edged with ermine over his shoulders.
His mule, whose bridle has large golden bosses, holds its head
proudly, as though conscious of the high dignity of its rider. Among
the richly dressed cavaliers in front of him is a gallant lad, with a
hunting guepard on a pad behind him; this is said to be the portrait
of Lorenzo’s younger brother Giuliano, murdered some years later by
Francesco de’ Pazzi in the cathedral. In the distance a long train of
baggage animals, horses, mules, donkeys and camels, are wending their
way round the shoulder of a mountain. On each side of the recess where
the altar stood are painted, above the doors of the tiny sacristies,
the ass on one side, the ox on the other, in whose manger the Holy
Infant was laid.
* * * * *
The war with Lucca gave rise to accusations against all who had to do
with it and Florence was divided into two factions, one led by Cosimo
de’ Medici, the other by Rinaldo degl’Albizzi, who contrived to get an
adherent of his own elected Gonfalonier of Justice for the months of
September and October in 1433. Cosimo, who had passed the summer at his
villa in the Mugello, “to escape,” as he writes in his diary, “from
the contests and divisions in the city,” was advised by his friends
to return. On going to the Palazzo della Signoria he was seized and
imprisoned in the Barberia, a small room in the tower. Sentenced to
banishment he went to Venice, where he notes: “I was received with
more honour and charity than I can describe.” Just a year later he was
recalled from exile. “Seldom has a citizen, returning from a great
victory,” writes Machiavelli, “been greeted by such a concourse of
people, and with such demonstrations of affection, as was Cosimo on
his return from exile; saluted by all as the benefactor of the people
and the Father of his country.” From this time forward, “partly,” as
Symonds remarks, “by his remarkable talent for intrigue, partly by
the clever use he made of his vast wealth, and partly by espousing
the plebeian cause, Cosimo de’ Medici succeeded in monopolizing the
government.” Yet while engaged in political matters Cosimo found time
to attend to his business and to correspond with the managers of his
banks, scattered throughout Europe and even in Asia. To all he gave
orders to buy ancient manuscripts on any subject. “Cosimo,” writes
Gibbon, “was the father of a line of princes, whose name and age
are almost synonymous with the restoration of learning; his credit
was ennobled into fame; his riches were dedicated to the service of
mankind; he corresponded at once with Cairo and London, and a cargo of
Indian spices and Greek books were often imported in the same vessel.”
A liberal and discerning patron to artists and men of letters,
Cosimo founded libraries in the Badia of Fiesole and in S. Marco;
in the latter he had a cell for his own use. To the Greeks who came
to the Council of Florence, or soon afterwards fled thither when
Constantinople was captured by the Turks, he extended a splendid
hospitality in his palace in Via Larga. “To him,” remarks Burckhardt,
“belongs the special glory of recognizing in the Platonic philosophy
the fairest flower of the ancient world of thought, and of inspiring
his friends with the same belief.” While spending his money in a
princely manner on works of art, public libraries and buildings, and
in donations to needy scholars, his home life was perfectly simple. He
was an excellent husband and a kind father, and contemporaries tell
us he rose early to prune his pear trees and plant his vines. His
greatest recreation was in the society of learned men. On feast days
Argyropolos, who taught Greek to his son Piero and afterwards to his
grandson Lorenzo, would go with his scholars to the Palazzo Medici and
discuss philosophy. “The great Cosimo,” writes Marsilio Ficino, “often
attended to hear the Greek philosopher Gemisthus Pletho, well nigh
a second Plato, discourse concerning the Platonic mysteries, and so
moved was he by his stirring eloquence that he determined to establish
a Greek academy at the first opportunity. When this project was about
to be carried into effect he selected me, the son of his favourite
doctor, to preside over the important work, though at the time I was
little more than a boy.” Enormous sums were spent by him on building.
The convent of S. Marco cost 70,000 golden florins, and his own palace
60,000, so that an army of workmen obtained employment, whose wages
were paid regularly at his banking house every Saturday.
The death of his second son, Giovanni, was a blow from which Cosimo
did not recover. He lingered for a year, during which his chief solace
was in being read aloud to. “Come to us, Marsilio,” he wrote, “as soon
as you can. Bring with you your translation of Plato, _De summo Bono_,
for I desire nothing so much as to learn the road which leads to the
greatest happiness. Farewell, come not without thy Orphean lyre.”
Cosimo died on the 1st August, 1464, at Careggi. His funeral was
attended by a huge concourse of people. His fellow-citizens enacted
that the epitaph _Cosmus Medice hic situs est decreto publico Pater
Patriae_ should be engraved on the plain porphyry slab which marks his
tomb in front of the choir in S. Lorenzo.
Piero de’ Medici, a martyr to gout and in bad health, soon felt the
weight of irksome business, as had been predicted by his father,
and called in one of his most trusted friends. The sagacious,
far-seeing Cosimo had been singularly deceived in his estimate of
Messer Diotisalvi Neroni, in whom he had counselled his son to place
absolute confidence. Neroni was secretly in league with Luca Pitti,
Agnolo Acciaiuoli and Niccolò Soderini, avowed enemies of the
Medici, and when Piero placed the books containing Cosimo’s business
transactions in his hands, he advised him to call in the debts owing
by many of the chief families of the city. The consequence was the
loss of the popularity and of the affection enjoyed by Cosimo. The
projected marriage of Piero’s son, Lorenzo, to a daughter of the
proud Roman house of Orsini, added fuel to the flame. It was decided
to assassinate him on his return from Careggi, and his life was only
saved by the presence of mind of young Lorenzo. He observed armed men
as he rode into town before his father, and sent a messenger back to
tell the bearers of Piero’s litter to take a roundabout country lane,
whilst announcing that his father was but a short way behind him. The
defection of Luca Pitti was a deathblow to the conspiracy and to his
own fortunes. Neroni and Soderini fled to Venice, Agnolo Acciaiuoli to
Naples, whence he wrote to Piero to excuse himself:
“I laugh at the tricks of fortune, and how she turns friends into foes.
Thou may’st recall that when thy father was exiled, thinking more of
his disaster than of mine own peril I lost my country, and was well
nigh losing my life. Never during my friendship with Cosimo did I cease
to honour and favour thy house, neither have I, since his death, had
any intention of offending thee. It is true that thy bad health and the
tender age of thy children so alarmed me, that I thought it were better
to give such form to the State that our country should not fall to ruin
after thy death. Hence arose certain events, not directed against thee,
but in favour of Florence, which even if erroneous merit forgetfulness,
on account of my good conscience and my past actions.”
Piero’s answer to this epistle was: “Thy laughter is the reason why I
do not weep; for wert thou laughing at Florence, I should be weeping at
Naples. I admit thy friendship for my father and thou must admit that
he repaid thee well. So thou art more beholden to us than we to thee,
as deeds are worth more than words. Having been thus recompensed for
thy good services, thou canst not wonder at being repaid for evil ones.
Love of thy country is no excuse, as none will believe that the Medici
love this city less, or have served her worse, than the Acciaiuoli.
Live therefore in dishonour where thou art, as thou hast not known how
to live with honour here.”
Piero de’ Medici was forty-eight when his father died. He inherited his
love of letters and was of a kindly nature, “it was due to him,” writes
Machiavelli, “that his partisans did not stain their hands with the
blood of their fellow-citizens.” In June, 1469, his son Lorenzo married
Clarice Orsini, and great festivities took place in the Medici palace,
soon to be followed by sounds of mourning, for Piero died in December.
“Two days later, the principal men of the city and of the State,”
writes Lorenzo in his _Ricordi_, “came to us in our house to condole
with us on our loss, and to encourage me to take charge of the city and
of the government, as my grandfather and my father had done. This I
was most unwilling to accept, on account of my youth and of the great
responsibility and peril, yet for the safety of our friends and of our
possessions I did so. For it is ill living for the rich in Florence
unless they rule the State. Until now we have succeeded with honour and
renown, which I attribute, not to prudence, but to the grace of God and
the good conduct of my ancestors.”
Lorenzo was then in his twenty-second year and Giuliano was sixteen.
Few princes of that time had received such an education as the sons
of Piero de’ Medici. Messer Gentile Becchi of Urbino, a man of great
learning, pure life and high moral character, was their tutor, Landino
taught them Italian literature, Argyropolos Greek, and Marsilio Ficino
the philosophy of Plato. Above all Lorenzo had been well trained by
his mother, a woman of strong good sense, a poetess, yet withal an
excellent housewife. Niccolò Valori describes Lorenzo as “above the
common stature, broad-shouldered and solidly built, robust, and second
to none in agility. Although nature had been a step-mother to him with
regard to his personal appearance, she had acted as a loving mother
in all things connected with the mind. His complexion was dark, and
although his face was not handsome it was so full of dignity as to
compel respect. He was short-sighted, his nose was flattened and he had
no sense of smell. This did not trouble him and he was wont to say that
he was grateful to nature, disagreeable things being more common than
agreeable ones to so delicate a sense.”
In March, 1471, when Galeazzo Sforza, Duke of Milan, with his wife,
paid a visit to Lorenzo, the Medici palace must have been filled to
overflowing. “100 men at arms, 500 infantry, 50 running footmen clothed
in silk and cloth of silver, 50 led ambling palfreys for the use of the
Duchess and 50 led war-horses, splendidly caparisoned, for himself;
dogs and falcons for the chase and 12 two-wheeled carts,[74] drawn by
mules and covered with embroidered cloth of gold and silver, for the
use of the Duchess and her ladies whilst crossing the Alps; in all the
Duke had 2,000 horses,” says an eyewitness. Magnificent festivities
were given every day and to the horror of the religiously inclined,
meat was eaten although it was Lent; so when the church of S. Spirito
was burnt to the ground, owing to the scenery erected for a sacred play
acted before the Duke catching fire, it was looked upon as a judgment
of God.
But Lorenzo loved the society of scholars and artists, and Giovanni
Pico della Mirandola, Leon Battista Alberti, Michelangelo Buonarroti,
Marsilio Ficino, Angelo Poliziano, Cristofano Landino, and Luigi
Pulci, who wrote his _Morgante_ for the amusement of Lorenzo’s mother
Lucrezia, and recited it canto by canto after dinner, were his constant
guests in the palace of Via Larga. In their society he laid aside the
statesman and became the discerning critic and the graceful poet.
The conspiracy of the Pazzi is a matter of history. Attempts to murder
the two Medici brothers had been frustrated by Giuliano’s failing, on
account of illness, to attend banquets, and by Lorenzo giving up his
journey to Rome. But on Sunday, 26th April, 1478, it was arranged that
Cardinal Raffaello Riario, the Pope’s great-nephew, was to attend high
mass in the cathedral with Lorenzo and Giuliano, and afterwards to dine
with them. “The church,” writes Machiavelli, “was filled with people,
and divine service had begun, yet Giuliano had not made his appearance.
So Francesco de’ Pazzi, with Bernardo, who were to murder him, went
to his house, and by entreaties and flattery induced him to go to the
Duomo with them. On the way Francesco, under pretext of caressing him,
embraced him with hands and arms to see whether he wore a cuirass
or any other armour.” At the elevation of the Host Bernardo Bandini
plunged his dagger into Giuliano’s breast, who staggered and fell,
upon which Francesco de’ Pazzi stabbed him nineteen times with such
blind fury, that he wounded himself in the thigh. The two priests who
had undertaken to kill Lorenzo, after the refusal of the old soldier,
Giovanbattista Montesecco, to commit a murder “where Christ would
be sure to see him,” were not skilled in the use of the dagger, and
Lorenzo was only wounded in the neck. Bandini, hastening to complete
the work, was stopped by Francesco Nori, a friend of the Medici, whom
he stabbed to the heart. Lorenzo took refuge in the new sacristy,
where one of his adherents, fearing the dagger was poisoned, sucked
the wound, and then, surrounded by his friends, Lorenzo walked to his
palace. “By this time,” continues Machiavelli, “the whole city was
under arms.... There was not a citizen who, armed or unarmed, did not
go to the palace of Lorenzo in this time of trouble, to offer to him
his person and his goods; such was the position and the affection that
the family had acquired by their prudence and their liberality.”
In 1487 Lorenzo’s eldest son Piero de’ Medici married Alfonsina Orsini,
a relation of his mother Clarice, and the following year Lorenzo
attained a great object of his ambition. He had carefully educated
his second son Giovanni for the Church, and Pope Innocent VIII.,
whose son Francesco Cibo had married Maddalena de’ Medici, made the
lad of fourteen a cardinal, “on condition,” as Giovanni Cambi tells
us, “that he was not to wear the hat or the habit for three years.”
In August, 1488, Clarice died, and Lorenzo’s health became more and
more precarious, but in March, 1491, he was well enough to witness the
ceremony of bestowing the cardinal’s hat on his son in the abbey church
of Fiesole. “The Signoria decided,” continues old Cambi, “that for
love of Lorenzo his father, who little by little had made himself the
head and the chief personage of the city, great honour should be paid
to him. So it was ordered that three hundred citizens should go out to
meet him, and it was not necessary to entreat them to do this as was
often the case when an ambassador had to be met. They were all clothed
in silk, and counting Giovanni’s own people, the bishops, clergy and
notaries, there were five hundred horsemen, and on the Sunday morning
a solemn mass was said in S. Maria del Fiore.” The young Cardinal soon
afterwards left for Rome, and on the 8th April, 1492, Lorenzo de’
Medici died at Careggi. He was buried in S. Lorenzo, and no monument
marks the last resting-place of one of the most illustrious men of
Florence.
“Lorenzo,” writes Gino Capponi, “represented and united in his own
person a whole century; he wrote sacred hymns and carnival songs,
sought the society of, and listened to, religious men, whilst he led a
dissolute life. An assiduous worker in state affairs, and indefatigable
in all things that served his purpose and augmented his fame, yet
he appeared only to care for amusement and gaiety and the company
of witty and brilliant men. He was so constituted that nothing came
amiss to him. The Medici palace was a museum, a school and a place
of meeting for all the learned men who flocked thither, and from it
proceeded grave counsel and intellectual teaching, as well as shows
and festivals and a general corruption of manners. Two popes passed
their childhood there, and the Platonic Academy, intended to raise the
standards of life and thought, was founded within its walls. Poliziano
and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, one of the greatest men of his time,
were constant visitors. There the first chips flew off the marble under
the chisel of Michelangelo, and there Luigi Pulci read the _Morgante_
aloud. Such exuberance of life, such magnificence, such gaiety has
probably never been witnessed in any other age, and the name of Lorenzo
towers above it all.”[75]
Piero de’ Medici was twenty-one when his father died, and was in
all respects different from him. “This is not to be wondered at,”
remarks Guicciardini, “as he was born of a foreign mother, whereby
the Florentine blood got mixed, and he acquired foreign manners
and a style too haughty for our habits of life.” On hearing of the
approach of Charles VIII., in 1494, he quitted Florence in a panic,
and rode to Sarzana, where he had an audience of the King, and granted
all his demands. On his return to Florence, he dismounted at the
Palazzo Vecchio, and informed the Signoria that he had ceded Sarzana,
Sarzanella, Pietrasanta, Pisa, Leghorn and Ripafratta to Charles. Next
day he was saluted in the streets with the cry of _Popolo! Libertà!_
and Giovanni Cambi went home and wrote in his diary: “I note how on
the 9th November, 1494, by the grace of God and of the Virgin Mary,
Piero di Lorenzo di Piero de’ Medici, the tyrant of his country, was
expelled by the people at the hour of vespers.... The Signoria put
the price of 2,000 scudi on his head and the same on the head of his
brother, Messer Giovanni the Cardinal, and 5,000 if they were taken
alive. They fled by the Porta S. Gallo and went to Bologna, and with
them went Ser Piero da Bibbiena, his chancellor, who was the king of
all evil; a vainglorious peasant, and the chief cause of the ruin of
the said Piero.”
The Medici brothers having escaped, the mob wreaked their vengeance on
the valuable contents of the magnificent palace, so that the Signoria
were obliged to borrow or buy furniture in great haste to make it fit
to receive Charles VIII. when he entered Florence on the 19th November.
He was followed by his whole army, “a very grand sight,” exclaims
Guicciardini, “but for which the spectators had small liking, by reason
of the dread and the terror which filled their souls.” It was in the
Palazzo Medici that the memorable scene took place between a plain
burgher of the city and the King of France. The demands made by him
were impossible for the Signoria to comply with, and Pier Capponi was
sent to remonstrate. Charles angrily replied that if the huge sums of
money he asked for were not forthcoming, he would command his trumpets
to be sounded. Capponi snatched the paper on which the conditions were
written from his hands, and tore it to pieces, crying, “If you sound
your trumpets, we shall ring our bells.” It was a bold deed, and those
present were astounded at his daring. But the King, who wanted money
and not war, gave way, and covered his discomfiture by a sorry joke on
the name of the Florentine citizen. _Ah Ciappon, Ciappon, voi siete un
mal ciappon._ (Ah Capon, Capon, you are a bad capon.)
The agreement, signed on the 25th November, stipulated an offensive
and defensive alliance between France and Florence, the payment by
the latter of 120,000 golden ducats, the retention by Charles of the
citadels, but not of the towns, of Pisa, Leghorn, Pietrasanta and
Sarzana, until the end of his war with Naples, when they were to
revert to Florence. Finding the King showed no disposition to leave
his luxurious quarters on the next day, as the Florentines had hoped,
they sent Savonarola to the Medici palace. He accosted Charles in these
words: “Most Christian Prince, thy delay in going is causing serious
harm to this city and to the enterprize in which thou art engaged.
Thou art losing thy time, forgetful of the task imposed on thee by
Providence, to the grave detriment of thy spiritual welfare and thy
worldly renown. Listen, therefore, to the words of the servant of God.
Go on thy way without further delay; take heed not to bring ruin on
this city and on thyself the anger of God.” Two days later Charles
departed, and with him went many of the most valuable works of art in
the palace. De Comines mentions, among other things, beautiful agate
cups, wonderful cameos, and more than 3,000 gold and silver medals,
“more than I thought could have been found in all Italy.” Courtiers,
officers and soldiers, robbed right and left, and quitted the city
laden with spoil. Eight years later Cambi writes in his diary: “On the
8th January, 1502, came letters saying that Piero was at Gaeta which
was held for the King of France; and the Spaniards beat the French, who
put all their artillery on a ship in which was also Piero de’ Medici,
and he was drowned, thanks be to God.”
The terrible sack of Prato by the Spaniards in 1512, at which the
Cardinal Giovanni de’ Medici assisted, struck terror into the hearts
of the Florentines. They agreed to pay 140,000 ducats to the Spanish
Viceroy on condition that he quitted Tuscany; to allow the Medici to
return to Florence in the quality of private citizens, and to permit
them to buy back their private possessions. Giuliano, the third son
of Lorenzo the Magnificent, then entered the city; “having first
doffed his rich Spanish habit and put on a _lucco_, the everyday dress
of a Florentine burgher. He came in the company of Anton Francesco
degl’Albizzi and dismounted at his palace, that of the Medici being
empty and in a ruinous condition.” But the Medicean party soon found
that Giuliano lacked energy, and Cardinal Giovanni, with Messer Giulio,
the illegitimate son of the murdered Giuliano, came from Campi with
four hundred lances, and took up his abode in the Palazzo Medici with
all the state pertaining to a prince of the Church. His nephew Lorenzo,
Piero de’ Medici’s only son, came with him, and the house of Medici,
after an exile of eighteen years, once more ruled in Florence.
The old palace regained much of its pristine splendour. Festivals and
gay pageants “in order,” writes old Cambi with bitter irony, “to let
it be seen that the city was festively inclined and in a flourishing
condition,” succeeded each other. But there was a strong under-current
of hatred, and plots to assassinate Lorenzo, Giuliano and Giulio de’
Medici, were rife. Whilst the two young men, Pietro Pagolo Boscoli and
Agostino Capponi were lying under sentence of death in the Bargello
(see p. 222), two pageants, rivalling those of the Magnificent himself,
issued on two successive days out of the great door of the Medici
palace. Giuliano had instituted a company of noble youths called,
after the device of Cosimo, the Diamond. Andrea Dazzi, who held the
chair of Greek and Latin literature, was the inventor and poet of
Giuliano’s pageant, while Pontormo painted and decorated the cars.
Lorenzo, competing with his uncle, was the head of a company called _Il
Broncone_, whose emblem was a withered laurel branch whence sprouted
fresh leaves, and for him, Jacopo Nardi, the historian, invented a
pageant symbolizing the Golden Age, for which Pontormo also painted the
cars. “Thus,” exclaims Cambi, “the people were fed with rubbish and
follies, and took no heed to penitence. Yet they had seen the scourge
at Brescia, and again at Prato. They beheld Italy from one end to the
other full of barbarian troops, they perceived that God was threatening
us--ay, even now scourging us, and yet they did worse. Oh! may God in
His mercy not look upon these our sins.”
The election of Giovanni de’ Medici to the papal chair in March, 1513,
was hailed with exultant joy in Florence, and Leo X. did not disappoint
the hopes of his fellow-citizens, or those of his own family. Three
out of four new cardinals created by him were Florentines, one being
his cousin Giulio de’ Medici, in despite of the canon law excluding
any one of illegitimate birth. Giuliano, the Pope’s brother, became
Captain-General of the Church and married Filiberta of Savoy, and Leo’s
young nephew, Lorenzo, was selected to govern Florence.
When Leo X. passed through Florence on his way to meet Francis I. at
Bologna, he rested for a day or two in the apartment set aside for the
popes in Sta. Maria Novella, but on his return journey he spent several
weeks with his nephew in the Palazzo Medici. Contemporary chroniclers
devote many pages to describing the magnificence of his reception and
the entertainments given in his honour, amongst them the representation
of _Rosmunda_ in the Rucellai gardens. Splendid were the gifts he
bestowed on churches and on private individuals. To the cathedral he
gave “a mitre of great beauty, adorned with many pearls, sapphires,
emeralds, diamonds and rubies, worth more than 10,000 ducats, as a
mark of the tender affection he bore the church in which he had been a
canon when a little child.” The cathedral chapter was endowed with the
right of legitimatizing children born out of wedlock, the revenue of
the officiating clergy was increased, and indulgences of many days were
granted to the principal altars.
A few days after Leo X. left Florence for Rome, his brother Giuliano
died. He left no children by his wife Filiberta of Savoy and the title
of Duc de Nemours, bestowed on him by Francis I. when he married,
lapsed to the French crown. His illegitimate son, Ippolito, we shall
have occasion to mention hereafter. Lorenzo persuaded his uncle, the
Pope, to deprive Francesco Maria della Rovere of the Duchy of Urbino
in his favour, and soon afterwards married Madeleine de la Tour
d’Auvergne, who died after giving birth to a daughter, Catherine,
destined to become Queen of France. Duke Lorenzo of Urbino died, worn
out by dissipation at the age of twenty-seven, six days after his young
wife; and his only claim to fame is Michelangelo’s noble statue, _Il
Pensieroso_, above his tomb in the Medici chapel in S. Lorenzo. The
statue of his uncle, Giuliano, who also died before he was thirty, is
opposite to him in the same chapel holding the baton of command as
Gonfalonier of the Church.
With Leo X. died the last legitimate descendant of Cosimo Pater
Patriae, and the Medici palace was inhabited by the Cardinal Giulio
de’ Medici, son of the Magnificent Lorenzo’s younger brother Giuliano,
by a lady of the Gorini family. He left his mark on the Palazzo by
closing the open loggia on the first floor, where Cosimo had always
received the citizens who visited him, thus turning it into a long
gallery. Even the thorough-going old Republican Jacopo Nardi admits
that the Cardinal’s rule was better than any the city had known for
many a long year, and everything went smoothly until in 1522 a plot
was discovered to murder him. Most of the conspirators, belonging to
well-known Florentine families, fled, but young Diaceto and his friend
Alamanni were beheaded. The old Palazzo Medici was too small to contain
the crowd of citizens of all classes who flocked thither to assure the
Cardinal of their heart-felt joy at his escape. According to Ammirato
their joy was sincere, for the city would probably have been attacked
by the Imperial forces, which had just sacked Genoa and would have
seized on such a good excuse as the murder of the Cardinal-Governor to
obtain so rich a prize.
In November, 1523, the Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici became Pope under the
title of Clement VII. and his election was hailed with demonstrations
of joy in Florence. Ippolito, the handsome illegitimate son of
Giuliano, Duc de Nemours, was sent from Rome under the charge of Silvio
Passerini, Cardinal of Cortona, installed in the Palazzo Medici with
great magnificence and, although he was only thirteen years of age,
declared eligible to all offices of state in the Republic. Alessandro,
the reputed son of Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino, but more probably the child
of Clement himself, together with the young Duchess Catherine, was sent
to Poggio a Cajano, a Medici villa about nine miles out of Florence.
The two lads hated one another, so the Pope thought it best to
separate them. Ippolito was handsome, his manners were engaging and he
already had a right royal way of spending money. Alessandro, commonly
supposed to have been the son of a Moorish slave woman, a report his
crisped hair, thick lips and swarthy complexion, tended to confirm,
was ugly, violent in temper and abrupt in manner. The appointment of
Passerini was not a happy one. “Besides being,” writes Varchi, “like
most prelates, extremely avaricious, he had neither the intellect to
understand the Florentine character, nor the judgment to manage it had
he understood it.” The sack of Rome, and the imprisonment of Clement in
Castel S. Angelo, offered too good an opportunity for the Republican
party in Florence to lose, and the dreaded cry of _Popolo, Libertà_,
resounded in the streets. Ridolfi had come into town with his young
pupil Alessandro, and the anxiety of the inmates of Palazzo Medici
was not lessened by a visit from their imperious kinswoman, Clarice,
daughter of Piero de’ Medici, who had just escaped from Rome with her
husband Filippo Strozzi. He followed her to the Palazzo Medici to ask
for information as to how things were in Florence pretending, that
having just arrived, he was ignorant. Ippolito, with the impetuosity
of youth, recounted how ill the city was behaving and then complained
bitterly that Madonna Clarice sided with rebels against her own kith
and kin. Strozzi professed great sorrow for the behaviour of the
Florentines, and still greater for that of his wife, but the fact was,
he added with a sigh, that, as a Medici, Clarice was so superior to
himself that he had not such control over her as might be desired.
Nevertheless, as the Cardinal and the two lads still hesitated about
following his advice and quitting the city, he summoned his wife to
his help. “Standing in the long gallery she poured forth,” writes old
Segni, “her scorn of the base-born scions of her family. ‘You show
plainly, what is already known, that you are not of the blood of the
Medici. I say this, not only of you, but of Pope Clement, wrongfully
a Pope, and now most righteously a prisoner in S. Angelo. As for you,
leave a house and a city, neither of which are yours by the right of
either birth or of merit. Go, and lose no time.’”
Quitting the Medici palace, the Cardinal and the two lads rode out of
the Porta S. Gallo and for the third time the Medici were exiled, and
their noble palace was attacked by the mob who were with difficulty
restrained from setting it on fire. The arms of the Medici were
everywhere defaced and the waxen counterfeits of the Popes Leo and
Clement were torn from their places in the church of the Annunziata and
destroyed (see p. 380).
After the terrible privations suffered by Florence during the siege
under the Prince of Orange, her citizens were fain to bow their necks
once more to the Medicean yoke. In obedience to an order _motu proprio,
et de plenitudine potestatis_, from Clement VII., they declared that
considering the excellent qualities, life and habits of the Most
Illustrious Duke Alessandro de’ Medici, son of the late Magnificent
Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino, and in recognition of the many and great
benefits received, both spiritual and temporal from the house of
Medici, he was eligible to all offices of State. Ippolito, who had
entered the Church unwillingly, had been made a Cardinal before he
was twenty. “He was handsome and agreeable,” writes Varchi, “with a
quick understanding and gifted with every grace and accomplishment,
affable and pleasant to every man and most liberal towards all who
excelled in war or letters, or in any of the liberal arts.... He knew
Latin well, and wrote gracefully, both in prose and verse, in the
Florentine idiom.... It is true that by nature he was superficial and
fickle, and did many things solely out of vainglory and ambition....
When he understood, or heard from others, that Pope Clement had decided
that the riches and the greatness of the house of Medici were to be
continued by Alessandro and not by himself, a great change took place
in him. He was seized with incredible anger and grief, as it seemed to
him that being older, a nearer relation to the Pope and better endowed
by nature, so rich an inheritance and so brilliant a marriage should
rather be his: either not knowing, or not believing, the secret rumours
that Alessandro was the son of Clement.” He left Rome in haste for
Florence with the idea of seizing the State before Alessandro, who was
in Flanders with his future father-in-law the Emperor, could arrive.
The Pope despatched Bacio Valori after him laden with entreaties and
promises, and after passing a few days in Florence and finding that he
had no following, he returned to Rome. On the 4th July, Alessandro,
who had been created Duke of Cività di Penna, entered Florence and
dismounted at the Palazzo Medici, where he was received by the
principal citizens.
The exiled Florentines, who were plotting against the stern and
dissolute rule of Alessandro, often met in Filippo Strozzi’s house in
Rome, and their deliberations were always communicated to the Cardinal
Ippolito de’ Medici. At last it was decided to send an embassy to
Charles V. to complain of the tyranny of the Duke Alessandro and to
expose his evil life. This sealed the fate of Ippolito. He died of
poison in August, 1535, and the man he accused on his deathbed and who
cynically admitted his crime, took refuge in Alessandro’s house in Via
Larga.
Splendid was the reception of the Emperor Charles V. when he entered
Florence on the 24th April, 1536. During the seven days he passed in
the Palazzo Medici grand entertainments were given; but old Varchi
complains that, unlike other Emperors, he bestowed no privileges on
the city and left no memorial of his visit. The old palace witnessed
yet grander festivals on the 19th June, for the marriage of the Duke
Alessandro with Margaret of Austria, the illegitimate daughter of
Charles V. She came from Naples, accompanied by the Vice-queen, the
Grand Penitentiary Cardinal of Santi Quattro and the Cardinal Cibo.
After the marriage service in S. Lorenzo there was a grand banquet,
to which all the Florentine nobility were invited, and then dancing;
followed by a comedy and a sham fight by torchlight on the Piazza S.
Lorenzo.
The young Duchess, according to a contemporary chronicler, was very
happy, “for the Duke paid her great court and she knew not that he
paid even more to other women of all grades.” Banquets, masked balls
and comedies, were given in the old palace, and one of the constant
guests was a cousin of the Duke’s, a descendant of the younger branch
of the Medici family, called Lorenzo. His father died when he was a
child and his mother, Maria Soderini, devoted herself to his education.
Gifted with an excellent memory and good abilities he learnt with
ease; but Varchi describes him as of a restless and dissatisfied
temperament, and fond of low company. Being small and slightly made he
was generally known as Lorenzino, which was changed to Lorenzaccio,
when his real character was known. Of a dark complexion and melancholy
aspect, he dressed carelessly, affected contempt for all who exposed
themselves to danger and openly proclaimed himself a coward. He made
himself necessary to Alessandro, whose inseparable companion he became,
encouraging him in all his vices, which he shared, and amusing him by
his scurrilous wit.
Rastrelli tells us that “on the 5th January, 1536, in carnival time,
the Duke and Lorenzino disguised themselves as mountaineers and on
sorry donkeys rode about the town paying visits to their mistresses
and playing practical jokes. Thus passed the day, and towards evening
they returned weary to the palace and supped together. Then Lorenzino
said to his cousin, What shall we do to-night? and the Duke replied, I
shall go to bed for I am tired out. Whereupon the traitorous Lorenzino
whispered something in the Duke’s ear, who sprang up, went to his room
and took a mantle lined with rich fur. Girding on his sword and putting
his dagger in his belt, he left the palace secretly by the garden
wicket, followed by Giomo da Carpi, Unghero, Captain Giustiniani of
Cesena and one of his own body servants. On the Piazza S. Marco he met
Lorenzino who was awaiting him and dismissed his attendants, and the
two cousins returned to Lorenzino’s house. The Duke began to loosen his
belt, but Lorenzino undid it entirely and took from him his sword and
dagger, entangling the belt so dexterously round the handles of both
that they could not be easily drawn. After a while the Duke asked at
what hour the expected lady would arrive, and Lorenzino answered: She
waits for me to fetch her. Go then, said Alessandro, and in order that
she may not be recognized give her my mantle, and as he spoke he began
to take it off. But Lorenzino, who wished him to be wrapped round as
far as possible and impeded in his movements, answered: No, she will
know how to disguise herself properly; and without further ado left
the room, taking care so to close the door that it could only be opened
from the outside. The Duke, being very tired, threw himself on the bed
in his mantle and fell asleep.
“The lady in question was Caterina Ginori, sister to Lorenzino’s
mother. She lived close to the back entrance of the Palazzo Medici and
was as virtuous as she was beautiful. But she lived in a poor way, as
Leonardo, her husband, had dissipated his patrimony and was living as
an outlaw in Naples. The Duke, falling in love with her beauty, had
asked Lorenzino to help him to obtain speech of her, and Lorenzino
encouraged him in his passion, hoping thereby to find means to effect
his traitorous design. He went straight to the house of a certain Piero
di Gioannabate, surnamed Scoronconcolo, a quarrelsome man of vile
character, devoted to Lorenzino, who by his influence with the Duke
had saved him from execution. Some days before Lorenzino had said to
him: I have an enemy who is always jeering at me and turning me into
ridicule, what can we do? Point him out to me, answered Scoronconcolo,
and if he annoys you again, complain of me and not of him. Being thus
sure of the villain’s courage, Lorenzino said: Pietro, the time has
come for fulfilling the promise you made me; the enemy who continually
derides me is now in my room, let us go and kill him. It is well,
replied the fellow, it is not I that will fail you. At the threshold,
fearing he might lose courage, Lorenzino turned to him and said: You
will not fear even if it is a friend of the Duke’s? Strike hard. Were
it the Duke himself I should not fear, answered Piero. You have guessed
aright, said Lorenzino, it is the Duke; he cannot escape us, let us
set to work heartily. For an instant the assassin seemed to hesitate,
but plucking up courage he exclaimed: Here we are, let us proceed even
though it were the devil himself. Entering the room Lorenzino advanced
to the bed whereon the Duke was sleeping profoundly. Raising the
curtain he called in an angered tone: What, Duke, are you asleep? and
with a short sword pierced him in the back. The blade passed through
his body, and rising in a fury the Duke staggered towards the door
shouting: Traitor. Then turning his eyes, still heavy with sleep, he
saw Lorenzino and exclaimed: This from thee, and attempted to defend
himself. Lorenzino threw himself upon him and placed his open hand over
his mouth to prevent his cries from being heard, while his abominable
companion gave the Duke Alessandro a stab on the temple which crushed
his left cheek. The bleeding and dying prince seized Lorenzino’s thumb
between his teeth, and the pain caused him to fall on the top of the
Duke; he called to Scoronconcolo for help, who could do nothing for
fear of wounding him instead of the victim. Lorenzino recollecting
that he had a knife in his pocket, took it out with the other hand
and opening the blade with his teeth stabbed the Duke in the throat.
Raising the bleeding body from the floor they placed it on the bed and
Lorenzino wrote on a sheet of paper _Vincit amor patriae laudumque
immenso cupido_, and laid it on the corpse. Then locking the door they
went to the Bishop Angelo Marzi, who kept the keys of the city gates
and was alone authorized to grant permits for post horses. Knowing
the friendship which existed between the Duke and his cousin, the
Bishop never hesitated about giving the permits and the murderers left
Florence at once.”[76] There was considerable alarm in the Palazzo
Medici next day when the Duke did not make his appearance. All the
houses he was likely to frequent were searched in vain, and at first it
was thought that he had gone with Lorenzino to Cafaggiuolo.
“Strange noises had been heard,” writes Varchi, “in Lorenzino’s house.
But they excited no suspicion, as for some time he had been in the
habit of taking boon companions to his room, where they made noises
as though they were fighting; rushing about the house, shouting, hit
him, kill him, traitor, and the like. The first to give the alarm
was Lorenzino’s servant. He went to Cardinal Cibo in the palace, who
commanded the men to maintain absolute silence under pain of losing
his head, and then ordered the game of Saracino to be played to amuse
the people. To those who inquired for the Duke, he smilingly answered
that being tired he was still in bed.” The news had however got
abroad. “Groups and parties of citizens,” continues Varchi, “were on
the Piazza, and every one spoke out freely as though no doubt existed
that the great Council would at once be summoned. They debated as to
who would be chosen Gonfalonier, and whether for life or not ... and
meanwhile the Forty-eight had been summoned to the Palazzo Medici
by the Cardinal, and were assembled in the large gallery upstairs.”
Francesco Guicciardini and Francesco Vettori proposed Cosimo de’
Medici, son of the famous Giovanni delle Bande Nere, and of Maria
Salviati, as successor to the Duke Alessandro. “But,” as Varchi
observes, “the Forty-eight were of forty-eight different opinions
and so nothing was settled.” Full powers were given to the Cardinal
Cibo to conduct the government of the city for three days, a decision
so unpopular that when the burghers passed the shops of the smaller
artisans they beat their instruments on the counters, shouting: “If
you do not know how to, or cannot, act, call us. We will settle the
question.”
“At this moment, when it only needed some one to begin a tumult,”
writes Varchi, “Signor Cosimo arrived in Florence with but a few
followers. As the son of Signor Giovanni, of fair aspect, and having
always displayed a kindly disposition and a good understanding, he
was liked by the people and they acclaimed him as the heir to Duke
Alessandro with great affection. Showing neither grief nor joy, he
rode on with a certain air of majesty, appearing rather to merit the
throne than to desire it. Dismounting at the palace he visited the
Cardinal and, first expressing his regret at the death of the Duke,
he then with great tact, inspired either by his own natural prudence,
or having been instructed by others said, that like a good son he had
come to place not only his fortune, but his life, at the service of his
country and of its citizens.” The following morning Cosimo de’ Medici
was proclaimed, not Duke, but Head and Governor of the Florentine
Republic.
Cosimo I., though but a lad of nineteen, soon showed that he intended
to be the master. Cardinal Cibo and Francesco Guicciardini, the latter
of whom had been chiefly instrumental in placing him at the head of the
Florentine Republic, were set aside, and in June the following year
the Emperor Charles V. granted him the rank and the title of Duke of
Florence. In 1539 he married Eleonora di Toledo, second daughter of Don
Pedro di Toledo the Viceroy of Naples, and once more the great palace
was the scene of splendid festivities. It was soon afterwards deserted,
as Cosimo I., to make it quite plain to his subjects that the whole
government now centered in him alone, decided to take up his abode
in the ancient Palazzo de’ Signori. The Medici palace was closed and
abandoned until the Grand Duke Ferdinando II. sold it to the Senator
Gabriello Riccardi in 1659 for 41,000 scudi, when it became the Palazzo
Riccardi.
The Riccardi added considerably to the building, but care was taken
to preserve the same style of architecture and only a close observer
would notice that the arms of the Riccardi, a key, are in the
triangles of the windows, instead of the Medici balls. The terrace,
above which is a fine shield with the arms of the Riccardi; is often
pointed out as occupying the site of the room in which the murder of
the Duke Alessandro took place. But it was built on the site of a
small house adjoining Cosimo’s palace, belonging to the Da Lutiano
family, and Signor Corrazzini suggests that it was made in order to be
able to continue the cornice and the “bozzi” round the corner of the
palace, which would have been impossible had it been attached to the
next house. The internal arrangements of the building were entirely
changed, and many rooms were added at the back, where there is a second
courtyard with an entrance into the Via de’ Ginori. It was then that
the architect, G. B. Foggini, committed the unpardonable vandalism
of cutting off a corner of the chapel in order to widen the chief
staircase, and thus destroyed part of Gozzoli’s fresco.
The Riccardi were of German origin. A certain Annichino di Riccardo
came from Cologne and was made a citizen of Florence in 1368. The
family made a large fortune by trade, but their name does not appear
in the annals of the city until Riccardo Riccardi was created a
Senator and a Marquis in 1654, by Ferdinando II. He founded the fine
library, still known as the Riccardiana, and his son, after purchasing
the Medici palace, had the great gallery gorgeously frescoed and
decorated by Luca Giordano with the apotheosis of the Medici family
and allegories of the vicissitudes of human life. Francesco Riccardi
married the only daughter and heiress of Vincenzo Capponi, and her
father’s valuable library was added to the one already existing in the
palace, which later was further augmented by Canon Riccardi’s fine
collection of manuscripts and illuminated missals.[77]
Palazzo Riccardi must have been let to the French government, as in
March, 1799, General Gaulthier had his head-quarters there until the
arrival of M. Reinhard, the Commissary-General. A wondrous ceremony
took place in June in the large room. Orders came from Paris to hold
a solemn funeral service in commemoration of those who had fallen
at Rastadt. So all the officers, municipal councillors and heads of
departments met in the Palazzo Riccardi, which was hung with black and
decorated with festoons of cypress. On a sarcophagus stood the cinerary
urn and round it were placed three crowns of oakleaves with the
inscription: “Ils travaillaient pour la paix des peuples, les tyrans
les ont assassinés.” Two tricolour flags draped with crape were at one
end of the room, and a raised stand for the band of the national guard
and the singers had been erected. M. Reinhard then pronounced a funeral
oration and, while the band played a slow and solemn symphony his wife,
dressed in white, with a black scarf across her breast and a crown
of laurel on her head, mounted the steps up to the urn. Dramatically
casting her eyes up to heaven she first embraced it and then scattered
flowers over it. The ceremony ended with the singing of _Ça ira_ and
the _Marseillaise_. Eighteen months later Joachim Murat, the handsomest
man in the French army, entered Florence at the head of a brilliant
staff. Magnificently costumed, and with highly rouged cheeks, he rode
proudly through the city and dismounted at the Riccardi palace, where
General Gaulthier received him at the head of the staircase. He did
not however stay long in the Via Larga, as he found the old palace too
sombre, cold and _triste_, but requisitioned the Corsini palace where
his wife, Caroline Bonaparte, soon joined him.[78] The Palazzo Riccardi
was the head-quarters of the civil engineers as long as the French
supremacy lasted. In 1814 it was bought by the Tuscan government, and
during the few years that Florence was the capital of United Italy, it
was the seat of the Home Office. Later the old palace was sold to the
Province of Florence and is now the Prefecture.
PALAZZO RIDOLFI
_Via Maggio. No. 13._
From Rodolfo, son of a certain Diotifece who lived at Poppiano in
the Val di Pesa in the XIIIth century, descend the three families of
Ridolfi whose name occurs so frequently in the annals of Florence. The
Ridolfi del Ponte, whose old tower still stands grey and grim opposite
to that of the Mannelli in the Via de’ Bardi; the Ridolfi di Piazza,
whose houses were clustered round the church of S. Felice (Borgo di
Piazza was one of the three borghi, or parishes, of the Oltrarno); and
the Ridolfi di Borgo, who had their houses in the Borgo S. Jacopo. In
1378 the Ridolfi, being Ghibellines, were expelled the city, and their
houses were sacked and burnt; but three years later they returned to
Florence and made a large fortune as wool merchants. Lorenzo Ridolfi,
born in 1362, was a remarkable man. A great jurist, he expounded
canon law at the Studio Fiorentino, attended to business in his shop
in the Via Maggio, was Pro-consul of the Guild of Wool, four times
Gonfalonier of Justice, and was sent (whenever a knotty question arose)
as ambassador of the Republic to popes and foreign sovereigns. He had
four sons, Bernardo, Luigi, Antonio and Giovanni, from the second of
whom descend the present representatives of the family. They were all
Gonfaloniers of Justice, and friends of the Medici; indeed, so devoted
was Antonio, that when Lorenzo the Magnificent was stabbed in the
cathedral on the occasion of the conspiracy of the Pazzi he sucked the
wound, fearing the dagger might have been poisoned. One of Lorenzo
Ridolfi’s grandsons, Giovan Battista, was a gallant soldier, who fought
against Bentivoglio and took him prisoner at Faenza. He was elected
Gonfalonier of Justice for life after Piero Soderini, and opposed the
return of the exiled Piero de’ Medici, whilst another, Niccolò, lost
his head in 1497 for conspiring with Bernardo del Nero for his recall.
Niccolò bought the palace in the Via Maggio, which still belongs to
the Ridolfi, from the powerful family of the Corbinelli. The architect
is unknown, but it is evidently of the XIVth century, with its large
windows and fine doorway. The _graffite_ on the façade are of course of
a later date. All Niccolò’s possessions were confiscated when he was
beheaded. But on the return of the Medici to power the estates were
given back to his son Piero, husband of Contessina, daughter of Lorenzo
the Magnificent, whilst the youngest, Niccolò, was made a Cardinal at
twelve years of age, and became Archbishop of Florence at nineteen. He
lived chiefly at Orvieto, where he kept up a princely establishment,
and being intensely hostile to the Duke Alessandro de’ Medici, his
house was the refuge of all the Florentine exiles. During the conclave
of 1550 he died; poisoned, it was said, by the orders of Cosimo I., who
feared he might be elected Pope.
Roberto Ridolfi, head of the banking-house in London, allowed his
religious zeal to get the better of his discretion. He conspired in
favour of Mary Queen of Scots, and was imprisoned in the Tower of
London, but contrived to escape and took refuge in Rome.
Attached to the Ridolfi palace is another of the XVIth century, which
was built on the site of two houses also belonging to the Corbinelli.
Bought by the Sangaletti in 1583, they were soon afterwards sold to
the Zanchini Da Castiglionichio, who threw them into one, employing,
it is said, Santi di Tito as their architect. The courtyard is of pure
XVth century design, and was probably incorporated with the new palace
by the Zanchini, whose arms are still to be seen on the corner of the
palace. Marchese Cosimo Ridolfi bought it in 1843, and added it to his
own.
In the façade of a house nearly opposite the side entrance to the
Boboli gardens in Via Romana is a bas-relief of S. Peter the Apostle
seated; at either end are the old arms of the Ridolfi, and between is
the inscription _Hospitium Nobilis Ridolforum Familiae_. This is all
that remains of a hospital, which, according to the custom of those
days when every great family had its own small hospital, Piero Ridolfi
intended to build. He bought a house from the Calvacanti, but died in
1349 before he could carry out his intention. So his nephew Antonio
built the hospital, and various members of the family left considerable
sums for its maintenance. It was suppressed in 1751, and its funds
given to the Bigallo.
PALAZZO RONDINELLI
_Via della Forca._
The family of the Rondinelli made a large fortune in trade, and owned
several palaces in the old Via de’ Rondinelli (now Via della Forca),
and their coat-of-arms, with six swallows, is still to be seen there
on the façade of a house. They afterwards lived in what is now the
Via de’ Rondinelli, and a palace in the Piazza S. Lorenzo, which was
incorporated in the convent of S. Giovannino, also belonged to them.
The origin of the family is given differently by two old writers.
Verino says:
“Unde sit ignoro, tribuit cui nomen Hirundo:
Est antiqua tamen, carnit nec honore propago.
Ili Fesulis genitam soboles eeu nobilis omnis
Ist Flaminie dicunt ex arcibus ortam,”
while Gamurini declares they had nothing to do with Fiesole, but
came from a castle near Arezzo called Rondine (Swallow). In 1192 a
Rondinello di Ulivieri is mentioned in the records of the Opera del
Duomo, and his son, Spinabello, commonly called Bello di Rondinello,
was one of the Elders of the city who signed the league with Arezzo in
Sta. Reparata in 1258. Vieri, Bello’s son, was the first of thirty-six
Priors his family gave to Florence, and a few years later the first of
twelve Gonfaloniers of Justice. The Rondinelli were Guelphs, and always
in the van of every popular movement, and Michele, who was deputed to
buy Lucca of the Scaliger in 1341, became extraordinarily beloved owing
to his liberality and kindly manners, and was one of the leaders of the
people when they rose against the _Grandi_. Rinaldo, his nephew, was
twice sent as ambassador to the Republic of Lucca to watch the Pisan
exiles who were plotting against Florence. He joined with Giovanni and
Cosimo de’ Medici in building S. Lorenzo, but died before the church
was half finished, and left strict orders in his will that his sons
were to continue the work.
Antonio Rondinelli, whose name is linked for ever with that of the
beautiful Ginevra degl’Amieri must, if he and Ginevra are not mere
creations of the popular phantasy, have been a brother of Michele.
The Amieri, one of the proudest and oldest families of Florence,
whose magnificent palaces and towers stood near S. Andrea in the old
market place, were strongly Ghibelline. Scorning an alliance with a
Rondinelli, a _Popolano_ and a Guelph, they forced Ginevra to marry
Francesco degl’Agolanti, whose family was on a par with her own. In
vain she tried to forget the handsome, gentle Antonio. She sickened,
and one day fell into a deep swoon, as dead; her death was attributed
to the plague which was then raging in Florence, and she was hastily
buried in the vault of the Amieri adjoining the Duomo.[79] In that
terrible year (1400) people were often buried with their jewellery, and
thieves, braving the infection, went at night to rob the corpses. Two
of these fellows lifted the stone of the vault. The fresh air revived
Ginevra, who sat up, whereupon the men, thinking she was a ghost, fled.
Ginevra called her women, but to her horror saw she was surrounded by
skeletons, and understood what had happened. Slipping off the linen
bands which tied her hands, she was able to set her feet free. The
moon was full as she climbed the steps out of the vault, and wrapping
her shroud around her she crossed the Piazza, and went down the small
street which has, they say, ever since borne the name of Via della
Morte, to her husband’s house.[80] Francesco opened the window when
she knocked, but thought that the spirit of his dead wife was asking
for suffrages, and promising to have masses said for the repose of her
soul, shut the window. Ginevra then went on to her father’s house,
where her mother sat weeping by the fireside, and in the old popular
ballad in _ottava rima_ by Agotino Velletti, we read:
“E spaventata e piena di paura
Disse: va in pace, anima benedetta,
Bella figliuola mia, onesta e pura;
E riserro la finestra con fretta.”
Rejected by husband and mother, she turned her steps to the house of
her uncle, who had always loved her, and implored his help, but:
“Fugli risposto: anima benedetta,
Va, che Dio ti conservi in santa pace.”[81]
Shuddering with cold and misery, in utter despair she thought of
Antonio Rondinelli. After praying under the portico of S. Bartolomeo
she hurried to his door, and crying for aid, fell exhausted to the
ground. “Then,” writes J. A. Symonds, “comes the finest touch in the
poem. Antonio knows Ginevra’s voice; and loving her so tenderly, he
hurries with delight to greet her risen from the grave. He alone has no
fear, and no misgiving; for love in him is stronger than death. At the
street door, when he reaches it, he finds no ghost, but his own dear
lady yet alive. She is half frozen and unconscious, yet her heart still
beats. How he calls the women of his household to attend her, prepares
a bed, and feeds her with warm soups and wine, and how she revives, and
how Antonio claims her to be his wife, and wins his cause against her
former bridegroom in the bishop’s court, may be read at length in the
concluding portion of the tale.”[82]
The Gonfalonier Tommaso di Vieri de’ Rondinelli was so beloved that on
his death, in 1430, the people insisted on giving him a public funeral.
The name of one of his descendants, Giovanni, is known as a poet of
some note. When in 1790 the old family of the Vitelli died out, the
Rondinelli inherited their estates and their name, and I believe the
palace in Via della Stufa, where the last of the Rondinelli died, and
which now belongs to his daughter, was a Palazzo Vitelli.
PALAZZO RUCELLAI
_Via della Vigna Nuova. No. 20._
Tradition says that the ancestor of the noble house of Rucellai was
a Messer Ferro, who came from Brittany with an Emperor, and took up
his abode at Campi, near Florence, where the family still own a fine
villa. But according to Count Passerini,[83] an acknowledged authority,
the real founder was Alamanno di Monte, a rich cloth merchant who,
whilst travelling in the Levant about 1250, observed that a beautiful
violet dye was extracted from the herb Oricella (_Lichen Rocella_
of Linnæus); he introduced it into Florence, and from it the family
took their name. Bernardo, his grandson, commonly called Naddo di
Giunta, was Prior in 1302, the first of eighty-five the Rucellai gave
to Florence; six years later he was Gonfalonier of Justice, and after
him thirteen others of the family filled that important post. He
built the chapel of Sta. Caterina, in Sta. Maria Novella, in which is
the stately Madonna, said by Vasari to have been painted by Cimabue,
whose triumphant progress through Florence he describes so vividly.
Bencivenni, his son, generally known as Cenni di Naddo, played an
important part in the faction fights between the Whites and the Blacks,
and was six times elected a Prior of his native city. When Gonfalonier
of Justice in 1328 he raised 60,000 golden florins to continue the
war against Castruccio Castrocane, and by his energy and acumen saved
Florence from falling into the clutches of the house of Anjou. After
the city, owing to the incapacity of Malatesta da Rimini, General of
the Florentine army, was seized by the Duke of Athens, Bencivenni’s son
Naddo was beheaded, and he only saved his own life by taking refuge
as a novice in the Dominican monastery of Sta. Maria Novella until
the city had thrown off the yoke of the tyrant. Bencivenni was a man
of large views and great prudence, he defended the people against the
nobles and was so trusted by them that it was a common saying when a
man was condemned to death, “God can save thee, or Cenni di Naddo.” The
Rucellai then lived near the Piazza Vecchia di Sta. Maria Novella, and
the Via di Cenni is supposed to take its name from him. Andrea, another
of Naddo’s sons, having no taste for commerce, took service in France,
where he was knighted, and fought in the wars against England. When
eventually he returned to Florence he was made Castellano of Carmignano
and the adjacent strong places guarding the Pisan and Lucchese
frontiers. A few days before his death he determined to knight his
two sons, Albizzo and Francesco; and as five marriages were to take
place in the Rucellai family, he gave a splendid entertainment for the
seven events in the cloisters of Sta. Maria Novella, which for a whole
week resounded with music and dancing, singing and feasting. “Never,”
says an old chronicler, “was so magnificent a sight.”
[Illustration: PALAZZO RUCELLAI.]
Berlinghieri, his nephew, usually called Bingeri di Naddo, was a
gallant soldier, to whom the town of Siena granted the right to quarter
her arms, a white lion on a red ground, with his own, as a reward
for his services against the Tolomei. Paolo, son of Bingeri, when
Gonfalonier of Justice in 1364, promulgated a law against the excessive
luxury of dress indulged in by the Florentine ladies, and augmented
the sum set apart every year by the Commune for the completion of
Giotto’s beautiful campanile. He left his second wife, Caterina
Pandolfini, with four young boys and little to live on. A descendant
of his, Francesco Rucellai, who wrote in the XVIIth century describes
Giovanni, the eldest, as “a man of singular goodness and well grounded
in literature. He began his commercial life under the auspices of
Messer Palla Strozzi, a man famed for his great learning, nobility
and immense riches. Palla seeing Giovanni’s excellent character and
keen intelligence, and loving him as a son, determined to give him
his daughter to wife, and he did it in this wise. Giovanni usually
accompanied Messer Palla every morning at dinner-time, after work was
over, as far as his house, and one day, when as usual he asked leave
to go to his own people, Messer Palla told him to enter his house, and
calling Jacopa, his daughter, told Giovanni to take the girl’s hand
because he intended that she should be his wife. The said Jacopa when
her father called her had just washed her hair, and did not wish to
appear before a stranger in undress, so her mother made excuses for
her; but Messer Palla insisted on being obeyed, saying in the presence
of his family that the young man brought by him was to be her husband.
In 1427 the marriage took place, when Giovanni became the partner of
Messer Palla in his commerce and participated in the great gains made
by the house of Strozzi, so that in time he became very rich.”
In 1456 Giovanni obliged his eldest son, Pandolfo, to marry
Caterina, daughter of Buonaccorso Pitti. Even as a child Pandolfo
was extraordinarily religious and had set his heart on entering the
Church; but he was a good husband and father, and showed great ability
in banking affairs and in the various high offices he filled. After
his wife’s death, when his children were grown up and no longer needed
him, he received the habit of S. Dominic at the hands of Savonarola,
to whom he was devoted. Owing to the exile of Messer Palla Strozzi,
Francesco Rucellai tells us that “Giovanni was out of favour, and for
twenty years was looked upon with suspicion by the party of Cosimo the
Elder, the ruler. So he was obliged to be careful, as people tried to
stir up accusations against him. But real goodness is above malice
and suspicion, and Giovanni preferred to suffer for the peace of the
Republic rather than harm his beloved country by attempting to change
the government for the benefit of Messer Palla and himself. Thus he
gave no hold to his enemies, and Cosimo, astonished, desired to have
him as a friend and relation. So in 1461 he gave Nannina, daughter of
his son Piero, to Giovanni’s second son Bernardo, a lad younger than
the bride.”
It is to Giovanni that we owe the lovely Palazzo Rucellai still
inhabited by the family, which was built by his intimate friend Leon
Battista Alberti, as well as the exquisite loggia opposite. In 1450
the palace was finished, and Neri di Bicci notes in his _Ricordi_: “In
1455 I painted for Giovanni Rucellai in his house five arches of sham
perspective, a coat-of-arms in high relief with a helmet, and two
half-length figures, a lady and a serving-man, in fresco.”
In the loggia of the Rucellai, now defaced by being turned into a
post-office, the marriages of three of Giovanni’s five daughters were
arranged on the same day “to his great content.” The citizens of
Florence used to meet and discuss their affairs under these loggie, and
after the introduction of the game of chess from the East, such large
sums of money were lost at dice, draughts and chess, that a law was
passed forbidding any games to be played in courtyards, porticoes, or
loggie. Sacchetti[84] describes how “while seated in a loggia a most
notable citizen of Florence, named Guido de’ Cavalcanti, was intent on
a game of chess, a boy, playing with other children at ball, or with
a top, as is their habit, often came near to him with such noise as
boys usually make, and being pushed by a companion against the said
Guido, he, perchance being worsted at the game, rose furiously and
struck the boy saying: ‘Go and play elsewhere,’ and then continued his
game. This angered the boy, who, crying and shaking his head, still
loitered around muttering: ‘I will repay thee,’ and having a nail from
a horseshoe he returned with the others to where Guido was playing, and
with a stone in his hand went behind him and began to hammer on the
bench at first softly, and at long intervals, and then quickly, and
more impetuously, so that he caused Guido to turn round and say: ‘Dost
thou desire more? It were better for thee to go home. What art thou
hammering with that stone?’ The boy answered, ‘I am only straightening
this nail.’ So Guido turned again to the board and continued his game.
Little by little the boy, always hammering with the stone, stole nigh
to where a fold of Guido’s tunic, or the trimming thereof, fell on to
the bench, and holding the stone with one hand and the nail with the
other, he drove it through the said fold, hitting harder and harder so
that it should be firm and fast, with the intent that the said Guido
should be driven to rise. And it came to pass as the boy desired.
Guido, sick to death of the hammering rose quickly in great anger, the
boy ran away, and Guido remained fastened to the bench by his tunic.”
Monsignore V. Borghini (MSS. Magliabechiana) mentions that fifteen
loggie existed in Florence when he wrote, and traces of some of them
may still be distinguished. One belonging to the Agolanti, opposite
the Ghetto, was so celebrated in olden times as a place for arranging
marriages, that the street corner was commonly called “del Parentado,”
and people said that beneath that loggia you might be sure “di non far
casaccia,” _i. e._, not to make an unsuitable alliance.
Not satisfied with building a palace, Giovanni also occupied himself
with churches, for Vasari writes: “Wishing to ornament the façade of
Sta. Maria Novella in marble at his own expense, Giovanni di Paolo
Rucellai consulted with Leon Battista, his intimate friend, and having
obtained, not only advice, but a design from him, resolved to do the
work in order to leave a memorial of himself, and it was finished,
to the great satisfaction of all, in 1477.” The Rucellai were always
great patrons of the church of Sta. Maria Novella. Albizzo di Naddo di
Giunta left in 1334 one hundred and sixty florins to build a tomb for
himself outside the chapel of All Saints and to pay for the painting
of the chapel itself. It was restored a hundred years later by Andrea
Rucellai, whose name can still be traced on the marble stoop at the
door. Another of the family, Gugliemo, gave the marble pulpit designed
by Brunelleschi, and beneath it he made a vault, in which he was buried
in 1477. He was so rich that he owned a large fleet of ships and was
deputed by the Republic to receive Galeazzo Sforza, Duke of Milan, when
he came to Florence. The indolence his brother Piero, Gonfalonier of
Justice in 1455, became proverbial. No letter was ever read or answered
by him, and Lorenzo the Magnificent, when he did not wish to reply to
any document used to say, “I shall do as did Piero di Cardinale.”
Giuliano Bugiardini painted the martyrdom of S. Catherine for the
altar of the chapel of the same name in Sta. Maria Novella for Palla
Rucellai. “He kept it twelve years,” writes Vasari, “and in all
that time never could finish it, as he lacked the invention and the
knowledge for representing the various incidents that occurred in that
martyrdom; and as he was always changing, trying how to arrange the
wheels and how to represent the lightning, and the fire that burned
them, he undid one day what he had done the day before.... Palla, who
often asked him to finish the picture, at length bethought him to
take Michelangelo to see it, and Bugiardini told him with how much
labour he had painted the lightning, which falling from heaven had
shattered the wheels and killed those who turned them; and the sun,
which shining from a cloud liberates S. Catherine from death. He then
begged Michelangelo, who could not control his laughter on hearing
the woes of poor Bugiardini, to tell him how _he_ would arrange eight
or ten principal figures in the foreground of the picture; a row of
soldiers on guard who, in the act of escaping, fall down wounded and
killed; because he did not know how to fore-shorten them in such way
as to get them all into so restricted a space. So Buonarroti, out of
complaisance, and having compassion on the poor man, took a piece of
charcoal and sketched a row of marvellous naked figures, fore-shortened
in various attitudes, some falling back and others forward, both dead
and wounded, drawn with the knowledge and the excellence which pertains
to Michelangelo.”
A curious book by Giovanni called _Il Zibaldone Quaresimale_ has
never been published in its entirety, but an account of it, and
various extracts are given by Marcotti.[85] It begins: “This book has
been planned and written by me Giovanni di Pagholo di Messer Pagholo
Rucellai, merchant and citizen of Florence in the year 1459, in the
castle of Sancto Gemignano where I am with all my family, having fled
from the plague in my city of Florence. In it I have begun to instruct
and inform my sons Pandolfo and Bernardo of many things that I think
may be useful to them. It will be a salad of various herbs according to
the understanding of the reader.”
There is a little of everything in the _Zibaldone_, town gossip,
reflections on the commercial superiority of Venice, copies of letters,
philosophical discussions, quotations from Aristotle, Boethius, Dante,
S. Bernard and Seneca, followed by moral and religious maxims taken
from sermons, an account of his forbears and their doings, excellent
advice as how to bring up children, and a description of his various
buildings. Near the end of the book his reasons for being thankful to
God, are so typical of a Florentine of the fifteenth century that I
give them in full:
“First I thank him for having given me life and made me a rational and
an immortal creature, for he might as easily have made me a mortal
beast without intelligence.
“Secondly I must thank him for causing me to be born in a place where
the true faith exists, that is in Christendom, and I must add in the
midst of the faith, that is near Rome, the residence of our Holy Lord
Pope and of his honourable brethren the cardinals, representing Christ
with the apostles; for he might have caused me to be born a Turk, a
Moor, or a barbarian, in which case I should have been irremediably
lost.
“Next I thank him for being born in Italy, which is the most worthy
and the noblest portion of all Christendom, and in the province
of Tuscany, which is reputed as amongst the worthiest provinces of
Italy and in which is part of the city of Rome which once dominated
the world: and in addition to have caused me to be born in the city
of Florence, which is reputed the most worthy and the most beautiful
birthplace there is, not only in Christendom but in the whole world.
“Then I thank him for causing me to live many years in perfect health,
for I am sixty years of age and do not think that in all my life I
spent a month in the house on account of illness, and it seems to me
that health is the greatest grace that one can receive.
“And then I thank him for the good fortune he has conceded to me in
my business, for I have increased and multiplied exceedingly the
small substance that was left to me, so that I find myself to-day
with considerable riches, fine prospects, great credit and a good
reputation. And not only has he conceded unto me grace in acquiring,
but also in spending these riches well, which is not a less virtue. And
I consider that having spent my riches well does me more honour than
having made them, and gives me more satisfaction, particularly with
regard to the buildings I have made; my house in Florence, my place at
Quaracchi,[86] the façade of the church of Sta. Maria Novella and the
loggia which is begun opposite my house, and also the chapel of the
Holy Sepulchre, like to that at Jerusalem of Our Lord Jesus Christ,
made in S. Pancrazio, and the hangings of golden brocade for the same
church.
“Also I have to thank him for causing me to be born of a good face,
that is of noble blood with high connections, and for giving me a fine
family, that is seven children, two male and five female, all of whom
have married into noble houses.
“Also I have to thank him for being born in the present time, which
all competent persons say is, and will be regarded as, the finest
period of our city since it was created, for the reasons that are set
forth in this book; and more particularly for living in the time of
the magnificent citizen Cosimo de’ Medici, who was and is so rich, has
so much knowledge and tact, so high a reputation and so numerous a
following, both outside and within the city, that in all Christendom
there has never lived such a citizen or one with so many good qualities
as have been and are in him; and among other graces vouchsafed to me
by God is that he has made me a relation of the said Cosimo, because
Nannina his grandchild, daughter of Piero his son, is the wife of
Bernardo my son, to whom was born on the 1st June, 1468, a son named
Cosimo.
“Also I thank him for many other benefits and gifts too numerous to
recount. Then I must thank him for guarding and defending me from many
evils and annoyances and adversities which I might have had and have
not had.
“Also I thank him for granting my desire of seeing our city at peace
in my day without any fear of war, for ten or more years, from 1454 to
1464, during which time I experienced perfect tranquillity of mind, and
reflected on the great anguish we endured in past times by reason of
wars and fear of wars.
“Also I thank him for an admirable mother he gave me, named Caterina,
who having four male children when our father, Pagolo, died, and being
nineteen years of age, would not abandon us, but strenuously resisted
the wishes of her mother and her brothers that she should marry again;
and he left her with me for a long time, as she lived more than eighty
years and was a great consolation to me.
“Also I thank him for the most worthy wife he gave me named Jacopa,
daughter to Messer Palla di Nofri Strozzi, who was a most dear wife to
me by reason of her great love for me and the good rule she kept in
our house and family; she was given to me for a long time as she lived
about fifty-five years, passing from this life on the 24th April, 1468,
and this I consider the greatest loss that I ever had or could have.”
The marriage of Giovanni’s son Bernardo with the fascinating Nannina
de’ Medici, sister of Lorenzo the Magnificent, was celebrated with
extraordinary magnificence. The whole street and the loggia, which was
enlarged for the occasion so as to cover the small triangular square
in front of the palace, were hung with blue cloth and decorated with
garlands of flowers and leaves. A stand, raised a foot and a half from
the ground, was erected, and for three days every Florentine of note
was entertained at the bridal feast, eating, drinking, dancing and
listening to music. 1,004 wax candles were made on purpose to burn for
twelve hours each, and 3,686 golden florins were spent by Giovanni in
honour of his Medici daughter-in-law.
Bernardo was a man of inordinate ambition, and when Piero de’ Medici
refused to listen to his advice, he became one of the most violent of
his antagonists. In 1502 he strenuously advocated the appointment of a
Gonfalonier for life, hoping the choice would fall upon himself: but
when Piero Soderini was elected, he again joined the Medicean party,
and the plot against Soderini was hatched in the Oricellari gardens.
He is described by contemporaries as difficult to get on with. He
scouted every plan that did not originate with himself, decried every
form of government because he was not the chosen head, and was swayed
by personal dislikes and a passion for popularity. But if he failed
as a statesman his learning was undeniable. The oration _de auxilio
Typhernatibus adferendo_, to induce the Florentines to succour Città di
Castello, was published in London in 1733 as a model of elegant Latin,
and at the same time his _de Bello Gallico_, which Erasmus declares
might have been written by Sallust, went into a second edition.
Muratori has published his _de Urbe Roma_, which is highly praised as a
description of ancient Rome.
The celebrated Platonic Academy, instituted by Cosimo the Elder, met in
the Rucellai gardens during the exile of its founder, whence its name
of Academia degl’Orti Oricellari.
Of the six children of Bernardo Rucellai and Nannina de’ Medici two
merit especial mention: Palla, who took the lead in turning the
Gonfalonier Piero Soderini out of the Palazzo della Signoria, and
thus paved the way for the return of the Medici to Florence; and
then repenting of having placed his country under such tyranny,
voted against the election of Cosimo I. to the throne, and is said
to have been poisoned by him; and the more famous Giovanni, author
of _Rosmunda_, _Oreste_, and _Le Api_. Giovanni, born in 1457, had
Francesco da Diacceto as his master in philosophy and literature, and
he was brought up with his cousin, Giovanni de’ Medici, afterwards Leo
X., Bibbiena and Machiavelli, in the society of such men as Poliziano,
Marsilio Ficino, the Pulci and Pico della Mirandola. Palla and Giovanni
were sent to France to finish their education, and a charming letter
written from Avignon by the latter is still extant.[87] “I seem to be
in the Promised Land,” exclaims the young Florentine, “abounding in
every good thing that can be desired in this world. Among others I
find myself opposite a house which is intimately connected with that
of Madonna Laura of Petrarch. And there, amidst other noble ladies,
is one whose like mine eyes have never beheld; verily nothing save
the name is lacking in her, so that the sonnets should hit the mark.
And if, on my return, I appear to thee another Petrarch, do not be
astonished, for love is the cause of all things; and if God (_ut
Platoni placet_) _non est mirandum_ if it works miracles. Also here
kisses are allowed, as glances are at home, only I find they have a
far sweeter flavour than in other places. Her name, to tell thee all,
is Anna, and had I more time I would send thee something to prove what
I have told thee. I have seen the effigy of Madonna Laura, which is
indeed most beautiful, and worthy to be loved by such a man as was
Petrarch. I wished to have her copied from the picture to send thee;
but there is not to be found a man capable of doing it in the way I
desire. Still I hope to send thee a sketch if fate so wills it. I have
already learned to say _nani_ and _oi_ (yes and no), and I can give a
kiss without smacking my lips.” When Giovanni de’ Medici became Pope,
young Giovanni Rucellai followed him to Rome and entered the Church. He
was for some time Papal Nuncio in France and afterwards Clement VII.
made him Castellano of S. Angelo.
Giovanni Rucellai’s _Rosmunda_ shares with the _Sofonisba_ of Trissino
the glory of being the first Italian tragedy. It depicts the well-known
story of Alboin, who turned the skull of his wife’s father into a
wine-cup, out of which he forces her to drink. When Giovanni died in
1526 he bequeathed to his brother Palla and to his friend Trissino a
poem on bees. An eyewitness related to Scipione Ammirato how “these
two friends when together in a room would jump upon a bench, declaim
passages out of their tragedies, and then call upon the audience
to decide which was the best. In one of these contests Rucellai
inadvertently got upon the bench with his braces undone, and Trissino
in a loud voice exclaimed: ‘Now see the man who would contend with me!
Like a child he does not know how to fasten his braces.’” The _Api_
was published in 1539, and Trissino undertook to see his friend’s work
through the press. “It is,” writes Symonds, “no mere translation from
Virgil; and though the higher qualities of variety, invention and
imagination were denied to Rucellai, though he can show no passages
of pathos to compete with the ‘Corycius senex,’ of humour to approach
the battle of the hives, no episode, it need hardly be said, to match
with ‘Pastor Aristaeus,’ still his modest poem is a monument of pure
taste and classical correctness. It is the work of a ripe scholar and a
melodious versifier, if not of a great singer; and its diction belongs
to the best period of polite Italian.”
Giovan Battista, great-grandson of Pandolfo, a favourite of Cosimo
I., acted as one of the Captains in the game of calcio, celebrated
in the annals of Florence for its magnificence, which was played in
honour of the marriage of Cosimo’s son Francesco de’ Medici by the
young Florentine nobles. Giovanni, his grandson, studied mathematics
under Galileo at Pisa, and was a remarkable linguist; like so many of
his family he was a fine musician and a good artist. He gave wonderful
_feste_, what we should now call garden parties, at Il Pratello, the
Rucellai villa near Campi, sending _tessere_ with one of the many
emblems of the family to his guests, instead of invitations. By the
kindness of the Countess Edith Rucellai I am enabled here to reproduce
one with the emblem adopted by Bernardo after his marriage with Nannina
de’ Medici--the Medicean ring and three ostrich feathers, white, green
and red, denoting faith, charity and hope. Other emblems used by the
family, such as a compass, a cupid, a peacock and poppies, are to be
seen on the municipal palaces in towns where the Rucellai were Vicarii
or Governors for Florence, on the façade of Sta. Maria Novella, of the
Rucellai palace, and of their loggia. The oldest, Fortune standing in
a ship and holding up a sail to catch the wind, alludes to the great
commercial gains which had enriched the house.
[Illustration]
Francesco Rucellai, a cousin of Giovanni Battista, from whom the
present branch of the family descends, began life as a page to the
Grand Duke Ferdinando II., and was Vicario of the Upper Val d’Arno in
1658. A man of considerable culture, and gifted with charming manners,
he was made a member of all the learned academies of Florence, and
wrote a history of his native town in nine large volumes and one of his
own family, from which I have quoted. His grandson Giulio studied law
at Pisa in 1736, and became a Senator and legal adviser to the Grand
Duke Giovan Gastone, last of the Medici. Enlightened, patriotic and
liberal, he determined to curb the power of the clergy and to abolish
the Inquisition. Several times the Pope demanded the dismissal of so
obnoxious a minister, and when Francis I. of Lorraine became the ruler
of Tuscany he renewed his request. But Rucellai was too necessary a
man. He steadily withstood the pretensions of Clement XII. to nominate
bishops, a right that had been exercised by the Grand Dukes for two
hundred years; and at length, after the well-known case of the poet
Tommaso Crudeli, the last inmate of the prisons of the Inquisition in
Tuscany, he succeeded in suppressing the tribunal. Soon afterwards
he framed a law obliging the clergy to contribute their quota to the
general taxation, and on the 2nd March, 1769, by his advice, the Grand
Duke Pietro Leopoldo proclaimed the celebrated law against mortmain.
Ten years later the right of asylum, that fertile source of scandal and
incentive to crime, was done away with, the jurisdiction of the bishops
was limited to purely spiritual matters and, in order to protect young
girls from being forced to enter a convent against their will, no woman
under thirty was allowed to take the vows. The large sums arising from
the sale of suppressed convents Rucellai used in founding schools for
poor girls.
He adopted his orphan nephew Giovanni Pietro, who became a member of
various Florentine academies, was an admirable musician, and painted
well in _tempera_. Count Cosimo Rucellai has a curious collection of
small family portraits which were probably copied by Giovanni from old
frescoes and pictures which no longer exist.
PALAZZO SALVIATI
(NOW A SCHOOL OF THE SCOLOPI FRIARS)
_Via del Corso. No. 4._
Jacopo Salviati bought the house of Folco de’ Portinari, where Beatrice
was born, together with several others, and where they stood he built a
large palace. This great and powerful family descended from a doctor,
Messer Salvi, whose son Cambio was the first of sixty-three Priors and
of twenty-one Gonfaloniers of Justice of his house. Lotto, another
son, was a great jurist, and his descendant Jacopo Salviati played an
important part in Florence in the XVth century. After subduing the
Counts Guidi and the Ubertini in 1404 he was solemnly knighted by the
Signoria, became Commissary of the Pisan war, and his name appears in
every embassy of that time. Bernardo, his son, was father of Francesco
the Archbishop of Pisa who joined in the Pazzi conspiracy against
Lorenzo and Giuliano de’ Medici, and was hung from a window of the
Palazzo Vecchio (see p. 373). His grandson Jacopo, husband of Lucrezia
de’ Medici, daughter of Lorenzo the Magnificent, was the only man who
dared raise his voice at the court of Clement VII. against creating the
bastard Alessandro de’ Medici Lord of Florence, and against building
the fortress of S. Giovanni. It was then that he uttered the prophetic
words, “God grant that Filippo [Strozzi] in advocating the building of
this fortress is not digging his own grave.” A cousin of his married
Laudomia de’ Medici, and their son Giuliano, after insulting the name
of his mother’s family and helping the mob to destroy their arms in
1527, became the intimate associate of the Duke Alessandro, and is
famous, or rather infamous, for his behaviour to Luisa Strozzi (see p.
335).
Maria Salviati, a daughter of Jacopo, married Giovanni de’ Medici delle
Bande Nere, and their son Cosimo, afterwards Duke of Florence, was born
in her father’s palace. There is a tradition that Giovanni ordered
the child to be thrown from a first floor window into the courtyard,
where he caught him in his arms, and foretold that the boy would
become a great man because he showed no fear. Maria’s brother Alamanno
left a very large fortune, and his descendant Jacopo was created Duke
of Giuliano by Urban VIII., and for his sins married Veronica Cybo,
daughter of the Duke of Massa and Carrara. “Donna Veronica was endowed
with but small beauty,” writes a contemporary, “but _per contra_ with
a most violent and imperious temper and a jealous disposition. Her
husband, poor man, had small joy with her.” Duke Jacopo, handsome,
gay, an elegant poet and a gallant soldier, met the beautiful Caterina
Canacci, surnamed “the fair Cherubim” on account of her golden hair
and wonderful colouring, and fell desperately in love with her (see p.
62). The Duchess’ vengeance was a terrible one, and only her high birth
saved her from condign punishment. The Salviati family is extinct, and
their title is borne by a younger member of the princely family of
the Borghese of Rome, one of whom married Anna Maria, only daughter
of Duke Averardo Salviati, about 1790. The palace was bought by the
Da Cepperello family, and now belongs to the Scolopi friars, who have
their school there.
[Illustration: PALAZZO SAN CLEMENTE.]
PALAZZO SAN CLEMENTE
_Via Gino Capponi. No. 11._
A palace built by Don Luigi di Toledo was bought by the Guadagni family
in the XVIth century, and Gherardo Silvani was commissioned to enlarge
it, incorporating part of the old palace in the new one. Silvani
succeeded in making a handsome building, and the trim garden with
pleached hedges suits the stately loggie and arched corridors.
This was the house about which the Pretender and Lord Cowper went to
law. That delightful old gossip Sir Horace Mann writes to Walpole in
1776: “The quarrel was about a house, which he [Charles Edward] wanted
to buy; but some obstacles obstructed the conclusion of the bargain.
In the mean time Lady Cowper wanted a more proper house than her own
to lay in; and proposals were made to the proprietor, to have it for
a certain number of months, and he inclined to let it to Lord Cowper.
This displeased the Comte Albanie, and the dispute was carried to a
publick tribunal, which decided in the Comte’s favour. This displeased
the Great Duke, who favoured the Cowpers. In short, the whole town took
part in it, but I dissuaded my Lord from making an appeal to another
court, so that the Albanies now reside in it; though the contract
heightened the price considerably. What the Comte complained of most
was, that he should meet with so rebellious an opposition from one of
his own subjects. The ladies still vye with each other in beauty, so
that they can never more be friends.” The following year Sir Horace
again mentions the Pretender: “I have told you how dangerously ill
the Count Albanie has been. His physicians sent to inform me that a
mortification had begun in his legs, that his body was swelled, and
that the _affanno_ was great, so that he thought him to be in the most
imminent danger. This account was sent post to Rome to his brother
and the Countess.... He made a will in a hurry; and it has been said,
in joke, that he has bequeathed his three kingdoms to the son of the
Great Duke, in example of what King Theodore did, by leaving his crown
to his creditors.... I formerly gave you an account of the _fracas_ in
the Pretender’s family, by the elopement of his wife, whom everybody
then pitied and applauded. The tables are now turned. The cat, at last,
is out of the bag. The Cardinal of York’s visit to his brother gave
the latter an opportunity to undeceive him, by proving to him that the
complaints laid to his charge, of ill-using her, were invented to cover
a plot formed by Count Alfieri, who (by working up Tragedies, of which
he has wrote many, is most expert, though he always kept behind the
curtain) had imposed upon the Great Duke, the Pope and the Cardinal,
and all those who took her part. All that he said on that subject, at
a time that he thought himself and was supposed by everybody to be in
the most imminent danger, made a great impression on his brother, who,
on his return to Rome, exposed the whole to the Pope, and obtained an
order from him to Count Alfieri to leave the Pope’s state in fifteen
days. Not content with that satisfaction, the imprudent Cardinal
(for a more silly mortal never existed) published the whole of the
Countess’s intrigues with Alfieri. This has exasperated all the Roman
Nobility against the Cardinal, insomuch that, instead of considering
the delinquencies of the parties, their wrath is turned against the
publisher of the scandal; and they compassionate the situation of the
disconsolate lady who, I really believe, will marry the Count a week
after she becomes a widow.”
In July the following year Charles Edward acknowledged his natural
daughter by Mrs. Walsingham, under the title of Lady Charlotte Stuart,
Duchess of Albany, and Mann reports: “She is allowed to be of a good
figure, tall, and well made, but that the features of her face resemble
too much those of her father to be handsome. She is gay, lively, very
affable, and has the behaviour of a well-bred Frenchwoman, without
assuming the least distinction among our ladies on account of her new
dignity.... The new Duchess has appeared at the Theatres (which were
crowded on her account) with all her father’s jewels, which are very
fine.... Poor Count Albine,” writes Sir Horace again in December,
“decays every day, visibly. His daughter did well to come in time to
reap his succession, for which she will not wait long. The faculties of
his mind are as weak as his body.”
After the death of Charles Edward the palace became the residence of
the British Minister to the Court of Tuscany. Charles Greville, who was
in Florence in 1830, writes: “I breakfasted with Lord Normanby, who has
got a house extending 200 feet in front, court, garden and stables,
for about £280 a year. His house was originally fitted up for the
Pretender, and C.R.’s are still to be seen all over the place.”
The Velluti-Zati, Dukes of San Clemente, to whom the palace now
belongs, descend from one of those great merchant families of Florence
whose members were able to turn their hands and their brains to
anything. The first time the name occurs is early in the XIIIth century
when Piero di Berto, surnamed Velluti, had a cloth factory in Oltrarno,
and dealt largely in wool. His son Buonaccorso fought at Montaperti
in 1260, and when he died thirty-six years later was reputed to be
one of the richest merchants in Italy. He built a palace and a tower,
together with factories and houses for his workpeople, on a _podere_,
or farm, called La Casellina (Via de’ Velluti and Via de’ Vellutini
still mark the site). The Corsini, the Ridolfi and the Corbinelli built
such fine houses near his, that the street was called the Via Maggiore
(afterwards shortened into Via Maggio).
Lippo, Buonaccorso’s son, was the first of twenty-nine Priors of
his house, and many of the Velluti filled important posts under the
Republic as ambassadors to Lucca, Naples and Tunis, and as governors
of various subject towns. One of the most famous of the family, and
eminent as a jurist, was Donato, born in 1313. He filled the important
post of Gonfalonier of Justice several times, was elected advocate
of the poor, went to Bologna as ambassador in 1344, and in the same
year was sent to Arezzo to quell a rebellion that had broken out in
that city. A few months later, he represented the Commune of Florence
in negotiating a peace between Perugia and Siena. Donato Velluti was
several times ambassador to various courts of Europe, and wrote a
chronicle which deals chiefly with family matters. In reading it one
gathers how terrible the plague must have been in those days. Instead
of mentioning a year, he perpetually dates events as “before (or after)
the great mortality.” He nearly died of it, and records that he owed
his life to the devotion of his wife Monna Bice de’ Covoni, “for hardly
one in a hundred escaped.” Agnolo degl’Albizzi, husband of his wife’s
sister Monna Ginevra, died of the plague of 1348, and Ginevra of the
next epidemic in 1363. She had been left with four small boys, whose
story, as related by Donato, will give an idea of the greater part of
the chronicle. “Giano, son of the said Monna Ginevra, notwithstanding
the sound and severe whippings received from her, showed signs of being
a good-for-nothing and wicked youth; for his evil conduct his relations
put him in prison some time ago, and there he still is. Paolo, the
second son, gave hopes of becoming a good youth when in the bank of
the Covoni, and did well until he took to running after women and
idling about, thus wasting his time. He has now reformed and is doing
well, and will become an honest man and a good relation. Filippo, the
third son, is of no account, neither good nor bad, and has been made a
monk in S. Miniato a Monte, all he was fit for. Antonio, the youngest
boy, will be a good man if he continues as he has begun. He is now in
Provence.”[88]
Paolo, a descendant of Donato, carried on the good traditions of his
house, and began a chronicle in 1555, when he was fifty-five years of
age. It gives a curious description of the relations between a merchant
and a king of one of the proudest nations in Europe, and so pleasing a
picture of honest Paolo himself that one is sadly tempted to translate
the whole of it. Of his ancestor Andrea, a son of Donato the jurist, he
writes: “He was a most excellent man, expert in his trade and active,
and God-fearing. He always attended the first mass in S. Spirito and
then went about his business in which he made large profits, as he
began to trade after the great mortality of 1448, at which time goods
were sold for ready money, so the gains were large. Piero, his son,
preserved, but did not augment his patrimony as he might have done
had he paid attention to the business. Andrea, eldest son of the said
Piero, was tall, well made and of a fine presence, courageous and very
hot-tempered when young, cantankerous and quarrelsome; his mother and
his sister Maria offered up many prayers for him, and as it pleased God
he was seized with a desire to go abroad. He went to Spain with a horse
and nine ducats in his pocket, where he did so well that he left 60,000
ducats.... In Spain he acquired many friends, being serviceable to the
great, to his equals and to those beneath him; lending and giving, and
being very liberal. He was so beloved by the gentlemen and grandees,
that no other foreigner had ever been held in such consideration. King
Ferdinand, the Catholic, when in Valladolid was wont to rise at an
early hour, and sometimes went to mass at the church of S. Francesco
next door to Andrea’s house. After hearing mass the King would ride on
his small mule into the entrance hall of the house and send for Andrea,
who came down with his nightcap on his head, his habit being to go to
his study and write for two or three hours, and then he would dress
and brush his hair. The King seeing him thus said: ‘Andrea, is it not
shameful that you, being a merchant and having to make money, should
only get up now?’ So he swore upon his life, and such like modes of
speech as they use in Spain, that he had been up for many hours, and
would tell the King all he had written and done. Often the King would
keep him talking thus in private for an hour or more, and when Andrea
went to the palace the King would leave whomsoever he was talking to
and come forward to meet him.” After describing various other members
of the family Paolo continues: “It now remains to say something of
myself; but as it is not fitting that one should speak well or ill
of oneself, I leave that to others. I will only mention that I began
to work in the Capponi’s shop when a small boy. Then, by my uncle’s
desire, I went to Lyons and was in the house of the Panciatichi, and
thence to Spain to join my said uncle. He kept me but a short time
with him, sending me to see after his business at Valencia, Saragossa
and Barcelona, and several times I went to the fairs in Castile. I was
three hundred miles away when he died, and as he left all his fortune
to the nephews of his sister, I found myself without money, save the
little that came to me by law from the said uncle’s patrimony.... I
repeat that I remained with little money and the loss of my youth,
for I was then thirty-five. So I bethought me that with what I had to
expect and any dower I might receive, I could live well, and decided to
take unto myself a wife. But it did not turn out as I thought, for my
gains were far less than I had calculated and my expenses much greater
than I had imagined, in addition to which I had to buy much furniture,
as I found but little of what had belonged to my father when I returned
from Spain.... I then reasoned with myself that it would be better to
do at once willingly what later I might be forced to do by want, and
earn something by my own work. Our Lord God opened for me a chance in
the bank of Federigo de’ Ricci, not, it is true, with a large salary,
but had I it not to-day I should be, I will not say poor, because that
I am with so many children, but in dire need. God be thanked for His
aid. To go back somewhat, I note that in January, 1547, I took for my
legitimate and beloved wife Francesca Guidetti, who has been good, and
is dearer to me than I can say. Easy tempered and an amusing companion,
she rules our family excellently well; and has always been, and is,
most affectionate to me, for these and other good qualities I love her
very deeply....” Paolo Velluti died in 1562, and the present Dukes of
San Clemente come from his younger brother Raffaello, one of whose
descendants took service in the Spanish army, and settled in Sicily. He
made a large fortune and married Maria Zati, after having bought the
estates of Grottaglia and Galluccio. When the Sicilian family of Zati
died out, all their possessions came to Francesco Velluti, who was born
at Galluccio in 1699. He was made Duke of San Clemente, Marquess of
Sta. Maria a Rifesi, etc., etc. His son returned to the old cradle of
his race, and bought from the Guadagni the fine palace in the Via Gino
Capponi. The present Duke is his grandson.
PALAZZO SERRISTORI
_Via de’ Renai: No. 2._
Of the old Serristori palace but little remains as it was incorporated
in the large new building in 1873. It was chiefly interesting because
the arch-traitor Malatesta Baglioni, who sold Florence to Charles V.
and Clement VII., had his head-quarters there during the siege of 1530.
A certain Ser Ristoro came from Figline in 1384 and became notary to
the Signoria, and from him descend the family of Serristori who gave
ten Gonfaloniers and twenty-seven Priors to Florence. They were staunch
adherents of the Medici until the time of Alessandro, when Francesco
and his sons Gugliemo and Niccolò were exiled as rebels. Niccolò joined
Filippo Strozzi against Cosimo I., was taken prisoner at Montemurlo and
imprisoned for life at Volterra.
The Senator Serristori was Minister for Foreign Affairs under the
Grand Duke Ferdinando III. His son Luigi served for a time in the
Russian army, and afterwards became Governor of Siena, and of Pisa in
1845, when the last Grand Duke of Tuscany revived in his favour the
title of Count Palatine, bestowed on an ancestor of his in 1439 by the
Emperor Paleologus. His son Alfredo went to Constantinople and acted as
adjutant to Omer Pasha during the Crimean war. In 1858 he filled the
same post to General Cialdini and assisted at the campaigns fought for
the Unity of Italy. He died unmarried and was succeeded by the son of
his sister, who took the name of Serristori.
PALAZZO SODERINI
_Piazza Soderini. No. 3._
From the Ponte alla Carraja to the Piazza di Cestello all the houses
along the Lung’Arno once belonged to the Soderini, who came to Florence
in the XIIth century. Ruggiero fought under the Guelph standard at
Montaperti in 1260, and was the first of thirty-two Priors and his
grandson the first of sixteen Gonfaloniers of Justice the family gave
to Florence. Tommaso was twice Gonfalonier of Justice and as one of the
leading men of the Guelph party was exiled after the Ciompi riots. The
portrait by Donatello, of his son Francesco, the great enemy of Cosimo
de’ Medici, is on the façade of Giotto’s campanile.
Niccolò, his nephew, was a great admirer and friend of S. Catherine of
Siena. Whenever she came to Florence, she stayed in his house, and he
bought and arranged for her a tiny house on the Costa di S. Giorgio as
a place of retreat and meditation. He was so popular that when he was
elected Gonfalonier Machiavelli tells us, “it was a marvellous thing
to see what a concourse, not only of honourable citizens but of the
people, accompanied him to the palace; and as he went a crown of olive
was placed on his head to show that on him depended the welfare and the
liberty of the country.” But he accomplished little during his term
of office and his anti-Medicean policy proved his ruin. His brother
Tommaso was on the contrary an intimate friend of Piero de’ Medici. He
successfully negotiated the league between the Duke of Milan and the
Republics of Venice and Florence, and when he went as ambassador to
Rome, was knighted with great pomp by Paul II., who also bestowed on
him the privilege of quartering the Papal Keys and the Triple Tiara in
his arms. “Being one of the chief citizens,” writes Machiavelli, “and
much superior to the others, his prudence and authority was recognized
not only in Florence, but by all the princes of Italy. So that after
the death of Piero many citizens came to visit him as the head of
the city, and many princes wrote to him. But he, being prudent and
knowing well his own fortune and that of their house, did not answer
the letters of the princes, and gave the citizens to understand that
they should not come to his house but go to that of the Medici.” He
called a meeting of the chief citizens, to which Lorenzo and Giuliano
de’ Medici came, and after “a long and serious oration on the condition
of the city and of Italy,” he concluded that the two young men must be
continued in the position their forefathers had held. Machiavelli tells
us that Lorenzo was governed very much by the advice of Messer Tommaso,
in whose charge he left the city and the state when he went to Naples
in 1479, Soderini being then the Gonfalonier. He died in 1484 leaving
five sons, one of whom, Piero, was proclaimed Gonfalonier of Justice
for life in 1502. He continued Savonarola’s constitution, but his want
of decision caused his downfall. Giovanni Cambi in his quaint _Istorie_
tells us “that another Gonfalonier was elected on the 28th September,
1512, because Piero Soderini, out of fear of the principal citizens who
would have no more of him and demanded back their privileges, left the
palace with three youths who had gone there fully armed, saying that
if he did not come with them quietly they would cut him to pieces. He
begged them to spare his life and they granted his request. Unknown
to the Signori, who were then sitting in council, he went with them,
and many citizens accompanied him from the palace as far as the house
of Francesco and Pagholo Vettori. When he arrived at their house near
the Ponte a Sta. Trinita, behind the loggia of the Frescobaldi, he
refused, in his great anguish and fear for his life, to go further, his
own house being at the Ponte alla Carraja near S. Frediano.” _Virtù_,
or strength of character, was the one quality admired in those days,
and Piero being a simple, good-hearted and not very courageous man,
has been branded for ever as a fool by the biting pen of the famous
secretary:
“La notte che morì Pier Soderini,
L’alma n’ando nell’inferno alla bocca;
E Pluto le grido: Anima sciocca,
Che inferno? va’ nel limbo de’ bambini,”
wrote Machiavelli with infinite scorn.
The Soderini palace, after passing through several hands, is now the
property of Signor Schneiderff, and on the garden door is inscribed
_Jus: ut pal: flor:_, words which have often puzzled passers-by.
Passerini suggests that they were abbreviations of the motto engraved
on Piero Soderini’s private seal ring, _Justus ut palma florebit_.
PALAZZO SPINI
_Via Tornabuoni. No. 2._
According to a genealogy drawn up by one of the Spini in the XVth
century the family descend from Spina Moscardi, who lived in the XIIth
century; and whose ancestor, a Roman soldier, settled in Florence at
the time of the foundation of the city. His sons were Manetti and Ugo,
both knights of the Golden Spur and wealthy merchants. Verini names the
Spini among the great families of Florence.
“Qualis Spinorum fuerit fortuna secundos
Vobis, quæ fuxta sunt alta palatia muros
Testantur genus antiquum Romana propago.”
The houses and towers of both the brothers were partially destroyed by
the Ghibellines in 1260–1266, and the remainder by the terrible flood
of 15th December, 1288, when the Gianfigliazzi palace opposite was
also swept away.
The present magnificent pile was erected about 1290 by Manetti’s son,
Ruggieri, commonly called Geri, on the site of the old family palaces.
Some say that Arnolfo di Lapo superintended the building, others
that he only gave the design. Geri Spini, an able and very rich wool
merchant, and the recognized head of the Guelph, or Black, party in
Florence, must have been a remarkable and a many-sided man. Charles of
Anjou named him his representative in Tuscany, he was Commissary of War
for his native city, ambassador to Pope Boniface VIII. and afterwards
to Benedict XI., when he rode into Rome at the head of 150 horsemen,
all his own followers. On his return he was made Captain of Florence
and a knight of the Golden Spur. King Robert of Naples created him
Lieutenant-Governor of Arezzo and other cities, and in addition to
all these multifarious duties he, together with the Mozzi, was banker
to the Holy See, and he had to attend to his own business. He and
his wife, Oretta Malespina, “a charming and virtuous lady,” are both
immortalized by Boccaccio in the _Decamerone_. The story of the lady
depends entirely on its charming and almost untranslatable language,
but that of Messer Geri gives a vivid description of Florentine life
and manners in the XIVth century.
[Illustration: PALAZZO SPINI.]
“I tell how Pope Boniface, with whom Messer Geri Spini stood in high
honour, sent to Florence certain noble ambassadors on account of the
great need he was in. They dismounted at the house of Messer Geri,
and talking together of the Pope’s affairs it happened that Messer
Geri and these ambassadors walked out nearly every morning, passing
in front of Sta. Maria Ughi, where Cisti, the baker, had his oven and
personally exercised his art. Although fortune had bestowed on him
such a humble calling yet had she been very kind to him, inasmuch as
he had become exceeding rich, and though he would not change his
occupation, he lived splendidly; having, among other good things, the
best red and white wine that were to be found in Florence or in the
country round. Seeing that Messer Geri and the ambassadors of the Pope
passed his door every day and the heat being great, he bethought him
that it would be an act of courtesy to offer them some of his good
white wine to drink. But having regard to his condition and to that
of Messer Geri, it did not appear fitting that the invitation should
come from him, so he cast about for a way of inducing Messer Geri to
invite himself. Always dressed in a jacket of dazzling whiteness and
an apron fresh from the laundry, so that he looked more like a miller
than a baker, every morning he set in front of his door, at the hour
when Messer Geri and the ambassadors were wont to pass, a new copper
waterpot, well tinned, a new earthen vase of Bologna full of his good
white wine and two tumblers, which seemed to be of silver, so bright
were they. Then sitting down he would clear his throat once or twice,
and as they passed begin to sip his wine with such manifest delight
that a desire for it would have been raised in a dead man. Messer Geri
saw this for one morning, and for two, and on the third he said: What
is it, Cisti? Is it good? Cisti, rising quickly, replied: Messere, yes
indeed, but how good I could never make you understand unless you taste
it. Messer Geri, in whom either the weather, or more business than
usual, or perchance the tasty sips of Cisti had caused thirst, turned
to the ambassadors, and smiling, said: What say you, gentlemen, would
it not be well if we taste the wine of this good man; most likely we
shall have no cause to repent? And together they went towards Cisti. He
placed a fine bench outside and begged them to be seated, and to their
servants who pushed forward to wash the tumblers he said: Companions,
stand back and leave me to do this work, for I know as well how to
pour out wine as to make bread, and do not you think to have a drop.
Saying this he washed four good new tumblers, had a fresh small earthen
jar of his good white wine brought up, and carefully gave to drink to
Messer Geri and his companions. The wine seemed to them the best they
had tasted for a long, long time, and they praised it mightily, so
while the ambassadors stayed they went nearly every morning together
with Messer Geri to drink. When the time came for their departure
Messer Geri gave a fine banquet, to which he invited many of the most
honourable citizens, and he also invited Cisti, who would not go on
any account. So Messer Geri ordered one of his servants to go for a
flask of Cisti’s wine, and to serve half a glass of it to every guest
during the first course. The servant, perchance angered because he
had never been able to taste of the wine, took a large double flask,
and when Cisti saw it he said: My son, Messer Geri has not sent you
to me. The servant affirmed that he had, but not being able to obtain
any other reply, returned to Messer Geri and told him. And Messer Geri
said: Return, and tell him it is so, and if he answers thee in the
same fashion, ask him to whom I send thee. The servant went and said:
Of a surety, Cisti, Messer Geri sends me to thee. Cisti answered: And
I am sure, my son, it is not so. Well then, replied the servant, to
whom has he sent me? And Cisti said: To the Arno. And when the servant
brought this reply to Messer Geri the eyes of his intellect opened
and he said to the servant: Let me see what manner of flask thou hast
taken. And when he saw it he said: Cisti was right, and scolded the man
well and made him take a proper flask. When Cisti saw it he said: Now I
know Messer Geri has sent thee, and he filled it joyfully. And on the
same day he filled a small barrel with like wine and causing it to be
carried with all due care to the house of Messer Geri went there and
waited on him, saying: Messere, I would not that you should think that
the large flask of this morning alarmed me. Only it seemed to me that
you had forgotten what I said to you; that this is not everyday wine
for a family, and so I desired to remind you this day. Now as I do not
wish to act as your guardian, I have brought you all the wine to do
with as you will. Messer Geri accepted Cisti’s gift with great joy and
rendered him such thanks as were fitting, and ever after looked upon
him as a friend.”
Old Dino Compagni attributes the bitter hatred between the Cerchi and
the Donati, which brought such evils upon Florence, to the direct
agency of the devil, “abettor of all ill; who so arranged that a
company of youths who were riding together after supper one evening
on the calends of May, became so full of pride that they planned to
meet with a company of the Cerchi and use fists and swords against
them. On that evening, which is the renewal of springtide, women are
wont to dance with their neighbours. The young Cerchi met the company
of the Donati, amongst whom were Messer Corso’s nephew, Baldellino
de’ Bardi, Piero Spini and others, and they fell upon the Cerchi with
drawn swords. During the encounter Ricoverino de’ Cerchi had his nose
cut off by one of the Donati party, said to be Piero Spini, in whose
house they afterwards all took refuge. This stroke was the destruction
of our city, because from it arose great hatred among the citizens.
The Cerchi never said who did it, waiting to take signal vengeance.”
The old chronicler goes on to describe how in 1301, when Charles of
Valois stayed in the Frescobaldi palace in Florence, they and the
Spini fortified their palaces and erected machines on their towers
for throwing stones, so that together they could command Ponte a Sta.
Trinita. Messer Manetto Scali also made warlike preparations on his
palace, “so the Spini, whose large palace was opposite his, increased
their fortifications, knowing how powerful the Scali were. Thereupon
the two parties began to try and deceive each other and mutually made
friendly speeches. The Spini said to the Scali, Now why do we act
thus? After all we are friends and relatives, and all Guelphs; and our
only intent is to liberate our necks from the chain which the people
have put upon you and upon us, and then we shall be more powerful than
we are now. Therefore, by God, let us be one, as we ought to be.”
When later there was discord in Florence because the Ghibellines
wished to send an embassy to salute the Emperor Henry VII. who was at
Pisa, and the Guelphs, with Messer Rossa della Tosa, Messer Pazzino
de’ Pazzi, Messer Betto Brunelleschi and Messer Geri Spini at their
head, refused, old Dino finishes his chronicle with an outburst of
indignation. “Oh, iniquitous citizens, who have corrupted and vitiated
the whole world by evil ways and illicit gains. It is you who have
introduced every bad custom into the world, which now begins to revolt
against you. The Emperor, with his army will capture you and destroy
your riches on land and on sea.” But the Emperor soon afterwards died
at Buonconvento, so Dino’s prophecy came to nought.
Doffo Spini was killed at the battle of Montecatini in 1315, and
Nepo, his brother, was foremost among those citizens who expelled
the Duke of Athens, tyrant of Florence. In 1498 another Doffo Spini
made himself conspicuous by his virulent antagonism to Savonarola. He
was the leader of a band of young nobles who called themselves the
“Compagnacci,” and when the ordeal by fire was to take place Doffo,
at the head of three hundred well armed Compagnacci, forced his way
into the Piazza della Signoria in spite of the proclamation that armed
men should not enter. Violi tells us that Doffo Spini often went to
Botticelli’s workshop “and frequently said that they had no intention
of making the Franciscan enter the fire, and of this they had assured
him; it sufficed for them that he should continue the game long enough
to enable them to carry out their intention of putting an end to this
business of the Friar.” Doffo was one of the examiners appointed to
conduct the trial of the three friars, but according to the testimony
of Simone Filipepi, Botticelli’s brother, he seems afterwards to have
repented of his persecution of Savonarola.
In 1651 the northern half of the great palace was bought by Niccolò
Guasconi, and after his death it was sold to the Da Bagnano family,
from whom the Marchese Alessandro Feroni bought it in 1768. The other
half remained in the possession of the Spini until the death of the
last of the family, leaving an only daughter married to Gugliemo Del
Tovaglia. She had no children and made Luca Domenico Pitti her heir,
whose son Roberto Pitti Spini sold his half of the palace to the
Marchese Francesco Feroni in 1807. The southern façade rose straight
from the bed of the Arno and the street passed under the palace by a
long archway. Room after room and balcony after balcony overhanging the
river had been built until the height reached 60 braccie, and grave
fears were entertained for the stability of the building. So in July,
1823, that side of Palazzo Spini was taken down and the façade thrown
back to admit of the continuation of the Lung’Arno Acciaiuoli. In 1834
the whole palace was sold to Mde. Hombert, and the fine old building
was turned into an hotel. The Commune of Florence bought it in 1846,
and some years later it was admirably restored.
In the church of Sta. Trinita is a fresco by Domenico Ghirlandajo in
which Palazzo Spini is represented as it was in the XVth century.
PALAZZO STROZZI
_Piazza degl’ Strozzi, No. 4; and Via Tornabuoni._
The descent of the Strozzi family is traced like one of those old
Tuscan towns which claim Noah or Hercules as their founder by an old
chronicler, Lotto Fiesolano, who in his History of Florence says: “We
cannot pass over in silence what our ancestors have so well described
and what is so worthy to be remembered; _i. e._ that before the Arno
was ennobled by the wonderful walls of the Florentine city, the Strozzi
already existed. They took their origin from a noble and illustrious
cavalier who sprang from the antique race of Arcady, and bore as
his emblem a half moon.[89] When fighting, with his strong hand he
throttled (strozzò) his enemy. The Etruscans in consequence renamed the
family and from that famous father the Strozzi took their name. After
Fluentia was built they were made citizens of the town, and aided by
that house Fluentia enlarged her frontiers.”
[Illustration: PALAZZO STROZZI.]
The real progenitor of the house of Strozzi was however an Ubertino who
lived early in the XIIth century. He had two sons, Strozza, and Geri
who was killed in the battle of Montaperti. Amongst the descendants
of the latter were Tito Vespasiano, and Lucia (the mother of Matteo
Bojardo, author of _Orlando Innamorato_), they were born at Ferrara,
where their father, an exile, had entered the service of the Duke.
Tito was the favourite pupil of Guarino Veronese, and his name as an
elegant Latin poet stood so high that Aldus Manutius collected and
published his works. His son, Ercole, was also well known as a writer
of Latin verse, and only became a convert to the use of the vulgar
tongue owing to his friendship with Bembo. He was one of the wits and
scholars who formed the brilliant court of Lucrezia Borgia after she
became Duchess of Ferrara. But one June night the poet was found dead,
pierced with twenty-two wounds, and as no judicial enquiry was made,
rumour accused both the Duke and the Duchess of the deed. Alfonso,
out of jealousy of his wife, whose praises Ercole sang in impassioned
verses; Lucrezia, because her poet had recently married Barbara,
widow of Ercole Bentivoglio. Ciriaco, one of Geri’s many descendants,
travelled for some years in the East, and on his return to Florence
took his degree as Doctor of Law and opened a school for the teaching
of Greek and peripatetic philosophy. In 1535 he was invited to teach
in the University of Bologna, and afterwards Cosimo I. summoned him to
Pisa. His name, now forgotten, was once lauded to the skies for his
attempt to complete the Politics of Aristotle by writing the two lost
books. The work was published in Florence in 1563, and a translation
appeared in Paris in 1600, as well as an introduction to Aristotle’s
Ethics. The gentle fair-faced Maddalena Doni, painted by Raphael, was
another descendant of Geri Strozzi, and Caterina, the nun who left the
celebrated Strozzi library to the Grand Duke Pietro Leopoldo in 1786
was the last of this line.
Strozza, son of Ubertino, who fought at Montaperti in 1260, was among
those who signed the peace between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines. One
of his sons, Pagno, was the first Gonfalonier of Justice of sixteen of
his house in 1297, when the foundations of the Palazzo Vecchio were
laid, and no less than ninety-four of the family were Priors. Lapo,
another son, Gonfalonier in 1309, was the father of Palla Strozzi,
one of the twelve ambassadors sent by different potentates to Rome to
assist at the coronation of Pope Boniface XIII. who, when he heard
that they all came from Florence, remarked that the Florentines
were the fifth element.[90] Palla’s son, Francesco, distinguished
himself by defeating the Pontifical Legate, Cardinal del Poggetto, at
Ferrara and was received with high honour on his return to Florence.
He filled various important posts under the Republic, and was the
ninth Gonfalonier the Strozzi gave to Florence. From him descended
the well-known Palla Strozzi, one of the great merchant princes of
Florence. In the _catasto_ of 1427 his property was valued at one-fifth
more than that of Giovanni de’ Medici. Born in 1372, his name is
included in every embassy between 1410 and 1434 and to him together
with Coluccio de’ Salutati was due the establishment of a Greek chair
in the University of Florence. Vespasiano tells us that he sent to
Greece for countless volumes. The _Lives_ of Plutarch, the works of
Plato and the _Cosmography_ of Ptolemy, he got from Constantinople,
while the _Politics_ of Aristotle were unknown in Italy until he
obtained them. I cannot do better than quote J. A. Symonds’ words about
this most pathetic and dignified figure in Florentine history. “Palla
degl’ Strozzi devoted his leisure and his energies to the improvement
of the _Studio Pubblico_ at Florence, giving it that character of
humane culture which it retained throughout the age of the Renaissance.
To him, again, belongs the glory of having first collected books for
the express purpose of founding a public library. This project had
occupied the mind of Petrarch, and its utility had been recognized by
Colluccio de’ Salutati, but no one had as yet arisen to accomplish
it. Being passionately fond of literature, Messer Palla always kept
copyists in his own house and outside it, of the best who were in
Florence, both for Greek and Latin books; and all the books he could
find he purchased, on all subjects, being minded to found a most noble
library in Santa Trinita because it was in the centre of Florence, a
site of great convenience to everybody (Vespasiano).”
During the struggle for supremacy between Rinaldo degl’Albizzi and
Cosimo de’ Medici, Palla degl’ Strozzi, “who was,” writes Machiavelli,
“a peaceful man, well-mannered and kindly, better fitted for a
life of study than for keeping a party in check and averting civil
discord,” tried to preserve a neutral attitude. But the presence of so
enlightened and rich a citizen seemed dangerous to the Medicean party,
and after the return of Cosimo de’ Medici from exile in 1434 he was
banished to Padua, where he died, separated from his children, who
shared the same fate in other parts of Italy. The wonderful bust of his
daughter Marietta by “il bravo Desider si dolce e bello,” as Raphael’s
father called Desiderio da Settignano, is one of the treasures of the
Palazzo Strozzi. His cousin Matteo, married to Alessandra Macinghi,
was exiled at the same time, and the Strozzi property having been
confiscated, she was left in dire poverty with six small children.
After her husband’s death at Pesaro, she sent her eldest boy, Filippo,
to an old family friend who had a house of business in Palermo. She
must have been a lovable, courageous, and sensible woman, judging by
her letters.[91] When the last boy left her she wrote to Filippo: “I
have no treasure but you my three sons, and for your welfare I have
sent you from me, one after the other, without a thought of my own
happiness.” When Filippo set up on his own account at Naples she longed
to join him, but thought it wiser to stay in Florence and work for the
possible restoration of her children to their native city. Charming
are her descriptions of the various girls she proposes to her son as
suitable wives; they pass before one like a procession out of the
frescoes of the XVth century.
Of Filippo’s life at Naples, where he made a large fortune and became a
favourite with the King, who eventually obtained his recall from exile
from Lorenzo de’ Medici, we have an account by his son, who writes: “He
lived well, but not magnificently ... entertaining rarely, but when he
did, splendidly and with great ceremony, being served by the youths in
his house, who were nearly all Strozzi, as he preferred to benefit his
own blood rather than strangers. Ofttimes there were eighteen at his
table, and he cared for their honour and advancement as though they
had been his sons. It can truthfully be said that all the riches of
the house of Strozzi of that time are due to him.... Near to the city
of Naples he had a Masseria, or farm ... and he took such delight in
it that he often worked with his own hands, and gathered from it the
rarest and finest fruits.... He enriched his native State with many
noble plants, introducing the ‘gentile’ fig, and artichokes, which had
never been brought to these parts [Florence] before.... In stature
Filippo was above the common, good-looking, alert, lithe and well
made, fearing neither cold nor heat, hunger nor thirst. So kind was
he of heart that when any of his partners, relations, or friends fell
out (a thing that often happened, as their number was considerable),
they came to him as head of the family, and he always reconciled them,
often giving, in addition to his time and trouble, whatever he saw
was needful to facilitate peace. He visited friends or relations in
adversity or sickness, comforting and aiding them with all necessaries,
so that his presence was often of more use to such persons than any
other comfort or medicine. In short, he seemed made by nature not less
to dispense his riches usefully, than to accumulate them.”
In 1466 his sentence of exile was cancelled, and he once more beheld
his native city, where he married the beautiful Fiametta degl’
Adimari, one of the girls described by his mother, by whom he had a
son, Alfonso, and two daughters. After her death he married Selvaggia,
daughter of Bartolomeo Gianfigliazzi, who bore him three daughters and
two sons; Lorenzo, writer of the records of his father and of other
members of his family, and Giovanbattista, who by his mother’s desire
took his father’s name, Filippo, after his death.
In the Strozzi archives is the contract between Filippo Lippi and
Filippo degl’ Strozzi for the painting of the chapel which Strozzi had
bought from the decayed family of Boni in Sta. Maria Novella, showing
the shrewd man of business, who was determined to have his money’s
worth:
THE TWENTY-FIRST DAY OF APRIL, 1487.
Let it be known to all that Filippo di Filippo, painter, has
engaged to paint for Filippo di Matteo degl’ Strozzi, his chapel
in Sta. Maria Novella, next to the high altar, under the following
conditions: In the ceiling there are to be four figures, either
Doctors, or Evangelists, or others, as the said Strozzi prefers, to
be decorated in blue and gold as richly as can be; the remainder
of the ceiling to be all of blue ultramarine of the finest,
of the cost of at least 4 “fiorini larghi” the ounce, and the
shafts and capitals are to be adorned with painting and gold,
according to necessity. And on either side there are to be two
stories [paintings] the subjects to be given by the said Filippo
Strozzi; and the sides of the window, and the pillars, and the
arch of the chapel inside and out, and the coats of arms, are to
be ornamented as the said Filippo orders; and in every place where
it be necessary such gold and ultramarine as is called for, shall
be used, and every other colour shall be good and perfect. And the
said Filippo di Filippo promises to the said Strozzi to paint it
in fresco and to finish it with all the care and diligence he is
capable of; and all with his own hand, especially the figures.
And it is agreed that the said Filippo is to have for his work,
with painting, colours, azure, scaffoldings, lime, wood and
everything else, so that the said Strozzi shall have no other calls
upon him, 300 fiorini di suggello[92] paid as follows: 35 fiorini
now, when he begins the work, for the wood, lime, and other
necessaries; the remainder, up to 100 fiorini, when he desires to
go to Venice;[93] and the rest from time to time as he works, but
so that 50, or at least 40, fiorini shall remain, which the said
Strozzi promises to pay punctually when he has finished, which he
promises to do by the 1st March, 1480....
Lorenzo gives a graphic account of the building of the great palace
in the Life of his father, already quoted. “Having amply provided
for his successors, and being more desirous of fame than of riches,
seeing no better or surer method for transmitting his memory to
posterity, and being naturally inclined towards building, and of no
small intelligence, Filippo determined to raise an edifice which should
perpetuate his name and that of his family in Italy and abroad. But he
was confronted by the great difficulty that he who governed [Lorenzo
de’ Medici] might conceive that another’s glory would outshine his;
so, fearing to do a thing that might arouse envy, he spread abroad
the rumour that having so many children and so small a house, he was
bound, having begotten them, to provide a dwelling for them, a thing
better done during life than after death. Thus he began tentatively,
discussing first with masons, then with architects, about the necessity
of having a house. Sometimes he seemed inclined to begin it at once,
then he would appear irresolute and alarmed lest he should spend in
a short time what he had gained in long years with much toil and
industry; astutely hiding from all his desire and his intention, in
order the better to carry out his design; declaring always that he only
wanted a comfortable burgher’s house, for use and not for show. But the
masons and architects, according to their wont, enlarged and improved
on every plan, which pleased Filippo, although he feigned anger, saying
that they drove him into what he neither wished nor could accomplish.
Add to this that the ruler desired that the city should be adorned with
every sort of ornament, thinking that as good and ill depended alone
on him, so every beautiful or ugly thing would also be attributed to
him. Aware that so great and costly a work could not be regulated or
calculated with exactness, he feared that it might not only destroy
his credit, as often happens with merchants, but cause his ruin.
For these reasons he began to interfere, and insisted on seeing the
plans, to which, besides many other expenses, after due consideration,
he added the ‘_bozzi_’ [dressed blocks of stone with bosses] on the
outside. The more Filippo was encouraged, the more he affected to hold
back; declaring nothing should induce him to add the ‘_bozzi_,’ being
unsuited to his condition and too costly, as he was building for use
and not for show, and intended to arrange many shops under the house
as a source of income for his sons. This was strenuously opposed, the
extreme ugliness being dwelt upon as well as the inconvenience to those
who were to inhabit the palace. Filippo respectfully demurred, and
would occasionally complain to his friends that he had entered upon
an undertaking which he prayed God might end well, and that he had
rather never have mentioned it than find himself in such a labyrinth.
Thus the more he appeared intent on avoiding expense, in order to hide
the greatness of his designs and the vastness of his riches, the more
he was driven and encouraged to fulfil his secret desires. By such
sagacity and astuteness he attained what would either have been denied
to him, or have caused him great harm. Most men thought that such a
building would be his ruin before its completion; but he had planned
to finish it in every detail, year by year out of his income, without
diminishing his capital, and would have done so if death, which often
interrupts magnificent and great enterprises, had not prevented him.”
Part of the Palazzo Strozzi covers what once was the Piazza de’
Tornaquinci, belonging to various families who had their towers and
loggie round it. Without the intervention of Lorenzo de’ Medici,
Filippo would never have been able to obtain possession of the
ground. On the 10th February, 1489, Giovanni Tornabuoni, Pietro and
Bartolomeo Popoleschi, Girolamo and Giachinetto Giachinotti, Giovanni,
Piero and Niccolò Tornaquinci ceded all their rights to the whole,
or part, of the said Piazza, to Lorenzo de’ Medici to give, sell, or
cede irrevocably to whomsoever he wished. On the 10th March following
Filippo was authorized to straighten the line of the Piazza, and
to occupy any portions of the streets and small alleys that might
be necessary. He was also permitted to build “_sedilia_,” or stone
benches, suitable to the building. All the rights that the Commune
might have to the Piazza de’ Tornaquinci were ceded to him. This act
was ratified by the Signori and Collegi of the Republic, and on the
10th April Lorenzo de’ Medici had the deed of gift drawn up by a
notary, on condition that the building should be begun within a year
and continued without intermission under pain of forfeiture.
On the 10th July the first cartloads of sand and small stones were
thrown into the foundations, and Filippo writes: “On the 15th July at
daylight I began to pull down the carpenter’s shop in the Via Larga
de’ Tornaquinci, as a beginning to my work; this spot was pointed
out to me as good by Benedetto Bigliotti, who also advised that the
building should begin on Thursday, the 6th August when the sun rose
above the mountain.” This opinion being ratified by Niccolò and Antonio
Benivieni, by the Bishop Paganotti and by Marsilio Ficino, all learned
in astrology, the first stone of the foundation was laid by Filippo
in the middle of the arch of the large door in the Via Larga di Santa
Trinita e Tornaquinci (now Via Tornabuoni), when he placed certain
medals under the stone. Tribaldo de’ Rossi, who happened to pass by
at that moment, notes in his _Memoirs_: “Filippo said to me, take up
a stone and throw it in, and I did so, and then put my hand into my
leathern satchel in his presence and took out a ‘quattrino vecchio
gigliato’ to throw in; he demurred to this, but for luck I threw it
and he was pleased. Then leaving, I went to my shop, opposite to Sta.
Trinita, and bethought me that for the memory of the event I would send
for Guarniero, my son, and for Francesca, my daughter. Tita, our maid,
who had come to the shop to fetch the meat, it being Thursday morning,
went for them, and Nannina, my wife, sent me the two children well
dressed, and I took them to the said foundations. Raising Guarniero in
my arms so that he could look down, I gave him a ‘quattrino gigliato’
and he threw it in, and a nosegay of damask roses he held in his hand
I made him throw in also, and said to him: ‘now thou art to remember
this,’ and he answered yes, together with our servant girl Tita who was
there; Guarniero was exactly four years and two days old, and Nannina
had but a few days before made him a new overcoat of silk, shot green
and yellow, and thus may it ever be to the glory of God.”
In a few days the foundations of the palace on the side next to the
Piazza were filled in and work had begun, to the great discomfort
of the neighbours; particularly of the chemist, Luca Landucci, who
notes in his diary: “The pulling down of houses by great numbers of
master-masons and workmen continues, so that all the streets around are
choked with mountains of stone and lime, and with mules and donkeys
carrying away rubbish and bringing rough stone. The worst is for the
shopkeepers, who are bothered with dust and the plague of people who
stand and look on, and for those who cannot get past with their laden
beasts.” On the 21st August building commenced, and on the 18th May,
1490, the wall below the “_bozzi_” was finished on the side next the
Piazza; on the 2nd June a mast, and a crane for raising the stones,
were set up, and six days afterwards the first of the large “_bozzi_”
was put in its place. “Every day,” writes Rossi, “eight or ten of these
were set,” and Landucci the chemist notes, “on the 20th July, the ring
at the corner of Tornaquinci, the one with the serpent or dragon, was
put into its place.”
On the 18th May, 1491, Filippo Strozzi died, and Rossi writes: “In all
the land has arisen great respect for the beautiful building, and he
[Filippo] is held to be the good man he was. He had begun to put in
the irons of the windows, five were already set in the front and the
others were ready.” The day before his death Filippo made his will,
containing most minute directions for finishing pictures and buildings
commenced by him, particularly with regard to the “big house, which
not being finished inside and out according to plan and model, so
that both houses can be inhabited, my heirs are to see that it is
completed; therefore fifty men at the least, between master-masons,
men, and stone-cutters, are to be kept continually at work, so that
without loss of time it shall be finished at the latest in the year
1496.” Filippo deputes “Messer Andrea Buondelmonti to hasten matters
and to command everybody, at a salary of 50 ‘fiorini larghi’ a year
for so long as he gives his time to the building, but the salary is to
cease in 1496.” If not then finished he begs “the magnificent Lorenzo
de’ Medici, if then living, and willing to undertake the charge, to
see that it be completed in two years from that date, and if he be not
alive or is unwilling to accept such charge, then the Consuls of the
Guild of Merchants of Calimala, with two governors of the hospital of
Messer Bonifazio and two elders of the house of Strozzi, are to have
authority to finish it.” The will is far too long to transcribe, but
the following clause is too characteristic to omit. “In order that
the said Lorenzo, or the said Consuls, etc., may see to the work, I
direct that between 1496 and 1498, or for whatever less time may be
needful to finish the said house, they be authorized to come once every
fifteen days to dine in the said house, in whatever part thereof seems
to them most honourable and convenient, at the expense of my heirs,
but no dinner is to cost more than fifty lire piccioli.” Filippo
also forbids his heirs to sell the house or even to let it, save to
a Strozzi. The two houses mentioned in the will are in reality but
the one palace which was built to serve for two separate families; a
fact often forgotten when the internal arrangements are criticized.
Filippo’s widow did her utmost to carry out his wishes. “She was most
desirous,” writes her son Lorenzo, “to husband the family wealth for
her sons, so that when they attained majority they might not find their
paternal inheritance diminished or the house unfinished.” In the family
archives the building may be followed week by week by payments to the
various artisans until 1507 when, writes Giovanni Cambi, “Selvaggia,
for account of her sons, finished her part in obedience to the will,
but Alfonso” [Filippo’s son by his first wife] “took no heed of it
and did not hasten to take up his abode in the house. He began by
inhabiting the ground floor and then continued building little by
little for his own need and use, so that the said building will remain
imperfect and do dishonour to their father.” Lorenzo Strozzi confirms
this when in mentioning the will he adds: “It is as though he had been
prescient that some of them had in their minds not to carry out what
he had ordered. Though on the palace, that grand and splendid work, he
[Alfonso] spent something, yet he did it unwillingly, and the blame is
his if it is still incomplete.”
Signor Iodici Del Badia, in his historical notes to Messer Mazzanti
and Del Lungo’s fine work[94] throws doubt on the accuracy of Vasari
in attributing the original design of the Palazzo Strozzi to Benedetto
da Majano. Vasari states that “Filippo Strozzi summoned Benedetto da
Majano, who made a model, isolated on all sides, and then commenced the
work, but not according to the plan, as shall be explained below,[95]
because several neighbours declined to sell their houses. So he began
the palace as he best could, and nearly finished the shell thereof
before the death of the said Filippo: the shell being of the rustic
order and graduated as can be seen. The ‘_bozzi_’ from the first-floor
windows downwards, as well as the doors, are huge rustic work, and
from the first-floor windows up to the second-floor they are of lesser
rustic work. Now it happened that at the very time that Benedetto left
Florence, Cronaca returned from Rome, and being recommended to Filippo,
made for him so admirable a design for the courtyard and for the
cornice surrounding the palace outside that, perceiving the excellence
of his talent, Filippo decided to leave all in his hands, and employed
him ever after. So Cronaca added to the beautiful exterior of the
Tuscan order a most magnificent Corinthian cornice round the top of the
palace up to the roof, of which at present but the half is finished,
of such exceeding beauty that it could not be improved or anything
finer be desired. This cornice was drawn by Cronaca, who copied and
took exact measurements of an ancient cornice at Spoglia Cristo, in
Rome, acknowledged to be one of the most beautiful of the many existing
in that city; it is true that Cronaca enlarged it in proportion to
the palace, so that it might make a suitable finish, and with its
projection a roof, to the said palace. Thus by his genius he understood
how to use the works of others and made them almost his own, a thing
few people can do; for the difficulty lies not alone in making copies
and drawings of such beautiful things, but in knowing how to apply them
according to necessity, with grace, proportion, and suitability....
Now Cronaca executed the said cornice with consummate art as far as
the middle, all around the palace with label and egg, and on two sides
he finished it, balancing the stones in such guise and so poising and
tying them, that no better building can be seen or one finished with
more care and perfection. Thus also all the other stones of this palace
are so dressed and fitted that they appear to be of one piece, and not
joined together. And in order that everything might be in unison, he
caused beautiful iron-work to be made for the whole palace, and for the
lanterns that are at the corners; all done by Niccolò Grosso Caparra, a
Florentine smith, with extreme care. Marvellous in these lanterns are
the cornices, the columns, the capitals, and the brackets, wrought in
iron with perfect mastery. Never has any workman of recent times made
objects in iron so large and so complex with such knowledge and skill.”
Other critics had already observed that the name of Benedetto da
Majano, as an architect, appears in connection with no other building,
and Signor Del Badia has found in the Strozzi archives that between
Sept. 1489 and February of the following year, Giuliano da San Gallo
received 115 lire (no small sum in those days) at three different
dates, “for work, and in part for wood, used in making the working
model for building the house;” in April 1490 “the carpenter Filippo
d’Andrea received 9 lire for his trouble and his work on a model of
the first floor of the house;” and in July a quantity of trunks of
lime trees were bought to make “the new model” of 120 large and small
columns. The iron cressets also do not appear to have been exclusively
the work of the famous Caparra, for in the account-books of the family
in 1491, 28 lire are mentioned as paid to Benedetto di Leonardo da
Majano “for a wooden model of the cresset made by order of the chief,”
and 13 soldi were reimbursed to Simon del Pollaiolo which he declares
to have paid to Ippolito the turner for two wooden models of _banderai_
[the iron rings between the windows].
In 1533 Filippo Strozzi the younger, irritated at seeing his father’s
great work remain unfinished succeeded, together with his brother
Lorenzo, in inducing their eldest half-brother Alfonso to finish his
part, by offering to bear one-third of the expense. Two courses of
“_bozzi_” were wanting, and the cornice. A contract was signed with
stonecutters of Settignano for the cornice, and in October 1534 another
with a master-mason for putting it up. But the rupture between Filippo
and the Duke Alessandro stopped the work, and in August the following
year the contract was dissolved by common consent.
Alfonso died without male heirs and the palace went to his
half-brothers, Lorenzo, from whose _Lives of the Strozzi_ these facts
are quoted, and Filippo, who married Clarice, daughter of Piero de’
Medici and Alfonsina Orsini. This marriage created a great stir in
Florence. The Strozzi and the Medici had always been rivals, and the
Gonfalonier Piero Soderini denounced the “presumptuous licence and
audacity” of young Filippo in daring to marry the scion of an exiled
house. He was summoned before the Priors and though he defended himself
with great ability was sentenced to a fine of 500 golden crowns and
exiled for three years. His bride came to live in the palace in
Florence, and by her modest and dignified manners won all hearts, so
after some months her husband was permitted to return to his native
city. A few years later the Medici were once again rulers of Florence;
Giovanni ascended the papal chair as Leo X.; and astute Filippo Strozzi
at twenty-two years of age became one of the most influential men in
the city. But his brother lays stress on the fact that he was not
elated by his position for, “if any Florentine saluted him by taking
off his hood out of respect, or called him Messer Filippo, instead of
as heretofore plain Filippo, he would be angry as though he had been
abused; saying he was neither a doctor nor a knight to whom the title
of Messere belonged, but plain Filippo, son of a citizen and merchant
of Florence of the same name.”
When Lorenzo de’ Medici, Duke of Urbino, the nephew of Pope Leo X.,
went in 1518 to France to marry Madeleine de la Tour d’Auvergne,
he insisted on his brother-in-law accompanying him, and Filippo
left Palazzo Strozzi in great state clad in crimson velvet. He was
also charged to represent the Pope as godfather to the son and heir
of Francis I. M. de Fleuranges, who was at Amboise, describes the
festivities as the most splendid that had ever been seen in France or
in Christendom. They lasted for nearly six weeks and then the Duke and
his bride returned to Florence. Six years later he died and his cousin,
the Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici, ruled in Florence.
When Giulio de’ Medici, the illegitimate son of Giuliano, ascended
the papal throne as Clement VII., Filippo Strozzi hastened to Rome
to congratulate his wife’s kinsman, and to beg for a cardinal’s hat
for his eldest son Piero. Not long afterwards the Pope was forced
to take refuge in Castel Sant’Angelo, and had to sue for peace with
Charles V. A hostage was demanded, and Filippo, sorely against his
will, was chosen and went as a prisoner to Naples with Don Ugo di
Moncada. Needless to say Clement kept none of his promises and Filippo
was in some danger of losing his head. A shift in politics saved him
just as his wife Clarice reached Rome, where she spoke some hard
words to the Pope. Soon afterwards Clement for the second time sought
refuge in Castel Sant’Angelo and Rome was sacked by the Constable de
Bourbon. “Never,” writes old Varchi, “was chastisement so tremendous
inflicted, nor was it ever more richly deserved.” Filippo and his wife
left two days before the catastrophe for Civitavecchia and sailed
for Pisa, where messengers met them from the Cardinal of Cortona,
who was governing Florence for the Medici, and from Niccolò Capponi,
brother-in-law of Filippo and head of the anti-Medicean party. Strozzi
had need of all his prudence and astuteness at this juncture. Clarice
urged him to proceed at once to Florence, where his influence would be
supreme on whichever side he chose to use it. After much pondering he
decided to send her to “try the difficult ford” as his brother Lorenzo
puts it, and Clarice, who had always been he continues, “high-spirited
even beyond what was prudent,” started for Florence at once. Her first
interview was with Niccolò Capponi and others of the “Ottimati” or
patrician party, to whom she promised her husband’s and her own help in
expelling her kinsmen the Medici. She was then carried in her litter to
the Palazzo Medici (now Palazzo Riccardi), where the Cardinal Ridolfi
and young Ippolito de’ Medici met her on the staircase and conducted
her into the room next the chapel where sat the Cardinal-Governor.
He rose to salute her and, as Varchi writes, she said to him: “Ah
Monsignore, Monsignore, whither have you led us. Does it seem to you
that your past and present conduct is in any way similar to that
practised by my ancestors?” After setting forth how they had always
obeyed the will of the people, she turned to the two lads, Ippolito and
Alessandro de’ Medici, and advised them to think of their own safety,
for which she naturally felt more anxiety than the cardinal.
Two days later prudent Filippo Strozzi entered Florence; many of his
relations and friends met him at the city gate and escorted him to
his palace, which was crowded by anxious citizens eager to know what
he would do. After long consultation he decided to go at once to the
Palazzo Medici and advise the Cardinal to leave the city with Ippolito
and Alessandro. On the 17th May, 1527, he and Niccolò Capponi rode with
them, through a threatening crowd, down the Via Larga (now Via Cavour)
to the city gate, and Filippo accompanied them ten miles further to
their villa of Poggio a Cajano.
A year later he lost his wife and not liking the condition of things in
Florence went to Lyons, where he had a large commerce in silk. One of
his daughters had married Luigi Capponi and is described by Varchi as
being “not less honest and virtuous than beautiful, noble and of most
engaging manners.” She was invited to a masked ball given in honour of
the marriage of Guglielmo Martelli to Marietta Nasi, where the Duke
Alessandro and his courtiers were disguised as nuns. Among them was
Giuliano Salviati, “a man,” writes Varchi, “of abominable life and ill
fame. His wife bore an evil reputation and he, desiring that others
should be like her, accosted Luisa at the ball and said some words,
with actions worthy of himself but certes not of her; whereupon she,
being virtuous and of high spirit, with haughty speech and scornful
demeanour, repulsed him. But in the morning, when the entertainment
which had lasted until daylight was over and Luisa wished to mount her
horse,[96] he, being impudent and shameless, pressed forward to aid her
repeating the words and the actions of the night before; and with most
angry scorn she replied to him as he deserved. The affair passed, and
would perhaps have had no consequences, had Giuliano been satisfied
with using discourtesy towards a gentlewoman such as she was, and not
openly boasted of his behaviour....”
It was customary on every Friday in March for people to go up to S.
Miniato to obtain pardon for their sins, and Luisa’s brother Leone
Strozzi, Prior of Capua, Giuliano Salviati and other young nobles,
stood watching the ladies come out of the church. As Luisa passed
Giuliano made some insolent remarks, so the Prior said: “Giuliano,
you perhaps do not know that she is my sister;” whereupon Giuliano
repeated his insulting words. On the following night, as Salviati
was returning on horseback from the Palazzo Medici, he was assaulted
by three strangers and wounded in the face and on the leg, so that
he was lame ever after. Duke Alessandro was furious, and gave orders
that the assassins must be discovered. Suspicion, of course, fell on
the Strozzi. Piero, Leone the Prior, and two of their friends were
arrested, and there was a question of putting them to the torture;
but Clement VII. interfered, and ordered that nothing more should be
done. Piero Strozzi and his brothers, knowing their lives were in
danger, took horse and went to Rome. Meanwhile Luisa, who had remained
in Florence with her husband, supped joyously one night, as the old
chronicler Segni reports, with her sister Maria, wife of Lorenzo
Ridolfi. A few hours afterwards she died in excruciating agony, and her
body turned black. Her relations insisted on a post mortem examination,
and the doctors declared that she had died from the effect of some
virulent poison. Varchi more than hints that her own family were the
culprits, out of fear that the Duke, “by means of some treachery or
fraud, purposed to stain the honour of their family in the person of
Luisa.” But Segni and others agree that, having repulsed the Duke
Alessandro, as she had done Salviati, his infamous wife poisoned her
by the Duke’s orders. Not long after the death of the beautiful Luisa,
her father and her brothers were declared rebels and outlaws by the
Duke Alessandro. The sentence was confirmed by his successor Cosimo I.
because Lorenzino de’ Medici, after he had murdered his cousin the Duke
Alessandro, fled to Venice where Filippo Strozzi hailed him as a second
Brutus.
The exiles invaded Tuscany, but were beaten; Strozzi was made prisoner
at Montemurlo, together with Bacio Valori, and they were taken to
Florence mounted on miserable peasants’ horses in August, 1537. Filippo
was immured in the fortress of S. Giovan Battista (now Fortezza del
Basso), for which but four years before he had advanced the funds
to Clement VII. He was put on the rack, but no avowal of guilt was
wrung from him; so his friend Giuliano Gondi was tortured, and his
confession--or what purported to be his confession--was sent to the
Emperor Charles V. and an order obtained from him to give up Filippo
Strozzi to the Duke Cosimo. On the morning of the 18th December, 1538,
he was found dead in his prison, but how he came by his death was never
known. The anonymous writer who finished the biography begun by his
brother Lorenzo, states as a fact that he killed himself with a sword
left by chance by one of his guards, and gives a document which he
says was found in the prison in his handwriting. Three contemporary
chroniclers state that he was beheaded, and Segni adds: “His body
was never seen; nor was it ever known where he was buried.” It was
generally believed that he had killed himself when he knew that he
was to be delivered into the hands of the executioner. Signor Bigazzi
gives a facsimile of two epitaphs in Filippo’s handwriting, one to be
used “In my own country, if in these times it shall be permitted,”
consisting of these few proud words:
PHILIPPO STROZZAE.
Satis hoc; caetera norunt omnes;
the other, also in Latin, “for a cenotaph in some foreign city,” gives
us his opinion of himself.
“To Filippo Strozzi, by far the most illustrious of all Tuscans in
nobility, learning and wealth; who, when Rome was sacked by the
Imperial forces, and Pope Clement was besieged therein, restored
his country, then reduced to base slavery, to liberty. Ten years
afterwards, when again opposing resuscitated despotism, he was taken
prisoner at the castle of Montemurlo, and soon after cruelly put to
death. His seven surviving sons placed this monument to his memory amid
the tears of all good men. The tyrant did not blush to buy his blood at
a vast price, for he could find no means of remaining in security while
so powerful an enemy lived. But Liberty, knowing well that all her
hopes fell with him, willed to be buried in the same tomb. Pour forth
then, stranger, abundant tears if the Florentine Republic is aught to
thee; for thou wilt never have cause to mourn the loss of a greater
citizen. He lived forty-eight years, ... months, ... days. His last
words were, ‘It is sweet to die by whatsoever death for one’s country.’”
Filippo’s supposed will was commonly reported to have been written by
Pierfrancesco of Prato, who had been tutor to Duke Cosimo, and was
devoted to his interests.
The anonymous writer before mentioned gives the following description
of the great banker: “Filippo was tall of stature, and of a cheerful
and pleasing countenance; sallow of complexion, agile, and made more
for a life of action than for one of repose. No one was more agreeable
in manner, in gesture, deed and word; he was extremely affable, almost
always smiling when he first met people. His step was extraordinarily
rapid, and when his friends remarked upon it he would say nothing was
so irksome to him as loss of time, and that he did not see why, when
he could go quickly from place to place, he should go slowly. When
he could pass a day according to his fancy he was wont to divide it
into three portions; one he gave to his studies, one to his private
concerns, and one to his pleasures.... He was more inclined to pleasure
than was perhaps fitting, not only from inclination, but to adapt
himself to the wishes of his superiors and friends. When he was at
any public or private assembly where there were ladies, he would
lightly fall in love, for he was much inclined to the society of
women; attaching himself rather to those remarkable for elegance and
grace of manner than to those who were merely beautiful in feature. He
was exceedingly fond of music, sang well and accurately, and was not
ashamed to sing the penitential psalms at night in public together with
his brother Lorenzo and others such on holidays. He took much pleasure
also in composing in our own tongue both in prose and verse, as may be
seen by the translations and madrigals of his which are sung at the
present day. He was sumptuous in dress; as much so as any other man in
the city. He delighted in travel, and in seeing new manners and people,
but his many and various affairs did not permit him to indulge this
desire. To sum up his character in one word, those who were acquainted
with literature thought that he had never given his attention to other
things; while those who had business relations with him, and knew in
how masterly a fashion he conducted his affairs, could not easily be
persuaded that he ever attended to other matters; whilst those who knew
him as a man of pleasure could scarcely believe that he found time for
aught else.”
Filippo’s son, Piero Strozzi, went to Barcelona to plead the cause of
the exiles before Charles V., and after their disastrous defeat at
Montemurlo and his father’s murder, entered the service of Francis I.,
who created him Lord of Belleville and a knight of S. Michael. When
the Marquess Del Vasto was beaten by the Conte d’Enghien in 1544 at
Ceresole, Piero Strozzi attempted to seize Milan. Failing in this, he
crossed the Po at Piacenza, and fought his way down to Serravalle,
but had to retire into Piedmont, where he besieged and took the town
of Alba. He was recalled to France in 1545, when he fought against
the English, and the following year he joined the Protestant army in
Germany against Charles V. Later he took part with the Duc de Guise in
defending Metz, when besieged by the Emperor. On the Sienese appealing
to Francis I. for help against Duke Cosimo I. backed by Charles V.,
Strozzi rushed to their assistance armed with full powers from the
King, who made him a Marshal of France. When Siena was forced to
capitulate Piero, who knew that Duke Cosimo had offered a large reward
for his head, fled in disguise, but returned to Italy in 1556, sent by
Henry II. to the aid of Pope Paul IV. against the Emperor. After the
battle of St. Quintin in the Netherlands, where the Spaniards gained a
decisive victory, Strozzi was recalled to France, and assisted at the
taking of Calais by the Duc de Guise. Two years later he was killed at
the siege of Thionville.
His brother Leone, Prior of Capua, went to Malta, where he became
a Knight of the Order and Captain of the galleys. He fought with
distinction under Andrea Doria, and in 1541 entered the service of
Francis I., whose rivalry with the Emperor Charles V., patron of the
Medici, gave him hopes of revenging the murder of his father and of
liberating Tuscany from the yoke of a family he hated. In 1547 Leone
fought against England, and is said to have been the first European
admiral to sail through the Straits of Gibraltar. Four years later
after vainly trying to force Andrea Doria to fight, he drove his fleet
from the coasts of France, and setting sail for Barcelona, captured
several of the enemy’s ships within sight of shore. Discovering that
the Connetable Anne de Montmorency was intriguing against him, Leone
sent back his standard to the King and, breaking the chains which
closed the port of Marseilles, sailed back to Malta, where he planned
the fortifications of S. Elmo and S. Michael. When the Sienese rose
against Cosimo I. he re-entered the service of France and, summoned
by his brother Piero, preceded the fleet with three swift galleys and
landed at Scarlino on the coast of Tuscany, where he was killed whilst
reconnoitring.
The noble palace belongs to Prince Piero Strozzi, head of the family;
as in 1568 Cosimo I. restored to the Cardinal Lorenzo Strozzi and his
nephew Leone the half of the building confiscated by the State when
Filippo Strozzi rebelled.[97]
PALAZZO DELLO STROZZINO
_Piazza Strozzi. No. 9._
According to Litta this beautiful little palace was built in 1450 by
Agnolo degl’ Strozzi, son of Palla, surnamed Novello to distinguish
him from his father Palla, who died as Captain of the Guelph Party in
1377.[98] This statement is confirmed by an entry in the Dei MS. in the
State archives, kindly communicated to me by Dr. G. Gronau, which runs:
“1450. Agnolo, son of Messer Palla [Novello], who was son of Messer
Palla, built the palace on the square of the Strozzi, called ‘of the
three doors.’” Palla Novella was sent to Martin V. in 1423 to ask for
aid against the Duke of Milan who had taken Forli. But the Pope, who
had never forgotten the mocking rhyme of the Florentine street-boys,
refused, and Palla went to Naples, where he obtained the promise of
ships. On his return he was made Commissary of War. It must have been
about this time that he bought the Gondi houses and tower adjoining
Sta. Maria Ughi, for he was despatched on an embassy to Savoy soon
afterwards, and being waylaid on his return by Visconti was imprisoned
in Milan until the peace of Ferrara in 1428. His absence, and the high
rate of exchange consequent on the war, caused his bank to fail; and
he came back a sadly impoverished man. He must, however, have kept the
Gondi houses and re-made a certain fortune, as Herr v. Fabriczy cites
an entry in the _catasto_ of 1451 in the State archives: “All the
houses mentioned on the opposite page have been incorporated into one
house for my own usage,” and this is confirmed by a marginal note of a
clerk of the _catasto_. “All these houses are being arranged for him
[Palla] to dwell in, as Nicholo di Ciennj saw them being demolished in
order to make one house.”[99]
Michelozzi is generally credited with having designed the palace,
but Herr v. Fabriczy and Herr v. Geymüller agree in attributing the
beautiful courtyard and the upper floor to another hand, probably
Giuliano da Majano. When Michelozzi left Florence in 1460 nothing
is more likely than that he charged his friend and pupil Giuliano
to finish the building, which, according to the _catasto_ was done
in 1469. I have entered into these details because it has long been
a vexed question as to who built one of the most beautiful palaces
in Florence, now fast falling into ruin. For many years it was the
property of the Commune and has now been sold to Signor Chiari.
PALAZZO DELLA STUFA
_Piazza S. Lorenzo. No. 5._
The architect of the sombre Della Stufa palace is unknown, and the
loggia on the top has been walled up, which spoils its appearance.
Tradition says that a Lottario, or Lotteringo, came from Lorraine with
the Emperor Otho III. about 998, and gave the name of Lotteringhi to
his descendants, afterwards called Della Stufa because their house was
built on the site of the ancient Roman baths (stufe). Lotteringo Della
Stufa was one of the seven founders of the Servite Order, of which he
became the General after the death of Filippo Benizzi in 1285. Ten
years later the Commune, at his request, opened the Porta di Servi near
the S.S. Annunziata, so that the peasants outside the walls could more
easily come and pray at the Virgin’s shrine. He was beatified, as was
Girolamo, a Franciscan monk of exemplary piety a century later. Ugo,
knight of the Golden Spur and a learned jurist, after being many times
an ambassador to popes, princes, and other republics, put himself at
the head of the People when they rose against the nobles in 1343, and
three years later was sent by the Republic to Avignon to remonstrate
with Clement VI. about the arrogance of the Inquisitor. His son,
Giovenco, was one of the Ten of War in 1399, another, Ugo, after being
Captain of Arezzo and Vicario of the Val d’Arno, was sent in 1408 as
Captain to Pisa, where he made himself so popular that when he left the
Pisans gave him a splendid banner with the arms of the town, and begged
that he might be sent the following year as their Podestà. He founded
and endowed the church of Monte Asinario (commonly called Senario)
near Florence. His nephew, Angelo, must have had a fluent tongue, as
his name perpetually occurs as ambassador of the Republic. At Milan in
1476 the Duke made him a knight of the Golden Spur, and when he died
four years later in Florence, his funeral, at the public expense, was
attended by the Gonfalonier and the Priors. The Della Stufa were always
adherents of the Medici, and Lorenzo sent Ugo’s son, Luigi, to thank
the Soldan of Babylon for various gifts and animals. The latter are
mentioned by Tribaldo de’ Rossi in his _Ricordanzi_.[100] “I record
how in 1488 was presented to Lorenzo de’ Medici from the Soldan of
Babylon a giraffe; brought by an ambassador, a man of high position
and a great lord of that country; and with the giraffe were goats and
sheep.... The giraffe was seven braccie high, with feet like an ox;
it was a gentle beast and one of those Turcomans led it about; it was
shown in the country round and in many convents. Lorenzo put it in the
Pope’s stables in Via della Scala, and in winter it had a deep bed
of straw and a fire was often kindled near, as it dreaded the cold.
It ate of everything, and when it could would put its head into the
baskets of the peasants; it took apples from the hand of a child, so
tame was it. The ambassador stayed some months and the Commune gave him
many presents. The giraffe died in January, and its skin was preserved;
every one was sorry because it was a beautiful beast.” In a grotto in
the garden of the Villa di Castello its effigy in coloured marbles
still exists.
On Luigi Della Stufa’s return from the East he was made Commissary of
War at Castrocara, and in 1513 he was sent to Rome to congratulate Leo
X. on his accession to the Papal throne, and was knighted with great
honour. But when Leo came to Florence in 1433 “he was much displeased
and annoyed,” writes Varchi, “with Messer Luigi, an intimate friend of
the family, who on going to salute him in the name of the city with
other ambassadors, showed him, as is reported, a loaf of white bread
such as is sold by the bakers for four quattrini, assuring him that it
only cost two. What is certain is that when this was known in Florence
the boys, as is their custom, made a song about him, and none could
stop their singing these words, put into rhyme by themselves, in all
the streets:
“Messer Luigi Della Stufa
Ha fitto il capo in una buca,
Il qual non ne puo uscire,
Se il gran non val tre lire.”
(Messer Luigi Della Stufa
Has put his head into a hole,
Out of which it can’t be drawn,
Until wheat costs three lire.)
His son, Prinzivallo, was the man who fired off an arquebuse at Clarice
degl’Strozzi when she went to protest against the bad government of
the Cardinal Passerini, and advised him and the two young Medici to
leave Florence. He was imprisoned during the siege, but when the
city capitulated was one of the five citizens named to examine the
fortifications, and afterwards became a Senator. The Grand Duke
Ferdinando II. made Pandolfo Della Stufa Marquess of Calcione in 1632,
an estate purchased by one of his ancestors from the Republic of Siena.
The old palace belongs to the present Marquess Della Stufa.
PALAZZO TORRIGIANI
_Piazza de’ Mozzi. No. 6._
The Torrigiani were vintners of Lamporecchio, and came to Florence in
the XIVth century, where they made a considerable fortune by trade. The
family then lived in the centre of Florence, and the fine old building,
now the Hotel Porta Rossa, was one of their palaces. The present
Palazzo Torrigiani was left to them by the Baron Gerbone Del Nero, a
relation, in 1816, when the loggia at the top was walled up and turned
into rooms, which has spoiled the façade. It was built by Tommaso Del
Nero in the XVIth century after his own design, and he must have been
a man of some genius, as he is said to have painted the decorations of
the interior of his palace with his own hands, as well as designing it.
He also founded the Academy of the _Alterati_, the precursor of that of
the Crusca, which first met in his house. His ancestor, Bernardo Del
Nero, was thrice Gonfalonier of Justice, and in 1483 Commissary-General
of War in the Lunigiana against Costanzo Sforza. The following year
he drove the Genoese out of Vada. His fate was a sad one, as after
his third term of office as Gonfalonier in 1497, he was accused of
conspiring in favour of the Medici and beheaded in the courtyard of the
Palazzo del Podestà when he was seventy-two years of age.
The riches of the Torrigiani family were increased by the inheritance
of the parsimonious Luca, Archbishop for twenty-four years of the rich
See of Ravenna and the son of an heiress. His brother Carlo bought the
estate of Decimo in the Pontifical States, when his son Raffaelo was
created a Marquess by Clement XI. in 1712. Cardinal Luigi Torrigiani
was Secretary of State to Clement XIII.; his devotion to the Jesuits,
and his blind obedience to their orders, nearly cost the Pope the
allegiance of France, Spain, and Portugal. Dismissed by Clement XIV.,
he died in 1777, the last male representative of his house, leaving
his possessions to his sister’s second son, Pietro Guadagni, with
the obligation of taking his name. Rich, and of some consequence in
the city, the Marquess Pietro Torrigiani was arrested by order of
the French General Gauthier, and transported to France with other
prominent citizens. When the Grand Duchy of Tuscany became the Kingdom
of Etruria he returned, and soon afterwards Etruria ceased to exist,
being declared a province of the French Empire. Napoleon I. named the
Marquess a member of the Council of the Department of the Arno, made
him a Baron, and in 1812 a French citizen, but on the restoration
of the house of Lorraine he resumed his Italian nationality and was
elected a Senator. His son Luigi was an able administrator and a patron
of the arts, and many of the finest pictures of the Torrigiani gallery
were bought by him. Carlo Torrigiani, his brother, devoted himself to
ameliorating the condition of the prisons and to popular education.
He started the society for building blocks of decent houses for small
artisans, and gained the hearts of the Florentines by his fearless
charity during the outbreak of cholera in 1855. An inscription to his
memory was placed by the municipality of Florence on the façade of his
small palace, which now belongs, as well as the larger one beside it,
to his nephew, the present Marquess Torrigiani. It was begun by Baccio
d’Agnolo for the Nasi family and finished by his son Domenico.
[Illustration: PALAZZO UGUCCIONE.]
PALAZZO UGUCCIONE
_Piazza della Signoria. No. 6._
The Uguccione are a branch of the old family of Lippi-Scalandroni,
and took their name from Bernardo di Uguccione, who was the first of
eleven Priors of his house in 1434. They lived in the quarter of S.
Spirito until 1500, when Buonaccorso Uguccione bought from Taddeo
dell’Antella and his brothers a house in the Val del Garbo (now
Condotta), with an entrance also on the Piazza della Signoria. After
his death his son Giovanni purchased some adjoining houses and built
the beautiful little palace which has been variously attributed to
Raphael, Palladio, and Michelangelo. Raphael is out of the question,
as he died thirty years before Giovanni thought of building his house.
Cinelli declares that “the façade of the house of the Uguccione is by
Michelangelo and very beautiful. The cornice is wanting, which was to
have crowned it, and to have rested upon plain but fine corbels; their
very plainness would have given an uncommon majesty and grandeur, as
can be seen by the model which is in his house.”[101] This model was
constructed by Mariotto Folfi, surnamed l’Ammogliato, from a design
which Uguccione obtained from Rome, and is mentioned in a letter from
the Commissary “delle Bande” to Cosimo I., which proves how the Duke
occupied himself with the small details of the affairs of his subjects.
“Giovanni Uguccione has just left me in great anger about a drawing
for a building which he got from Rome, and which must be, as far as
I can gather, a very splendid thing. He gave it to Ceccho Allori, a
master-mason, to make an estimate of his part of the work with strict
injunctions not to show it to any one. The mason promised to return
it in two or three days, but now declares that he has lost it, which
is an evident falsehood. Giovanni wanted to appeal at once to the
court of the ‘Otto,’ but I persuaded him to wait a few days and again
try to obtain possession of the drawing by amicable means. This I did
because I wished to refer to Your Highness, and also because the said
court usually only inflicts a fine for the loss of manuscripts, etc.,
if not returned within so many days, which avails but little against
scoundrels, and lastly because I understand that the architect has no
time to make another design.” The Duke, who was extremely eager to
beautify the city, wrote on the margin of the letter, “Let the court
send for him and insist on his finding it.” The drawing was eventually
returned to Uguccione, and Folfi, as I have already said, made the
model and superintended the building. Signor Iodici Del Badia thinks
he probably designed the fine coats-of-arms, emblems, and internal
decorations of the palace.[102] In a manuscript record belonging to the
family, Giovanni Uguccione is described as “living in great splendour,
and being one of the noblest, richest and wisest citizens of that time.
He was a merchant, but kept no shop. When he rode out his horse was
splendidly caparisoned, a sign of magnificence, as at that time there
were no carriages.”
Uguccione evidently knew that he could rely on the interest the Duke
took in his beautiful house, for he encroached on the rights of his
neighbours on either side in a most high-handed manner. They went to
law, but only obtained a small pecuniary award for the loss of their
_sedilia_ and their light. When the palace was completed early in 1559
Giovanni begged to be allowed to occupy part of the Piazza by putting
steps outside his door “according to the design, and to give greater
beauty to the house.” The permission must have been granted, as in
a drawing of the façade by the younger Vasari in the Uffizi, there
are five steps leading up to the front door. These have gradually
disappeared owing to the rise in the level of the Piazza. Giovanni
Uguccione died in December, 1559, leaving the house to his widow
Nannina, daughter of Palla Rucellai, and afterwards to his nephews.
Nannina’s arms and emblems, the sail and the ring with three feathers,
are sculptured together with his own in the entrance hall and in one
of the ground-floor rooms. Pope Benedict XIV. bestowed the title of
Marquess on Benedetto Uguccione in 1749, and the palace still belongs
to his descendants.
PALAZZO VAI
_Via Cavour. No. 31._
The old family of Orlandini were the original proprietors of this
palace, and traces of the arches of their loggia are still to be seen.
The street corner was called Canto degl’Orlandini until the palace
was sold to Bernardetto de’ Medici, when it took his name, which is
inscribed on an old marble tablet let into the wall. Bernardetto was
descended from Averardo, grandfather of Cosimo the Elder, and was
Gonfalonier of Justice in 1447, and again in 1455. He was the ancestor
of Alessandro, Pope for twenty-seven days under the name of Leo XI.,
and of Bernardetto, married to Giulia, natural daughter of Duke
Alessandro de’ Medici, who bought Ottojano from the Gonzaga in the
Kingdom of Naples. In 1737, his descendant, Prince Giuseppe d’Ottajano,
lay claim to the throne of Tuscany after the death of the last Grand
Duke Giovan Gastone, but his claim was disallowed.
PALAZZO VECCHIETTI
_Via de’ Vecchietti. No. 2._
Although partly rebuilt and modernized traces of ancient splendour
can still be seen in the pretty courtyard of this palace. Piero de’
Monaldi, in his manuscript history, tells us “the Vecchietti came
originally from Arezzo, they were a powerful family within the first
circuit of the walls of Florence and owned towers, streets and a
piazza, whereon they built the church of S. Donato. Two Gonfaloniers of
Justice and twenty-four Priors did they give to the city. Vecchietto,
Consul of Florence in 1128, was of their race, as was also Marsilio,
knight of the Golden Spur, who was then Captain of Arezzo in 1288.
Dante makes honourable mention of them in his _Paradiso_.”
The corner of the Palazzo Vecchietti is called the Canto de’ Diavoli
from the tradition that when St. Peter Martyr preached here one of his
violent sermons against the heretics, a great black horse suddenly
appeared and the crowd fled in dismay before his kicking and rearing,
some even declared that fire came from his nostrils. People were
convinced that it was the devil and hence the name of the street
corner. On the angle of the old palace was the satyr (now in the
Bargello) made by Gian Bologna for Bernardo de’ Vecchietti, who was his
patron and friend. The house now belongs to the family of Del Corona,
and a copy of Donatello’s satyr has been placed where the original once
was.
PALAZZO VECCHIO
“On the 24th February, 1299, the foundations of the Palazzo de’ Priori,
for the Commune and the People of Florence, were laid,” writes Giovanni
Villani, “the Priors not feeling themselves in safety where they had
hitherto lived, that is to say in the house of the Cerchi behind the
church of San Procolo.” Arnolfo Cambio was the architect chosen to
build the palace, and he took as his model the one built at Poppi by
his father Lapo. Vasari’s story that he could not make it square and
straight as he desired, because the people would not allow him to build
where the houses of those hated Ghibellines the Uberti once stood, is
not borne out by history, for Villani states, and various documents
dating from 1299 to 1311 confirm his words, that the site occupied by
the houses of the Uberti was made into a square, so that it might never
again be built upon. Houses of other citizens, such as the Foraboschi
and the Della Vacca, were bought, and where they stood was erected the
palace. The tower of the Priors still retains the name of the latter
family, one of whom, Falcone Della Vacca, was an Elder of the city in
1260, and from it the street opposite is called Vacchereccia. When in
those “good old times” Guelphs and Ghibellines, Whites and Blacks, flew
at each other’s throats, and the great bell rang to call the people to
arms, the saying was _la vacca mugghia_ (the cow is lowing).
[Illustration: COURTYARD OF PALAZZO VECCHIO.]
Vasari’s statement that Arnolfo filled up most of the old tower to
build his own upon was disproved in 1814. The architect del Rosso,
in executing some restorations in the old palace, discovered a small
dark room which had been walled up, and which he surmised, probably
correctly, to have been the famous Alberghettino, or Barberia, where
Cosimo the Elder was immured, and in later days Savonarola. In one
corner of this room is a rectangular opening, or well, the bottom of
which is about ten and a half feet below the level of the courtyard;
various underground passages, to which access is obtained by a man-hole
in the guard-room, communicate with it and seem to bear out the old
tales of secret trapdoors down which unhappy prisoners disappeared
for ever. Vasari is also wrong in saying that part of the church of
San Piero Scheraggio was destroyed at the same time, for it was only
partially swept away to widen the street a century later.[103]
The tallest part of the Palazzo Vecchio with five windows on the
northern side and six on the western (not counting the modern balcony)
crowned with the square, so-called Guelph battlements, is Arnolfo’s
original building and his design was faithfully carried out after his
death in 1301. The tower, so majestic, and at the same time so elegant
is a model of daring and skill, half resting as it does on the alur,
or covered passage, supported by machicolations, which surrounds the
top of the palace. Half-way up the tower is another alur, adorned with
swallow-tailed, or so-called Ghibelline battlements, whence rise four
columns with Gothic capitals, supporting the battlemented top of the
tower with its golden lion, the emblem of Florence, as a weathercock.
It was not until 1344 that the bell of the Council, which till then
had been suspended on the battlements of the palace, was hung in the
tower, so that it might be better heard on the opposite side of the
Arno. In its place was put the bell from Vernio, which rang to warn
the guards whenever a fire burst out in the town. In 1363 the bell of
Foiano, taken when the castle was sacked, was brought to Florence and
placed above the alur, to tell the merchants that the dinner hour had
come. The big bell cracked and in 1373 was recast by a certain Ricco di
Lapo, when it was said that it could be heard for thirteen miles round
the city. When the Florentine arms were victorious, it rang for days in
token of triumph, until Duke Alessandro de’ Medici destroyed it in 1532.
The Gonfaloniers and the Priors lived entirely in the Palazzo Vecchio
during the two months they were in office and were not allowed to go
out save on pressing business affecting the Commune. No one could speak
to them in private, they were forbidden to accept any invitations
and no one could dine with them save the notary of the city; but
their dinners, served on silver plate, were excellent and their wines
choice. Rastrelli writes: “Ten golden florins were assigned each day
to the Priors solely for their food, all other expenses being defrayed
by the Commune of Florence. This sum was for the maintenance of the
Gonfalonier, the Priors, the notary, the nine donzelli, or office
servants, five monks who served the chapel of the palace, two who had
charge of the seal of the Commune, and the almsgiver and bursar, who
were also monks; there were also the curial notary, two mazzieri, or
mace-bearers, and a cook who was bound to keep two scullions; two
trumpeters and two pifferi, to play while the Signori were at table,
four bell-ringers and one servant.... No man who had been a Gonfalonier
could be arrested until a year had elapsed from the time of his holding
office, save for some very heinous offence, and he was allowed to
carry arms of any kind for the rest of his life.”[104] In front of the
great door of the palace, where now are the steps and a platform, was
the _ringhiera_,[105] erected in 1323, of which one hears so often in
the history of Florence. Here the Podestà harangued the people from
his _bigoncia_, or pulpit, and here the Gonfalonier received the
Standard of the People in state and delivered batons of command to the
various condottieri who served the Republic. On the ringhiera Walter
de Brienne, Duke of Athens and Count of Lecce, met the Priors on the
8th September, 1342, when the people and the nobles shouted, “Let the
Duke have command for life, let the Duke be our lord.” The latter,
gathering round him, forced open the door of the palace, led him into
the apartment of the Priors and hailed him as ruler. The Priors were
relegated to the Sala delle Armi, the white silken banner with the red
cross of the People was removed, the books containing the enactments
were torn to shreds, and the Duke’s flag, foreign to Florence, was
unfurled on the tower, while the bell of Liberty rang out the _Dio
laudiamo_. Two days later the Priors were thrust out, and the Palazzo
de’ Priori became the Palazzo Ducale.
A council of Wise Men was instituted by the Duke, with but one
Florentine among them, Cerettieri Visdomini, a man of evil repute; and
soon the growing dissatisfaction of his subjects made the Duke think
about fortifying himself in the palace. “He caused,” writes Giovanni
Villani, “the _antiporta_, or fortified porch, in front of the Palace
of the People to be built, and put iron bars in the windows of the Sala
de’ Dugento, or Council Chamber, being afraid and suspicious of the
citizens; and ordered that the whole palace of the Figliuoli Petri,
the towers and houses of the Manieri, of the Mancini and of Bello
Alberti, comprising the ancient citadel, and extending into the piazza,
should be included in the circuit of the said palace. He began to lay
foundations of thick walls, and of towers and barbicans, to make of the
palace a great and strong fortress; stopping the work of building the
Ponte Vecchio, which was of such infinite necessity to the Commune of
Florence, and taking from thence hewn stone and timber. He threw down
the houses of San Romolo in order to extend the piazza as far as the
houses of Garbo ... and demanded permission from the papal court to
destroy San Piero Scheraggio, Santa Cecilia, and Santo Romolo, but the
Pope refused his consent. From the citizens he took certain palaces
and houses that stood round about the palace, and lodged in them his
barons and followers without paying any rent.” Vasari, in his life
of Andrea Pisani, writes: “Walter, Duke of Athens and tyrant of the
Florentines, made use of Andrea also in architectural matters, causing
him to enlarge the piazza. Opposite to San Piero Scheraggio, he added
the walls, encased with ‘_bozzi_,’ alongside of the palace to enlarge
it, and in the width of the wall he constructed a secret staircase for
going up and down without being seen. In the said façade of ‘_bozzi_’
he made a large door, which serves to-day for the customs, and above it
he placed his arms, all being done according to the design and advice
of Andrea.” The addition made by the Duke of Athens extends, on the
northern side, to the door now called della Dogana, and his battlements
adjoin the machicolations which sustain the alur surrounding Arnolfo’s
original building. On the southern side, where once stood S. Piero
Scheraggio, and now stands the Uffizi, can be seen the door of the
old dogana, above which were the Duke’s arms, effaced by order of the
magistrates when he was deposed.
On the 26th July, 1343, the Florentines rose against the Duke. Armed
bands suddenly invaded the streets, waving banners which had been
secretly prepared with the arms of the People emblazoned upon them, and
shouting, “Death to the Duke and his followers! Long live the Commune
and Liberty!” They released the prisoners from the Stinche, forced
open the door of the Palazzo del Podestà, and burnt all the records.
Next day the Duke, hoping to pacify the people, offered the honour of
knighthood to one of their leaders, who disdainfully refused, and told
him he had better haul down his flag and replace the banner of the
People on the tower. Meanwhile the allies of Florence hastened to her
aid. Siena sent three hundred horse and four thousand bowmen, Prato
five hundred men-at-arms, S. Miniato two hundred, while the peasants
of the country round seized what weapons they could and poured into
the city. The Bishop Acciajuoli, the nobles and the _popolani_ met in
Sta. Reparata and elected fourteen citizens, seven nobles, and seven
_popolani_, giving them full power to make laws, while six others,
three from each caste, were to keep order and see that violence and
robbery should be severely punished. To save himself the Duke delivered
his chief adviser, Guglielmo d’Assisi, with his young son, into the
hands of the surging multitude in the Piazza. The lad was torn to
pieces first, and then his father. The old chronicler gives details
of this tragedy too horrible to repeat, and then continues: “On the
3rd August the Fourteen men of Florence appointed to set things right
in the city went to the Palazzo de’ Priori, with Count Simone and
much people, and the Duke ceded the Lordship, saying he had taken it
treacherously, by cunning and by falsehood, as he should not have done.
The said Duke threw down the baton on the ground, and then picked it up
and gave it to the Fourteen, thus delivering to them the Lordship for
the Commune of Florence, and these Fourteen were Lords for the Commune,
and this was written down. The Duke quitted his room that very evening,
and the Fourteen entered it, and by courtesy he was allowed to have
another room with fifteen of his people. During the day it was publicly
ordered several times that every man should lay down his arms, the
bells of the Palazzo de’ Priori rang joyously, great bonfires were lit
on the palace and in every corner of Florence. In truth it was a fine
festival.”
For three days, until the people became quieter, the Duke remained in
the palace, and then left at night with a strong escort, carrying off
all the gold plate which had been made for him of the value of 30,000
golden florins. When he got to Poppi he ratified, “but with a very evil
grace,” the renunciation of the Lordship of Florence, and by way of
Bologna went to Venice, whence he returned to Apulia.
The Fourteen repealed all the Duke’s laws, and with that odd
childishness that sometimes shows itself in the Florentine character,
spent twenty golden florins to have him and his chief advisers painted
“in ignominious fashion” on the tower of the palace of the Podestà and
elsewhere. The day of S. Anna was decreed a public festival, and on
that day the banners of the Guilds are still hung round Or San Michele
in remembrance of the deposition of the tyrant of Florence. They also
demolished the fortified porch, built by the Duke in front of the great
door of the palace, and restored the ringhiera. Signor Gotti, in his
exhaustive work on the old palace, thinks that about the same time
the two stone lions, which were gilt, said to have been sculptured by
Giovanni de’ Nobili, were placed on either side of the entrance. Matteo
Villani speaks of four others, which the Priors, in 1353, “having
little else to attend to on account of the leisure born of peace,
caused to be carved of granite and gilded at great expense, and placed
on the four corners of the palace of the People of Florence. This they
did for a certain vanity that obtained at that time, instead of having
them cast in bronze and then gilt, which would have cost but little
more than the granite, would have been beautiful, and have lasted for
many centuries; but small things and great are continually being spoilt
in our city by the avaricious whims of the citizens.”[106]
Three years later the Signoria decided to build a loggia, a necessary
adjunct in those days to a palace, on the southern side of the Piazza
where the houses and tower of the Mint stood. But the project,
according to Matteo Villani, met with considerable opposition among
the citizens, who declared that “a loggia was suitable for tyrants,
not for the People,” and it remained in abeyance until, owing to
incessant rain, the installation of the new Priors on the 1st January,
1374, could not take place on the ringhiera, and the ceremony was
performed in the small church of S. Piero Scheraggio. The building
was then confided to the _Opera del Duomo_, and the _Operai_ named an
overseer--_Capudmagister operis Loggie_. According to Vasari, Andrea
Orcagna was ordered to make a design, and the work was given to him.
But Dr. Carl Frey, in his critical and learned work on the Loggia de’
Lanzi, writes: “But can the Loggia be attributed to Orcagna? When the
building was begun in 1376 Orcagna had already been dead seven or eight
years, so that we can only suppose that he may have made the design in
1356, when the idea was first started. Although Orcagna was probably
in Florence about that time there are many reasons against this. To
begin with, the first building was evidently intended to have been far
smaller, as in the documents of 1356 the erection of a loggia on ground
belonging to the Commune is mentioned: _in domibus comunis predicti
positis prope plateam populi Florentie, que vulgariter appellantur
domus della moneta_, whereas the resolution passed in 1374 deals with
the acquisition and demolition of other people’s houses, indicating
the intention of occupying a larger space. It is evident that as
the necessary land had not been bought in 1374, nothing had been
definitely settled, and there could have been no question of choosing
an architect--a choice which rested with the _Operai_--or of a design,
to be made by an architect and then approved by the _Operai_....
Orcagna seems to have had many enemies in Florence; at least, such
is the impression left on one’s mind after reading the documents,
for he was not regularly employed on the Duomo, but only called in
consultation with other masters, and although various committees had
approved of his model and design for the pillars [of the Loggia], in
the end the work was entrusted to Francesco Talenti. This goes to prove
that Orcagna had no hand in designing the Loggia, as it is hardly
likely that the _Operai_ would have permitted a plan rejected by them
to be carried out, or that Simone, Francesco Talenti’s son, would have
chosen Orcagna’s design in preference to a better one by his father
or by himself. A comparison between the columns of the Loggia, the
Duomo and the Tabernacolo [Or San Michele] is sufficient. To all this
we need only add the absolute silence of all contemporary writers, to
feel convinced that Orcagna neither built nor made the design for the
Loggia dei Signori. When the _Operai del Duomo_ undertook the building
of the Loggia, their Capomaestri were Simone Talenti, son of the famous
architect who succeeded Arnolfo and Giotto as overseer of the building
of the Duomo and of the Campanile; Taddeo di Ristori, who was appointed
overseer of the new building for the month of October; and Benci di
Cioni Dami of Como, who took his place as Capomaestro of the Duomo.”
Dr. Carl Frey thinks that probably the design of the Loggia was made
by the three architects in common, but that the columns and all the
ornamentation are due to Simone Talenti.[107]
But we must return to the palace and the Priors, who on the 19th July,
1378, heard that a revolution was to break out next day. So they
arrested a certain Simoncino, and the Proposto led him in front of
the altar in the chapel[108] and interrogated him. Their conversation
is given by Gino Capponi in his history of the Republic. “Simoncino
said, yesterday I was with eleven others in the hospital of the priests
in the Via San Gallo, and having summoned other minor artisans, we
determined that about six to-morrow a revolution shall begin, as has
been ordered by certain leaders nominated by us some days ago. You
must know, Signore, that our number is infinite, and amongst us are
well-to-do and excellent artificers; also most of those who are under
police supervision have offered to join us. And, asked the Proposto,
if the people rise, what will they demand of the Signoria? They will
ask that the trades subject to the Guild of Wool should have their
own consuls and colleges, and they refuse to acknowledge any longer
the officer who worries them with trifles, or to deal with the master
clothiers [_maestri lanaiolo_] who pay them badly, and for work worth
twelve, only give them eight.” Poor Simoncino was incontinently handed
over to the captain, and, in the cant phrase of that day, “made to
sing,” _i. e._ tortured, until he confessed the name of the leader of
the revolt, Salvestro de’ Medici. But his shrieks and groans were heard
by Niccolò degl’Orivoli, who had charge of the clock in the tower;
he rushed into the street shouting, “Wake up, the Signori are making
meat,” and the people ran out of their houses ready armed, while the
church bells rang furiously. In a moment the Piazza was invaded by
a crowd shouting for the release of Simoncino and others who were in
prison; and when their demand was granted they dispersed, and went
through the streets setting fire to the houses of Luigi Guicciardini,
of the Gonfalonier, of one of the Albizzi, of Simone Peruzzi and of
others, and then to the palace of the Guild of Wool.
This was the famous Ciompi revolt, which but for the level head and
strong will of Michele di Lando, a poor wool carder, whose father sold
earthenware pots and pans, would have overthrown all law and order in
Florence. When the mob invaded the Palazzo de’ Priori, Michele, who,
according to an old chronicler, “was without stockings and had but
little on, held the banner of Justice aloft and turned to the crowd
asking what they intended to do. With one voice they saluted him as
Gonfalonier and Lord of Florence. He accepted the office, and to put
an end to robbery and arson ordered the erection of a gallows and
threatened all disturbers of the peace.... Creating new magistrates,
four chosen from the _popolo minuto_, two from the major Guilds, and
two from the minor, he dismissed the _Dieci di Guerra_; so that for
eighteen hours Michele may be said to have been absolute master of
Florence. Thinking that the new Gonfalonier favoured the _popolani
nobili_ at their expense, the mob returned to the piazza shouting
and rioting; not being listened to they went to Sta. Maria Novella
and created eight magistrates with consuls, so that the majesty of
Government was divided in two. But Michele di Lando would not suffer
such arrogance; with the weapon he had in his belt he severely wounded
the members of the deputation who had come to announce that he had been
superseded, and mounting a horse he took armed men and beat the rebels,
thus remaining in peaceful possession of his dignity.” Machiavelli,
in his narrative of the Ciompi riots bears eloquent testimony to the
poor wool carder. “The riots were put down solely by the energy of the
Gonfalonier, who far surpassed all other citizens of that time in
courage, prudence, and goodness; he deserved to be named among those
who have been benefactors of their country.”
In September, 1433, the Piazza della Signoria was once more invaded by
an angry crowd of _popolani_. Their benefactor and favourite, Cosimo
de’ Medici, had been treacherously seized and imprisoned in the small,
dark Alberghettina, or Barberia, in the tower of the palace, and they
feared the Signoria would make away with him. The great bell rang to
summon a parliament, and it is said that Cosimo heard the crowd below
debating as to his fate. For some days he refused all food fearing
poison. He appears to have had grounds for suspicion, as it is said
that the Captain of the Guard, Federigo de’ Malavolti of Siena, had
been asked to do away with him. He not only refused, but warned his
prisoner, and to prove his good faith tasted everything that was placed
before Cosimo, and thus induced him to eat. Machiavelli relates that
one evening Malavolti brought a facetious and pleasant fellow, a friend
of the Gonfalonier, surnamed il Fargonaccio, to supper to amuse Cosimo,
and then left them alone together. Cosimo, knowing the man he had to
deal with, gave him a token for the governor of the hospital of Sta.
Maria Nuova, who on receiving it was to give him 1100 ducats, 100 for
himself, and 1000 for the Gonfalonier. Cosimo in his diary remarks:
“They were people of small intelligence, for I would have given them
10,000 or more to escape from peril.”
Thanks to the Gonfalonier and the many friends Cosimo had in the city
and outside, he escaped with his life; but was condemned to exile for
ten years. He was recalled a year later and received with all honour by
the Signoria in the very palace in which he had been imprisoned. With
him came his friend and favourite architect, Michelozzo Michelozzi,
who had gone with him to Venice, and built there by his orders the
library of S. Giorgio Maggiore. To him was given the task of restoring
the noble old Palazzo de’ Priori, which showed signs of collapsing.
Vasari in his life of Michelozzi states that, “several columns in the
courtyard had suffered; either on account of the great weight they
had to bear, or that the foundations were weak and insufficient, or
because they were ill-built and the stones badly joined.... Michelozzi
made new foundations and rebuilt the columns as they now are, having
first put strong, upright beams of thick wood to support the curves
of the arches, with three-inch boards of walnut under the vaults, so
that the weight which had rested on the columns was evenly distributed
and sustained; and little by little he took those down which had
been badly put together and rebuilt them with well-wrought stone, in
such guise that the building suffered no harm and has never moved a
hairsbreadth. And in order to distinguish his columns from the others,
he made the octangular ones in the corners with leaves on the capitals
sculptured in the modern fashion, and some circular ones which can be
well distinguished from the old ones made by Arnolfo. Afterwards, by
the advice of Michelozzi, the ruler of the city ordered that the weight
resting on the arches of the columns should be diminished, that the
courtyard be rebuilt from the arches upwards, and that windows of a
modern order, like those he had designed for Cosimo in the courtyard
of the Medici palace, should be made, and the walls ornamented _a
sgraffio_, with the golden lilies which are still to be seen. All this
Michelozzi did with extreme rapidity, fashioning circular windows,
different from the others, above the windows of the second floor in
the said courtyard, to give light to some rooms above, where now is
the Hall of the Two Hundred. The third floor, where the Priors and
the Gonfalonier lived, he made more ornate, and arranged rooms for
the Priors on the side looking towards S. Piero Scheraggio; till then
they had slept all together in one room. Eight rooms were made for
the Priors, and a larger one for the Gonfalonier, all leading out of a
passage with windows on the courtyard, and above these he made another
set of convenient rooms for the servants of the palace ... also rooms
for the office and house servants, trumpeters, pifferi, mace-bearers,
and heralds, and various others necessary for such a palace. He also
made a stone cornice surrounding the courtyard above the alur, and
there he arranged a tank for rain water, in order to feed provisional
fountains when needed. Michelozzi also adorned the chapel where mass
was said, and made very rich ceilings, painted with golden lilies on
an azure ground, to many rooms near it, and in those above and below
in the palace he made new ceilings, covering all the old ones, which
were according to ancient fashion.... Only one thing the genius of
Michelozzi could not overcome, and that was the public staircase, which
was badly designed, built in the wrong place and most inconvenient,
being steep and dark, and made of wood from the first floor upwards.
Still he worked to such purpose that at the entrance to the courtyard
he made an approach of circular steps and a door with pilasters of
stone, whose beautiful capitals he sculptured with his own hand, a
cornice with double architraves of good design, and in the frieze were
the various arms of the Commune. He also made stone stairs up to the
floor where the Priors lived, and fortified them at the top and in the
middle with portcullises in case of tumults: and at the top of the
staircase he made a door which was called _la catena_, or ‘the barred,’
where one of the servants of the magistrates always stood to shut or
to open it, according to the orders of the master. The tower, which
had cracked owing to the weight of that part which rests obliquely,
that is to say on the corbels overlooking the Piazza, he fortified with
huge bands of iron. In short he improved and restored the palace in
such a way that the whole city praised him, and in addition to other
rewards he was appointed to be one of the ‘Collegio,’ magistrates
whose office is of the most honourable in Florence. If I seem to have
been too prolix in all this it must be excused, because having told, in
the _Life of Arnolfo_, how the palace was first built in 1298, crooked,
lacking every rational measurement, with columns in the courtyard that
did not match, large and small arches, inconvenient stairs, and dark
and ill-proportioned rooms, it was fitting that I should point but how
it was changed by the genius and judgment of Michelozzi.”
About the same time the Ten of Balìa, _considerato defectu et penuria
presentis Palatii circa pannos darazza et circa gausape seu tovaglias
et argentum seu vasa argentea, et quod multum condecens esset in hujus
modi tali Palatio_, voted two thousand golden florins for refurnishing
the palace, and also commissioned Neri di Bicci to paint and gild
the tabernacle in which the celebrated _Pandects_ of Justinian were
kept. Neri thus describes his work: “I undertook to paint and gild for
fiorini 56 a tabernacle of wood made according to ancient fashion, at
each side were columns, above was an architrave, a frieze, a cornice
and a lunette, and below the base was all of fine gold. In the picture
of the said tabernacle I painted Moses and the four animals of the
Evangelists, and in the lunette S. John the Baptist; round Moses and
the animals I put golden lilies, and inside was the picture, which is
to be the front of the cupboard where the _Pandects_, and another book
which came from Constantinople, and certain other most rare things of
the Florentine people, are kept, and it is to stand in the Hall of
Audience of the Signori.”
In 1441 the old palace was soiled by the blood of Baldaccio d’Anghiari,
a gallant soldier in the service of the Republic, and an intimate
friend of Neri Capponi. Therefore Cosimo de’ Medici and all his party
hated him, and according to Machiavelli, decided to do away with a man
whom it was dangerous to keep, and still more dangerous to dismiss.
The Gonfalonier of Justice at that moment was Bartolomeo Orlandini,
a man devoted to Cosimo with a personal grudge against Baldaccio, who
had openly accused him of rank cowardice at Marradi, where he fled
and left the pass open and undefended. One of the principal actors in
this cold-blooded murder, Francesco di Tommaso Giovanni, describes
the scene in his diary much as a sportsman would tell how he shot a
stag. “On Tuesday evening, the 5th September, being in the audience
chamber after supper, all of us save Cante (Compagni, one of the
Priors), with cautious words agreed to do whatever appeared good to
the Gonfalonier; the allusions to Baldaccio were manifest, but his
name was not mentioned because during the day many of us had talked of
doing a thing, and of him, in such manner that we all understood. So on
Wednesday the 6th, having called the cavalier and eight soldiers of the
Captain of Florence, and shut them into my room, the Gonfalonier sent
for the said Baldaccio, who was in the Piazza, and he came in about an
hour’s time. He and the Gonfalonier being alone in the passage between
the rooms, we caused the soldiers to come into the small chamber, and
I stood at the end of the passage pretending to read letters. When the
Gonfalonier made me a sign I signalled to the soldiers, who instantly
threw him down and bound him as I had commanded. Now Baldaccio, in
the attempt to defend himself and to attack the Gonfalonier, wounded
one of the men; the others, to save themselves, wounded him, and then
by order of the Gonfalonier threw him into the Captain’s courtyard
below, and struck off his head on the doorstep. The people showed their
satisfaction and praised the deed; but afterwards, as it had displeased
some, they blamed it; however, in the end it was acknowledged to have
been an excellent thing.” One of the people who was “displeased” was
Pope Eugenius IV., who had taken Baldaccio into his service the day
before he was murdered, and who left Florence in an angry mood.
In 1452, when the members of all the major and minor Guilds were
admitted to sit in the great council, the Hall, or Sala de’ Dugento,
was declared to be too small, but seventeen years passed without any
decision being taken. It was then determined to use certain moneys “the
Jew Isahac owes to the Monte, or public pawnshop, for rebuilding the
Council Hall in the Palace of our Magnificent Signori.” This second
decision also came to nought, as the money of Isahac went to rebuild
the walls and castle of Castrocaro. At last, in 1472, Giuliano di Nardo
da Majano and Francesco di Giovanni, _alias_ Francione, were charged
to do the work. Vasari attributes it to Benedetto da Majano, and in
his life of that artist gives a long description of how he rebuilt the
Sala de’ Dugento, and made two rooms above it; one called the Clock
Room, because in it was a clock made by that excellent mechanician
Lorenzo della Volpaia, the other the Audience Hall, with the triumph
of Camillus painted by Salviati, while Domenico and Giuliano, brothers
of Benedetto, made the ceilings. The marble door was sculptured by
Benedetto himself, who “made a figure of Justice seated, with the
sphere of the world in one hand and a sword in the other, and round the
arch is written, _Diligete justitiam qui judicatis terram_.” The outer
door of the Audience Hall was, according to tradition, a beautiful
work. But nothing remains of Benedetto’s boys holding up festoons of
flowers. Only the statue of the youthful S. John, which stood in the
centre, is now in the National Museum in the Bargello. Vasari also
attributes to Benedetto the wonderful intarsia doors, with Dante on
one side and Petrarch on the other; but the archives show them to be
the work of his brother Giuliano, and of Francione. The old Palazzo
de’ Signori was decorated in a strange and horrible manner in 1478,
when, in consequence of the Pazzi conspiracy, an Archbishop and several
nobles, with priests, men-at-arms and serving-men, were hung round the
outside from the columns of the windows. Filippo Strozzi was in the
cathedral when the attempt to murder the Medici brothers was made, and
has left a vivid account of what he saw. “I note a terrible event which
happened in our city of Florence on the 26th April, 1478, a Sunday
morning. The Very Reverend Messer Raffaello da Saona, Cardinal of S.
Giorgio, nephew of Count Girolamo, a youth of about nineteen or twenty,
had been at Montughi for about two months in the house of Messer Jacopo
de’ Pazzi. He had lately received the cardinal’s hat at Pisa, and his
chief adviser was Messer Francesco Salviati the Archbishop of Pisa. He,
with others, instigated Lorenzo de’ Medici to invite him, and he did so
for the said Sunday, and Messer Marino, ambassador of King Ferrando,
Messer Filippo Sagramoro, orator of the Duke of Milan, Messer Niccolò
of Ferrara, and six or seven cavaliers were asked to meet him. The
said Cardinal was in Sta. Maria del Fiore at mass, and at the words
_missa este_, Ser Stefano da Bagnone, secretary of Messer Jacopo de’
Pazzi, and Messer Marco Maffei of Volterra, with some armed followers,
assaulted Lorenzo de’ Medici; while Francesco de’ Pazzi and Bernardo
Bandini fell upon Giuliano, as both were walking round the choir.
Lorenzo saw them, drew his weapon, and jumped into the choir. Passing
in front of the altar, he entered the new sacristy and ordered the door
to be bolted. There he remained until aid came from his house, and he
only had a wound in the neck, which healed in a few days. Giuliano,
assailed by both Francesco de’ Pazzi and Bernardo Bandini, fled into
the choir, and in front of the chapel of the Cross received ten or
twelve such blows that he fell to the ground dead; they also gave two
blows to Francesco Nori, who was beside Giuliano, and killed him. Then
arose a great tumult in the church. Messer Bongianni and the other
cavaliers with whom I was talking were all stupefied; one fled here,
the other there, loud shouts filled the church, and one saw arms in the
hands of the adherents of the Pazzi, who made common cause with them.
The Cardinal remained all alone by the side of the altar until he was
conducted by the priests into the old sacristy, whence he was fetched
away by two of the Eight, with a strong guard, and taken to the Palazzo
de’ Priori. During the time all this was happening, the Archbishop of
Pisa had gone to the Palazzo under pretence of visiting the Signoria,
and hearing the tumult he tried to seize the palace. With him were
Jacopo his brother, Jacopo di Jacopo Salviati, Jacopo di Messer Poggio,
Perugini and others. The Signori and their guards defended themselves
and rang the great bell to call the people to arms, and the citizens
rushed into the Piazza and forced open the door of the palace, which
had been bolted on the inside, and took them all. The instigators of
all this are said to have been Francesco de’ Pazzi and the Archbishop
of Pisa, together with Count Girolamo, the Pope’s nephew, and Messer
Jacopo de’ Pazzi. The latter was in Sta. Maria del Fiori in the morning
with armed followers, and as soon as the deed was done he returned
home, and with some of his nephews and friends went into the Piazza
shouting ‘Liberty.’ When he came to the door of the palace he was
warned by those on the battlements to withdraw, or stones would be
hurled on him. Seeing that the palace had not been taken, he returned
straight to his house, and with his followers mounted on horseback rode
to the gate of Sta. Croce. Taking the keys from the citizen who kept
them, he opened the gate and set his people as guards, and then again
returned to his house, where he remained for about two hours. Finding
the city was quiet, and that all the armed _popolani_ were either at
Lorenzo’s house or in the Piazza, he decided to depart, and left by
that same gate with nigh two hundred men. On the same day the Signoria
hung from the windows of the palace the Archbishop of Pisa, Jacopo
di Messer Poggio, and others of good birth, such as Jacopo, Jacopo
Salviati, and several of his friends, and the servants of the Cardinal,
who had gone with him to the palace. They also hung Francesco
d’Antonio de’ Pazzi, who was taken in his own house. On Tuesday Messere
Jacopo and Renato de’ Pazzi were hung, and Ferugini and many others
were killed in the palace at the foot of the staircase. About eighty
were killed either in the Palazzo or in the Palazzo del Podestà....”
A great name is associated with this old Florentine palace--that of
Savonarola. When in July, 1495, he preached a farewell sermon in the
Duomo, in the presence of the Signoria and all the magistrates, he
said: “I have preached to you four things, the fear of God, peace, the
common weal, and the reform of Government, that is to say, the Great
Council.... Accelerate the construction of the Hall of Council by every
means in your power; take, if necessary, the workmen from the Duomo,
for their labour will thus be more acceptable to God. Insist on this
Council, ameliorate it, correct it and let it be the one hope, the
one power of the people.” He preached to willing ears, for Francesco
di Domenico, carpenter, and Simone del Pollaiuolo, had already been
chosen by the _Operai_ of the Palazzo as master-builders. Vasari, who
afterwards re-arranged the great Sala de’ Cinquecento as we now see
it, states that it having been determined “according to the desire of
Fra Jeronimo Savonarola, then a famous preacher, to build the great
Hall of Council in the Palazzo della Signoria of Florence, counsel
was taken of Lionardo da Vinci, of Michelagnolo Buonarroti, though he
was but a youth, of Giuliano da San Gallo, of Bacio d’Agnolo and of
Simone del Pollaiuolo, surnamed Cronaca, a great friend and follower
of Savonarola. After much dispute they collectively ordered the hall
should be built as it remained until almost entirely remodelled in our
day. The work was entrusted to Cronaca as a competent man, and moreover
a friend of the said Fra Jeronimo; he did it with great celerity and
diligence, showing especial cleverness in building the roof, for the
edifice was immense....” After describing how Cronaca overcame all
the difficulties, and praising him, Vasari condemns the hall as being
“without light, and in comparison with its great length and breadth,
dwarfed, and far too low, in short it is all out of proportion.” At
first the work went slowly, but after Savonarola’s return from Rome,
Cronaca displayed such zeal and energy that the hall was nearly
finished early in 1496; indeed the building made such extraordinary
progress that it was commonly said that angels had helped him.
The following year the Signori looked down from the windows of the old
palace upon the bonfires, in the Piazza, of “vanities and obscenities,”
as playing cards, masks and dominoes, drawings, pictures, illustrated
books and the like, were called by the partisans of Savonarola, and
on the 20th August he preached before the magistrates and principal
citizens in the great hall. But a few years later the friar was a
prisoner in the old palace, confined in the small, dark Alberghettino
where Cosimo de’ Medici had passed so many anxious weeks. On the
evening of Sunday, the 8th April, 1498, he was arrested by order of
the Signoria, and with his faithful Fra Domenico passed through the
surging mob which once hung upon his words and now insulted, taunted
and even struck him. Fra Silvestro had hidden himself when the convent
was attacked and was only taken prisoner next day. In the great hall,
built but a few years before by Savonarola’s advice, a few lines of the
accusations against him were read in his absence, the chancellor of the
“Otto” declaring to the people that he had refused to appear because he
was afraid of being stoned. On the 22nd May the Apostolic Commissaries
decided the fate of Fra Girolamo and his followers. Only one man,
Agnolo Niccolini, raised a warning voice. “This man,” he exclaimed,
“could not only give faith anew to the world, in case it died out, but
also science. Keep him in prison if you will; but let him live and
give him leave to write, so that the world may not lose the fruits of
his genius.”
In the great hall the three friars met once more after forty days of
rigorous imprisonment and horrible torture, and next morning Savonarola
was allowed to say mass in the chapel and to communicate himself and
his two companions before going to the stake. In the eloquent pages of
Pasquale Villari’s _Life of Savonarola_ the reader has this episode,
but it must be added that the “pious women” mentioned by Luca Landucci
in his Diary still have many imitators, for every year in the Piazza
della Signoria there is a _fiorita_ on the 23rd May in memory of the
great friar; rose leaves are scattered, and garlands are laid, upon the
place of his martyrdom, and many a poor woman kneels in prayer.
When Michelangelo’s statue of David was finished the question arose
where to place it. Giuliano da San Gallo declared that “seeing the
imperfections in the marble, being friable and corroded, and having
been much rained upon, I do not think that it will be durable; it
should therefore be put under the Loggia de’ Signori in the middle arch
of the said Loggia, or under the centre of the vaulted roof so that
one may walk round it; or on one side in the centre of the wall with a
black niche behind it in the shape of a hood; for if it is exposed to
the rain it will suffer. It ought to be covered.” Others, like Maestro
Francesco, herald of the Signoria, wanted the statue to be in the
open. “I have turned over in my mind,” he writes, “what my judgment
suggests to me. There are two places where such a statue will do well;
the first is where stands the Judith; the second is in the centre of
the courtyard of the palace, in the place of the first David;[109] for
the Judith is a deadly emblem and not a good thing, as we have the X
for our emblem and the Lily. It is not fitting that the woman should
kill the man; also she was set up under an evil constellation, for
ever since we have gone from bad to worse and have lost Pisa. Then
the David in the courtyard is not a perfect figure because his leg
lacks symmetry. Therefore I advise putting the statue in one of these
two places, but by preference where stands the Judith.” Michelangelo
was of the same opinion, so his Giant, as the people called it, was
set up on the ringhiera by the entrance door of the Palazzo Vecchio,
and Donatello’s statue was moved to the arch of the Loggia facing the
Piazza, where now stands the Rape of the Sabines. The Judith had been
placed on the ringhiera in 1494 when Piero de’ Medici was driven out of
Florence and his possessions, amongst them the statue, confiscated, not
so much as an ornament as to warn the people to maintain their liberty
and to kill tyrants, as is proved by the inscription on the pediment:
_Exemplum Sal. Pub. Cives posuere. MCCCCXCV._
During the riots which ended in the Medici being again exiled, a large
stone fell from the balustrade of the alur of the palace upon an arm of
Michelangelo’s statue and broke it into three pieces. For several days
the fragments lay on the pavement, until two lads, Giorgio Vasari and
Francesco Salviati, picked them up and took them to Salviati’s father,
who sixteen years afterwards gave them to the Duke Cosimo I. In a
letter from a certain Riccio, of 7th November, 1543, we find that “the
people pass their time in watching the building of a scaffolding round
the giant David. It is put up for the mending of his poor arm, but
many think that his face is to be washed.” In 1875 the statue, which
showed signs of deterioration was, after much consideration, removed
to the Gallery of the _Belle Arte_, where it now is. Michelangelo was
to have made a companion giant for the other side of the door of the
Palazzo Vecchio--Hercules slaying Cacus; but Clement VII. was persuaded
to give the block of marble to Baccio Bandinelli, with what result we
see at the present day. That madcap, egoistical, highly-gifted artist,
Benvenuto Cellini, thus described the statue to Duke Cosimo in the
presence of Bandinelli, to whom he said: “You must know that it pains
me to point out the faults of your statue; I shall not, however, utter
my own sentiments, but shall recapitulate what our most virtuous school
of Florence says about it.... Well then, this virtuous school says
that if one were to shave the hair of your Hercules, there would not
be skull enough left to hold his brain; it says that it is impossible
to distinguish whether his features are those of a man or of something
between a lion and an ox; the face too is turned away from the action
of the figure, and is so badly set upon the neck, with such poverty of
art and so ill a grace, that nothing worse was ever seen; his sprawling
shoulders are like two pommels of an ass’s pack-saddle; his breasts
and all the muscles of the body are not portrayed from a man, but from
a big sack full of melons set upright against a wall. The lions seem
to be modelled from a bag of lanky pumpkins; nobody can tell how his
two legs are attached to that vile trunk; it is impossible to say on
which leg he stands, or which he uses to exert his strength; nor does
he seem to be resting upon both, as sculptors who know something of
their art have occasionally set the figure. It is obvious that the body
is leaning forward more than one-third of a cubit, which alone is the
greatest and most insupportable fault committed by vulgar commonplace
pretenders. Concerning the arms, they say that these are both stretched
out without one touch of grace or one real spark of artistic talent
just as if you had never seen a naked model. Again, the right leg
of Hercules and that of Cacus have got one mass of flesh between
them, so that if they were to be separated, not only one of them,
but both together, would be left without a calf at the point where
they are touching. They say, too, that Hercules has one of his feet
underground, while the other seems to be resting on hot coals.”[110] On
either side, nearer the door, were placed two terminal statues, which
are still there; one by Bandinelli is intended to represent the power
and magnanimity of Tuscany, the other, a woman about to change into a
laurel, by Vincenzio de’ Rossi, the grace and intellect Tuscany has
shown in the arts. They are commonly called Philomen and Baucis.
When Piero Soderini was elected Gonfalonier for life in 1502, Landucci
notes in his Diary, “For the first time the wife of the Gonfalonier,
by name Madonna Argentina, went to live in the Palazzo de’ Signori.
It seemed odd indeed to see women abiding in the palace.” Large sums
were spent in decorations, and Soderini determined that Leonardo
da Vinci should paint the great Hall of Council. It seems certain
that Leonardo devoted two years to this work, the beauty of which is
minutely described by Vasari, who says he abandoned it because having
attempted to paint on the wall in oils the colours ran. Michelangelo
was then deputed to paint one side of the hall, and his cartoon excited
extraordinary enthusiasm and admiration in all who beheld it. Vasari
accuses Baccio Bandinelli of tearing the magnificent drawing to pieces
during the riots of 1512, when the Gonfalonier Soderini was deposed and
the Medici returned to power.
Giuliano de’ Medici entered Florence first, he dismounted at the
Albizzi palace, as the family palace in the Via Larga had been sacked
when the Medici were driven out. There he waited until joined by the
Cardinal Giovanni, when they went to the Palazzo de’ Signori and
established themselves there as masters. The great bell was rung to
summon the people to a parliament, and at sundown on the 16th September
the Signoria assembled on the ringhiera and read the new laws to
the people. Landucci notes in his Diary that “on the 2nd October the
Medici caused their arms to be re-painted on their palace, on the
Annunziata and in many other places, they also caused the effigy of the
Gonfalonier to be removed out of the S.S. Annunziata.[111]
Not content with abolishing the Great Council and the Ten of Balìa, and
nominating their own people to all important posts, the Cardinal and
Giuliano de’ Medici installed a strong guard of Spanish soldiers in the
old palace, and to lodge them the noble hall of the Five Hundred was
ruined. “At this time it pleased the new government,” writes Landucci,
“to destroy the woodwork of the hall of the Great Council, besides many
other beautiful things, which had been made at enormous outlay. Rooms
were built for the soldiers, and a new entrance was made, which things
were lamented by all Florence; not the change of government, but the
loss of that beautiful woodwork which had cost so much. It had been a
great glory and honour for the city to have such a splendid residence.
When ambassadors came to visit the Signoria all who entered were
astounded when they saw such a magnificent palace and such a multitude
of citizens in council.” It must however be said that a hoarding was
erected in front of the painting by Leonardo da Vinci when the hall
was turned into barracks, so that it might not be spoiled. Seventeen
years later the Medici were again driven out, and again there was a
“tumult” in the Palazzo de’ Signori. In a very long letter[112] from
that most excellent of men old Jacopo Nardi to Benedetto Varchi, who
was writing his famous history, he describes the scenes at which he, as
Gonfalonier of one of the quarters of the town, assisted. After stating
the difficulty he had to reach the palace, he goes on: “I found a great
multitude in council, without order or head, uncertain what to demand
or what to desire, so that they did nought but shout, etc., as though
that constituted a victory. Meanwhile the Signori were conducted,
almost by force, to their usual seats, _jam redacti in ordinem_,
with no more reverence than if they had been private persons. The
Gonfalonier did not lose his head, but asked in a loud voice what they
wanted, saying we had met to carry out their wishes, if they expressed
them quietly and without violence. But the Compagnie, who were always
arriving and entering the Council Hall, did not see what was being
done and by their shouts increased the tumult; so that the Signori
were not heard, nor the Gonfalonier, who declared that he was ready to
propose anything, etc., and above their heads were a hundred swords and
halberds. I advanced with due obeisance to the Signoria and addressed
the young men, repeating in a loud voice what the Gonfalonier had
proposed for their satisfaction, reproving those I knew and entreating
those who were unknown to me. So at last some resolutions were put and
carried with shouts by those around, one by one as they were convinced,
and they were inscribed by Giuliano da Ripa, who was brought up almost
by sheer force, for no other notary could be found in the palace.
The resolutions carried were: that all those who had been condemned,
exiled, banished (to other towns or to their villas), or imprisoned
for political offences, should be pardoned and liberated; that the
government should be what it was in the time of Piero Soderini, before
1512; that the great bell should again be rung for parliaments; and
that the exile of the Medici be proclaimed to the sound of trumpets.
I do not recollect the order in which these were voted on account of
the confusion and the violence of certain youths, which was so great
that, whilst I was in front of the Signoria, a blow was aimed at the
Gonfalonier; the flat of the sword hit him on the shoulder near the
neck, but not severely, and I put my handkerchief to his neck, fearing
it would bleed.”
After the departure of the Cardinal of Cortona with Ippolito and
Alessandro de’ Medici the great hall of the Five Hundred was cleared
of the barracks erected for the Spanish soldiers and restored to its
proper use. Niccolò Capponi, head of the _ottimati_ party, was elected
Gonfalonier of Justice and began to treat with the Pope to gain time,
which incensed the _popolani_, or popular party, who were already angry
because he showed such reverence for the memory of Savonarola. “At this
time,” writes Varchi, “the Gonfalonier, either persuaded by the friars
of S. Marco, with whom he consorted, or more probably to gain the party
of the friars, which was considerable and of no small reputation,
favoured and seconded as much as he could all that Fra Girolamo had
instituted, so that he was blamed and scoffed at by many. Amongst other
things he repeated almost word for word a sermon of the friar’s, in
which he first predicted much evil, and afterwards much good, to the
city of Florence, and at the end he threw himself on his knees and
crying out _misericordia_ in a loud voice, persuaded the whole council
to repeat _misericordia_. Not content with this he proposed in the
Great Council that Christ should be accepted as the especial King of
Florence. There were twenty dissentients, and thinking that no one
would ever obliterate it, Capponi had the following inscription placed
above the door of the palace--
Y.H.S.
CHRISTO REGI SUO DOMINO DOMINANTUM DEO SUMMO OPTMAX
LIBERATORI MARIAEQUE VIRGINI REGINAE DICAVIT.
AN.SAL.M.D.XXVII.S.P.Q.F.
The curious thing is that Segni gives two other different inscriptions
and that none of the three coincide with the one still over the door--
REX REGUM ET DOMINUS DOMINANTIUM,
with the monogram Y.H.S. in the centre of a star above.
The old palace saw stormy scenes in 1529 when Niccolò Capponi was
deposed and Francesco Carducci, a leader of the _Arrabiati_ or ultra
democratic party, was elected Gonfalonier. Florence, that “most
republican of all Republics,” stood alone facing the united forces of
the Pope and of Charles V. After a hopeless struggle, which lasted two
years, the Signoria met in the Hall of the Two Hundred to hear the
death warrant of Florentine liberty. Duke Alessandro entered in state,
and then the envoy of Charles V. and the Pope’s Nuncio took their seats
on either side of the Gonfalonier, the Priors and other magistrates
sitting below them. The envoy preached a homily on the sins of the
Republic and the graciousness and goodness of the Pope and the Emperor,
and then read the Brieve of Charles V. which all present swore to obey.
Meanwhile the crowd in the Piazza below raised the well-known cry of
_Palle.Palle.Eviva i Medici_.
Some months later a deputation waited on Alessandro to announce that
a new form of government had been decided on, “abolishing for ever
the rule of the magistrate created by the people to oppress the
nobility, and decreeing that all power was to reside in the Duke and
four of his noble councillors.” Segni, in his History, tells us that
“Alessandro de’ Medici, accompanied by his councillors, one of whom was
Filippo Strozzi, and his guard in state, attended a solemn mass in San
Giovanni to give thanks to God for his Dukedom and for the new form of
the Republic, and then went to the Palace. There the last Signoria,
descending to the ringhiera (Giovanfrancesco de’ Nobili being the
Gonfalonier, the last we had), gave him, what he already possessed, the
rank of Lord and Duke and absolute Prince. And thus amid the shouts
of _Palle! Palle!_ and _Duke! Duke!_ by the people and a salute of
artillery and of fireworks which exploding all together made the whole
air resound, he returned in great pomp to his house, triumphant over
the murdered liberty of Florence.” As already mentioned he broke up
the great bell of the Palazzo Vecchio, “no less good than beautiful,”
writes Varchi, “which weighed 22,000 lbs. Some think for coining money,
as it was said to have so much silver that it might serve as alloy for
crazie, but this was not the case.” The Florentine merchant Davanzati
records in his diary, “the bell of the Council was taken from us in
order that we should no more hear the sweet sound of Liberty.”
After the murder of Duke Alessandro by his cousin Lorenzino de’ Medici
in 1537, the son of Giovanni delle Bande Nere succeeded to the throne
as Cosimo I. He inhabited the Medici palace in the Via Larga for five
years and then took up his abode in the Palazzo de’ Signori, “where,”
writes Gianbattista Adriani, “he caused the rooms which once had been
those of the Priors and of the Gonfaloniers to be arranged in princely
fashion ... and this he did to show that he was absolute Prince and
sole head of the Government, and to disabuse those who pretended, as
some had done, that the government of the city was a separate thing
from that of the Medici family. Also, as it was necessary to have a
guard in the Palace, the principal seat of the State, he judged it
to be safer, less expensive, more dignified and more conducive to
authority to live there.” The Duke evidently mistrusted his subjects
and had German soldiers, _Lanzknechte_, as his guards. Their quarters
were close to the Loggia de’ Signori, in which they lounged during
the day and which ever since has been called the Loggia de’ Lanzi.
Having established himself in the old palace Cosimo called in Tasso,
an admirable carver in wood and a good architect,[113] and ordered him
to add to it by incorporating the two fine residences of the Captain
and the Executor of Justice, and a large house with a courtyard where
the lions were kept, which were then sent to S. Marco. These orders
were only partially carried out as will be seen later on. Tasso
superintended the works besides carving the windows, doors, ceilings
and cornices, while Vasari, to whom the Duke took a fancy in 1550 when
he presented him with a copy of his _Lives of the Painters_, began to
paint the rooms. For the description of all he did I must refer my
readers to his own delightful book, but no wonder he remarked, after he
had raised the roof of the great Hall of the Five Hundred and, aided
by his pupils, frescoed it all over, rebuilt the staircases, made two
floors where originally there was but one, etc. etc., that Arnolfo,
Michelozzo and others, who had worked at the palace from the beginning
would not recognize it and would think it was not theirs, but a new
marvel and another edifice. Vasari however omits to mention that he
sacrilegiously destroyed the work of Leonardo da Vinci. Mr. Berenson
has kindly called my attention to a letter written in 1549 by Anton
Francesco Doni to Alberto Lollio who was going to visit Florence.
Doni gives him excellent advice and after mentioning the “Giant” by
Michelangelo at the door of Palazzo Vecchio, etc., he continues: “mount
then the stairs to the great hall and carefully consider the group of
horses and men (part of a battlepiece by Leonardo da Vinci), which you
will see to be a miraculous thing.”[114] So that Leonardo’s fresco was
in existence when Vasari began to paint in the Palazzo Vecchio.
After the death of Tasso the whole work was confided to Vasari, whose
task was rendered easier as the Court moved into the Palazzo Pitti.
Bronzino was called in to decorate the Duchess’s former apartments on
the second floor of the old palace. In the chapel he painted three
episodes from the life of Moses and an altarpiece, which was considered
so fine that the Duke sent it as a present to Granvela in Flanders, and
another was painted by Bronzino, now in the Gallery of the Uffizi.
Among the rooms built by Vasari on the second floor is a large one
which served as a _guardaroba_, with cupboards all round the walls.
It bears the name of _Sala del Mappamondo_, from the paintings on the
cupboard doors by Egnazio Danti, a Dominican friar. For eight years
he worked at these curious geographical maps until, for some unknown
reason, he fell into disgrace, when they were continued, but not
finished, by another friar, Don Stefano Buonsignore. These fifty-three
large maps are exceedingly interesting, and merit more attention than
they generally receive.
For the marriage of Francesco de’ Medici to the Archduchess Joan of
Austria the old palace was sumptuously decorated. Round the courtyard,
in the centre of which Cosimo I. had already placed a basin of porphyry
with Verrocchio’s exquisite little bronze boy throttling a dolphin,
were painted views of the principal cities of Austria by pupils of
Vasari in honour of the Princess. At the same time the columns were
encrusted with garlands of fruit, flowers and leaves, upheld by “putti”
and grotesque masks in stucco. But the greatest work Vasari did for
this marriage was the corridor connecting the Palazzo Vecchio with
the Palazzo Pitti. On the 12th March, 1565, Messer Tommaso de’ Medici
signed a contract, in the Duke’s name, with the master-mason Bernardo
d’Antonio, in which the latter promises to finish a corridor between
the two palaces by September. He obliges himself “to build two arches,
one above the street where is the Dogana to the wall of the church of
S. Piero Scheraggio, the second above the said church; and another
arch at the house of Signor Trajano Boba, servant of His Excellency;
and along the Lung’Arno a corridor with arches and pilasters as far as
the Ponte Vecchio, proceeding onwards above the shops and houses of
the said bridge on the side looking towards the Ponte a Rubaconte, and
round the tower of the house of Matteo Mannelli by means of brackets
of stone. From this tower another arch, spanning the Via de’ Bardi,
shall repose upon the tower of the Guelph party opposite the house of
the Mannelli. The corridor is then to follow the small alley behind
the houses facing the principal street, and pass above the steps of
the church of Sta. Felicita, where is to be built a loggia. Thence
the corridor, supported on pilasters along the whole length of the
cloisters of the priests of Sta. Felicita, shall gradually descend
to the level of the garden of the Pitti. The said corridor and its
adjuncts are to be roofed in, the ceilings plastered, whitewashed and
finished, according to the order, design and model, given from time to
time by the magnificent and excellent Master Giorgio Vasari, painter
and architect of the aforesaid most Illustrious Excellency. The said
Messer Tommaso declaring that he binds himself to remove any and every
difficulty that may be thrown in the way of the said Master Bernardo,
especially by the various owners of the houses, above or by the side of
which this corridor is to be built.”[115]
Agostino Lapini records in his diary that the foundations of the first
pilaster of the corridor were laid on the 19th March, 1565, and that it
was entirely finished by the end of November, and six years later shops
were built [along the Lung’Arno] in the arches. The passage between
the two galleries was only thrown open to the public in 1866; and
eighteen years later, on the proposal of Prince Corsini, then Syndic
of Florence, the shops under the corridor in the Via degl’Archibusieri
were swept away, to the great convenience of foot-passengers and the
improvement of the view.
In 1569 the ambition of Cosimo I. was gratified. Pope Pius V. bestowed
upon him and his heirs the title of Grand Duke of Tuscany, and on the
13th December Don Michele Bonelli, the Pope’s nephew, presented the
Papal Bull to him in the Hall of the Five Hundred in the presence of
his sons, the Papal Nuncio, the ambassadors of Ferrara and Lucca, the
Senate of the Forty-eight, the magistrates of the city, the knights
of S. Stefano, the nobles, and the representatives of the people.
A many-rayed regal crown, with a red lily, the ancient emblem of
Florence, in the centre, as ordered by the Pope, was placed above the
Medici arms all over the city, and Cosimo’s subjects were informed that
henceforth he was to be addressed as “Highness.” Like all his race, he
loved festivities and splendour, and in carnival time the old hall in
the Palazzo Vecchio was the scene of many banquets to the fair ladies
of Florence, followed by recitations and plays with elaborate scenic
effects. After Cosimo’s marriage with Camilla Martelli he withdrew
almost entirely from public life, and his son Francesco lived in the
Palazzo Vecchio until he succeeded to the throne.
We hear little about the palace until it was once more decorated and
embellished by Poccetti for the wedding of the Cardinal Ferdinando de’
Medici, who left the Church to ascend the throne and marry Christine
of Lorraine. He added considerably to the palace on the eastern side,
“where,” writes an old chronicler, “from the great door made by Tasso,
carpenter and architect, as far as the corner of the said palace which
is opposite to Borgo de’ Greci where one turns to go into the Piazza,
there was an old and ugly curtain wall, eight or ten braccie high, so
that the rooms of the palace near the said door were exposed to the
view of all who passed by, and one saw balconies, terraces, little
gardens and such-like. And between the said rooms and the curtain wall
we have just mentioned, was a large vacant space full of rubbish,
where in the time of the Signoria the lions had been kept.... Seeing
all this ugliness, the Cardinal decided that the palace should have
a fine and lordly façade behind as it had in front, that the number
of rooms should be increased, another courtyard be made, and many
other conveniences. Bernardo Buontalenti was ordered to make a design,
and the work was at once begun. In a few years the handsome and rich
façade we now see was finished, all of hewn stone and ‘_bozzi_,’ in the
rustic style. It has a grand air, and contains many fine rooms, and a
courtyard in the centre.”
In those days great sculptors worked even in sugar for their patrons,
as when Maria de’ Medici was married by proxy to Henry IV. of France
in 1600, Giovanni da Bologna modelled various figures and statues in
confectionery and in sugar, which were moved by hidden mechanism. Among
them was an effigy of the King of France, mounted on a charger which
trotted down the table in front of the Queen. He also arranged a huge
_fleur-de-lis_, built up of an infinite number of gold and silver cups
and goblets, statues of gold and silver, vases of rock crystal, and
ornaments inlaid with precious stones, in the Sala of Leo X. in the
Palazzo Vecchio.
The marriage of Cosimo de’ Medici, son of the Grand Duke Ferdinando I.,
with the Archduchess Maria Maddalena of Austria, was celebrated with
extraordinary pomp in 1607. A great banquet was given in the Hall of
the Five Hundred to the Florentine nobility, of which an anonymous
eyewitness has left a long description. Two hundred and forty ladies
sat opposite the Princes, as “being more fair to look upon than men,”
and after dinner appeared a Venus’ shell gliding forward on sham waves,
which bore Zephyr, the messenger of the goddess who, stopping in front
of the bride, offered her all his mistress could give. Then came
the chariot of Venus drawn by black sparrows in which sat Love, who
declared all he had was hers. On the raising of a curtain at the end of
the hall, angels floating among clouds were seen, who chanted:
“E sol risuona,
E Maddalena intuona
La valle, il colle, il monte, il prato il bosco
Di questo lido Tosco,
E’l Ciel, l’Aria, e la Terra e l’Onda piena
Cosmo, Cosmo risponde, e Maddalena.”
After this the Princes retired by the corridor to the Palazzo Pitti,
the Archduchess graciously inviting the ladies present to follow her as
far as the gallery, where a long row of tables were laden with delicate
sugarplums and confectionery. What they could not eat or carry away
was seized by the populace which streamed in; the Princes watched with
great amusement the demolition of all that rare food, and then withdrew
to their rooms.
Cosimo II. and his Austrian wife only used the old palace occasionally
for receptions and banquets. Their son, that morose bigot Cosimo III.,
when he lost all hope of seeing any descendants from his two sons,
proclaimed his daughter Anna Maria Luisa, married to the Elector
Palatine, heiress to the throne in the great hall. His proclamation
was, however, futile, and in 1723 his son Giovan Gastone solemnly
received the Infante Don Carlos at the door of the Palazzo Vecchio as
heir to the throne. Austria, however, interfered, and Francesco of
Lorraine was proclaimed as future Grand Duke of Tuscany. In 1737 his
representative received the oath of allegiance, and two years later
the Grand Duke visited Florence, and splendid festivities were given
in his honour. But the Florentines were very sore at his departure
for Vienna after a short visit, and still sorer at the invasion of
Lorrainers and Austrians, who filled so many of the Government posts.
In 1745 Francesco II. became Emperor of Austria, and his second son
Pietro Leopoldo succeeded to the Grand Duchy. Zoby, in his _History of
Tuscany_, describes how the Senate of the Forty-eight, the Council of
the Two Hundred and the principal magistrates of Florence, assembled in
the great hall of the Palazzo Vecchio, where a throne had been placed
for the Grand Duke. The late Emperor’s will, leaving Tuscany to his
second son, was read aloud, and at the same time the renunciation by
the Emperor Joseph to any claims thereon. But Joseph died, and once
more a Tuscan Grand Duke became Emperor of Austria, to the sorrow of
his Italian subjects, who had learned to appreciate Pietro Leopoldo
at his proper value. His second son, Ferdinando, became Grand Duke,
and in 1791 a fair was held in the Piazza, the Loggia de’ Lanzi was
turned into a garden illuminated with many lamps, and a magnificent
pavilion was erected in front of the old palace for the Court. Eight
years later Ferdinando III. with his wife and four children were driven
out of Florence by General Gaulthier in the name Of the Directoire. A
Tree of Liberty was set up in the middle of the Piazza della Signoria,
newly christened della Libertà, and the French flag was hoisted on the
tower of the Palazzo Vecchio. Giovanni da Bologna’s fine statue of
Cosimo III. was about to be destroyed and melted down for the benefit
of the poor, but was saved by the presence of mind of the President of
the _Buon Governo_ and of the advocate Paolini, who remonstrated with
the mob, which had already tied ropes round the horse to pull it down,
saying that it was a pity to destroy the effigy of despotism which now
witnessed the restoration of liberty in Florence. The Marquess Gino
Capponi gives a vivid account of the behaviour of the French soldiers
in his _Ricordi_. He saw them depart, and was in the Piazza when, after
months of silence, the great bell once more rang out at midday and all
present sank on their knees at the beloved sound.
The old palace saw one ruler after another pass through its great hall
like puppets. Ferdinando III. returned for some months, but was soon
driven out again by the French. Then Tuscany for a few years became the
Kingdom of Etruria, only to be merged in the French Empire in 1808, and
the following year Napoleon I. again created a Grand Duchy of Tuscany,
and gave it to his sister Elise Baciocchi, who was already Duchess of
Lucca and Princess of Piombino.
The roof of the Palazzo Vecchio had for some time been in a bad state,
and the municipal architect, G. del Rosso, was charged to survey the
whole building. In 1809 the work began. The reservoir for rain water
made by Michelozzi had become useless, and was only an additional
weight on the columns of the courtyard, so it was done away with, the
cornice was renewed, and windows, which had been arbitrarily pierced
here and there, were closed and the ancient ones restored. Del Rosso
was forced to whitewash the walls of the courtyard, decorated with the
golden lilies of Anjou on a blue ground--an emblem utterly distasteful
to the new ruler. The stucco ornaments of the columns, and the frescoes
in the vaults and round the courtyard had suffered terribly, and were
carefully renovated, but those of the Austrian towns are now once
more almost invisible. In order to avoid the incessant passage of
the soldiers through the courtyard to their guardroom, del Rosso was
ordered to make an entrance from the outside, and this necessitated
the destruction of the old ringhiera, so intimately connected with the
history of Florence. Part of it had already disappeared when Ammannati
set up his huge, ugly fountain at the northern angle--_il Biancone_
the Florentines call it--still it was with unwilling hands that del
Rosso levelled what remained and made the platform, the steps and the
door immediately under the balcony. The ancient Marzocco, which had
lost all semblance of a lion, was removed, and on its beautiful base
was put the one by Donatello (replaced by a copy in 1885). It was at
this time that the Alberghettino was discovered in the tower.
With the fall of Napoleon ended the rule of his sister Elise, and
the Grand Duke Ferdinando III. once more returned to Tuscany. He was
succeeded in 1824 by his son Leopoldo II., under whose reign the
lovely tower of the old palace was restored to its pristine beauty
by having the plaster and whitewash, with which it had been bedaubed
a century before, removed. The architect, Giuseppe Martelli, also
took down one of the supporting corbels of the tower, which being of
friable sandstone was breaking away under the great weight of 67,908
chilogrammes which rested on it. It was replaced by one of hard stone,
and at the same time the arms of the Florentine Republic round the top
of the palace were freed from whitewash and restored.
On the 17th February, 1848, the Grand Duke Leopoldo II. inaugurated the
first parliament of constitutional government in the Hall of the Five
Hundred. But one ministry after another fell, and the following year
the Grand Duke abandoned Tuscany. A provisional government abolished
the Senate and the Council in favour of an assembly of representatives
of the people, elected by universal suffrage. There was fighting in
the streets of Florence and the friends of Austria were scheming to
bring back Leopoldo II., so in April, 1849, a Commission, amongst whom
were Bettino Ricasoli and Gino Capponi, was named, which not only
met in the Palazzo Vecchio to conduct the government of the country,
but lived there as the Republican Signoria had done in former times.
A month later the Austrians entered Florence and the Grand Duke’s
representative took up his abode in the old palace, in front of which
was placed an iron railing where once was the ringhiera, behind which
Austrian sentinels paced backwards and forwards.
On the morning of the 27th April, 1859, Florence awoke to the cry
of _Viva l’Italia_ and the same evening the Grand Ducal family once
more took the well-known road to Vienna, while the tricolour flag
was hoisted on the tower of the Palazzo Vecchio amid the exultant
shouts of the crowd below. Four months later, in the Hall of the Five
Hundred, Baron Ricasoli, a descendant of the Bettino Ricasoli who in
the middle of the XIVth century locked the door and sat upon the keys
until his party had won the day, ended his speech with these words:
“Let us remember that while in this hall, which has not echoed to the
voice of liberty for three centuries, we are dealing with the affairs
of Tuscany, our thoughts must be turned to Italy;” and one by one the
deputies passed in front of the provisional ministry, and dropped into
the urn their votes for the union of Tuscany to the Kingdom of Italy
under King Victor Emanuel.
1860 awoke to the sound of the big bell of the Palazzo Vecchio calling
the people to a plebiscite. The result was proclaimed from the
platform, which had replaced the ancient ringhiera, to the crowd which
had waited for hours in the Piazza, as 366,571 ayes, out of 386,445
voters. H.H. Prince Eugenio of Savoia Carignano, the King’s cousin,
was named Viceroy of Tuscany and Baron Bettino Ricasoli Governor,
with his official residence in the Palazzo Vecchio. Five years later,
when Florence was for a few years the capital of United Italy, the
old palace became the seat of the parliament and was sadly pulled
about. The great Hall of the Five Hundred was arranged as a House
of Parliament, doors were opened to give free access to the various
offices, and room had also to be found for the Ministry for Foreign
Affairs. The architect Falconieri was vehemently attacked and defended
himself in a pamphlet, declaring that he had done his utmost to respect
all that was beautiful, and at all events had finished that part of the
palace in the Via de’ Leone which had been left so long uncompleted.
In 1866 Baron Ricasoli announced in the great hall that Victor Emanuel
had declared war on Austria, and four years later the King himself,
amid delirious enthusiasm, stated that his soldiers had entered Rome.
With this the story of the Palazzo Vecchio comes to an end. It is now
the seat of the municipality of Florence, and it only remains for me to
acknowledge the help I have derived from Signor Aurelio Gotti’s book
_Storia del Palazzo Vecchio in Firenze_.
* * * * *
Arms of the Republic of Florence under the machicolations of the
Palazzo Vecchio.
A white Lily on a red field; the ancient arms of the city.
A red and white Shield divided lengthways; signifying the union of
Florence and Fiesole.
A red Lily on a white field; the arms of the city, 1251.
A blue Shield with the word _Libertas_ in gold letters; the arms of the
Priors of Liberty.
A red Cross on a white field; the arms of the People.
Two golden Keys on an azure (or white) field, placed crossways; the
arms of the Church.
A red Eagle standing on a green Dragon in a white field, a small golden
Lily on the head of the eagle; the arms of the Guelph party. (Really
the arms of Clement III., who bestowed them on the Guelphs in 1365.)
Golden Lilies on an azure field with a golden Bar (rastrello) at top;
the arms of Charles of Anjou.
A shield divided lengthways to the left, golden Lilies on an azure
field to the right, red Stripes on a field or; the arms of King Robert
of Naples.
Under the machicolations of the tower are painted the arms and emblems
of the various quarters of the city. On the southern side are the arms
of S. Spirito, a white Dove with golden rays in her beak on an azure
field: the gonfaloni, or banners, of the quarter of S. Spirito bear
a Ladder on a red field; five Shells on a blue field; a green Dragon
on a red field; a five-thonged Whip on a blue field. On the eastern
side are the arms of S. Croce, a golden Cross on a blue field: the
gonfaloni have a silver shield with a red Cross on a black field with
broad silver rings round it; a Cartwheel on a blue field; a Lion on a
white field. To the west are the arms of S. Maria Novella, a golden Sun
with rays on an azure field: the gonfaloni bear a white Lion on a blue
field; a blue Viper on a gold field; an Unicorn on a blue field; a red
Lion on a white field. S. Giovanni, to the north, has its own Temple
with a suspended Key on either side on a blue field: the gonfaloni bear
two red Keys on a field or; a shield, the upper half red and the lower
of ermine, on a white field; a golden Lion on a blue field; a green
Dragon on a field or. Some of these are almost entirely obliterated.
PALAZZO VITALI
_Borgo degl’Albizzi. No. 26._
This palace, built by Ammannati for the great family of the Pazzi,
whose dolphins are still above the doorway, is one of the literary
landmarks of Florence. In the beginning of the XVIIIth century it was
the fashion for the _beaux esprits_ of the town to meet together at
a chemist’s or a bookseller’s shop, or now and then at each other’s
houses. Giovanni Pazzi, a studious, cultured man, was generally to be
found in his library at the very top of his palace, in what remained of
one of the ancient towers of his family. Here his friends would meet
in the evening and they jokingly called his abode la Colombaia (the
dovecot) from its height, and himself il Torraiolo (the tower pigeon).
A society was formed in May, 1735, and each member chose a nickname
which had some reference to a pigeon; their emblem was a tower with the
motto from Dante, _Quanto veder si puo_, and their seal an old intaglio
representing two doves feeding each other, to which was added the
words, _Mutius Officiis. S. C._ The Società Colombaia still meets and
reads learned papers in Via de’ Bardi.
PALAZZO VIVIANI
_Via S. Antonino. No. 9._
Vincenzio Viviani, the disciple and friend of Galileo, rebuilt his
house with the pension granted to him by Louis XIV. of France, after
the design of his pupil and friend, G. B. Nelli. Fontanelle writes in
his _Eloge_: “Viviani called his house _Aedes a Deo datae_, an apt
allusion to the name bestowed on the monarch,[116] and to the origin of
the building.... Galileo has not been forgotten, for his bust is over
the door and the story of his life is told in certain inscriptions on
either side.” From these huge scrolls the palace is commonly called
the Palazzo de’ Cartellone. Viviani was with Galileo during the last
three years of his life, and by his tender friendship in part consoled
the blind, infirm man for the loss of his daughter Maria. Named Court
Mathematician by Ferdinando II., he had much to do with regulating the
course of the rivers in Tuscany, and was greatly looked up to and
respected. He died in 1703, aged 81, leaving his real estate to his
nephew the Abbé Jacopo Panzanini for life, and then to G. B. Nelli. All
the personal estate was left to his nephew save the library of printed
books, which were to go to the hospital of Sta. Maria Nuova. After
the death of the Abbé Panzanini, Vivian’s manuscripts, amongst which
were many of Galileo which he had bought from his natural son, and of
Torricelli, were for a time religiously preserved by his heirs, but at
last the contents of the cupboards were stowed away in the granary, and
the servants began to sell them for waste paper. Senator Nelli heard of
it and bought what remained from the various shop-keepers and from the
Panzanini.
To English people the palace is interesting, as when Milton came to
Florence he stayed here as the guest of Viviani.
PALAZZO XIMENES D’ARAGONA (NOW PANCIATICHI)
_Borgo Pinti. No. 60._
Giuliano da San Gallo built this palace for himself and his brother in
1490, while he was engaged in designing the Villa of Poggio a Cajano.
Lorenzo the Magnificent ordered him to construct a large hall, the
ceiling of which was to be one huge arched vault, so Giuliano tried the
experiment on rather a smaller scale in his own house. The result can
be seen in a noble room on the second floor. The palace, bought by the
great Portuguese family Ximenes d’Aragona, was considerably enlarged
by Gherardo Silvani in 1603; the large entrance hall and the courtyard
with a fine loggia leading into the garden were probably built by him.
In 1769 the daughter of the last of the Ximenes d’Aragona married the
Marquess Niccolò Panciatichi. After her father’s death the palace was
let to General Miot, French Minister at the Court of Tuscany, whose
guest Napoleon Bonaparte was for two days in 1796. Lord Burgersh lived
here when British Minister at Florence, and his entertainments were the
talk of the town, as he turned the large courtyard into a ball-room
by covering it with a tent. The late Marquess Panciatichi Ximenes
d’Aragona only left his family palace in Via Cavour for this one in
1850. Sixteen years later, in order to prolong the Via del Mandorlo, it
was cut in two, but it is still one of the largest in Florence.
FOOTNOTES
[1] See _Florentine Villas_, Dent and Co., 1902.
[2] _Le Bellezze della Città di Fiorenza._ Scritte da M. Francesco
Bocchi In Fiorenza. MDXCI.
[3] _Opere Volgare di Leon Battista Alberti._ Anicio Bonucci. Firenze.
1843.
[4] See Preface to _Opere Volgare di L. B. Alberti_. A. Bonucci.
[5] _Manuale di Letteratura Italiana._ Compilato dai Professori
Alessandro d’Ancona e Orazio Bacci. Vol. ii p. 75. Firenze. G. Barbèra.
1904.
[6] This is not the place to enter more fully into the subject; the
reader can consult J. A. Symonds’ _Renaissance in Italy_; the _Manuale_
quoted above; G. S. Scipioni, _L. B. Alberti e A. Pandolfini_; V.
Cortesi, mentioned in the text; G. Mancini, _Vita di L. B. Alberti_;
the _Arch. Stor. Ital._ serie iv. xix; A. Bonucci, _Opere Volgare di
L. B. Alberti_; and many others.
[7] _Renaissance in Italy._ J. A. Symonds. Vol. ii, p. 247. Smith Elder
and Co. 1897.
[8] See _Paradiso degl’Alberti_ Edito da A. Wesselofsky. Bologna. 1867.
[9] _Marietta de’ Ricci._ Di A. Ademollo. Con correzione e aggiunte di
Luigi Passerini. Vol. ii, p. 697. Firenze. 1845.
[10] _Istoria di Firenze._ Di Goro Dati. Dall’anno MCCCLXXX all’anno
MCCCCV. con Annotazione. In Firenze MDCCXXXV. Nella Stamperia di
Giuseppe Marmi.
[11] This gate, which was on the bank of the river, was destroyed
in 1860. At the same time foundations of massive stone walls were
discovered, and the ancient pavement of the city was found far below
the present level.
[12] _Storie Fiorentine di Messer Bernardo Segni._ Dall’Anno MDXXVII al
MDLV. In Augusta. MDCCXXIII.
[13] _Genealogia e Storia della Famiglia Altoviti._ Luigi Passerini.
Firenze. 1871.
[14] See _Storia Politica dei Municipii Italiani_. Paolo
Emiliani-Giudicci. Firenze. 1851.
[15] Now in the collection of Mrs. Gardiner, Fenway Court, Boston.
[16] _De Ingressu Antonnii Altovitae Archiepiscopi Florentini_,
Historico Descripto Incerti Auctoris. Dominicus Morenius. Florentiae.
MDCCCXV.
[17] Domenico Passignani, Matteo Rosselli, Ottavio Vannini, Giovanni
da San Giovanni, Fabbrizio Boschi, Michelangelo Cinagelli, Niccodemo
Ferrucci, Andrea del Bello, Michele Buffini, Ton Guerricci, Filippo
Tarchiani, Cosimo Milanesi and Stefano da Quinto.
[18] See _Memorie del Calcio Florentino_. Tratte da diverse Scritture e
dedicate all’Altezze Serenissime di Ferdinando, Principe di Toscana e
Violante Beatrice di Baviera. Firenze. 1688.
[19] _Marietta de’ Ricci._ A. Ademollo. 2A edizione con correzione e
aggiunte per cura di Luigi Passerini. Vol. iv. p. 1303. Firenze. 1845.
[20] For an account of the Marquess F. Bartolommei and the bloodless
Florentine revolution, see _Il Rivolgimento Toscano e l’Azione
Popolare_, by his daughter Signora Matilda Gioli. Firenze. 1905.
[21] _Marietta de’ Ricci, di A. Ademollo._ 2A edizione con correzzioni
e aggiunte per cura di Luigi Passerini. Vol. v., p. 1850. Firenze. 1845.
[22] Vasari erroneously says, from the Life of Alexander the Great,
Pippo Spano, or to give him his proper name, Filippo Scolari, was
related to the Buondelmonti (see p. 54). King Sigismund of Hungary
discovered the extraordinary military genius of the Tuscan merchant,
and made him Captain-General of his army. He beat the Turks in twenty
pitched battles, and died in 1426. His tomb existed in the royal
mausoleum at Albareale until destroyed by the Turks in 1543.
[23] See _Bulletino dell’Associazione per la Difesa di Firenze.
Antica._ 4a Fascicolo, 1904.
[24] _Don Antonio de’ Medici al Casino di San Marco and Il Casino di
San Marco._ P. F. Covoni, 1892.
[25] _Commentarj di Gino Capponi dell’Acquisto ovvero Presa di Pisa._
Vol. 18, Script. Rer. Ital.
[26] _Istoria delle Famiglie Fiorentine._ Scritta nell’anno. 1607 da
Piero di Giovanni Monaldi Cittadino Fiorentino. Tomo Unico. Al Sermo:
Ferdinando Gran Duca di Toscana, con l’aggiunta di Monsre. Sommai, sino
all’anno 1620.
[27] _Raccolta Delle Migliori Fabbriche Antiche e Moderne di Firenze._
Disegnate e Descritte da R. ed E. Mazzanti e T. del Lungo. Architetti.
Firenze. G. Ferroni, 1876.
[28] Vasari calls him Francesco Tornabuoni. For a full account of the
much vexed question of this monument see _Verrocchio_. M. Cruttwell,
Duckworth & Co., London, 1904.
[29] Vasari, Vol. III., p. 266 note; and Manni. _Sigilli_, xviii., 131.
[30] See _Archivio Storico Italiano_, Serie V., Tom. VI. _Giovanna
Tornabuoni e Ginevra de’ Benci._ Dispensa 6a del 1890, p. 432.
[31] Now a villa, belonging to Mr. Cannon.
[32] Lasca. _Rime_, Vol. I., p. 113.
[33] _Le Bellezze della Città de Firenze._ Cinelli, 1677.
[34] _Genealogia e Storia della famiglia Ricasoli._ Luigi Passerini.
Firenze, 1861.
[35] The _Life of Benvenuto Cellini_, translated by John Addington
Symonds, Vol. i, p. 113, 2nd edition. John C. Nimmo, London.
[36] _Marietta de Ricci._ Opus cit.
[37] See _Miscellanea Florentina. Il Chiasso del Traditore_, etc. Anno
I, No. 12. 1886.
[38] _Celio Malespina_, Part II. Novella 24.
[39] For a full account of the Gondi family see _Histoire Généalogique
de la Maison de Gondi_, par M. de Corbinelli, a Paris chez
Jean-Baptiste Coignard, Rue St. Jaques, MDCCV. 2 Vols.
[40] See _Raccolta delle Migliori Fabbriche Antiche e Moderne di
Firenze_. Disegnate e Descritte da R. ed E. Mazzanti e T. del Lungo.
Architetti. Firenze. G. Ferroni, 1876.
[41] _Genealogia e Storia della Famiglia Guadagni._ L. Passerini.
Firenze, 1873.
[42] Cerrettiere Bisdomini, the infamous counsellor of the Duke of
Athens, who was torn to pieces by the people in the Piazza della
Signoria.
[43] See _Apologia de’ Cappucci_. Archivio Storico, Vol. IV. part II.
p. 329.
[44] All these decorations have disappeared.
[45] See _Raccolte delle Migliori Fabbriche Antiche e Moderne di
Firenze_. Opus cit.
[46] _Ricordi intorno ai costumi, azione e governo del Serenissimo Gran
Duca Cosimo._
[47] _Firenze, Città Nobilissima._ Illustrata da Ferdinando L. del
Migliore. In Firenze. MDCLXXXIV.
[48] See _Florentine Villas_, pp. 42–44. Dent. London, 1902.
[49] _Istoria delle Famiglie Fiorentine._ Scritta nell’anno 1607 da
Piero di Giovanni Monaldi, Cittadino Fiorentino. Tomo unico. Al Sermo,
Ferdinando Gran Duca di Toscana, con l’aggiunta di Monsre. Sommai, sino
all’anno 1620.
[50] Vita della Venerabile Serva di Dio Donna Leonora Ramirez di
Montalvo etc. etc. In Firenze L Anno MDCCXI.
[51] See _Renaissance in Italy_, J. A. Symonds. Vol. v. p. 239. London,
1868.
[52] Passerini, from whose _Genealogia e Storia della Famiglia
Panciatichi_ I have taken most of the facts about the family, cites the
deed of 9 June 1191: “Infrangilasta quondam Astancolli, Montialtissimo
Belgiglio et Nobilino, a servitio sancti Sepulchri, a Saladino Crucis
Christi inimico capti, de ultra mare reversi, dictam ecclesiam
paupertate laborare videntes, predictum petium terre eidem in potestate
dederunt.”
[53] See _Storia del Commercio e dei Banchieri di Firenze_, dal Comm.
S. L. Peruzzi. Firenze. 1868.
[54] _Paradise._ Canto XVI, Dante. Cary’s translation.
[55] _Cronica di Buonaccorso Pitti, con Annotazione._ In Firenze.
MDCCXX, nella Stamperia di Giuseppe Manni.
[56] Where wool is carded, spun and woven.
[57] _Mann and Manners_, Vol. II, p. 102.
[58] See _Cronachette Storiche Florentine_. Pierfilippo Covoni.
Firenze, 1894.
[59] See _Il Palazzo Pitti_. Lettura fatta alla Società Colombaria
nell’adunanza del dì 6. Marzo, 1887. Prof. Cosimo Conti. Succ. Le
Monnier Firenze, 1887.
[60] _Cronaca di Giovanni Villani_, lib. 8, cap. 8.
[61] See _Del Pretorio di Firenze_. Lezione Academico, etc., da Luigi
Passerini, 2A edizione, Firenze, 1855. Ricordi e Jouhaud.
[62] _Hoc opus factum fuit tempore potestarie magnifici et potentis
militis domini Fidesmini de Varano civis Camerinensis honorabilis
potestatis_ ... the remainder is wanting.
[63] In an article in the _Quarterly Review_ for July, 1904, the
following suggestion is made: “A theory of reconciliation is clearly
required, and easily suggests itself. May not the chapel have been
originally decorated by Giotto, and have sustained, in the fire
of 1332, injuries which left nothing but the main lines of its
compositions intact? May not the date 1337, inscribed on the left wall
below the figure of St. Venanzius, refer to a restoration undertaken,
according to the original design, by the nameless pupil who also
painted the miracle of the fallen child? Such an explanation receives
support from the fact that, on the south wall of the chapel, the
framing is not adapted to the frescoes, and is therefore hardly likely
to be of the same date.”
[64] Through the kindness of Sir Dominic Colnaghi I am informed that,
“no painter of this name is known to have worked in Florence in the
fourteenth century. Vasari evidently mixed up two painters in one
notice, _i. e._ Giotto di Maestro Stefano, known as Giottino, and Maso
di Banco. Antonio Billi (libro di Antonio Billi, ed. Frey. p. 14)
states that among his other works Maso di Banco painted the Duke of
Athens and his followers, on the façade of the Palazzo del Podestà.”
[65] By the effigy of the Duke was:
Avaro, traditore, e poi crudele,
Lussurioso, ingiusto e spergiuro,
Giammai non tenne suo stato securo.
2. By that of Messer Cerrettieri Visdomini:
Come potevi tu signor durare,
Essendo in vizi et in peccato involto
E me per tuo consiglio avevi tolto.
3. By that of Messer Ranieri di S. Gemignano:
Deh come degnamente mi potevi
Far cavalier; che tu ed io avari
Siamo e sempre fummo piu che Mida,
Tradendo sempre l’uom che in noi si fida.
4. By that of Messer Gugliemo d’Assisi, Captain of the People:
Tu mi fascesti più che altr’uom crudele;
Però mi grava più la tua partita,
In quel furore ch’io perdei la vita.
5. By that of his son Gabriel:
Aver padre crudel, m’era diletto
Poi vidi gli occhi suoi in palese insegna;
E quello avviene a chi male c’insegna.
6. By that of Meliadusse d’Ascoli, Podestà in 1342, who helped to make
the Duke Lord of Florence:
Io porto sotto la lima e la fraude,
E di te m’ingegnai farti signore;
Or ne se fuor per tuo poco valore.
7. And on a book which Friar Giotto of S. Gemignano holds in his hand:
Vie più m’incresce di me e mio fratello
Veder l’un traditore, l’altro ingrato,
Che veder te di signoria cacciato.
[66] _Il Palazzo del Podestà._ Illustrazione Storica di Giovan Battista
Uccelli. Firenze, 1865.
[67] In large characters was written:
“Superbo, avaro, traditor, bugiardo,
Lussurioso, ingrato e pien d’inganni,
Son Bonnaccorso di Lapo Giovanni.”
[68] In one of these the Podestà, Fulchieri da Calvoli, cruelly
tortured those of the Bianchi who fell into his hands, before they were
beheaded in the courtyard.
“Their flesh, yet living, sets he up to sale,
Then like an aged beast, to slaughter dooms.
Many of life he reaves, himself of worth
And goodly estimation.”
_Dante Purg._, Canto XIV, Cary’s trans.
All instruments of torture found in these chambers were burnt in the
courtyard by the orders of the Grand Duke Leopoldo when he abolished
the Inquisition.
[69] _Descrizione dei Delinquenti condannati a morte in Firenze._
Firenze, MDCCCI.
[70] See _Archivio Storico Italiano, T. I._ Firenze. G. P. Vieusseux,
Editore, 1842.
[71] In the archives are the sentences pronounced by the various
Signori which are too characteristic to omit.
“13th Feb., 1529. Alessandro Corsini continues in his evil courses;
a rebel he is, and a rebel he may remain; and that he should serve
as an example to all, it is ordered, as he has no house which can
be destroyed, that he be painted as a traitor on the palace of the
Podestà, so that others may learn from him.
“3rd March, 1529. In the name of God I judge that Taddeo Guiducci
be condemned as a rebel, and all his goods be confiscated according
to law, and as he has no house of his own in Florence which can be
destroyed, he is to be painted on the palace of the Podestà by the side
of Alessandro Corsini, and in the same manner as the said Alessandro.
“10th March, 1529. As to the complaint against Pierfrancesco Ridolfi
which to-day has come before us, I decide that, as a most virulent
enemy of his city, and an enemy of our Holy liberty, as he has always
been, he be condemned as a rebel, with all the pains and penalties
pertaining unto rebels, as far as the law allows, and that, within
fifteen days, he be painted hanging by one foot, alongside of Taddeo
Guiducci, on the palace of the Podestà, as a traitor to his country.”
[72] Opus cit.
[73] See _Jahrbuch d. Preussischen Kunstsammlungen_, 1903. Heft. IV.
(Fabriczy, Giuliano da Majano in Siena.)
[74] Milan was famed for the construction of these “carrette,” which
were much used there.
[75] _Istoria di Firenze._ By the Marquess Gino Capponi.
[76] _Storia d’Alessandro de’ Medici._ Abate Modesto Rastrelli.
Firenze. MDCCLXXXI.
[77] See _Miscellanea Fiorentina_. Anno I, No. 12, 1886.
[78] See _Cronachette Storiche Fiorentine_. Pierfilippo Covoni.
Firenze, 1894.
[79] At the end of the XVIIIth century her tomb was still pointed out,
and del Migliore says that before the vault was restored after it
became the property of the Bracci family, the initials “G. A.” were
visible on one of the stones.
[80] More likely because it adjoins the chapel of the Misericodia.
[81] _a Storia di Ginevra Amieri che fu sepolta viva in Firenze._ Pisa.
Nistri.
[82] _Renaissance in Italy._ J. A. Symonds. Vol. iv, p. 216, second
edition, 1898.
[83] _Genealogia e Storia della Famiglia Rucellai._ Luigi Passerini. M
Callini e C. 1861.
[84] Novella, 68.
[85] _Un Mercante Fiorentino e la Sua Famiglia, nel Secolo XV._ G.
Marcotti. G. Barbèra. Firenze. 1881.
[86] The name is said to be derived from _chiare acque_ (limpid waters)
as mentioned by Bernardo’s son Giovanni in his poem _Le Api_, when he
begs his friend Trissino to listen:
“A l’umil suon de le forate canne,
Che nate sono in mezzo a le chiare acque
Che Quaracchi oggi il vulgo chiama.”
(To the soft rustle of the hollow canes, which have their birth in the
clear waters called now Quaracchi by the common herd.)
[87] See _Le Opere di Giovanni Rucellai per cura di Guido Mazzoni_.
Bologna. N. Zanichelli. 1887.
[88] _Cronaca di Firenze di Donato Velluti._ Dall’anno MCCC. in circa
fino al MCCCLX. In Firenze. Presso D. M. Manni. MDCCXXXI.
[89] The Strozzi arms are three half moons.
[90] The conversation between the Pope and the prelates in the
Consistory was as follows. The Pope asked: “Qualis Civitas est
Florentia. Et quia interrogatio ipsius non dirigebatur ad aliquem
in spetiali, idcirco nullus respondebat. Tandem post tertiam
interrogationem, turbatus quia nullus ei respondebat dixit: Nisi mihi
respondeatis, omnes vos poni faciam in multa, sive in carcerem. Tunc
Cardinalis Hispanus respondit dicens: Domine, Civitas Florentina est
una bona Civitas. Cui Papa Bonifatius ait: O male Hispane, quid est hoc
quod dicis? Imo est melior civitas totius Mundi. Nonne qui nutriunt
nos, et regunt, et gubernant Curiam nostram, sunt Florentini? Etiam
totum Mundum videntur regere et gubernare. Nam omnes Ambaxiatores,
qui istis temporibus ad nos per Reges, Barones, et comunitates sunt
directi, Florentini fuerunt.... Et ideo cum Florentini regant et
gubernent totum Mundum, videntur mihi quod ipsi sint Quintum elementum.”
[91] _Lettere di una Gentildonna Fiorentina._ Publicate da Cesare
Guasti Firenze. G. C. Sansoni. 1877.
[92] _i. e._ of perfect alloy and weight. A fiorino was worth about
6_s._
[93] The only place where pure and good ultramarine could be bought.
[94] _Raccolta Delle Migliori Fabbriche Antiche e Moderne di Firenze._
Disegnate e Descritte da R. ed. E. Mazzanti e T. del Lungo, architetti.
Firenze. G. Ferroni. 1876.
[95] He wanted to pull down all the houses to the north and make a fine
square as far as S. Michele Bertelde; and to the south a garden, which
was to have extended to the Via Porta Rossa.
[96] Carriages were only introduced into Florence about 1534. See p.
173.
[97] Archivio Strozzi. Filza IX. A. No. 4.
[98] _Le Famiglie Celebre Italiane, del Conte Pompeo Litta._ Vol. V.
[99] _Giuliano da Majano in Siena._ Jahrbuch der Königlich Preussischen
Kunstsamlungen. 1903. P. 333.
[100] Magliabechiana Library.
[101] Le Bellezze della Città di Firenze. Gio. Cinelli. Firenze. 1677.
[102] _Le Migliore Fabbriche_, etc., opus cit.
[103] It remained untouched until 1410 when the right hand aisle was
demolished and the left hand one ceded to a _Compagnia_. In 1561
the priest’s house, the campanile, the cemetery and the loggia were
destroyed by Cosimo I., when he built the Uffizi, but the small nave
continued to be used as a church until 1743, when it was suppressed and
used for the archives of the tribunal.
[104] _Illustrazione Istorica del Palazzo della Signoria_, etc. Modesto
Rastrelli Firenze. 1792. presso Ant. Gius. Pagani e C. p. 52.
[105] or “rostrum,” derived from the word _arringare_--to harangue.
[106] In old times the Florentines had an almost superstitious
admiration for the lion, emblem of the Republic. The Marzocco, as the
stone lion of Florence was called, was set above the door, on the four
corners, and on the ringhiera of the Palazzo Vecchio, this last was
decorated with a golden crown on solemn festivals. The live beasts were
kept behind the palace (the Via de’ Leoni still marks the place), and
there they remained until Duke Cosimo I. removed them to the Piazza San
Marco. Great was the rejoicing in the city when a lioness had cubs;
Villani notes the birth of two in 1331 on the day of S. Jacob, in July;
and a few years later of six, which he records as a glory for the city
and a sign of prosperity for the Commune. Another old chronicler, Paolo
Minerbetti, relates how “in 1391 there was much discord and a great
battle among the lions, and a lioness who had cubs every year was
killed, which was regarded as of evil augury by the citizens.”
[107] See _Die Loggia dei Lanzi zu Florenz_. Eine quellenkritische
Untersuchung von Dr. Carl Frey. Berlin. Wilhelm Hertz. 1885.
[108] The chapel of St. Bernard in the Palazzo Vecchio is painted by
Rodolfo Ghirlandajo, who, as Vasari writes, “made in the centre of
the ceiling the Holy Trinity, and in the other divisions some angel
boys holding the instruments of the Passion, and heads of the twelve
Apostles; in the corners he painted the Evangelists, and at the end the
angel Gabriel kneeling before the Virgin. In some of the landscapes he
figured the Piazza of the Annunziata in Florence, as far as the church
of S. Marco.”
[109] By Verrocchio, now in the Bargello.
[110] _The Life of Benvenuto Cellini._ Translated by J. A. Symonds. 2nd
edition, p. 220. Vol. 2. John C. Nimmo. 1888.
[111] Signor Iodico Del Badia, in a note to his edition of Luca
Landucci’s _Diary_, writes: “Out of devotion it was the custom for
illustrious Florentines and also strangers of rank, such as popes,
cardinals, princes, condottieri, etc., to put their own portrait made
in wax of the size of life in this church. These were placed on shelves
constructed on purpose. But in 1448 these were full, so the waxen
images were hung by ropes from the ceiling. If by chance one of them
fell down it was looked upon as an evil augury for the person or for
his family. When political passions ran high the dominant party removed
the portraits of their antagonists.”
Varchi also mentions that in 1527 certain youths “entered one morning
very early into the church of the Annunziata, and cast down the waxen
images of Pope Leo and Pope Clement; and after inflicting many wounds
upon them, they carried them off; which deed was severely, and to my
thinking justly, blamed by good and prudent men.”
[112] First published in the _Miscellanea Fiorentina_. No. 9.
September, 1886.
[113] He built the Loggia of the Mercato Nuovo.
[114] _Raccolta di Lettere sulla Pittura, Scultura ed Architettura._
Scritte da’ piu celebri personaggi dei secoli XV. XVI. e XVII.
Publicata da M. Gio. Bottari. Vol. 3. Milano. Giovanni Silvestri.
MDCCXXII.
[115] _Miscellanea Fiorentina di Erudizione e Storia._ By Signor Iodico
Del Badia. No. 1. p. 4.
[116] Dieu-Donné.
INDEX
_Acciaiuoli_, Acciaiuolo, sent to manage bank at Naples, a favourite
of King Robert, 1;
Dardano, Gonfalonier of Justice, 1;
Dardano, builds the church of S. Niccolò in Florence, 3;
Donato, ambassador to France, 5;
Lionardo, Duke of Athens, strangled by Mahomet II., 5;
Neri, conquers Thebes and Bœotia and drives the Spaniards out of
Greece, 5;
Niccola, appointed guardian of the sons of the Princess of Taranto,
2;
Grand Seneschal of the Kingdom of Naples, 2;
builds the Certosa near Florence, the villa of Monte Guffone and
the Acciaiuoli Palace, 3;
Matteo Palmieri’s description of, 3–4;
Bocchi’s description of the palace, 4–5;
Riccomanni, founder of the Acciaiuoli bank, 1;
Ruberto, romantic story of, 6–9.
Albany, Count of (the Pretender), Sir Horace Mann on the, 297–299.
Albany, Countess of, intrigue with Count Alfieri, 298.
Albany, Duchess of, 299.
_Alberti_, Alberto, Prior in 1294, 10;
Antonio, tortured and excluded from all offices, 12;
Benedetto, Machiavelli’s description of, 11;
Leon Battista, description of the, by, 12–13;
birth and education of, 13;
inventions by, 14;
_Trattato della Famiglia_ by, 14;
strenuous advocate for writing in Italian, 15;
death of, 15;
J. A. Symonds’ description of, 15–16;
house of the Rucellai attributed to, 113;
architect of the Palazzo Rucellai, 280;
of the façade of Sta. Maria Novella, 282.
_Albizzi_, Benincasa, Elder in 1251, 17;
Compagno, Prior in 1282, 17;
Luca, adherent of the Medici, 20;
Maso, founds the greatness of Florence, 17–18;
Piero, is beheaded, 17;
Rinaldo, rival of Cosimo de’ Medici, 18;
his interview with Eugenius IV., 19–20, 74.
_Alessandri_, originally Albizzi, 20;
favourite barb of the, 21.
Alfieri, Count, 101;
house of, 109.
Alighieri, Dante, 95;
exile of, 96, 107, 144;
portrait of, in Palazzo del Podestà (Bargello), 214–215, 233;
a Prior, 96;
quoted, 56, 155, 176, 219.
_Altafronte_, Castello d’, ruined by a flood of the Arno, 22;
residence of the Judges of the Ruota, 23.
_Altoviti_, Altovito, a judge, knighted by the Emperor Frederick II.,
28;
Antonio, banker of Innocent VIII., 30;
Antonio, Archbishop of Florence, mystic marriage of, with the
Abbess of S. Piero Maggiore, 30–31;
Bindo, leader of the revolt against the Duke of Athens, cruelty of,
29;
Bindo, friend of Michelangelo, Raphael, etc., 30;
Davanzato, challenged by the Prior of S.S. Apostoli, 28;
Giovan Battista, inherits name and fortune of the Avila, 31;
Guinizzingo, Gonfalonier of Justice when the first stone of Sta.
Maria Novella was laid, 28;
Oddo, assists in framing the _Ordinamenti di Giustizia_, 29.
Ammannati, Bartolommeo, architect of Palazzo Giugni, 115;
of Palazzo Griffoni, 122–123;
probably of Palazzo Montalvo, 149;
adds to Palazzo Pitti, 187–188;
architect of the Palazzo Vitali, 396.
Amidei, Lambertuccio, daughter of, jilted by Buondelmonti, 55.
Amieri, Ginevra degl’, love story of, 273.
_Antinori_, Niccolò, purchases the Boni Palace, 36.
Arnolfo di Lapo, first architect of the Palazzo del Podestà, 208;
architect of the Palazzo Spini, 308.
Baccio d’Agnolo (Baglioni), the Palazzo Antinori attributed to, 36;
architect of the Palazzo Bartolini Salimbeni, 43–44;
the Palazzo Cocchi attributed to, 76;
221;
smaller Torrigiani palace begun by, 346;
Domenico di, architect of the Palazzo Bouturlin, 53;
Giuliano di, the Palazzo Griffoni attributed to, 123.
Badia, Iodico Del, quoted, 60, 76, 137, 167, 329, 331, 350.
Baldinucci, Filippo, 69, 128, 149, 159;
entertainment in the courtyard of the Palazzo Pitti described by,
192–193;
on Alfonso Parigi, 195.
Bandinelli, Bacio, 110.
Bandini, Bernardo, joins the Pazzi conspiracy, 76;
Giovanni, betrays Florence, 76.
Bardi, The, settle in Florence, 39;
fall of the, described by G. Villani, 40–42;
created Imperial Vicarii of Vernio, 42;
Giovanni founds the society to reform recitative, 42.
Bartolini Salimbeni, Giovanni, building of the palace by, 43;
Vasari’s description of the palace, 43–44;
origin of the frieze on the palace, 44.
Bartolommei, Anton Maria, buys the old Lamberteschi palace, 47;
origin of the Bartolommei, 47–48.
Bella, Giano Della, 29, 167.
Benci di Cioni Dami, probably one of the architects of the Loggia de’
Lanzi, 363.
Benedetto da Majano, Palazzo Strozzi attributed to, 329, 331;
Sala de’ Dugento attributed to, 371.
Bianco, Raffaello del, architect of the Palazzo Cocchi, 77.
Bicci, Lorenzo di, architect of the Palazzo Uzzano, now Capponi, 74;
Neridi makes a tabernacle in the Palazzo Vecchio, 369.
Bisticci, Vespasiano da, on the Acciaiuoli, 5, 320.
Boccaccio, Giovanni, 5, 107;
the _Decameron_ copied by F. Mannelli, 138–141;
story of Messer Geri Spini by, 308–313.
Bocchi, Francesco, description of the Palazzo Acciaiuoli by, 4–5.
Bonaparte, Elisa, created Grand Duchess of Tuscany, 205;
interview of with the Countess of Albany, 205–206;
is deposed, 206;
392.
Borghese, Prince Camillo, buys and enlarges a Salviati palace, 52.
Botta, Marshal, re-arranges the pictures in the Pitti palace, 199–201.
Bouturlin, Count Demetrio, buys the Palazzo Niccolini, 54.
Brunelleschi, Filippo, 42;
architect of the Palazzo Pazzi, 167;
architect of the Palazzo Pitti, 185–187.
Buonarroti, Michelangelo, 30, 105, 121;
architect of Palazzo Uguccione, 349.
Buondelmonti, The, declared rebels, 23;
origin of the, 54;
Buondelmonte, his quarrel with Oddo Fifanti, 55;
his marriage with a daughter of the Amidei arranged, 55;
sees Donati’s daughter, 55;
murder of, 56;
Ippolito, love story of, 57–58;
Zanobi, implicated in a plot to assassinate the Cardinal Giulio de’
Medici, 59.
Buontalenti, Bernardo, builds the palace of, 61–67;
miraculous escape of, 69, 122, 136, 159;
entertainment in the courtyard of the Pitti palace arranged by,
191–193;
builds the eastern parade of the Palazzo Vecchio, 389.
Caccini, one of the architects of Palazzo Nonfinito, 159.
Cambi, Giovanni, description of Palazzo Bartolini Salimbeni by, 43,
252, 256, 329.
Cambio, Arnolfo, architect of the Palazzo Vecchio, 355.
Canacci, origin of the, 62;
Caterina, beauty of, 62;
murder of, 63;
head of sent to the Duke Jacopo Salviati by his Duchess, 64;
Giustino, description of by anonymous writer, 62.
Canigiani, Eletta, mother of Petrarch, 67;
Piero, Chancellor to the Empress of Constantinople, 67.
Canto de’ Diavoli, The, 352.
Cappello, Carlo, character of, 24;
epitaph of favourite horse of, 24.
Capponi, Marquess Alessandro, builds the Palazzo Capponi, 70;
Marquess Gino, last of his branch of the family, 70;
Gino, takes Pisa, 70–71;
Lodovico, falls in love with Maddalena Vettori, 135;
motto and emblem invented by, 136;
decorates palace in symbolical fashion, 136;
Neri, one of the most influential men in Florence, 71;
Piero, success of as merchant, diplomatist and soldier, 71;
proud answer of to Charles VII. of France, 71;
death of, 72, 168;
Niccolò, elected Gonfalonier, 72;
proclaims Jesus Christ King of Florence, 72;
is deposed and imprisoned, 73;
his meeting with Michelangelo, 74;
his death, 74.
Capponi (delle Rovinate), palace of the originally Da Uzzano, 74.
Carriages first introduced into Florence, 173.
Castellani, Francesco, knighted by his father’s bier, 23.
Cavalcanti, Guido de’, game of chess of, 279.
Cellini, Benvenuto, his medal for Federigo Ginori, 110;
on Bandinelli’s Hercules, 378.
Cerchi, Piero Monaldi on the, 75–76;
Vieri de’, called to Rome by the Pope, 95.
Cibo, The, introduce carriages into Florence, 173;
Francesco buys the Palazzo Pazzi, 172;
Ricciarda, mistress of Alessandro de’ Medici, 172.
Cigoli (Cardi), Fra Lodovico, architect of the Loggia of the Palazzo
Corsi Salviati, 76, 159.
Cinelli, Giovanni, 77, 101, 116, 122.
Cocchi, Palazzo praised by Vasari, 76;
built by Raffaello del Bianco, 77.
Compagni, Dino, description of Corso Donati by, 98;
exclaims against the avidity of the Florentines, 179;
on the storming of the Palazzo del Podestà, 211;
on the Cerchi and the Donati, 313, 314.
Corsi, origin of the, 80;
Giovanni, entrusted with the care of Alessandro de’ Medici, 81;
his nephews buy the Palazzo Tornabuoni, 81;
Laura, marries the Marquess Salviati, 81.
Corsini, palace built for the Marquess Filippo, 81;
Andrea S. where born, 82;
charity of, 83;
Bishop of Fiesole, 82;
canonized, 82;
Amerigo, First Archbishop of Florence, 83;
Bartolommeo, buys large estates, 84;
Bartolommeo, created Prince of Sismano by Clement XII., 85;
identifies himself with the Spanish party, 86;
Bertoldo, Governor of the fortress of S. Giovanni, offers to cede
arms to the people, is banished by Cosimo I. and decapitated,
84;
Filippo, jurist and ambassador, 83;
Filippo, created a Marquess by Urban VIII., 84;
Filippo, travels with Prince Cosimo de’ Medici, his account of
places visited, 85;
Giovanni, lover of the Empress of Constantinople, 82;
Lorenzo, elected Pope as Clement XII., 85;
Matteo, family historian, 82, 83;
makes large fortune in London, 83;
author of the _Rosaio della Vita_, 83;
Neri, 82;
Neri, made a Cardinal by Clement XII., rules the Papal States under
four popes, 86;
Neri, advocates the independence of Tuscany at Congress of Vienna,
Minister of the Interior, a free trader, 87;
Neri, Governor of Leghorn, 87;
Pietro, Bishop of Florence, 82;
Piero, builder of the first fortifications of Leghorn, 84;
Tommaso, eminent as a jurist, honesty of, death of, 82;
Tommaso, Prince, flies to Sicily, created a Senator and a Count by
Napoleon I., Senator of Rome, 86;
Tommaso, Prince, popularity of, 87.
Covoni, Count, 47, 51;
Pierfilippo, Count, 61.
Cronaco II., architect of the Palazzo Guadagni, 123, 174;
courtyard and cornice of the Palazzo Strozzi built by, 330–331;
the great Hall of Council in the Palazzo Vecchio
built by, 374–375.
Cybo, Donna Veronica, 62;
hires assassins to murder Caterina Canacci, 63;
sends head of Caterina Canacci to the Duke Jacopo Salviati, 64.
Dati, Goro, description by, of the race for the Palio, 21–22.
Davanzati, palace of the, 87–88;
Bernardo, translator of Tacitus, 88;
member of Florentine Academy, 91;
Lasca’s poem about, 91;
Francesco Rondinelli’s description of, 91–92;
Giuliano, knighted by Eugenius IV., 88;
Niccolò, founder of the convent of Doccia, 88.
Dei, Benedetto, ambassador to Constantinople, 124;
Rinieri, builds the Palazzo Guadagni, 123;
Palazzo Cocchi built for the, 77.
Della Casa, Giovanni, Bishop of Benevento, author of _Galateo_, 160.
Donatello, 143–144.
Donati, palaces and towers of the, 92;
Corso, 76;
forces his sister Piccarda to leave her convent and marry, 95;
repulse of the Cerchi by, 95;
banishment of, 96;
Machiavelli’s account of, 96–98;
Dino Compagni’s description of, 98.
Dosio, Giovanni, probably added to the Palazzo Bouturlin, 53;
architect of Palazzo Lardarel, 134.
Evelyn, John, 47;
on the Palazzo Pitti and its garden, 197.
Fabriczy, Herr von, on Brunelleschi, 186–187, 341, 342.
Falconieri, Paolo, architect of the Palazzo Piccolellis, 180;
of the Palazzo Pucci, 234.
Ferdinando III. (of Lorraine), Grand Duke, 87, 201;
is deposed, 202;
is reinstated, 206.
Feroni, origin of the, 98;
palaces of the, 99.
Fioravanti, Neri di, rebuilds the Palazzo del Podestà, 213–214, 217.
Fiorentino, Niccolò, medals by, 79.
Firenzuola, Simone di, 115.
Firidolfi, Ricasoli, account of the, 100;
chapel in the palace painted by Vasari, 99.
Fontana, Carlo, architect of Palazzo Capponi, 70;
of Palazzo Panciatichi, 160.
Fossi, Palazzo, originally Alberti, 105;
frescoed by Stalf, 105.
Frescobaldi, Dino, saves the first seven cantos of the _Inferno_, 107;
Lamberto, builds the first bridge of Sta. Trinita, 106;
palaces and towers of the, 105, 106;
revolt of the, 106.
Frey, Dr. Carl, on the Loggia de’ Lanzi, 362–363.
Geymüller, Herr von, 342.
Giacomini, The, 133;
Palazzo Larderel built by, 134.
Gianfigliazzi, origin of the, 109;
palaces of the, 108.
Gibbon, Edward, on Cosimo de’ Medici, 246.
Ginori, Bartolommeo, chosen as a model by Giovan Bologna, 111;
Carlo, Senator, founder of the china manufactory, 111;
Federigo, medal made by Benvenuto Cellini for, 110.
Ginori, Conti, Prince, his palace the “old house” of the Medici,
112–113.
Ginori, Venturi, Marquess, palace of, built by Bernardo Rucellai, 113.
Giugni, Vincenzio, 115, 116.
Giuliano da Majano, finishes the Palazzo Pazzi, 167;
rebuilds the Sala de’ Dugento, 371.
Gondi, Alberto, created Duc de Retz, 119;
Giovanbattista, becomes a naturalized French subject, 119;
Giuliano, builds the Palazzo Gondi, 119;
Jean François Paul, Cardinal de Retz, 120.
Grazzini (Lasca), poem by, 91.
Griffoni, Ugolino, 122.
Grosso, Niccolò (Caparra), 9, 123, 331.
Guadagni, Alessandro, builds the Palazzo in the Piazza del Duomo, 128;
Bernardo, Gonfalonier of Justice bribed by Cosimo de’ Medici, 127;
Pierantonio, founds the gallery, 128;
Tommaso, builds the San Clemente Palace, 128.
Guicciardini, Francesco, avarice of, 130;
account of by Pitti, 131;
character of by Varchi, 132;
cruelty of, 131, 168.
Heywood, William, description of the game of Calcio by, 33–34.
Incontri, The, 180.
Landi, Michele di, created Gonfalonier of Justice, 365.
Landucci, Luca, diary of, 78, 79;
on the building of the Palazzo Strozzi, 327.
Leopoldo I. (of Austria), proclaimed Grand Duke of Tuscany, 201;
Leopoldo II., Grand Duke, makes great alterations in the Pitti
Palace, 207;
is deposed, 207.
Lapi, Agostino, on the building of the Pitti Palace, 188.
Lippi, Filippo, contract with Filippo Strozzi, 323.
Lodovico I. (of Bourbon), created King of Etruria by Napoleon I.,
202, 203;
death of, 204.
Machiavelli, Niccolò, on Benedetto Alberti, 11;
death of Niccolò da Uzzano a calamity for Florence, 18;
meeting of Eugenius IV. and Rinaldo degl’Albizzi, 19, 20, 59;
rivalry of the Cerchi and the Donati, 95, 96;
Corso Donati described by, 96, 97, 98;
on Luca Pitti, 185, 186;
on Cosimo de’ Medici, 241, 243, 249;
on the murder of Giuliano de’ Medici, 251, 252;
on Niccolò and Tommaso Soderini, 305, 306;
on Piero Soderini, 307, 321, 365, 366.
Manelli, The, different names of, 137;
refuse to allow the corridor connecting the Palazzo Pitti and the
Palazzo Vecchio to pass through their house, 142;
Amaretto, 138;
Francesco, Boccaccio’s friend, makes a copy of the _Decameron_,
138–139;
Raimondo takes Spinola prisoner, 141.
Mann, Sir Horace, on Lady Orford’s Cicisbeo, 154;
on the Count of Albany, on Marshal Botta, 199–200.
Martelli, Camilla, wife of Cosimo I., her death, 144;
Lodovico, a poet, 143;
Lodovico, duel of with G. Bandini, 143, 144;
Ruberto, patron and friend of Donatello, 143.
Medici, Alessandro de’, 25, 36, 60, 72, 74, 81, 84, 109, 111, 112,
129, 131;
attempted murder of, 172, 237, 259, 260;
created Duke, 261, 262;
murder of, 263, 265, 266, 293, 335, 336, 351, 357, 382, 383, 384;
Bernardetto de’, 351;
Carlo de’, Cardinal, 61;
Clarice de’, 259;
turns Ippolito and Alessandro out of Palazzo Medici, 260, 333;
Cosimo de’ (the elder), 18, 19, 26, 71, 74, 113, 144, 146, 156,
185, 186, 220, 234, 237;
builds the Medici palace, 241, 242;
character of, 241;
banishment and return of, 245;
death of, 247;
Gibbon on, 246;
patron of artists and men of letters, 246;
imprisoned in the Alberghettino, 366, 369;
Cosimo I., Grand Duke, 23, 30, 36, 60, 69, 84, 102, 114, 116, 122,
124, 128, 131, 135, 141, 142, 156, 162, 187, 232, 237;
succeeds to the Duke Alessandro, 266;
proclamation and marriage of, 267, 336, 337, 338, 339, 340, 349,
350, 378, 384, 388;
Cosimo II., Grand Duke, lengthens the Palazzo Pitti, 195, 196;
marriage of, 389, 390;
Cosimo III., Grand Duke, 48, 61;
tour through Europe as Prince, 85, 86, 99;
rupture between him and his wife, 197–199, 390;
Ferdinando I., Grand Duke, 121, 181;
marriage festivities of, 191–193, 194, 237, 388, 389;
Ferdinando II., Grand Duke, 48, 85, 113, 195;
picture gallery begun by in the Palazzo Pitti, 196, 345, 397;
Francesco I., Grand Duke, 23, 42, 60, 61, 114, 189, 191, 386;
Giovanni de’, description of by Machiavelli, 238–241;
Giovanni de’ (delle Bande Nere), 160, 294;
Giovanni de’ (Leo X.), 163;
is made a Cardinal, 252, 256;
is elected Pope, 257;
death of, 258, 332;
Giovan Carlo de’, Cardinal, 84, 114;
Giovan Gastone, Grand Duke, 199, 291;
Giuliano de’, 35;
murder of, 171, 251, 293, 306, 379, 380;
Giuliano de’ (Duke of Nemours), 255, 256;
marriage and death of, 257;
statue of, 258;
Giulio de’ (Clement VII.), 24, 59, 114, 130, 222, 231, 237, 256;
created Cardinal, 257;
elected Pope, 260, 261, 333;
Ippolito de’, Cardinal, 72, 81, 259, 260;
character of by Varchi, 261;
dies of poison, 262;
Isabella de’, 189;
Lorenzo de’ (the Magnificent), 25, 26;
his entry into the lists described by L. Pulci, 35, 51, 71, 78;
deference of to his mother, 80, 107, 108, 168;
attempted murder of, 171, 251, 244, 248;
marriage of and election to rule the State, 249;
Niccolò Valori’s description of, 250;
death of, 252, 270, 283, 287, 293, 306, 322, 324, 325, 326, 343;
Lorenzo de’ (Duke of Urbino), 60, 101, 256;
Lorenzino de’, house of, 112, 113;
description of, 262;
murders Duke Alessandro, 263–265;
Lucrezia de’, 79;
poetic gifts of, 80;
Lucrezia de’ (daughter of Cosimo I.), 188;
Maria de’, marriage of, to Henri IV., 193, 194;
Nannina de’, marriage of, 287, 288, 290;
Ottaviano de’, house of, 60;
administers the family property, 60;
Piero de’ (son of Cosimo the Elder), 71, 78, 79, 108, 174, 186,
244, 247;
answer by to Acciaiuoli, 248;
death of, 249;
Piero de’ (son of Lorenzo), marriage of, 252;
cedes Sarzana, etc., to Charles VIII., 253;
is expelled, 254;
is drowned, 255, 377;
Raffaello de’, 53;
Salvestro de’, 238, 364.
Michelozzi, Michelozzo, architect of the Palazzo Riccardi, 241–242,
243;
Palazzo dello Strozzino attributed to, 342;
restores the Palazzo Vecchio, 367–369.
Monaldi, Piero, manuscript history of the Cerchi by, 75;
manuscript family history of, 145;
manuscript history of the Vecchietti by, 352.
Montaigne, Michel de’, on the Palazzo Pitti, 190.
Montalvo, Antonio Ramirez di, 146;
Leonora di, foundress of the convent of Le Quiete, 149–150.
Mozzi, The, 151;
Cavaliere, Sir Horace Mann on the, 154.
Murat, Joachim, proclaims the King of Etruria, 203.
Nardi, Jacopo, 59, 133, 231;
letter on the tumult in the Palazzo Vecchio, 381–382.
Nelli, G. B., architect of the Palazzo Viviani, 397.
Nerli, The, Dante on, 155;
join the Paterines, 156;
Tanay, adversary of Savonarola, 156.
Nero, Tommaso del, architect of the Palazzo Torrigiani, 345.
Nigetti, Matteo, rebuilds the Palazzo de’ Bardi, 39;
one of the architects of the Palazzo Nonfinito, 159.
Orcagna, Andrea, reputed architect of the Loggia de’ Lanzi, 362–363.
Palmieri, Matteo, on Niccola Acciaiuoli, 3–4.
Panciatichi, Bandino, Cardinal, 160;
history of the, 161;
Niccolò, marries the heiress of the Ximenes d’Aragona, 162.
Pandolfini, Agnolo, 14;
Gianozzo, Bishop of Troja, builds the Palazzo Pandolfini, 163.
Paoletti, G., bastion of the Pitti palace and the Palazzina della
Meridiana built by, 201.
Parigi, Alfonso, lengthens the Palazzo Pitti and restores the façade
to the perpendicular, 195–196.
Parigi, Giulio, architect of the Palazzo dell’Antella, 32;
loggia of the Tessitori de’ Drappi attributed to, 60;
adds to the Palazzo Pitti, 195.
Passerini, Count Luigi, quoted, 17, 28, 36, 48, 102, 124, 161, 174,
212, 213, 215, 275.
Pazzi, Andrea, builds the Palazzo Pazzi, 167;
Francesco, conspires with Sixtus IV. against the Medici, 168;
kills Giuliano de’ Medici, 171;
is hanged, 172;
Jacopo, incites the people to revolt, 171;
is executed, 172;
Giovanni, founds the Società Colombaia, 397.
Peruzzi, account of the, 175;
Arco de’, frescoed by Paolo Ucello, 176;
Baldassare, architect and painter, 180;
houses of the, assigned to distinguished guests, 179;
Ridolfo, banished, 179;
ruin of the, 176;
Ubaldino, 180.
Pisani, Andrea, enlarges the Palazzo Vecchio, 359.
Pitti, Buonaccorso, chronicle of, 182;
Luca, begins the Palazzo Pitti, 185;
conspires against Piero de’ Medici, 186;
Eleonora di Toledo buys the Palazzo Pitti, 187;
marriages of Cosimo I.’s daughters in, 188–189;
Montaigne’s description of, 190;
entertainment in courtyard of for marriage of Ferdinando I.,
191–193;
ceremonies for the marriage of Maria de’ Medici in, 194;
Giulio and Alfonzo Parigi add to, 195–196;
beginning of gallery in, 196;
description of by Evelyn, 196–197;
Marguerite Louise of Orleans and her cook in, 197–199;
Marshal Botta’s work in, described by Sir H. Mann, 199–201;
loggiata of begun by Ruggieri, 201;
Ferdinando III. expelled from, 202;
King and Queen of Etruria in, 204;
Elisa Bonaparte in, 205–206;
picture gallery of, added to by Ferdinando III., 207;
Leopoldo II. leaves the, 207.
Podestà, Palazzo del (Bargello), building of, 208;
burnings of the, 211, 213;
frescoes in chapel of, 214–216;
malefactors painted on, 216–217, 220–221, 252;
Pagolo Boscoli’s last night, by Luca della Robbia, 222–231;
inside of ruined when given up to the Bargello, 252–253;
uncovering Dante’s portrait in, 233.
Poliziano, Agnolo, 35, 80.
Pucci, The, 234–235.
Pulci, Luca, entry of Lorenzo de’ Medici into the lists described by,
35, 80.
Quaratesi, Marquess Niccolò, buys the Palazzo Pazzi, 174.
Rastrelli, Abbate Modesto, on the murder of the Duke Alessandro,
263–265;
how the Gonfaloniers and Priors lived in the palace, 357.
Ricasoli, Alberto, 100;
Antonio, takes S. Leo, 101;
Bettino, Baron, 102;
speech of in the Palazzo Vecchio, 394;
Rinieri, builds the palace on the Lung’Arno, 101.
Riccardi, Palazzo, built by Cosimo de’ Medici, 241–243;
chapel of, 243–245;
Lorenzo de’ Medici accepts the position of ruler in, 249;
Sforza visits Lorenzo in, 250;
Pier Capponi and Charles VIII. in, 254;
Savonarola visits Charles VIII. in, 255;
the Medici return to, 256;
Leo X. in, 257;
Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici closes the loggia of, 258;
Ippolito de’ Medici and Cardinal Passerini in, 259;
Clarice degl’ Strozzi turns the Cardinal, Ippolito and Alessandro
de’ Medici out of, 260;
festivals in for Charles V. and Margaret of Austria, 262;
meeting of the Forty-eight in after the murder of the Duke
Alessandro, 266;
sale of to the Riccardi, 257;
added to by the Riccardi, 267–268;
let to the French Government, 268–269.
Ridolfi, The, 270;
hospital of the, 272.
Ristori Taddeo di, probably one of the architects of the Loggia de’
Lanzi, 363.
Rondinelli, The, 272;
Antonio, love story of, 273–275;
Francesco, description of Bernardo Davanzati by, 91–92.
Rossi, Tribaldo de’, his description of the laying of the first stone
of the Palazzo Strozzi, 226–227, 328;
of the giraffe sent to Lorenzo de’ Medici, 343–344.
Rucellai, The, 275;
Bernardo, marriage of with Nannina de’ Medici, 287;
builds the palace in the Oricellari gardens, 113;
Giovanni, marries Jacopa degl’ Strozzi, 279–280;
builds the Palazzo Rucellai, 280;
builds the façade of Sta. Maria Novella, 282;
_Il Zibaldone Quaresimale_ written by, 283–287;
Giovanni, letter of from Avignon, 288–289;
author of _Rosmunda_, etc., 289–290;
Giovanni, his tessera, 291;
Giulio, suppresses the tribunal of the Inquisition and curbs the
power of the clergy, 291–292.
Sacchetti, Franco, Cavalcanti’s game of chess described by, 281–282.
San Clemente, Dukes of, 299, 303.
San Gallo, Bastiano da, continues the Palazzo Pandolfini, 164.
San Gallo, Giovanfrancesco da, architect, under Raphael, of the
Palazzo Pandolfini, 161.
San Gallo, Giuliano da, 36;
architect of the Palazzo Gondi, 119;
staircase and fireplace in by, 120, 221;
probable architect of Palazzo Strozzi, 331;
of part of Palazzo dello Strozzino, 342;
architect of Palazzo Ximenes d’Aragona, 398.
Savonarola, advocates building the great hall in the Palazzo Vecchio,
374;
imprisonment, torture and death of, 376.
Segni, Bernardo, 25, 131, 260;
on the death of Luisa Strozzi, 336, 337.
Serristori, The, 304.
Silvani, Pierfrancesco, joint architect of the Palazzo Corsini, 81;
rebuilds the Palazzo Guicciardini, 129;
architect of the Palazzo San Clemente, 297;
enlarges the Palazzo Ximenes d’Aragona, 398.
Sisto da Firenze, Fra, joint architect with Fra Ristoro da Campi of
the Palazzo del Podestà, 208.
Soderini, Niccolò, popularity of, 305;
Tommaso, one of the chief citizens of Florence, 305–306;
Piero, cowardice of, 306;
Machiavelli’s lines on, 307.
Spini, The, 307;
Geri, ability and riches of, 308;
Boccaccio’s story about, 308–313;
Piero, Dino Compagni on, 313;
Doffo, leader of the “Compagnacci” against Savonarola, 314;
north façade of the palace rebuilt, 315.
Strozzi, Progenitor of the, 316;
murder of Ercole, 319;
Ciriaco, works by, 319;
Palla, great collector of books, 320–321;
Alessandra, the letters of, 321;
Filippo, account of, 322;
marriages of, 323;
builds the great palace, 324–328;
his account of the murder of Giuliano de’ Medici, 372–374;
death of, 328;
Vasari attributes the design of the palace to Benedetto da Majano,
329–331;
Filippo the younger marries Clarice de’ Medici, 332;
sent as a hostage to Spain, 333;
advises the Cardinal Passerini, Ippolito and Alessandro de’ Medici
to leave Florence, 334;
his daughter Luisa insulted, 335;
her death, 336;
taken prisoner and tortured, 336;
various accounts of his death, 337;
epitaphs of, 337–338;
description of, 338–339;
Piero, enters the service of France, 339;
Leone, Prior of Capua, 335, 336;
becomes a French Admiral, plans fortifications in Malta, 340;
Agnolo, builds the Palazzo dello Strozzino, 341;
Palla Novello, buys the houses of the Gondi, 341.
Stufa, Lotteringo Della, one of the founders of the Servite Order,
342;
Luigi, 343;
rhyme about, 344.
Symonds, J. A., on the _Trattato della Famiglia_, 14;
on Leon Battista Alberti, 15–16, 130, 132, 246;
on the poem of Ginevra degl’ Amieri, 274–275;
on Bernardo Rucellai, 290;
on Palla degl’ Strozzi, 320–321.
Tasso, Torquato, lines to Bianca Cappello, 188.
Torrigiani, Luigi, Cardinal, last of his family, 346;
Pietro Guadagni, inherits name and fortune of the, 346.
Uguccione, Giovanni, builds palace, 349;
design of palace stolen, 350.
Valori, Filippo, 25, 26;
Bacio, 25, 26;
decorates his house, 27;
Niccolò, 26, 35, 80;
Francesco, 73.
Varchi, Benedetto, 9, 24;
on Bacio Valori, 25, 59, 72, 131, 144;
attempted murder of the Duke Alessandro, 172, 259;
on Ippolito de’ Medici, 261, 262;
state of things in Florence after the murder of the Duke
Alessandro, 265–266, 333, 334;
on Luisa degl’ Strozzi, 335;
on Luigi della Stufa, 344.
Vasari, Giorgio, 3, 30;
on the Bartolini Salimbeni Palace, 43–44, 53, 76, 78;
chapel in the Ricasoli Firidolfi Palace painted by, 99, 113, 114,
132, 142, 143, 159, 163;
on Paolo Uccello, 176, 180, 187, 208;
on the Palazzo del Podestà, 213–214, 252;
on the Palazzo Strozzi, 329–331, 355, 356;
on Michelozzi’s work in the Palazzo Vecchio, 367–369, 374, 379;
work of, in the Palazzo Vecchio, 385–387.
Vecchietti, account of the, 352.
Vecchio, Palazzo, building of, 355–356;
life of the Gonfaloniere and Priori in, 357;
_ringhiera_ of, 357–358;
added to by the Duke of Athens, 358–359;
Duke of Athens expelled from, 360;
lions of, 361;
Simoncino tortured in, 364;
Michele di Lando created Gonfalonier in, 365;
Cosimo de’ Medici imprisoned in, 366;
Michelozzi restores the, 366–369;
Neri de’ Bicci paints tabernacle in, 369;
Baldaccio d’Anghieri murdered in, 369–370;
Sala de’ Dugento rebuilt in, 371;
Archbishop of Pisa and nobles hung from the windows of, 271–274;
great Hall of Council built in, 374–375;
Savonarola imprisoned in, 375–376;
Michelangelo’s David at door of, 376–377;
Bandinelli’s Hercules, description of, by Benvenuto Cellini,
378–379;
Leonardo da Vinci’s fresco in, 379;
destruction of the woodwork in the great Hall of, 380;
tumult in, 381–382;
Niccolò Capponi proclaims Jesus Christ King of Florence in, 382–383;
Duke Alessandro proclaimed in, 383–384;
Cosimo I. takes up his abode in, 384–385;
Vasari’s work in, 385–387;
Buontalenti adds the eastern façade to, 389;
marriage feasts in, 389–390;
Del Rosso’s work in, 392;
Baron Ricasoli’s speech in, 394;
the Hall of the Five Hundred becomes the House of Parliament,
394–395.
Velluti, The, 299;
Donato, chronicle of, 300;
Paolo, chronicle of, 301–303.
Vespucci, Amerigo, 181.
Vettori, Maddalena, love story of, 135–136.
Victor Emanuel I., King, 207, 395.
Villani, Giovanni, the rising of the people against the nobles
described by, 40–42;
_Cronica_ of, 52, 55, 76;
on Pope Gregory X. in Florence, 152, 179, 211, 213, 355;
fortifications of the Palazzo Vecchio by the Duke of Athens
described by, 358–359;
Filippo, 52;
on Dante’s portrait in the Palazzo del Podestà, 214–215;
Matteo, 52;
on the granite lions of the Palazzo Vecchio, 361, 362.
Viviani, Vincenzio, friend of Galileo, 397;
entertains Milton, 398.
Zenobius, S., miracle of, 31.
RICHARD CLAY & SONS, LIMITED,
BREAD STREET HILL, E.C., AND
BUNGAY, SUFFOLK.
Transcriber’s Notes
Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a
predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they
were not changed.
Spelling and accents in Italian words follow the way the original book
was printed.
Simple typographical errors were corrected; unbalanced quotation
marks were remedied when the change was obvious, but several remain
unbalanced.
Illustrations in this eBook have been positioned between paragraphs
and outside quotations. In versions of this eBook that support
hyperlinks, the page references in the List of Illustrations lead to
the corresponding illustrations.
The index was not checked for proper alphabetization or correct page
references.
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Florentine palaces : & their stories" ***
Copyright 2023 LibraryBlog. All rights reserved.