The Rise and Fall of the House of Medici (53 page)

10.
   It was Palla Strozzi who commissioned Gentile da Fabriano to paint the altarpiece, the
Adoration of the Magi
, for the chapel of Palla’s father, the
CHAPEL OFONOFRIOSTROZZI
in the church of Santa Trinità. The altarpiece, which contains portraits of various members of the Strozzi family, is now in the Uffizi. The
STROZZI CHAPEL
in the Dominican church of Santa Maria Novella has an altarpiece by Andrea Orcagna and murals by Nardo di Cione. The Strozzi family villa of Poggio a Caiano was later acquired by Lorenzo il Magnifico.

11.
   The
VIA DE’ BARDI
was almost entirely redeveloped by the Bardi family. Before they built their palace (which no longer exists) the street was a slum known as the Borgo Pigiglioso (the Fleapit). The fourteenth-century
BARDI CHAPEL
in the church of Santa Croce contains murals by Giotto and his assistants.

12.
   Carlo di Cosimo de’ Medici was also a collector in a modest way. Roger vander Weyden’s
Entombment
, now in the Uffizi, was one of his pictures.

  1.
   The medieval tower house of the
ALBIZZI
is in the Borgo degli Albizzi. The palazzo built by Rinaldo degli Albizzi no longer exists,
PALAZZO ALTOVITI
stands on its site at no. 88.

  2.
   Domenico Veneziano’s
Saints Francis and John the Baptist
from the Cavalcanti chapel is in the
MUSEO DELL’ OPERA DI SANTA CROCE.
The Cavalcanti
Annunciation
by Donatello is in the church of Santa Croce.

  3.
   The Studio Fiorentino has developed into the
UNIVERSITÀ DEGLISTUDI
. The present building near the Piazza San Marco was converted from the stables of the Grand Dukes of Tuscany. The botanical gardens to the north, the
GIARDINO DBI SEMPLICI
, which face onto the Via Lamarmora, were laid out on Cosimo I’s instructions in the middle of the sixteenth century.

  4.
   
IL TREBBIO
stands at the top of a hill about a mile from Cafaggiolo where the Medici had owned property for generations. According to Vasari the original medieval fortress was altered for Cosimo by Michelozzo who made it less bleak by rebuilding the courtyard, adding the loggia and the covered passage round the ramparts and tower. It was sold by the Medici to Giuliano Serragli in 1644. In 1864 it passed into the hands of Prince Marcantonio Borghese and was later bought by Dott. Enrico Scaretti who restored it in the 1930s. His widow, Lord Gladwyn’s sister, is still living there at the time of writing.

  5.
   The
PALAZZO GUADAGNI
in Piazza Santo Spirito (nos. 7–9) was built for the Dei family in the early sixteenth century. Donato Guadagni bought it in 1684.

  6.
   The sixteenth-century
PALAZZO PUCCI
is in Via de’ Pucci (nos. 2–4). The coat of-arms on the corner of Via de’ Servi is that of Giovanni di Lorenzo de’Medici, Pope Leo X. The Pucci paid for the loggia in Santissima Annunziata which was designed by Caccini and finished in 1601. The Pucci Chapel flanks the eastern wall of the Chiostrino dei Voti in Santissima Annunziata where Verrocchio’s now lost effigy of Lorenzo il Magnifico was displayed after his escape from assassination by the Pazzi. According to Vasari, Botticelli’s tondo, the
Adoration of the Magi
, now in the National Gallery, London, was commissioned by the Pucci.

  1.
   The library at San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice has been destroyed; but the dormitory may have been begun by Michelozzo whose influence is apparent in the design.

  2.
   The Acciaiuoli had several houses in the Borgo Santi Apostoli, including the
PALAZZO DEGLI ACCIAIUOLI
(nos. 3–10). Their palace on the Arno was destroyed in 1944 when the retreating Germans blew up the nearby bridge.

  3.
   The
PALAZZO GUICCIARDINI
is in the Via Guicciardini. Francesco Guicciardini wrote his
History of Italy
in the Villa Ravia in the Via di Santa Margherita a Montici (no. 75).

  4.
   The houses and palaces of the Peruzzi family were in the
PIAZZA PERUZZI
where several buildings bear the family emblem – pears. The
PERUZZI CHAPEL
in Santa Croce contains murals by Giotto and his assistants.

  5.
   The
CAPPONI CHAPEL
in the church of Santa Felicità was built for the Barbadori who made over their rights in it to the Capponi in 1525.

  6.
   The church of San Pier Scheraggio was pulled down to make way for the Uffizi.

  7.
   The
MASTELLI CHAPEL
is in the Basilica of San Lorenzo. It has an altarpiecc by Fra Filippo Lippi.

  8.
   The
VILLA OF CAREGGI
was purchased in 1417 by Cosimo de’ Medici’s brother, Lorenzo. Michelozzo enlarged it for Cosimo, and Giuliano da Sangallo added the loggias on the south side for Lorenzo il Magnifico. It was looted and damaged by fire after the flight from Florence of Lorenzo’s son, Piero. Verrocchio’s
David
, his terracotta
Resurrection
(both now at the Bargello) and his fountain of a little boy holding a spouting fish (now at the Palazzo della Signoria) were all commissioned by the Medici for this villa. Restored by the Grand Duke Cosimo I, it subsequently fell into disrepair and was sold by the Medici’s successors to Count Vincenzo Orsi. It is now a hostel for staff of the Ospedale di Careggi.

  1.
   Ficino’s villa is now known as
LE FONTANELLE
.

  2.
   Cosimo kept the
MEDICI LIBRARY
first at Careggi and later at the Medici Palace. Confiscated by the
Signoria
in 1494, when fines of as much as fifty florins were imposed on borrowers who did not return books immediately, it was transferred to San Marco at the suggestion of Savonarola. The library was bought back in 1508 by Pope Leo X who removed it to Rome. Returned to Florence by Clement VII, it was – in 1532 – placed in the building in the cloisters of San Lorenzo where it remains.

  3.
   Long supposed to have once been a Roman temple, the octagonal black-and-white
BAPTLSTERY OF ST JOHN
was probably built in the twelfth century. The portal surround to Pisano’s bronze doors on the southern front are by Vittorio Ghiberti, Lorenzo’s son.

  4.
   Lorenzo Ghilberti’s
BRONZE DOORS
on the northern front show scenes from the life of Christ with the four Evangelists and four Church Fathers.

  5.
   The
HOSPITAL OF SANTA MARIA NUOVA
was founded in 1286 by Folco Portinari, the father of Dante’s Beatrice.

  6.
   Lorenzo Ghiberti’s
GILDED BRON ZE DOORS
on the eastern front contain a self-portrait of the artist whose bald head can be seen poking out of a round aperture.

  7.
   The
TOMB OF POPE JOHN XXIII
in the Baptistery was designed by Donatello and, apart from the bronze effigy, made by Michelozzo.

  8.
   In the building of the
OSPEDALE DEGLI INNOCENTI
, which faces onto the Piazza Santissima Annunziata, Brunelleschi was helped by his assistant
Francesco della Luna. The middle nine arches are theirs; the others were added in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The medallions of swaddled babies were made by Andrea della Robbia.

  9.
   The fourth-century basilica of
SAN LORENZO
had been replaced by another in the eleventh century. Brunelleschi’s early Renaissance masterpiece was begun in 1421. The old sacristy, where Giovanni di Bicci de’ Medici was buried, was completed in 1429. Brunelleschi did not live to finish the work; and his death in 1446 led to outbursts of violent quarrelling between various Florentine craftsmen who wanted to take over its direction and who appealed to Cosimo to support their conflicting claims. Giovanni di Domenico and Antonio Manetti, under Cosimo’s personal direction, seem to have been largely responsible for finishing it.

10.
   Brunelleschi’s carefully guarded secret was to provide a double cupola for the
DOME OF SANTA MARIA DEL FIORE,
the biggest in Europe, one dome inside another, each resting on a drum and bound together, the stones carefully dovetailing one into the next so that they were almost self-supporting.

11.
   Ghiberti’s
ST MATTHEW
at Orsanmichele, which was made between 1419 and 1422, occupies the most northerly niche in the western wall. The bronze St
John the Baptist
and
St Stephen
are also by Ghiberti.

12.
   The
NOVICES’ CHAPEL
was built about 1445 by Michelozzo. The glazed terracotta altarpiece is from Andrea della Robbia’s studio. The Grand Duke Ferdinando II arranged for Galileo to be buried here in 1642.

13.
   Also know as the Rotonda, the
CHOIR OF SANTISSIMA ANNUNZIATA
was started by Michelozzo in 1451 and finished by Alberti in the 1470s.

14.
   The
BADIA FIESOLANA
at San Domenico di Fiesole was the cathedral of Fiesole until 1018. Rebuilding continued between 1456 and 1469 at Medici expense.

15.
   Michelozzo was working at
SAN MASCO
for Cosimo from 1437 to 1444 when his library was finished. The double-chambered cell at the end of the corridor by the library is the one used by Cosimo. Savonarola’s cell is at the end of the western corridor.

16.
   The Via Larga is now known as the Via Cavour. The church of
SAN GIOVANNINO DEGLI SCOLOPI
was rebuilt in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries by Bartolommeo Ammanati and by Giulio and Alfonso Parigi.

17.
   The
MEDICIPALACE
was built between 1444 and 1460. The ‘kneeling windows’on the Via dc’ Gori front were subsequently replaced by flat, square bars of a more austere design. The iron rungs to be found on either side of these windows were intended for holding the staffs of banners or flambeaux and for tying up horses. The stone benches beneath them were provided not only for servants of visitors to the palace, but also for the convenience of any passers-by who might care to accept this modest offer of Medicean hospitality. According to the unreliable evidence of Giovanni Avogrado, the original palace had a polychrome
façade of red, white and green. The building narrowly escaped destruction in 1527 when the Medici were forced to flee from Florence after the sack of Rome. Michelangelo, an enthusiastic republican, proposed that it should be razed and that a piazza, known as the Square of the Mules in allusion to the illegitimate birth of the Medici Pope, Clement VII, should be built on the site. It survived, however, to be taken over by the State for the Trustees of Minors until reverting to Medici possession on their return to Florence in 1550. It remained in the possession of the Medici until 1659 when the Grand Duke Ferdinando II sold it to Marchese Gabrielle Riccardi. (The palace was much enlarged by the Riccardi who added another seven to the ten windows of the upper floors.) Purchased by the government of the Grand Duchy in 1814, it is now known as the Palazzo Medici-Riccardi and serves as the Prefecture.

18.
   Permission to attach these large spiked lamps to the walls of a palace had to be obtained from the government. Niccolò Grosso was given his nickname because he always insisted on payment in advance.
Caparra
means pledge.

19.
   
CAFAGGIOLO
was more like a fortress than a villa. Vasari described it as having ‘all the requisites of a distinguished country house’ with a pleasant garden, groves and fountains. But its high towers and battlemented arches were surrounded by a moat crossed by a drawbridge. It was bought, together with Il Trebbio, by Prince Borghese who had the central tower pulled down and the moat filled in. It now presents a rather desolate appearance and the garden has been taken over by dandelions and chickens.

20.
   The
VILLA MEDICI
– formerly
BELCANTO
– originally belonged to the Bardi. The reconstruction carried out for Giovanni de’ Medici was finished in 1461. Sold by the Grand Duke Cosimo III in 1671, it was renovated in the 1770s for Horace Walpole’s sister-in-law, the Countess of Orford; and in the nineteenth century was bought by the English painter and collector, William Blundell Spence, when it became known as the Villa Spence. More recently it belonged to Lady Sybil Cutting whose daughter, Marchesa Iris Origo, was brought up there.