Chapter IX: Part 9

“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.”

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.

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.

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.”