Florentine palaces & their stories

by Janet Ross

PALAZZO VECCHIO

“On the 24th February, 1299, the foundations of the Palazzo de’ Priori, for the Commune and the People of Florence, were laid,” writes Giovanni Villani, “the Priors not feeling themselves in safety where they had hitherto lived, that is to say in the house of the Cerchi behind the church of San Procolo.” Arnolfo Cambio was the architect chosen to build the palace, and he took as his model the one built at Poppi by his father Lapo. Vasari’s story that he could not make it square and straight as he desired, because the people would not allow him to build where the houses of those hated Ghibellines the Uberti once stood, is not borne out by history, for Villani states, and various documents dating from 1299 to 1311 confirm his words, that the site occupied by the houses of the Uberti was made into a square, so that it might never again be built upon. Houses of other citizens, such as the Foraboschi and the Della Vacca, were bought, and where they stood was erected the palace. The tower of the Priors still retains the name of the latter family, one of whom, Falcone Della Vacca, was an Elder of the city in 1260, and from it the street opposite is called Vacchereccia. When in those “good old times” Guelphs and Ghibellines, Whites and Blacks, flew at each other’s throats, and the great bell rang to call the people to arms, the saying was la vacca mugghia (the cow is lowing).

COURTYARD OF PALAZZO VECCHIO.

Vasari’s statement that Arnolfo filled up most of the old tower to build his own upon was disproved in 1814. The architect del Rosso, in executing some restorations in the old palace, discovered a small dark room which had been walled up, and which he surmised, probably correctly, to have been the famous Alberghettino, or Barberia, where Cosimo the Elder was immured, and in later days Savonarola. In one corner of this room is a rectangular opening, or well, the bottom of which is about ten and a half feet below the level of the courtyard; various underground passages, to which access is obtained by a man-hole in the guard-room, communicate with it and seem to bear out the old tales of secret trapdoors down which unhappy prisoners disappeared for ever. Vasari is also wrong in saying that part of the church of San Piero Scheraggio was destroyed at the same time, for it was only partially swept away to widen the street a century later.[103]

The tallest part of the Palazzo Vecchio with five windows on the northern side and six on the western (not counting the modern balcony) crowned with the square, so-called Guelph battlements, is Arnolfo’s original building and his design was faithfully carried out after his death in 1301. The tower, so majestic, and at the same time so elegant is a model of daring and skill, half resting as it does on the alur, or covered passage, supported by machicolations, which surrounds the top of the palace. Half-way up the tower is another alur, adorned with swallow-tailed, or so-called Ghibelline battlements, whence rise four columns with Gothic capitals, supporting the battlemented top of the tower with its golden lion, the emblem of Florence, as a weathercock. It was not until 1344 that the bell of the Council, which till then had been suspended on the battlements of the palace, was hung in the tower, so that it might be better heard on the opposite side of the Arno. In its place was put the bell from Vernio, which rang to warn the guards whenever a fire burst out in the town. In 1363 the bell of Foiano, taken when the castle was sacked, was brought to Florence and placed above the alur, to tell the merchants that the dinner hour had come. The big bell cracked and in 1373 was recast by a certain Ricco di Lapo, when it was said that it could be heard for thirteen miles round the city. When the Florentine arms were victorious, it rang for days in token of triumph, until Duke Alessandro de’ Medici destroyed it in 1532.

The Gonfaloniers and the Priors lived entirely in the Palazzo Vecchio during the two months they were in office and were not allowed to go out save on pressing business affecting the Commune. No one could speak to them in private, they were forbidden to accept any invitations and no one could dine with them save the notary of the city; but their dinners, served on silver plate, were excellent and their wines choice. Rastrelli writes: “Ten golden florins were assigned each day to the Priors solely for their food, all other expenses being defrayed by the Commune of Florence. This sum was for the maintenance of the Gonfalonier, the Priors, the notary, the nine donzelli, or office servants, five monks who served the chapel of the palace, two who had charge of the seal of the Commune, and the almsgiver and bursar, who were also monks; there were also the curial notary, two mazzieri, or mace-bearers, and a cook who was bound to keep two scullions; two trumpeters and two pifferi, to play while the Signori were at table, four bell-ringers and one servant.... No man who had been a Gonfalonier could be arrested until a year had elapsed from the time of his holding office, save for some very heinous offence, and he was allowed to carry arms of any kind for the rest of his life.”[104] In front of the great door of the palace, where now are the steps and a platform, was the ringhiera,[105] erected in 1323, of which one hears so often in the history of Florence. Here the Podestà harangued the people from his bigoncia, or pulpit, and here the Gonfalonier received the Standard of the People in state and delivered batons of command to the various condottieri who served the Republic. On the ringhiera Walter de Brienne, Duke of Athens and Count of Lecce, met the Priors on the 8th September, 1342, when the people and the nobles shouted, “Let the Duke have command for life, let the Duke be our lord.” The latter, gathering round him, forced open the door of the palace, led him into the apartment of the Priors and hailed him as ruler. The Priors were relegated to the Sala delle Armi, the white silken banner with the red cross of the People was removed, the books containing the enactments were torn to shreds, and the Duke’s flag, foreign to Florence, was unfurled on the tower, while the bell of Liberty rang out the Dio laudiamo. Two days later the Priors were thrust out, and the Palazzo de’ Priori became the Palazzo Ducale.

A council of Wise Men was instituted by the Duke, with but one Florentine among them, Cerettieri Visdomini, a man of evil repute; and soon the growing dissatisfaction of his subjects made the Duke think about fortifying himself in the palace. “He caused,” writes Giovanni Villani, “the antiporta, or fortified porch, in front of the Palace of the People to be built, and put iron bars in the windows of the Sala de’ Dugento, or Council Chamber, being afraid and suspicious of the citizens; and ordered that the whole palace of the Figliuoli Petri, the towers and houses of the Manieri, of the Mancini and of Bello Alberti, comprising the ancient citadel, and extending into the piazza, should be included in the circuit of the said palace. He began to lay foundations of thick walls, and of towers and barbicans, to make of the palace a great and strong fortress; stopping the work of building the Ponte Vecchio, which was of such infinite necessity to the Commune of Florence, and taking from thence hewn stone and timber. He threw down the houses of San Romolo in order to extend the piazza as far as the houses of Garbo ... and demanded permission from the papal court to destroy San Piero Scheraggio, Santa Cecilia, and Santo Romolo, but the Pope refused his consent. From the citizens he took certain palaces and houses that stood round about the palace, and lodged in them his barons and followers without paying any rent.” Vasari, in his life of Andrea Pisani, writes: “Walter, Duke of Athens and tyrant of the Florentines, made use of Andrea also in architectural matters, causing him to enlarge the piazza. Opposite to San Piero Scheraggio, he added the walls, encased with ‘bozzi,’ alongside of the palace to enlarge it, and in the width of the wall he constructed a secret staircase for going up and down without being seen. In the said façade of ‘bozzi’ he made a large door, which serves to-day for the customs, and above it he placed his arms, all being done according to the design and advice of Andrea.” The addition made by the Duke of Athens extends, on the northern side, to the door now called della Dogana, and his battlements adjoin the machicolations which sustain the alur surrounding Arnolfo’s original building. On the southern side, where once stood S. Piero Scheraggio, and now stands the Uffizi, can be seen the door of the old dogana, above which were the Duke’s arms, effaced by order of the magistrates when he was deposed.

On the 26th July, 1343, the Florentines rose against the Duke. Armed bands suddenly invaded the streets, waving banners which had been secretly prepared with the arms of the People emblazoned upon them, and shouting, “Death to the Duke and his followers! Long live the Commune and Liberty!” They released the prisoners from the Stinche, forced open the door of the Palazzo del Podestà, and burnt all the records. Next day the Duke, hoping to pacify the people, offered the honour of knighthood to one of their leaders, who disdainfully refused, and told him he had better haul down his flag and replace the banner of the People on the tower. Meanwhile the allies of Florence hastened to her aid. Siena sent three hundred horse and four thousand bowmen, Prato five hundred men-at-arms, S. Miniato two hundred, while the peasants of the country round seized what weapons they could and poured into the city. The Bishop Acciajuoli, the nobles and the popolani met in Sta. Reparata and elected fourteen citizens, seven nobles, and seven popolani, giving them full power to make laws, while six others, three from each caste, were to keep order and see that violence and robbery should be severely punished. To save himself the Duke delivered his chief adviser, Guglielmo d’Assisi, with his young son, into the hands of the surging multitude in the Piazza. The lad was torn to pieces first, and then his father. The old chronicler gives details of this tragedy too horrible to repeat, and then continues: “On the 3rd August the Fourteen men of Florence appointed to set things right in the city went to the Palazzo de’ Priori, with Count Simone and much people, and the Duke ceded the Lordship, saying he had taken it treacherously, by cunning and by falsehood, as he should not have done. The said Duke threw down the baton on the ground, and then picked it up and gave it to the Fourteen, thus delivering to them the Lordship for the Commune of Florence, and these Fourteen were Lords for the Commune, and this was written down. The Duke quitted his room that very evening, and the Fourteen entered it, and by courtesy he was allowed to have another room with fifteen of his people. During the day it was publicly ordered several times that every man should lay down his arms, the bells of the Palazzo de’ Priori rang joyously, great bonfires were lit on the palace and in every corner of Florence. In truth it was a fine festival.”

For three days, until the people became quieter, the Duke remained in the palace, and then left at night with a strong escort, carrying off all the gold plate which had been made for him of the value of 30,000 golden florins. When he got to Poppi he ratified, “but with a very evil grace,” the renunciation of the Lordship of Florence, and by way of Bologna went to Venice, whence he returned to Apulia.

The Fourteen repealed all the Duke’s laws, and with that odd childishness that sometimes shows itself in the Florentine character, spent twenty golden florins to have him and his chief advisers painted “in ignominious fashion” on the tower of the palace of the Podestà and elsewhere. The day of S. Anna was decreed a public festival, and on that day the banners of the Guilds are still hung round Or San Michele in remembrance of the deposition of the tyrant of Florence. They also demolished the fortified porch, built by the Duke in front of the great door of the palace, and restored the ringhiera. Signor Gotti, in his exhaustive work on the old palace, thinks that about the same time the two stone lions, which were gilt, said to have been sculptured by Giovanni de’ Nobili, were placed on either side of the entrance. Matteo Villani speaks of four others, which the Priors, in 1353, “having little else to attend to on account of the leisure born of peace, caused to be carved of granite and gilded at great expense, and placed on the four corners of the palace of the People of Florence. This they did for a certain vanity that obtained at that time, instead of having them cast in bronze and then gilt, which would have cost but little more than the granite, would have been beautiful, and have lasted for many centuries; but small things and great are continually being spoilt in our city by the avaricious whims of the citizens.”[106]

Three years later the Signoria decided to build a loggia, a necessary adjunct in those days to a palace, on the southern side of the Piazza where the houses and tower of the Mint stood. But the project, according to Matteo Villani, met with considerable opposition among the citizens, who declared that “a loggia was suitable for tyrants, not for the People,” and it remained in abeyance until, owing to incessant rain, the installation of the new Priors on the 1st January, 1374, could not take place on the ringhiera, and the ceremony was performed in the small church of S. Piero Scheraggio. The building was then confided to the Opera del Duomo, and the Operai named an overseer—Capudmagister operis Loggie. According to Vasari, Andrea Orcagna was ordered to make a design, and the work was given to him. But Dr. Carl Frey, in his critical and learned work on the Loggia de’ Lanzi, writes: “But can the Loggia be attributed to Orcagna? When the building was begun in 1376 Orcagna had already been dead seven or eight years, so that we can only suppose that he may have made the design in 1356, when the idea was first started. Although Orcagna was probably in Florence about that time there are many reasons against this. To begin with, the first building was evidently intended to have been far smaller, as in the documents of 1356 the erection of a loggia on ground belonging to the Commune is mentioned: in domibus comunis predicti positis prope plateam populi Florentie, que vulgariter appellantur domus della moneta, whereas the resolution passed in 1374 deals with the acquisition and demolition of other people’s houses, indicating the intention of occupying a larger space. It is evident that as the necessary land had not been bought in 1374, nothing had been definitely settled, and there could have been no question of choosing an architect—a choice which rested with the Operai—or of a design, to be made by an architect and then approved by the Operai.... Orcagna seems to have had many enemies in Florence; at least, such is the impression left on one’s mind after reading the documents, for he was not regularly employed on the Duomo, but only called in consultation with other masters, and although various committees had approved of his model and design for the pillars [of the Loggia], in the end the work was entrusted to Francesco Talenti. This goes to prove that Orcagna had no hand in designing the Loggia, as it is hardly likely that the Operai would have permitted a plan rejected by them to be carried out, or that Simone, Francesco Talenti’s son, would have chosen Orcagna’s design in preference to a better one by his father or by himself. A comparison between the columns of the Loggia, the Duomo and the Tabernacolo [Or San Michele] is sufficient. To all this we need only add the absolute silence of all contemporary writers, to feel convinced that Orcagna neither built nor made the design for the Loggia dei Signori. When the Operai del Duomo undertook the building of the Loggia, their Capomaestri were Simone Talenti, son of the famous architect who succeeded Arnolfo and Giotto as overseer of the building of the Duomo and of the Campanile; Taddeo di Ristori, who was appointed overseer of the new building for the month of October; and Benci di Cioni Dami of Como, who took his place as Capomaestro of the Duomo.” Dr. Carl Frey thinks that probably the design of the Loggia was made by the three architects in common, but that the columns and all the ornamentation are due to Simone Talenti.[107]

But we must return to the palace and the Priors, who on the 19th July, 1378, heard that a revolution was to break out next day. So they arrested a certain Simoncino, and the Proposto led him in front of the altar in the chapel[108] and interrogated him. Their conversation is given by Gino Capponi in his history of the Republic. “Simoncino said, yesterday I was with eleven others in the hospital of the priests in the Via San Gallo, and having summoned other minor artisans, we determined that about six to-morrow a revolution shall begin, as has been ordered by certain leaders nominated by us some days ago. You must know, Signore, that our number is infinite, and amongst us are well-to-do and excellent artificers; also most of those who are under police supervision have offered to join us. And, asked the Proposto, if the people rise, what will they demand of the Signoria? They will ask that the trades subject to the Guild of Wool should have their own consuls and colleges, and they refuse to acknowledge any longer the officer who worries them with trifles, or to deal with the master clothiers [maestri lanaiolo] who pay them badly, and for work worth twelve, only give them eight.” Poor Simoncino was incontinently handed over to the captain, and, in the cant phrase of that day, “made to sing,” i. e. tortured, until he confessed the name of the leader of the revolt, Salvestro de’ Medici. But his shrieks and groans were heard by Niccolò degl’Orivoli, who had charge of the clock in the tower; he rushed into the street shouting, “Wake up, the Signori are making meat,” and the people ran out of their houses ready armed, while the church bells rang furiously. In a moment the Piazza was invaded by a crowd shouting for the release of Simoncino and others who were in prison; and when their demand was granted they dispersed, and went through the streets setting fire to the houses of Luigi Guicciardini, of the Gonfalonier, of one of the Albizzi, of Simone Peruzzi and of others, and then to the palace of the Guild of Wool.

This was the famous Ciompi revolt, which but for the level head and strong will of Michele di Lando, a poor wool carder, whose father sold earthenware pots and pans, would have overthrown all law and order in Florence. When the mob invaded the Palazzo de’ Priori, Michele, who, according to an old chronicler, “was without stockings and had but little on, held the banner of Justice aloft and turned to the crowd asking what they intended to do. With one voice they saluted him as Gonfalonier and Lord of Florence. He accepted the office, and to put an end to robbery and arson ordered the erection of a gallows and threatened all disturbers of the peace.... Creating new magistrates, four chosen from the popolo minuto, two from the major Guilds, and two from the minor, he dismissed the Dieci di Guerra; so that for eighteen hours Michele may be said to have been absolute master of Florence. Thinking that the new Gonfalonier favoured the popolani nobili at their expense, the mob returned to the piazza shouting and rioting; not being listened to they went to Sta. Maria Novella and created eight magistrates with consuls, so that the majesty of Government was divided in two. But Michele di Lando would not suffer such arrogance; with the weapon he had in his belt he severely wounded the members of the deputation who had come to announce that he had been superseded, and mounting a horse he took armed men and beat the rebels, thus remaining in peaceful possession of his dignity.” Machiavelli, in his narrative of the Ciompi riots bears eloquent testimony to the poor wool carder. “The riots were put down solely by the energy of the Gonfalonier, who far surpassed all other citizens of that time in courage, prudence, and goodness; he deserved to be named among those who have been benefactors of their country.”

In September, 1433, the Piazza della Signoria was once more invaded by an angry crowd of popolani. Their benefactor and favourite, Cosimo de’ Medici, had been treacherously seized and imprisoned in the small, dark Alberghettina, or Barberia, in the tower of the palace, and they feared the Signoria would make away with him. The great bell rang to summon a parliament, and it is said that Cosimo heard the crowd below debating as to his fate. For some days he refused all food fearing poison. He appears to have had grounds for suspicion, as it is said that the Captain of the Guard, Federigo de’ Malavolti of Siena, had been asked to do away with him. He not only refused, but warned his prisoner, and to prove his good faith tasted everything that was placed before Cosimo, and thus induced him to eat. Machiavelli relates that one evening Malavolti brought a facetious and pleasant fellow, a friend of the Gonfalonier, surnamed il Fargonaccio, to supper to amuse Cosimo, and then left them alone together. Cosimo, knowing the man he had to deal with, gave him a token for the governor of the hospital of Sta. Maria Nuova, who on receiving it was to give him 1100 ducats, 100 for himself, and 1000 for the Gonfalonier. Cosimo in his diary remarks: “They were people of small intelligence, for I would have given them 10,000 or more to escape from peril.”

Thanks to the Gonfalonier and the many friends Cosimo had in the city and outside, he escaped with his life; but was condemned to exile for ten years. He was recalled a year later and received with all honour by the Signoria in the very palace in which he had been imprisoned. With him came his friend and favourite architect, Michelozzo Michelozzi, who had gone with him to Venice, and built there by his orders the library of S. Giorgio Maggiore. To him was given the task of restoring the noble old Palazzo de’ Priori, which showed signs of collapsing. Vasari in his life of Michelozzi states that, “several columns in the courtyard had suffered; either on account of the great weight they had to bear, or that the foundations were weak and insufficient, or because they were ill-built and the stones badly joined.... Michelozzi made new foundations and rebuilt the columns as they now are, having first put strong, upright beams of thick wood to support the curves of the arches, with three-inch boards of walnut under the vaults, so that the weight which had rested on the columns was evenly distributed and sustained; and little by little he took those down which had been badly put together and rebuilt them with well-wrought stone, in such guise that the building suffered no harm and has never moved a hairsbreadth. And in order to distinguish his columns from the others, he made the octangular ones in the corners with leaves on the capitals sculptured in the modern fashion, and some circular ones which can be well distinguished from the old ones made by Arnolfo. Afterwards, by the advice of Michelozzi, the ruler of the city ordered that the weight resting on the arches of the columns should be diminished, that the courtyard be rebuilt from the arches upwards, and that windows of a modern order, like those he had designed for Cosimo in the courtyard of the Medici palace, should be made, and the walls ornamented a sgraffio, with the golden lilies which are still to be seen. All this Michelozzi did with extreme rapidity, fashioning circular windows, different from the others, above the windows of the second floor in the said courtyard, to give light to some rooms above, where now is the Hall of the Two Hundred. The third floor, where the Priors and the Gonfalonier lived, he made more ornate, and arranged rooms for the Priors on the side looking towards S. Piero Scheraggio; till then they had slept all together in one room. Eight rooms were made for the Priors, and a larger one for the Gonfalonier, all leading out of a passage with windows on the courtyard, and above these he made another set of convenient rooms for the servants of the palace ... also rooms for the office and house servants, trumpeters, pifferi, mace-bearers, and heralds, and various others necessary for such a palace. He also made a stone cornice surrounding the courtyard above the alur, and there he arranged a tank for rain water, in order to feed provisional fountains when needed. Michelozzi also adorned the chapel where mass was said, and made very rich ceilings, painted with golden lilies on an azure ground, to many rooms near it, and in those above and below in the palace he made new ceilings, covering all the old ones, which were according to ancient fashion.... Only one thing the genius of Michelozzi could not overcome, and that was the public staircase, which was badly designed, built in the wrong place and most inconvenient, being steep and dark, and made of wood from the first floor upwards. Still he worked to such purpose that at the entrance to the courtyard he made an approach of circular steps and a door with pilasters of stone, whose beautiful capitals he sculptured with his own hand, a cornice with double architraves of good design, and in the frieze were the various arms of the Commune. He also made stone stairs up to the floor where the Priors lived, and fortified them at the top and in the middle with portcullises in case of tumults: and at the top of the staircase he made a door which was called la catena, or ‘the barred,’ where one of the servants of the magistrates always stood to shut or to open it, according to the orders of the master. The tower, which had cracked owing to the weight of that part which rests obliquely, that is to say on the corbels overlooking the Piazza, he fortified with huge bands of iron. In short he improved and restored the palace in such a way that the whole city praised him, and in addition to other rewards he was appointed to be one of the ‘Collegio,’ magistrates whose office is of the most honourable in Florence. If I seem to have been too prolix in all this it must be excused, because having told, in the Life of Arnolfo, how the palace was first built in 1298, crooked, lacking every rational measurement, with columns in the courtyard that did not match, large and small arches, inconvenient stairs, and dark and ill-proportioned rooms, it was fitting that I should point but how it was changed by the genius and judgment of Michelozzi.”

About the same time the Ten of Balìa, considerato defectu et penuria presentis Palatii circa pannos darazza et circa gausape seu tovaglias et argentum seu vasa argentea, et quod multum condecens esset in hujus modi tali Palatio, voted two thousand golden florins for refurnishing the palace, and also commissioned Neri di Bicci to paint and gild the tabernacle in which the celebrated Pandects of Justinian were kept. Neri thus describes his work: “I undertook to paint and gild for fiorini 56 a tabernacle of wood made according to ancient fashion, at each side were columns, above was an architrave, a frieze, a cornice and a lunette, and below the base was all of fine gold. In the picture of the said tabernacle I painted Moses and the four animals of the Evangelists, and in the lunette S. John the Baptist; round Moses and the animals I put golden lilies, and inside was the picture, which is to be the front of the cupboard where the Pandects, and another book which came from Constantinople, and certain other most rare things of the Florentine people, are kept, and it is to stand in the Hall of Audience of the Signori.”

In 1441 the old palace was soiled by the blood of Baldaccio d’Anghiari, a gallant soldier in the service of the Republic, and an intimate friend of Neri Capponi. Therefore Cosimo de’ Medici and all his party hated him, and according to Machiavelli, decided to do away with a man whom it was dangerous to keep, and still more dangerous to dismiss. The Gonfalonier of Justice at that moment was Bartolomeo Orlandini, a man devoted to Cosimo with a personal grudge against Baldaccio, who had openly accused him of rank cowardice at Marradi, where he fled and left the pass open and undefended. One of the principal actors in this cold-blooded murder, Francesco di Tommaso Giovanni, describes the scene in his diary much as a sportsman would tell how he shot a stag. “On Tuesday evening, the 5th September, being in the audience chamber after supper, all of us save Cante (Compagni, one of the Priors), with cautious words agreed to do whatever appeared good to the Gonfalonier; the allusions to Baldaccio were manifest, but his name was not mentioned because during the day many of us had talked of doing a thing, and of him, in such manner that we all understood. So on Wednesday the 6th, having called the cavalier and eight soldiers of the Captain of Florence, and shut them into my room, the Gonfalonier sent for the said Baldaccio, who was in the Piazza, and he came in about an hour’s time. He and the Gonfalonier being alone in the passage between the rooms, we caused the soldiers to come into the small chamber, and I stood at the end of the passage pretending to read letters. When the Gonfalonier made me a sign I signalled to the soldiers, who instantly threw him down and bound him as I had commanded. Now Baldaccio, in the attempt to defend himself and to attack the Gonfalonier, wounded one of the men; the others, to save themselves, wounded him, and then by order of the Gonfalonier threw him into the Captain’s courtyard below, and struck off his head on the doorstep. The people showed their satisfaction and praised the deed; but afterwards, as it had displeased some, they blamed it; however, in the end it was acknowledged to have been an excellent thing.” One of the people who was “displeased” was Pope Eugenius IV., who had taken Baldaccio into his service the day before he was murdered, and who left Florence in an angry mood.

In 1452, when the members of all the major and minor Guilds were admitted to sit in the great council, the Hall, or Sala de’ Dugento, was declared to be too small, but seventeen years passed without any decision being taken. It was then determined to use certain moneys “the Jew Isahac owes to the Monte, or public pawnshop, for rebuilding the Council Hall in the Palace of our Magnificent Signori.” This second decision also came to nought, as the money of Isahac went to rebuild the walls and castle of Castrocaro. At last, in 1472, Giuliano di Nardo da Majano and Francesco di Giovanni, alias Francione, were charged to do the work. Vasari attributes it to Benedetto da Majano, and in his life of that artist gives a long description of how he rebuilt the Sala de’ Dugento, and made two rooms above it; one called the Clock Room, because in it was a clock made by that excellent mechanician Lorenzo della Volpaia, the other the Audience Hall, with the triumph of Camillus painted by Salviati, while Domenico and Giuliano, brothers of Benedetto, made the ceilings. The marble door was sculptured by Benedetto himself, who “made a figure of Justice seated, with the sphere of the world in one hand and a sword in the other, and round the arch is written, Diligete justitiam qui judicatis terram.” The outer door of the Audience Hall was, according to tradition, a beautiful work. But nothing remains of Benedetto’s boys holding up festoons of flowers. Only the statue of the youthful S. John, which stood in the centre, is now in the National Museum in the Bargello. Vasari also attributes to Benedetto the wonderful intarsia doors, with Dante on one side and Petrarch on the other; but the archives show them to be the work of his brother Giuliano, and of Francione. The old Palazzo de’ Signori was decorated in a strange and horrible manner in 1478, when, in consequence of the Pazzi conspiracy, an Archbishop and several nobles, with priests, men-at-arms and serving-men, were hung round the outside from the columns of the windows. Filippo Strozzi was in the cathedral when the attempt to murder the Medici brothers was made, and has left a vivid account of what he saw. “I note a terrible event which happened in our city of Florence on the 26th April, 1478, a Sunday morning. The Very Reverend Messer Raffaello da Saona, Cardinal of S. Giorgio, nephew of Count Girolamo, a youth of about nineteen or twenty, had been at Montughi for about two months in the house of Messer Jacopo de’ Pazzi. He had lately received the cardinal’s hat at Pisa, and his chief adviser was Messer Francesco Salviati the Archbishop of Pisa. He, with others, instigated Lorenzo de’ Medici to invite him, and he did so for the said Sunday, and Messer Marino, ambassador of King Ferrando, Messer Filippo Sagramoro, orator of the Duke of Milan, Messer Niccolò of Ferrara, and six or seven cavaliers were asked to meet him. The said Cardinal was in Sta. Maria del Fiore at mass, and at the words missa este, Ser Stefano da Bagnone, secretary of Messer Jacopo de’ Pazzi, and Messer Marco Maffei of Volterra, with some armed followers, assaulted Lorenzo de’ Medici; while Francesco de’ Pazzi and Bernardo Bandini fell upon Giuliano, as both were walking round the choir. Lorenzo saw them, drew his weapon, and jumped into the choir. Passing in front of the altar, he entered the new sacristy and ordered the door to be bolted. There he remained until aid came from his house, and he only had a wound in the neck, which healed in a few days. Giuliano, assailed by both Francesco de’ Pazzi and Bernardo Bandini, fled into the choir, and in front of the chapel of the Cross received ten or twelve such blows that he fell to the ground dead; they also gave two blows to Francesco Nori, who was beside Giuliano, and killed him. Then arose a great tumult in the church. Messer Bongianni and the other cavaliers with whom I was talking were all stupefied; one fled here, the other there, loud shouts filled the church, and one saw arms in the hands of the adherents of the Pazzi, who made common cause with them. The Cardinal remained all alone by the side of the altar until he was conducted by the priests into the old sacristy, whence he was fetched away by two of the Eight, with a strong guard, and taken to the Palazzo de’ Priori. During the time all this was happening, the Archbishop of Pisa had gone to the Palazzo under pretence of visiting the Signoria, and hearing the tumult he tried to seize the palace. With him were Jacopo his brother, Jacopo di Jacopo Salviati, Jacopo di Messer Poggio, Perugini and others. The Signori and their guards defended themselves and rang the great bell to call the people to arms, and the citizens rushed into the Piazza and forced open the door of the palace, which had been bolted on the inside, and took them all. The instigators of all this are said to have been Francesco de’ Pazzi and the Archbishop of Pisa, together with Count Girolamo, the Pope’s nephew, and Messer Jacopo de’ Pazzi. The latter was in Sta. Maria del Fiori in the morning with armed followers, and as soon as the deed was done he returned home, and with some of his nephews and friends went into the Piazza shouting ‘Liberty.’ When he came to the door of the palace he was warned by those on the battlements to withdraw, or stones would be hurled on him. Seeing that the palace had not been taken, he returned straight to his house, and with his followers mounted on horseback rode to the gate of Sta. Croce. Taking the keys from the citizen who kept them, he opened the gate and set his people as guards, and then again returned to his house, where he remained for about two hours. Finding the city was quiet, and that all the armed popolani were either at Lorenzo’s house or in the Piazza, he decided to depart, and left by that same gate with nigh two hundred men. On the same day the Signoria hung from the windows of the palace the Archbishop of Pisa, Jacopo di Messer Poggio, and others of good birth, such as Jacopo, Jacopo Salviati, and several of his friends, and the servants of the Cardinal, who had gone with him to the palace. They also hung Francesco d’Antonio de’ Pazzi, who was taken in his own house. On Tuesday Messere Jacopo and Renato de’ Pazzi were hung, and Ferugini and many others were killed in the palace at the foot of the staircase. About eighty were killed either in the Palazzo or in the Palazzo del Podestà....”

A great name is associated with this old Florentine palace—that of Savonarola. When in July, 1495, he preached a farewell sermon in the Duomo, in the presence of the Signoria and all the magistrates, he said: “I have preached to you four things, the fear of God, peace, the common weal, and the reform of Government, that is to say, the Great Council.... Accelerate the construction of the Hall of Council by every means in your power; take, if necessary, the workmen from the Duomo, for their labour will thus be more acceptable to God. Insist on this Council, ameliorate it, correct it and let it be the one hope, the one power of the people.” He preached to willing ears, for Francesco di Domenico, carpenter, and Simone del Pollaiuolo, had already been chosen by the Operai of the Palazzo as master-builders. Vasari, who afterwards re-arranged the great Sala de’ Cinquecento as we now see it, states that it having been determined “according to the desire of Fra Jeronimo Savonarola, then a famous preacher, to build the great Hall of Council in the Palazzo della Signoria of Florence, counsel was taken of Lionardo da Vinci, of Michelagnolo Buonarroti, though he was but a youth, of Giuliano da San Gallo, of Bacio d’Agnolo and of Simone del Pollaiuolo, surnamed Cronaca, a great friend and follower of Savonarola. After much dispute they collectively ordered the hall should be built as it remained until almost entirely remodelled in our day. The work was entrusted to Cronaca as a competent man, and moreover a friend of the said Fra Jeronimo; he did it with great celerity and diligence, showing especial cleverness in building the roof, for the edifice was immense....” After describing how Cronaca overcame all the difficulties, and praising him, Vasari condemns the hall as being “without light, and in comparison with its great length and breadth, dwarfed, and far too low, in short it is all out of proportion.” At first the work went slowly, but after Savonarola’s return from Rome, Cronaca displayed such zeal and energy that the hall was nearly finished early in 1496; indeed the building made such extraordinary progress that it was commonly said that angels had helped him.

The following year the Signori looked down from the windows of the old palace upon the bonfires, in the Piazza, of “vanities and obscenities,” as playing cards, masks and dominoes, drawings, pictures, illustrated books and the like, were called by the partisans of Savonarola, and on the 20th August he preached before the magistrates and principal citizens in the great hall. But a few years later the friar was a prisoner in the old palace, confined in the small, dark Alberghettino where Cosimo de’ Medici had passed so many anxious weeks. On the evening of Sunday, the 8th April, 1498, he was arrested by order of the Signoria, and with his faithful Fra Domenico passed through the surging mob which once hung upon his words and now insulted, taunted and even struck him. Fra Silvestro had hidden himself when the convent was attacked and was only taken prisoner next day. In the great hall, built but a few years before by Savonarola’s advice, a few lines of the accusations against him were read in his absence, the chancellor of the “Otto” declaring to the people that he had refused to appear because he was afraid of being stoned. On the 22nd May the Apostolic Commissaries decided the fate of Fra Girolamo and his followers. Only one man, Agnolo Niccolini, raised a warning voice. “This man,” he exclaimed, “could not only give faith anew to the world, in case it died out, but also science. Keep him in prison if you will; but let him live and give him leave to write, so that the world may not lose the fruits of his genius.”

In the great hall the three friars met once more after forty days of rigorous imprisonment and horrible torture, and next morning Savonarola was allowed to say mass in the chapel and to communicate himself and his two companions before going to the stake. In the eloquent pages of Pasquale Villari’s Life of Savonarola the reader has this episode, but it must be added that the “pious women” mentioned by Luca Landucci in his Diary still have many imitators, for every year in the Piazza della Signoria there is a fiorita on the 23rd May in memory of the great friar; rose leaves are scattered, and garlands are laid, upon the place of his martyrdom, and many a poor woman kneels in prayer.

When Michelangelo’s statue of David was finished the question arose where to place it. Giuliano da San Gallo declared that “seeing the imperfections in the marble, being friable and corroded, and having been much rained upon, I do not think that it will be durable; it should therefore be put under the Loggia de’ Signori in the middle arch of the said Loggia, or under the centre of the vaulted roof so that one may walk round it; or on one side in the centre of the wall with a black niche behind it in the shape of a hood; for if it is exposed to the rain it will suffer. It ought to be covered.” Others, like Maestro Francesco, herald of the Signoria, wanted the statue to be in the open. “I have turned over in my mind,” he writes, “what my judgment suggests to me. There are two places where such a statue will do well; the first is where stands the Judith; the second is in the centre of the courtyard of the palace, in the place of the first David;[109] for the Judith is a deadly emblem and not a good thing, as we have the X for our emblem and the Lily. It is not fitting that the woman should kill the man; also she was set up under an evil constellation, for ever since we have gone from bad to worse and have lost Pisa. Then the David in the courtyard is not a perfect figure because his leg lacks symmetry. Therefore I advise putting the statue in one of these two places, but by preference where stands the Judith.” Michelangelo was of the same opinion, so his Giant, as the people called it, was set up on the ringhiera by the entrance door of the Palazzo Vecchio, and Donatello’s statue was moved to the arch of the Loggia facing the Piazza, where now stands the Rape of the Sabines. The Judith had been placed on the ringhiera in 1494 when Piero de’ Medici was driven out of Florence and his possessions, amongst them the statue, confiscated, not so much as an ornament as to warn the people to maintain their liberty and to kill tyrants, as is proved by the inscription on the pediment: Exemplum Sal. Pub. Cives posuere. MCCCCXCV.

During the riots which ended in the Medici being again exiled, a large stone fell from the balustrade of the alur of the palace upon an arm of Michelangelo’s statue and broke it into three pieces. For several days the fragments lay on the pavement, until two lads, Giorgio Vasari and Francesco Salviati, picked them up and took them to Salviati’s father, who sixteen years afterwards gave them to the Duke Cosimo I. In a letter from a certain Riccio, of 7th November, 1543, we find that “the people pass their time in watching the building of a scaffolding round the giant David. It is put up for the mending of his poor arm, but many think that his face is to be washed.” In 1875 the statue, which showed signs of deterioration was, after much consideration, removed to the Gallery of the Belle Arte, where it now is. Michelangelo was to have made a companion giant for the other side of the door of the Palazzo Vecchio—Hercules slaying Cacus; but Clement VII. was persuaded to give the block of marble to Baccio Bandinelli, with what result we see at the present day. That madcap, egoistical, highly-gifted artist, Benvenuto Cellini, thus described the statue to Duke Cosimo in the presence of Bandinelli, to whom he said: “You must know that it pains me to point out the faults of your statue; I shall not, however, utter my own sentiments, but shall recapitulate what our most virtuous school of Florence says about it.... Well then, this virtuous school says that if one were to shave the hair of your Hercules, there would not be skull enough left to hold his brain; it says that it is impossible to distinguish whether his features are those of a man or of something between a lion and an ox; the face too is turned away from the action of the figure, and is so badly set upon the neck, with such poverty of art and so ill a grace, that nothing worse was ever seen; his sprawling shoulders are like two pommels of an ass’s pack-saddle; his breasts and all the muscles of the body are not portrayed from a man, but from a big sack full of melons set upright against a wall. The lions seem to be modelled from a bag of lanky pumpkins; nobody can tell how his two legs are attached to that vile trunk; it is impossible to say on which leg he stands, or which he uses to exert his strength; nor does he seem to be resting upon both, as sculptors who know something of their art have occasionally set the figure. It is obvious that the body is leaning forward more than one-third of a cubit, which alone is the greatest and most insupportable fault committed by vulgar commonplace pretenders. Concerning the arms, they say that these are both stretched out without one touch of grace or one real spark of artistic talent just as if you had never seen a naked model. Again, the right leg of Hercules and that of Cacus have got one mass of flesh between them, so that if they were to be separated, not only one of them, but both together, would be left without a calf at the point where they are touching. They say, too, that Hercules has one of his feet underground, while the other seems to be resting on hot coals.”[110] On either side, nearer the door, were placed two terminal statues, which are still there; one by Bandinelli is intended to represent the power and magnanimity of Tuscany, the other, a woman about to change into a laurel, by Vincenzio de’ Rossi, the grace and intellect Tuscany has shown in the arts. They are commonly called Philomen and Baucis.

When Piero Soderini was elected Gonfalonier for life in 1502, Landucci notes in his Diary, “For the first time the wife of the Gonfalonier, by name Madonna Argentina, went to live in the Palazzo de’ Signori. It seemed odd indeed to see women abiding in the palace.” Large sums were spent in decorations, and Soderini determined that Leonardo da Vinci should paint the great Hall of Council. It seems certain that Leonardo devoted two years to this work, the beauty of which is minutely described by Vasari, who says he abandoned it because having attempted to paint on the wall in oils the colours ran. Michelangelo was then deputed to paint one side of the hall, and his cartoon excited extraordinary enthusiasm and admiration in all who beheld it. Vasari accuses Baccio Bandinelli of tearing the magnificent drawing to pieces during the riots of 1512, when the Gonfalonier Soderini was deposed and the Medici returned to power.

Giuliano de’ Medici entered Florence first, he dismounted at the Albizzi palace, as the family palace in the Via Larga had been sacked when the Medici were driven out. There he waited until joined by the Cardinal Giovanni, when they went to the Palazzo de’ Signori and established themselves there as masters. The great bell was rung to summon the people to a parliament, and at sundown on the 16th September the Signoria assembled on the ringhiera and read the new laws to the people. Landucci notes in his Diary that “on the 2nd October the Medici caused their arms to be re-painted on their palace, on the Annunziata and in many other places, they also caused the effigy of the Gonfalonier to be removed out of the S.S. Annunziata.[111]

Not content with abolishing the Great Council and the Ten of Balìa, and nominating their own people to all important posts, the Cardinal and Giuliano de’ Medici installed a strong guard of Spanish soldiers in the old palace, and to lodge them the noble hall of the Five Hundred was ruined. “At this time it pleased the new government,” writes Landucci, “to destroy the woodwork of the hall of the Great Council, besides many other beautiful things, which had been made at enormous outlay. Rooms were built for the soldiers, and a new entrance was made, which things were lamented by all Florence; not the change of government, but the loss of that beautiful woodwork which had cost so much. It had been a great glory and honour for the city to have such a splendid residence. When ambassadors came to visit the Signoria all who entered were astounded when they saw such a magnificent palace and such a multitude of citizens in council.” It must however be said that a hoarding was erected in front of the painting by Leonardo da Vinci when the hall was turned into barracks, so that it might not be spoiled. Seventeen years later the Medici were again driven out, and again there was a “tumult” in the Palazzo de’ Signori. In a very long letter[112] from that most excellent of men old Jacopo Nardi to Benedetto Varchi, who was writing his famous history, he describes the scenes at which he, as Gonfalonier of one of the quarters of the town, assisted. After stating the difficulty he had to reach the palace, he goes on: “I found a great multitude in council, without order or head, uncertain what to demand or what to desire, so that they did nought but shout, etc., as though that constituted a victory. Meanwhile the Signori were conducted, almost by force, to their usual seats, jam redacti in ordinem, with no more reverence than if they had been private persons. The Gonfalonier did not lose his head, but asked in a loud voice what they wanted, saying we had met to carry out their wishes, if they expressed them quietly and without violence. But the Compagnie, who were always arriving and entering the Council Hall, did not see what was being done and by their shouts increased the tumult; so that the Signori were not heard, nor the Gonfalonier, who declared that he was ready to propose anything, etc., and above their heads were a hundred swords and halberds. I advanced with due obeisance to the Signoria and addressed the young men, repeating in a loud voice what the Gonfalonier had proposed for their satisfaction, reproving those I knew and entreating those who were unknown to me. So at last some resolutions were put and carried with shouts by those around, one by one as they were convinced, and they were inscribed by Giuliano da Ripa, who was brought up almost by sheer force, for no other notary could be found in the palace. The resolutions carried were: that all those who had been condemned, exiled, banished (to other towns or to their villas), or imprisoned for political offences, should be pardoned and liberated; that the government should be what it was in the time of Piero Soderini, before 1512; that the great bell should again be rung for parliaments; and that the exile of the Medici be proclaimed to the sound of trumpets. I do not recollect the order in which these were voted on account of the confusion and the violence of certain youths, which was so great that, whilst I was in front of the Signoria, a blow was aimed at the Gonfalonier; the flat of the sword hit him on the shoulder near the neck, but not severely, and I put my handkerchief to his neck, fearing it would bleed.”

After the departure of the Cardinal of Cortona with Ippolito and Alessandro de’ Medici the great hall of the Five Hundred was cleared of the barracks erected for the Spanish soldiers and restored to its proper use. Niccolò Capponi, head of the ottimati party, was elected Gonfalonier of Justice and began to treat with the Pope to gain time, which incensed the popolani, or popular party, who were already angry because he showed such reverence for the memory of Savonarola. “At this time,” writes Varchi, “the Gonfalonier, either persuaded by the friars of S. Marco, with whom he consorted, or more probably to gain the party of the friars, which was considerable and of no small reputation, favoured and seconded as much as he could all that Fra Girolamo had instituted, so that he was blamed and scoffed at by many. Amongst other things he repeated almost word for word a sermon of the friar’s, in which he first predicted much evil, and afterwards much good, to the city of Florence, and at the end he threw himself on his knees and crying out misericordia in a loud voice, persuaded the whole council to repeat misericordia. Not content with this he proposed in the Great Council that Christ should be accepted as the especial King of Florence. There were twenty dissentients, and thinking that no one would ever obliterate it, Capponi had the following inscription placed above the door of the palace—

Y.H.S.
CHRISTO REGI SUO DOMINO DOMINANTUM DEO SUMMO OPTMAX
LIBERATORI MARIAEQUE VIRGINI REGINAE DICAVIT.
AN.SAL.M.D.XXVII.S.P.Q.F.

The curious thing is that Segni gives two other different inscriptions and that none of the three coincide with the one still over the door—

REX REGUM ET DOMINUS DOMINANTIUM,

with the monogram Y.H.S. in the centre of a star above.

The old palace saw stormy scenes in 1529 when Niccolò Capponi was deposed and Francesco Carducci, a leader of the Arrabiati or ultra democratic party, was elected Gonfalonier. Florence, that “most republican of all Republics,” stood alone facing the united forces of the Pope and of Charles V. After a hopeless struggle, which lasted two years, the Signoria met in the Hall of the Two Hundred to hear the death warrant of Florentine liberty. Duke Alessandro entered in state, and then the envoy of Charles V. and the Pope’s Nuncio took their seats on either side of the Gonfalonier, the Priors and other magistrates sitting below them. The envoy preached a homily on the sins of the Republic and the graciousness and goodness of the Pope and the Emperor, and then read the Brieve of Charles V. which all present swore to obey. Meanwhile the crowd in the Piazza below raised the well-known cry of Palle.Palle.Eviva i Medici.

Some months later a deputation waited on Alessandro to announce that a new form of government had been decided on, “abolishing for ever the rule of the magistrate created by the people to oppress the nobility, and decreeing that all power was to reside in the Duke and four of his noble councillors.” Segni, in his History, tells us that “Alessandro de’ Medici, accompanied by his councillors, one of whom was Filippo Strozzi, and his guard in state, attended a solemn mass in San Giovanni to give thanks to God for his Dukedom and for the new form of the Republic, and then went to the Palace. There the last Signoria, descending to the ringhiera (Giovanfrancesco de’ Nobili being the Gonfalonier, the last we had), gave him, what he already possessed, the rank of Lord and Duke and absolute Prince. And thus amid the shouts of Palle! Palle! and Duke! Duke! by the people and a salute of artillery and of fireworks which exploding all together made the whole air resound, he returned in great pomp to his house, triumphant over the murdered liberty of Florence.” As already mentioned he broke up the great bell of the Palazzo Vecchio, “no less good than beautiful,” writes Varchi, “which weighed 22,000 lbs. Some think for coining money, as it was said to have so much silver that it might serve as alloy for crazie, but this was not the case.” The Florentine merchant Davanzati records in his diary, “the bell of the Council was taken from us in order that we should no more hear the sweet sound of Liberty.”

After the murder of Duke Alessandro by his cousin Lorenzino de’ Medici in 1537, the son of Giovanni delle Bande Nere succeeded to the throne as Cosimo I. He inhabited the Medici palace in the Via Larga for five years and then took up his abode in the Palazzo de’ Signori, “where,” writes Gianbattista Adriani, “he caused the rooms which once had been those of the Priors and of the Gonfaloniers to be arranged in princely fashion ... and this he did to show that he was absolute Prince and sole head of the Government, and to disabuse those who pretended, as some had done, that the government of the city was a separate thing from that of the Medici family. Also, as it was necessary to have a guard in the Palace, the principal seat of the State, he judged it to be safer, less expensive, more dignified and more conducive to authority to live there.” The Duke evidently mistrusted his subjects and had German soldiers, Lanzknechte, as his guards. Their quarters were close to the Loggia de’ Signori, in which they lounged during the day and which ever since has been called the Loggia de’ Lanzi. Having established himself in the old palace Cosimo called in Tasso, an admirable carver in wood and a good architect,[113] and ordered him to add to it by incorporating the two fine residences of the Captain and the Executor of Justice, and a large house with a courtyard where the lions were kept, which were then sent to S. Marco. These orders were only partially carried out as will be seen later on. Tasso superintended the works besides carving the windows, doors, ceilings and cornices, while Vasari, to whom the Duke took a fancy in 1550 when he presented him with a copy of his Lives of the Painters, began to paint the rooms. For the description of all he did I must refer my readers to his own delightful book, but no wonder he remarked, after he had raised the roof of the great Hall of the Five Hundred and, aided by his pupils, frescoed it all over, rebuilt the staircases, made two floors where originally there was but one, etc. etc., that Arnolfo, Michelozzo and others, who had worked at the palace from the beginning would not recognize it and would think it was not theirs, but a new marvel and another edifice. Vasari however omits to mention that he sacrilegiously destroyed the work of Leonardo da Vinci. Mr. Berenson has kindly called my attention to a letter written in 1549 by Anton Francesco Doni to Alberto Lollio who was going to visit Florence. Doni gives him excellent advice and after mentioning the “Giant” by Michelangelo at the door of Palazzo Vecchio, etc., he continues: “mount then the stairs to the great hall and carefully consider the group of horses and men (part of a battlepiece by Leonardo da Vinci), which you will see to be a miraculous thing.”[114] So that Leonardo’s fresco was in existence when Vasari began to paint in the Palazzo Vecchio.

After the death of Tasso the whole work was confided to Vasari, whose task was rendered easier as the Court moved into the Palazzo Pitti. Bronzino was called in to decorate the Duchess’s former apartments on the second floor of the old palace. In the chapel he painted three episodes from the life of Moses and an altarpiece, which was considered so fine that the Duke sent it as a present to Granvela in Flanders, and another was painted by Bronzino, now in the Gallery of the Uffizi.

Among the rooms built by Vasari on the second floor is a large one which served as a guardaroba, with cupboards all round the walls. It bears the name of Sala del Mappamondo, from the paintings on the cupboard doors by Egnazio Danti, a Dominican friar. For eight years he worked at these curious geographical maps until, for some unknown reason, he fell into disgrace, when they were continued, but not finished, by another friar, Don Stefano Buonsignore. These fifty-three large maps are exceedingly interesting, and merit more attention than they generally receive.

For the marriage of Francesco de’ Medici to the Archduchess Joan of Austria the old palace was sumptuously decorated. Round the courtyard, in the centre of which Cosimo I. had already placed a basin of porphyry with Verrocchio’s exquisite little bronze boy throttling a dolphin, were painted views of the principal cities of Austria by pupils of Vasari in honour of the Princess. At the same time the columns were encrusted with garlands of fruit, flowers and leaves, upheld by “putti” and grotesque masks in stucco. But the greatest work Vasari did for this marriage was the corridor connecting the Palazzo Vecchio with the Palazzo Pitti. On the 12th March, 1565, Messer Tommaso de’ Medici signed a contract, in the Duke’s name, with the master-mason Bernardo d’Antonio, in which the latter promises to finish a corridor between the two palaces by September. He obliges himself “to build two arches, one above the street where is the Dogana to the wall of the church of S. Piero Scheraggio, the second above the said church; and another arch at the house of Signor Trajano Boba, servant of His Excellency; and along the Lung’Arno a corridor with arches and pilasters as far as the Ponte Vecchio, proceeding onwards above the shops and houses of the said bridge on the side looking towards the Ponte a Rubaconte, and round the tower of the house of Matteo Mannelli by means of brackets of stone. From this tower another arch, spanning the Via de’ Bardi, shall repose upon the tower of the Guelph party opposite the house of the Mannelli. The corridor is then to follow the small alley behind the houses facing the principal street, and pass above the steps of the church of Sta. Felicita, where is to be built a loggia. Thence the corridor, supported on pilasters along the whole length of the cloisters of the priests of Sta. Felicita, shall gradually descend to the level of the garden of the Pitti. The said corridor and its adjuncts are to be roofed in, the ceilings plastered, whitewashed and finished, according to the order, design and model, given from time to time by the magnificent and excellent Master Giorgio Vasari, painter and architect of the aforesaid most Illustrious Excellency. The said Messer Tommaso declaring that he binds himself to remove any and every difficulty that may be thrown in the way of the said Master Bernardo, especially by the various owners of the houses, above or by the side of which this corridor is to be built.”[115]

Agostino Lapini records in his diary that the foundations of the first pilaster of the corridor were laid on the 19th March, 1565, and that it was entirely finished by the end of November, and six years later shops were built [along the Lung’Arno] in the arches. The passage between the two galleries was only thrown open to the public in 1866; and eighteen years later, on the proposal of Prince Corsini, then Syndic of Florence, the shops under the corridor in the Via degl’Archibusieri were swept away, to the great convenience of foot-passengers and the improvement of the view.

In 1569 the ambition of Cosimo I. was gratified. Pope Pius V. bestowed upon him and his heirs the title of Grand Duke of Tuscany, and on the 13th December Don Michele Bonelli, the Pope’s nephew, presented the Papal Bull to him in the Hall of the Five Hundred in the presence of his sons, the Papal Nuncio, the ambassadors of Ferrara and Lucca, the Senate of the Forty-eight, the magistrates of the city, the knights of S. Stefano, the nobles, and the representatives of the people. A many-rayed regal crown, with a red lily, the ancient emblem of Florence, in the centre, as ordered by the Pope, was placed above the Medici arms all over the city, and Cosimo’s subjects were informed that henceforth he was to be addressed as “Highness.” Like all his race, he loved festivities and splendour, and in carnival time the old hall in the Palazzo Vecchio was the scene of many banquets to the fair ladies of Florence, followed by recitations and plays with elaborate scenic effects. After Cosimo’s marriage with Camilla Martelli he withdrew almost entirely from public life, and his son Francesco lived in the Palazzo Vecchio until he succeeded to the throne.

We hear little about the palace until it was once more decorated and embellished by Poccetti for the wedding of the Cardinal Ferdinando de’ Medici, who left the Church to ascend the throne and marry Christine of Lorraine. He added considerably to the palace on the eastern side, “where,” writes an old chronicler, “from the great door made by Tasso, carpenter and architect, as far as the corner of the said palace which is opposite to Borgo de’ Greci where one turns to go into the Piazza, there was an old and ugly curtain wall, eight or ten braccie high, so that the rooms of the palace near the said door were exposed to the view of all who passed by, and one saw balconies, terraces, little gardens and such-like. And between the said rooms and the curtain wall we have just mentioned, was a large vacant space full of rubbish, where in the time of the Signoria the lions had been kept.... Seeing all this ugliness, the Cardinal decided that the palace should have a fine and lordly façade behind as it had in front, that the number of rooms should be increased, another courtyard be made, and many other conveniences. Bernardo Buontalenti was ordered to make a design, and the work was at once begun. In a few years the handsome and rich façade we now see was finished, all of hewn stone and ‘bozzi,’ in the rustic style. It has a grand air, and contains many fine rooms, and a courtyard in the centre.”

In those days great sculptors worked even in sugar for their patrons, as when Maria de’ Medici was married by proxy to Henry IV. of France in 1600, Giovanni da Bologna modelled various figures and statues in confectionery and in sugar, which were moved by hidden mechanism. Among them was an effigy of the King of France, mounted on a charger which trotted down the table in front of the Queen. He also arranged a huge fleur-de-lis, built up of an infinite number of gold and silver cups and goblets, statues of gold and silver, vases of rock crystal, and ornaments inlaid with precious stones, in the Sala of Leo X. in the Palazzo Vecchio.

The marriage of Cosimo de’ Medici, son of the Grand Duke Ferdinando I., with the Archduchess Maria Maddalena of Austria, was celebrated with extraordinary pomp in 1607. A great banquet was given in the Hall of the Five Hundred to the Florentine nobility, of which an anonymous eyewitness has left a long description. Two hundred and forty ladies sat opposite the Princes, as “being more fair to look upon than men,” and after dinner appeared a Venus’ shell gliding forward on sham waves, which bore Zephyr, the messenger of the goddess who, stopping in front of the bride, offered her all his mistress could give. Then came the chariot of Venus drawn by black sparrows in which sat Love, who declared all he had was hers. On the raising of a curtain at the end of the hall, angels floating among clouds were seen, who chanted:

“E sol risuona,

E Maddalena intuona

La valle, il colle, il monte, il prato il bosco

Di questo lido Tosco,

E’l Ciel, l’Aria, e la Terra e l’Onda piena

Cosmo, Cosmo risponde, e Maddalena.”

After this the Princes retired by the corridor to the Palazzo Pitti, the Archduchess graciously inviting the ladies present to follow her as far as the gallery, where a long row of tables were laden with delicate sugarplums and confectionery. What they could not eat or carry away was seized by the populace which streamed in; the Princes watched with great amusement the demolition of all that rare food, and then withdrew to their rooms.

Cosimo II. and his Austrian wife only used the old palace occasionally for receptions and banquets. Their son, that morose bigot Cosimo III., when he lost all hope of seeing any descendants from his two sons, proclaimed his daughter Anna Maria Luisa, married to the Elector Palatine, heiress to the throne in the great hall. His proclamation was, however, futile, and in 1723 his son Giovan Gastone solemnly received the Infante Don Carlos at the door of the Palazzo Vecchio as heir to the throne. Austria, however, interfered, and Francesco of Lorraine was proclaimed as future Grand Duke of Tuscany. In 1737 his representative received the oath of allegiance, and two years later the Grand Duke visited Florence, and splendid festivities were given in his honour. But the Florentines were very sore at his departure for Vienna after a short visit, and still sorer at the invasion of Lorrainers and Austrians, who filled so many of the Government posts. In 1745 Francesco II. became Emperor of Austria, and his second son Pietro Leopoldo succeeded to the Grand Duchy. Zoby, in his History of Tuscany, describes how the Senate of the Forty-eight, the Council of the Two Hundred and the principal magistrates of Florence, assembled in the great hall of the Palazzo Vecchio, where a throne had been placed for the Grand Duke. The late Emperor’s will, leaving Tuscany to his second son, was read aloud, and at the same time the renunciation by the Emperor Joseph to any claims thereon. But Joseph died, and once more a Tuscan Grand Duke became Emperor of Austria, to the sorrow of his Italian subjects, who had learned to appreciate Pietro Leopoldo at his proper value. His second son, Ferdinando, became Grand Duke, and in 1791 a fair was held in the Piazza, the Loggia de’ Lanzi was turned into a garden illuminated with many lamps, and a magnificent pavilion was erected in front of the old palace for the Court. Eight years later Ferdinando III. with his wife and four children were driven out of Florence by General Gaulthier in the name Of the Directoire. A Tree of Liberty was set up in the middle of the Piazza della Signoria, newly christened della Libertà, and the French flag was hoisted on the tower of the Palazzo Vecchio. Giovanni da Bologna’s fine statue of Cosimo III. was about to be destroyed and melted down for the benefit of the poor, but was saved by the presence of mind of the President of the Buon Governo and of the advocate Paolini, who remonstrated with the mob, which had already tied ropes round the horse to pull it down, saying that it was a pity to destroy the effigy of despotism which now witnessed the restoration of liberty in Florence. The Marquess Gino Capponi gives a vivid account of the behaviour of the French soldiers in his Ricordi. He saw them depart, and was in the Piazza when, after months of silence, the great bell once more rang out at midday and all present sank on their knees at the beloved sound.

The old palace saw one ruler after another pass through its great hall like puppets. Ferdinando III. returned for some months, but was soon driven out again by the French. Then Tuscany for a few years became the Kingdom of Etruria, only to be merged in the French Empire in 1808, and the following year Napoleon I. again created a Grand Duchy of Tuscany, and gave it to his sister Elise Baciocchi, who was already Duchess of Lucca and Princess of Piombino.

The roof of the Palazzo Vecchio had for some time been in a bad state, and the municipal architect, G. del Rosso, was charged to survey the whole building. In 1809 the work began. The reservoir for rain water made by Michelozzi had become useless, and was only an additional weight on the columns of the courtyard, so it was done away with, the cornice was renewed, and windows, which had been arbitrarily pierced here and there, were closed and the ancient ones restored. Del Rosso was forced to whitewash the walls of the courtyard, decorated with the golden lilies of Anjou on a blue ground—an emblem utterly distasteful to the new ruler. The stucco ornaments of the columns, and the frescoes in the vaults and round the courtyard had suffered terribly, and were carefully renovated, but those of the Austrian towns are now once more almost invisible. In order to avoid the incessant passage of the soldiers through the courtyard to their guardroom, del Rosso was ordered to make an entrance from the outside, and this necessitated the destruction of the old ringhiera, so intimately connected with the history of Florence. Part of it had already disappeared when Ammannati set up his huge, ugly fountain at the northern angle—il Biancone the Florentines call it—still it was with unwilling hands that del Rosso levelled what remained and made the platform, the steps and the door immediately under the balcony. The ancient Marzocco, which had lost all semblance of a lion, was removed, and on its beautiful base was put the one by Donatello (replaced by a copy in 1885). It was at this time that the Alberghettino was discovered in the tower.

With the fall of Napoleon ended the rule of his sister Elise, and the Grand Duke Ferdinando III. once more returned to Tuscany. He was succeeded in 1824 by his son Leopoldo II., under whose reign the lovely tower of the old palace was restored to its pristine beauty by having the plaster and whitewash, with which it had been bedaubed a century before, removed. The architect, Giuseppe Martelli, also took down one of the supporting corbels of the tower, which being of friable sandstone was breaking away under the great weight of 67,908 chilogrammes which rested on it. It was replaced by one of hard stone, and at the same time the arms of the Florentine Republic round the top of the palace were freed from whitewash and restored.

On the 17th February, 1848, the Grand Duke Leopoldo II. inaugurated the first parliament of constitutional government in the Hall of the Five Hundred. But one ministry after another fell, and the following year the Grand Duke abandoned Tuscany. A provisional government abolished the Senate and the Council in favour of an assembly of representatives of the people, elected by universal suffrage. There was fighting in the streets of Florence and the friends of Austria were scheming to bring back Leopoldo II., so in April, 1849, a Commission, amongst whom were Bettino Ricasoli and Gino Capponi, was named, which not only met in the Palazzo Vecchio to conduct the government of the country, but lived there as the Republican Signoria had done in former times. A month later the Austrians entered Florence and the Grand Duke’s representative took up his abode in the old palace, in front of which was placed an iron railing where once was the ringhiera, behind which Austrian sentinels paced backwards and forwards.

On the morning of the 27th April, 1859, Florence awoke to the cry of Viva l’Italia and the same evening the Grand Ducal family once more took the well-known road to Vienna, while the tricolour flag was hoisted on the tower of the Palazzo Vecchio amid the exultant shouts of the crowd below. Four months later, in the Hall of the Five Hundred, Baron Ricasoli, a descendant of the Bettino Ricasoli who in the middle of the XIVth century locked the door and sat upon the keys until his party had won the day, ended his speech with these words: “Let us remember that while in this hall, which has not echoed to the voice of liberty for three centuries, we are dealing with the affairs of Tuscany, our thoughts must be turned to Italy;” and one by one the deputies passed in front of the provisional ministry, and dropped into the urn their votes for the union of Tuscany to the Kingdom of Italy under King Victor Emanuel.

1860 awoke to the sound of the big bell of the Palazzo Vecchio calling the people to a plebiscite. The result was proclaimed from the platform, which had replaced the ancient ringhiera, to the crowd which had waited for hours in the Piazza, as 366,571 ayes, out of 386,445 voters. H.H. Prince Eugenio of Savoia Carignano, the King’s cousin, was named Viceroy of Tuscany and Baron Bettino Ricasoli Governor, with his official residence in the Palazzo Vecchio. Five years later, when Florence was for a few years the capital of United Italy, the old palace became the seat of the parliament and was sadly pulled about. The great Hall of the Five Hundred was arranged as a House of Parliament, doors were opened to give free access to the various offices, and room had also to be found for the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. The architect Falconieri was vehemently attacked and defended himself in a pamphlet, declaring that he had done his utmost to respect all that was beautiful, and at all events had finished that part of the palace in the Via de’ Leone which had been left so long uncompleted.

In 1866 Baron Ricasoli announced in the great hall that Victor Emanuel had declared war on Austria, and four years later the King himself, amid delirious enthusiasm, stated that his soldiers had entered Rome. With this the story of the Palazzo Vecchio comes to an end. It is now the seat of the municipality of Florence, and it only remains for me to acknowledge the help I have derived from Signor Aurelio Gotti’s book Storia del Palazzo Vecchio in Firenze.

* * * * *

Arms of the Republic of Florence under the machicolations of the Palazzo Vecchio.

A white Lily on a red field; the ancient arms of the city.

A red and white Shield divided lengthways; signifying the union of Florence and Fiesole.

A red Lily on a white field; the arms of the city, 1251.

A blue Shield with the word Libertas in gold letters; the arms of the Priors of Liberty.

A red Cross on a white field; the arms of the People.

Two golden Keys on an azure (or white) field, placed crossways; the arms of the Church.

A red Eagle standing on a green Dragon in a white field, a small golden Lily on the head of the eagle; the arms of the Guelph party. (Really the arms of Clement III., who bestowed them on the Guelphs in 1365.)

Golden Lilies on an azure field with a golden Bar (rastrello) at top; the arms of Charles of Anjou.

A shield divided lengthways to the left, golden Lilies on an azure field to the right, red Stripes on a field or; the arms of King Robert of Naples.

Under the machicolations of the tower are painted the arms and emblems of the various quarters of the city. On the southern side are the arms of S. Spirito, a white Dove with golden rays in her beak on an azure field: the gonfaloni, or banners, of the quarter of S. Spirito bear a Ladder on a red field; five Shells on a blue field; a green Dragon on a red field; a five-thonged Whip on a blue field. On the eastern side are the arms of S. Croce, a golden Cross on a blue field: the gonfaloni have a silver shield with a red Cross on a black field with broad silver rings round it; a Cartwheel on a blue field; a Lion on a white field. To the west are the arms of S. Maria Novella, a golden Sun with rays on an azure field: the gonfaloni bear a white Lion on a blue field; a blue Viper on a gold field; an Unicorn on a blue field; a red Lion on a white field. S. Giovanni, to the north, has its own Temple with a suspended Key on either side on a blue field: the gonfaloni bear two red Keys on a field or; a shield, the upper half red and the lower of ermine, on a white field; a golden Lion on a blue field; a green Dragon on a field or. Some of these are almost entirely obliterated.

PALAZZO VITALI
Borgo degl’Albizzi. No. 26.

This palace, built by Ammannati for the great family of the Pazzi, whose dolphins are still above the doorway, is one of the literary landmarks of Florence. In the beginning of the XVIIIth century it was the fashion for the beaux esprits of the town to meet together at a chemist’s or a bookseller’s shop, or now and then at each other’s houses. Giovanni Pazzi, a studious, cultured man, was generally to be found in his library at the very top of his palace, in what remained of one of the ancient towers of his family. Here his friends would meet in the evening and they jokingly called his abode la Colombaia (the dovecot) from its height, and himself il Torraiolo (the tower pigeon). A society was formed in May, 1735, and each member chose a nickname which had some reference to a pigeon; their emblem was a tower with the motto from Dante, Quanto veder si puo, and their seal an old intaglio representing two doves feeding each other, to which was added the words, Mutius Officiis. S. C. The Società Colombaia still meets and reads learned papers in Via de’ Bardi.

PALAZZO VIVIANI
Via S. Antonino. No. 9.

Vincenzio Viviani, the disciple and friend of Galileo, rebuilt his house with the pension granted to him by Louis XIV. of France, after the design of his pupil and friend, G. B. Nelli. Fontanelle writes in his Eloge: “Viviani called his house Aedes a Deo datae, an apt allusion to the name bestowed on the monarch,[116] and to the origin of the building.... Galileo has not been forgotten, for his bust is over the door and the story of his life is told in certain inscriptions on either side.” From these huge scrolls the palace is commonly called the Palazzo de’ Cartellone. Viviani was with Galileo during the last three years of his life, and by his tender friendship in part consoled the blind, infirm man for the loss of his daughter Maria. Named Court Mathematician by Ferdinando II., he had much to do with regulating the course of the rivers in Tuscany, and was greatly looked up to and respected. He died in 1703, aged 81, leaving his real estate to his nephew the Abbé Jacopo Panzanini for life, and then to G. B. Nelli. All the personal estate was left to his nephew save the library of printed books, which were to go to the hospital of Sta. Maria Nuova. After the death of the Abbé Panzanini, Vivian’s manuscripts, amongst which were many of Galileo which he had bought from his natural son, and of Torricelli, were for a time religiously preserved by his heirs, but at last the contents of the cupboards were stowed away in the granary, and the servants began to sell them for waste paper. Senator Nelli heard of it and bought what remained from the various shop-keepers and from the Panzanini.

To English people the palace is interesting, as when Milton came to Florence he stayed here as the guest of Viviani.

PALAZZO XIMENES D’ARAGONA (NOW PANCIATICHI)
Borgo Pinti. No. 60.

Giuliano da San Gallo built this palace for himself and his brother in 1490, while he was engaged in designing the Villa of Poggio a Cajano. Lorenzo the Magnificent ordered him to construct a large hall, the ceiling of which was to be one huge arched vault, so Giuliano tried the experiment on rather a smaller scale in his own house. The result can be seen in a noble room on the second floor. The palace, bought by the great Portuguese family Ximenes d’Aragona, was considerably enlarged by Gherardo Silvani in 1603; the large entrance hall and the courtyard with a fine loggia leading into the garden were probably built by him. In 1769 the daughter of the last of the Ximenes d’Aragona married the Marquess Niccolò Panciatichi. After her father’s death the palace was let to General Miot, French Minister at the Court of Tuscany, whose guest Napoleon Bonaparte was for two days in 1796. Lord Burgersh lived here when British Minister at Florence, and his entertainments were the talk of the town, as he turned the large courtyard into a ball-room by covering it with a tent. The late Marquess Panciatichi Ximenes d’Aragona only left his family palace in Via Cavour for this one in 1850. Sixteen years later, in order to prolong the Via del Mandorlo, it was cut in two, but it is still one of the largest in Florence.