Chapter II: Part 2

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.

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]

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._