Lorenzo de' Medici, the Magnificent (vol. 2 of 2)

by Alfred von Reumont

[129] Round the altar is the following inscription: ‘Ædem hanc sanctissime Andrea tibi Pactii dedicarunt ut cum te immortalis Deus hominum constituerit piscatorem locus sit in quem suos Franciscus ad tua possit retia convocare.’ By Franciscus is doubtless meant the saint to whose order the convent belonged, and not, as Richa and Moisè suppose, Francesco de’ Pazzi, Andrea’s grandson. A letter of indulgence from Card. Pietro Riario, October 8, 1473, speaks of Jacopo de’ Pazzi as the founder.

[130] The history of the building of the Pitti palace has never been thoroughly cleared up.

[131] Inscription:

JOHANNES RUCELLARIUS PAULI FILIUS INDE
SALUTEM SUAM PRECARETUR UNDE OMNIUM
CUM CHRISTO FACTA EST RESURRECTIO SACELLUM
HOC AD INSTAR HYEROSOLIMITANI SEPULCRI
FACIUNDUM CURAVIT MCCCCLXVII.

[132] Documents on the building (1471), in Gaye, l. c. p. 225 seq. Vasari, iv. 59.

[133] The price was 150 gold florins; Gaye, l. c. p. 572. The statue was removed when Duke Cosimo erected the fountain adorned with Verrocchio’s Boy, and is now in the national museum in the Palace of the Podestà.

[134] ‘Exemplum sal. pub. cives posuere MCCCCXCV.’ This inscription can have nothing to do with the driving out of the Duke of Athens, as Moisè (Palazzo de’ Priori, p. 166) imagines. The group occupied the place which was assigned in 1504 to Michel Angelo’s ‘David,’ and has stood since then on the side of the Loggia de’ Lanzi towards the Uffizi. Vasari (l. c. p. 251) wrongly thinks it was executed for the Signoria.

[135] L. c. p. 250.

[136] Mantua, November 7, 1458. Cf. Braghirolli, in the Giornale di erudizione artistica (of Perugia), ii. 4 seq.

[137] Vasari, l. c. pp. 264, 266. Fabroni, l. c. p. 159. According to Vasari, Donatello died on December 13, 1466; according to the contemporary M. Palmieri (De Temporibus), in 1468. In the crypt of S. Lorenzo, near the tombs of the Medici, is the following later inscription: ‘Donatellus restituta antiqua sculpendi cælandiq. arte celeberrimus Mediceis principibus summis bonarum artium patronis apprime carus qui ut vivum suspexere mortuo etiam sepulcrum loco sibi proximiore constituerunt obiit idibus Decembris an. sal. MCCCCLXIV. æt. suæ LXXXIII.’