Before the building of the Palazzo de’ Signori in 1292 the Priors met in the Cerchi palace in Via del Garbo, now divided into many houses. Only vestiges of their towers, and of their once famous loggia, can still be traced at the corner of Via de’ Cerchi and Via de’ Cimatori. Piero Monaldi writes in his manuscript history of the ancient family of the Cerchi that they came from Acone, “of which place they were lords and also of Ripozzano. In Florence they owned towers, a loggia and sumptuous palaces, which were destroyed during the civil strife and discord. A noble race they were, rich and powerful in the city, with many retainers, munificent and lordly in the country side. But fate, enemy of their felicity, divided their house in the time of Pope Boniface VIII. Some became heads of the White party whilst others remained of the Black, so that they were undone and many of their records were lost wherein were mentioned numerous honourable lords. But the fame of Vieri de’ Cerchi remains, one of the greatest knights of his day and Prince of the White party. When called to Rome by Pope Boniface to try and pacify the said parties he went thither with many men at arms, all his own followers, which rather alarmed the Pope. There were also Niccolò Gentile and Borrigiano and all were knights of the Golden Spur.”[26] Vieri de’ Cerchi was the great antagonist of Corso Donati, head of the Black party, and “Florence,” writes Giovanni Villani, “was kept in such turmoil and danger by their enmity, that the city was often in an uproar, and every one was under arms.”
The palace came into the possession of the Bandini family, and it is said that the details of the Pazzi conspiracy were arranged here in the time of Bernardo Bandini [1478], and that his descendant Giovanni betrayed Florence to the Imperialists by signals from the top of the tower in 1530.
PALAZZO COCCHI
Piazza Sta. Croce. No. 1.
The name of Cocco di Donato occurs among the inhabitants of the quarter of Sta. Croce in 1328, and his descendants, Borghini and Francesco Cocchi, having made a large fortune in trade decided to build themselves a fine house. From the friars of the abbey of Fiesole they bought a house on the Piazza Sta. Croce and erected the palace we now see, which came into the possession of Borghini’s nephews after his death in 1474. It has often been attributed to Baccio d’Agnolo, and Vasari names it amongst the fine palaces built in Florence after 1470, but does not mention the architect. Signor Iodico Del Badia believes that part of the original house bought from the friars was incorporated with the more modern building; particularly the pilasters up to the spring of the arches, and the jambs in Via de’ Cocchi.[27] These jambs are supposed by some to be portions of the ancient walls of Florence destroyed in 1078, placed by the Peruzzi at one end of the street which traversed the old Roman amphitheatre. Cinelli however declares that the Cocchi bought the palace from the Dei family, for whom it was built by Raffaello del Bianco on the site of other houses and of the ancient loggia de’ Risaliti.
In the XVIIth century it was enlarged by the addition of some small houses in the rear, and remained in the possession of the Cocchi until the last of the family, Maddalena, married Marchese Pucci. It now belongs to her grandson Count Agostino Della Seta of Pisa.
PALAZZO CORSI SALVIATI (NOW VISCONTI ARCONATI)
Via Tornabuoni. No. 20.
The powerful and rich “consorteria,” or clan, of the Tornaquinci had their palaces, towers, loggie and shops, where now stands this palace. Their origin is lost in obscurity, but we know that the Emperor Otho I. allowed them to erect dams in the bed of the Arno near their houses. When the second circle of walls was built round Florence the gate, afterwards called S. Pancrazio, and a square, where now stands the Palazzo Strozzi, bore their name. Figliocaro Tornaquinci was Consul of the army in 1166 and in 1215, and his descendants fought at Montaperti on the side of the Guelphs in 1260. They divided into five different families in the XIVth century, of whom only the head of one branch, Simone, who took the name of Tornabuoni in 1393, interests us. His son Francesco was Commissary with the army of Carlo Malatesta and later was sent to Venice, to try and induce the Venetians to enter Lombardy against the Duke of Milan. A keen man of business, he stood high in favour with Cosimo de’ Medici and zealously worked to promote his return from exile in 1434. His daughter Lucrezia married Piero de’ Medici and their son, Lorenzo the Magnificent, owed much to her prudence and sagacity and inherited her poetic talent. Giovanni Tornabuoni, her brother, was treasurer to Sixtus IV. and head of the Medici bank at Rome, where his wife Francesca died in childbirth in September, 1477, and his letter to Lorenzo de’ Medici shows how deeply he mourned her. Vasari tells us that having caused a sepulchre to be made to her in the Minerva “he willed also that Domenico Ghirlandaio should paint the walls of the chapel wherein she was buried.”[28] Giovanni afterwards gave him the commission to paint the wonderful frescoes in the choir of Sta. Maria Novella, which we know from the diary of Luca Landucci were begun in 1486 and finished in 1490; not as Vasari states between 1481 and 1485.
Luca Landucci’s son Benedetto, who knew many of the people figured in the frescoes pointed them out in 1561, when he was eighty-nine years old, to Vincenzio Tornaquinci, who fortunately noted down his words.[29] Giovanni Tornabuoni is to the right of the great central window, kneeling bareheaded with his hands crossed over his breast, and opposite to him kneels his wife Francesca, her hands folded in prayer, with a white kerchief on her head. Signor E. Ridolfi exposes another of Vasari’s mistakes, which has often been blindly copied without verifying the dates.[30] Vasari states that “Ginevra de’ Benci, then a beautiful maiden” is one of the women in the fresco of the Visitation of Our Lady to S. Elizabeth. Ginevra was born in 1557, married to Luigi Niccolini in 1573 and died on the 17th August in the same year, so she could not have been painted by Ghirlandaio between 1486–1490. The beautiful maiden is Giovanni Tornabuoni’s daughter-in-law, the lovely and accomplished Giovanna degl’Albizzi, whose marriage to Lorenzo Tornabuoni was celebrated with such pomp in Florence in 1486. Two years later Niccolò Fiorentino made six medals of the Tornabuoni family. Two of Giovanni, one of his son Lorenzo, one of his daughter Lodovica, and two of his daughter-in-law Giovanna, and the latter indubitably represent the same person as the slender, swan-necked girl, in a splendid dress of gold brocade in Ghirlandaio’s fresco. She died, fortunately for her, before the plot to reinstate Piero de’ Medici was discovered. “On the 17th August, 1497,” writes Luca Landucci, “the Pratica met, and were in the palace from morning until midnight; they were more than one hundred and eighty. And by vote it was determined that they [the accused] should die, and all they had be confiscated. Five were executed; first Bernardo del Nero, and then Niccolò Ridolfi, Giovanni Cambi, Gianozzo Pucci and Lorenzo Tornabuoni, and all the people grieved for them. Every one wondered that such a thing should be done and could scarcely believe it. They were executed that very night, and I shed many tears when I saw the youth Lorenzo on a bier passing Tornaquinci just before daybreak.”
From Niccolò Fiorentino’s medals Signor Ridolfi has been able to identify the young girl visiting S. Anne as Ludovica, Giovanni Tornabuoni’s daughter, who was then about thirteen. Like her sister-in-law she is clothed in gold brocade and has her hair dressed in the same fashion. It seems impossible that Ghirlandaio did not paint Lucrezia de’ Medici among the other members of the Tornabuoni family, the more so that he chose for the subject of his fresco the life of S. John the Baptist, which she had translated into ottava rima. She died, it is true, three years before he began the work, but there must have been portraits of her in existence, although none have come down to us. Even after the death of her husband Piero, Lucrezia exercised more authority than usually fell to the share of Tuscan women; both Poliziano and Pulci praise her poetic gifts and Niccolò Valori writes: “she was very eloquent, as can be seen in her translations into our tongue of parts of Holy Writ.” He adds: “Lorenzo was most deferential to her, and after his father’s death loved and honoured her; showing in all his actions not only the affection borne to a mother, but such respect as is given to a father; it was hard for any to discern whether he most loved or honoured her.” Her nephew Lorenzo Tornabuoni was decapitated, and his family exiled, in 1497, for plotting against the liberty of the Republic in favour of the Medici. A descendant of his, Niccolò, Bishop of Borgo S. Sepolcro and ambassador to France towards the end of the XVIth century, introduced the tobacco plant into Tuscany, which for some time was called “l’erba Tornabuoni” after him.
Lorenzo Ridolfi bought the Tornabuoni houses and incorporated them into one large palace in the beginning of the XVIth century, but when he rebelled and his son was decapitated in 1575, all his estates were confiscated and the palace became the property of the Cardinal Alessandro de’ Medici. He sold it to the rich citizen Jacopo Corsi, a friend and protector of Peri, and here, in a theatre built on purpose, his opera Dafne, with words by Rinuccini was given for the first time.