The stern old Davanzati palace is more like a huge tower intended for defence than a house to live in. The fine doorway, with Donatello’s magnificent coat-of-arms high above it, leads into a curiously-shaped courtyard, from which a covered staircase zigzags from one balcony to another up to the loggia at the summit. The palazzo is a splendid example of the architecture of the XIVth century, but who designed it is not known. Sadly defaced by shops which crowd the ground floor it has an air of squalor, which, however, does not detract from its massive grandeur. The Davanzati built their palace on the site of houses and towers which belonged to the ancient and powerful family of the Bostichi, who had already fallen from their high estate before Dante wrote. Later, Bernardo Davanzati, the translator of Tacitus, added their name to his own, and attempted to claim an illusory descent from them. He might have been satisfied with going back to his gallant ancestor Davanzato, who fought in the ranks of the Guelphs at Monteperti in 1260. His son Lottieri was five times a Prior, thrice one of the Buonomini, and thrice Gonfalonier of his quarter; while forty-four of the family sat at various times as Priors in the Palazzo de’ Signori. Niccolò Davanzati founded the beautiful convent of Doccia on the slopes of Fiesole in 1413,[31] and he probably also built this fine palace.
COURTYARD OF PALAZZO DAVANZATI.
The Davanzati must have been a clear-headed, well-spoken race, as their name often appears among the ambassadors sent by Florence to other states. In 1434 Giuliano, the son of Niccolò, “a strong man with a fluent tongue,” Ammirato calls him, came to great honour. He was Gonfalonier of Justice when Eugenius III. consecrated the cathedral of Sta. Maria del Fiore, and during the service the Pope dubbed him a Knight of the Golden Spur with his own hands. In memory of this a shield with the arms of the Pope was placed, and still exists, on the central pillar in the courtyard, with Ex privilegio Eugenii III. D. Julianus Davanzati eques inscribed below the coat-of-arms. Three of the family—Giovanni, who fought at Poppi against the Prince of Orange in 1529, his brother Piero, who was one of the Two Hundred in 1532, and Antonfrancesco, son of Giuliano, who was charged to provide funds for provisioning the besieged city—were zealous patriots. The latter was banished and died no one knows where, leaving his wife, Lucrezia Ginori, with a little son, to whom, perceiving his uncommon intelligence, “as fertile land left uncultivated produces more weeds than sterile soil,” she gave an excellent education. Bernardo was put into the bank when a lad, but devoted all the time he could spare from business to classical and economic studies, and at eighteen was already a member of the Academy of Florence.
Grazzini, better known as Lasca, one of the founders of the Academy, quarrelled with his fellow-academicians and wrote a sarcastic poem, in which young Bernardo Davanzati is the only member he does not abuse.
“Quel garzonetto non ha’n corpo fiele;
Poi fa si belle e si dotte orazioni,
Che chi non l’ama e ben goffo e crudele.
Calate omai le vele,
O tutti voi dal maggiore al minore,