The Rise and Fall of the House of Medici (55 page)

  6.
   
BOTTICELLI’S
Primavera, Birth of Venus
and
Pallas and the Centaur all
once hung in the Medici villa of castello. The villa was bought in 1477 by Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de’ Medici. The gardens were laid out in the time of Duke Cosimo I by Niccolà Pericoli Tribolo and his successor, Bernardo Buontalenti. Various stone and bronze statues in the ponds and grottoes are by Tribolo, Ammanati, Giambologna and Pierino da Vinci. Others of Giambologna’sbronze animals have now been transferred to the Bargello. The villa, which was remodelled and redecorated for the House of Savoy, is now being restored as the headquarters of the Accademia della Crusca.

  7.
   It has been claimed that Botticelli’s
Pallas and the Centaur
(in the Uffizi), painted in about 1482, is a celebration of Lorenzo’s successful negotations with King Ferrante. The bay in the background has been identified as the Bay of Naples. Undoubtedly Pallas’s dress is embroidered with the Medici device of interlocking diamond rings.

  8.
   On Lorenzo’s recommendation, Ghirlandaio was commissioned in 1485 to decorate the
CAPPELLA MAGGIORE
in Santa Maria Novella. The murals, which were finished by his assistants, are his work; so is the stained-glass window. His altarpiece was broken up at the beginning of the nineteenth century and transported to Germany. Lorenzo also helped Ghirlandaio to obtain the commission to paint the murals and the altarpiece in the sassetti chapel at Santa Trinità. Francesco Sassetti was general manager of the Medici Bank. He and his four sons are all depicted in the mural behind the altar. Standing next to Filippo is Lorenzo himself. Lorenzo’s sons can be seen walking up the steps with their tutors, Luigi Pulci and Agnolo Poliziano.

  9.
   
VEKBOCCHIO’S
David
, made in about 1474, is now in the Bargello.

10.
   
VBRROOCHIO’S
Resurrection
, made in about 1479, is also in the Bargello.

11.
   The medieval monastery of Santo spirito-all final remains of which, apart from the refectory, were destroyed by fire in 1471 – was rebuilt to the designs of Brunelleschi between 1434 and 1487, the monks having given up one of their daily meals for half a century to help to pay for it. After Brunelleschi’s death there was a dispute about his plans for the façade of the church, which, despite the protestations of Giuliano da Sangallo, other craftsmen wished to alter. Lorenzo’s help was sought, but the façade was never finished. Giuliano da Sangallo made a model for the sacristy at Lorenzo’s instigation.

12.
   The huge palazzo strozzi on the corner of Via Tornabuoni and Via Strozzi was built for Filippo Strozzi towards the end of the fifteenth century and the beginning of the sixteenth. The original design may have been by Giuliano da Sangallo but most of the work was supervised by Benedetto da Maiano, Giuliano’s brother and Simone del Pollaiuolo.

Filippo Strozzi’s son told the story that his father overcame any opposition there might have been to his building so magnificent a palace by making it appear that he had done so on Lorenzo’s advice. At first he rejected the plans
of the various architects and craftsmen he employed on the grounds that their suggestions were too grandiose: he wanted a more modest palace altogether. But on being told that Lorenzo desired the city to be adorned and exalted in every way, he allowed himself to be persuaded to consult him. So Lorenzo was invited to look at the plans; and, having done so, he gave his approval to one of the most imposing. Still Strozzi feigned modesty, yet at the same time flattered Lorenzo by praising his taste. He wondered if such a grand building was really suitable for a man in his position; he had to admit, though, that Lorenzo understood these matters of space and style far better than he did. Eventually Strozzi built the palace he had always wanted. The foundation stone, as was usual at the time, was laid on a day deemed propitious by his astrologers – 6 August 1489.

13.
   The
CATHEDRAL FAÇADE
was accordingly left unfinished. A temporary façade was erected in 1515 for the occasion of the entry of Leo X as described in
Chapter 17.
In the time of the Grand Duke Ferdinando I another attempt was made to find a suitable design. Buontalenti, Giambologna and Lodovico Cardi all submitted models. So did Cosimo I’s gifted illegitimate son, Don Giovanni de’ Medici who helped also with the designs for the church of San Gaetano, the Cappella dei Principi at San Lorenzo and the Forte di Belvedere. Nothing came of the new proposals for the Cathedral façade, however, and eventually it was covered by a canvas curtain. When the wind tore this curtain down in the 1680s, Duke Cosimo III sent to Bologna for craftsmen to cover the brown stone with frescoes. These frescoes slowly crumbled away and were replaced in the late nineteenth century by the marble and mosaics which are there now.

  1.
   Although the Medici collections, the richest ever assembled in Renaissance Italy, were widely dispersed, some of the treasures were later recovered. For example, four exquisite vases, two of jasper, one of agate and one crystal, all on gold or silver stands, with precious stones and bearing Lorenzo’s name engraved on their bases, were examined in 1502 by Leonardo da Vinci on behalf of Isabella d’Este who had heard they were for sale. For some reasons, perhaps because of the high price demanded, she did not buy them; and they were afterwards acquired once more for the family by Duke Cosimo I. Various statues found their way to the Rucellai gardens, the Orti Oricellari.

  1.
   
THE TOMB OF PIERO DI LORENZO DE’ MEDICI
in the abbey of Monte
Cassino was designed by Antonio and Francesco da Sangallo. It was in the choir of the old church.

  2.
   In particular
BOTTICELII
expressed Florence’s tragedy in the
Derelitta
(now in the Pallavicini collection at Rome), the
Story of Virginia
(in the Galleria dell’ Accademia Carrara at Bergamo) and in
The Tragedy of Lucrezia
(in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston). The two latter were probably painted for the Vespucci, who lived in the Via de’ Servi.

  1.
   The miraculous image of the Madonna is in the church of
SANTA MARIA DEL IMPRUNCTA.
The church which was originally built in the thirteenth century was rebuilt in the fifteenth and after being severely damaged in the war, has now been restored. The marble predella of the Madonna is by a follower of Donatcllo.

  2.
   Filippo Strozzi’s second wife was Selvaggia de’ Gianflgliazzi. The family chapel of the Gianfigliazzi is in Santa Trinità. The
PALAZZO GIANFIGLIAZZI
is in Lungarno Corsini (no. 2). This is where the Countess of Albany, wife of the Young Pretender, lived and where Byron and Stendhal both stayed. Sir Horace Mann’s house was nearby. On the opposite bank of the Amo, in Lungamo Guicciardini, was Charles Hadfield’s famous inn where in the middle of the eighteenth century hundreds of Englishmen stayed while visiting Florence on the Grand Tour. Many of them were painted here by Thomas Patch, who lived in Florence from 1755 until his death in 1782.

  3.
   Orders were immediately given to the Florentine sculptor, Baccio Bandinelli, to prepare with all speed a copy of the marble group of Laocoön which might pass for the original. The original had been discovered by a man digging in his vineyard near the Baths of Trajan in January 1506. Pope Julius II bought it for 4,140 ducats and had it transported to the Vatican along roads strewn with flowers.

  4.
   Michelangelo had competed against Giuliano da Sangallo, Jacopo Sansovino and Baccio d’Agnolo, but his winning design was never realized. After he had spent the best part of two years at the Carrara quarries, contending with all sorts of technical difficulties, the project for a new façade at San Lorenzo was abandoned.

  5.
   Various complimentary allusions to Pope Leo X and the Medici were made in the
STANZE DI SAFFAELLO.
In the Stanza of Heliodorus, for example, Raphael was induced to change the meeting of Attila and St Leo into an allegory of the Battle of Ravenna, and to show the Pope, in the character of St Leo, riding the white palfrey which had been his mount on that momentous occasion. The features of Leo X are also to be seen in the Stanza dell’ Incendio which was painted by Raphael’s assistants as the Pope’s diningroom in 1514–17.
The pictures here represent scenes from the lives of two popes of the eighth and ninth centuries, Leo III and Leo IV. The fresco on the wall opposite the window shows the great fire of 847 which threatened St Peter’s with destruction and which was halted, so it was said, when Pope Leo IV made the sign of the cross into the flames. Like St Leo in the Stanza of Heliodorus, Leo IV is here represented as Leo X.

  1.
   The villa which Raphael designed for Clement VII on die Monte Mario above the bend of the Tiber at the Ponte Molle was blown up, before it was finished, by the Pope’s enemy. Cardinal Colonna, during the sack of Rome in 1527. It was rebuilt for Margaret of Austria and became known as the
VILLA MADAMA
.

  2.
   The
NEW SACRISTY AT SAN LORENZO
, known as the Medici Chapel, was completed by Michelangelo in 1534. Lorenzo and Giuliano are buried by the
Madonna and Child
near the entrance door. The sarcophagus of Giuliano, Duke of Nemours, is in the right. The Duke is portrayed as an officer in the service of the Church with a male statue of Day and a sleeping female Night reclining at his feet. On the left is the tomb of Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino, the dedicatee of Machiavelli’s
The Prince
, portrayed as a soldier, his eyes cast down in thought. Below him are statues of Dawn and Dusk. The decoration of the chapel was not finished when Michelangelo left Florence in 1534. Plans for tombs for Lorenzo il Magnifico and Giuliano, as well as for Pope Leo X, were never realized. In the seventeenth century the Prince of Denmark came to Florence to see this chapel which he described as being ‘one of the most magnificent pieces of art in the world’.

  3.
   Michelangelo’s superb entrance and staircase to the biblioteca lauren-ziana were largely finished by the time the artist left Florence. They were completed by Bartolommeo Ammanati and Giorgio Vasari in accordance with plans and instructions which Michelangelo left behind. The library was opened to the public in 1571.

  1.
   
MICHELANGELO’S
David
, which was finished in 1504, had been commissioned soon after Piero Soderini became
Gonfaloniere
in 1501. Although Botticelli wanted it placed in the Loggia dei Lanzi, and others proposed the steps of the Cathedral as a more suitable position, it was eventually placed in front of the Palazzo della Signoria where one of the arms was broken in a riot in 1527. The statue continued to stand in front of the Palazzo until 1873 when it was replaced by the copy which stands there now. The original – the gilding of the hair and the band across the chest long since worn away by sun, wind and rain – is in the
MUSEO DELL’ ACCADEMIA
(Via Ricasoli, 52).

The heraldic lion, the
Marzoao
, to the left of the copy of Michelangelo’s
David
(next to
DONATELLO’s
Judith and Holofemes
) is also a copy of the original made by Donatello in 1418–20. The original is in the Baigello. After their removal from the Piazza San Giovanni in the fourteenth century, the city’s lions were brought to the Piazza della Signoria; but in the sixteenth century, when Duke Cosimo I occupied the Palace, he had the lions moved because of their smell. The
VIA DEI LBONI
marks the site of their pen.
Hercules and Cacus to
the right of the
David
was finished by Baccio Bandinelli in 1534. The original commission for a Hercules had been given to Michelangelo; but, evidently supposing that Michelangelo might use this opportunity to hint at the virtues of the crushed Republic, Pope Leo X ordered that the marble block should be given instead to Bandinelli. The order was confirmed by Clement VII who wanted to keep Michelangelo fully occupied on work for the Medici.

  2.
   Francesco Ferrucci’s birthplace was at
VIA SANTO SPIRITO
, 32. As in the case of many other Florentine heroes, a wreath is placed here every year in his honour.

  3.
   Clement VII was ultimately buried, in a fine porphyry urn taken from the Pantheon, in the Corsini chapel at the Basilica of St John in Lateran.

  4.
   The Porta alla Giustizia is now the
PIAZZA PIAVE
.