Battista de’ Frescobaldi conspired against Lorenzo the Magnificent and was beheaded, and his brother Giuliano died by the side of Ferruccio Ferrucci in the battle of Gavinana. Bartolomeo was so ardent a republican that he withdrew from the world when the Medici attained to power, but his descendant Matteo was made a Senator in 1645. The present representative of the Frescobaldi lives in one of the old family palaces in Via S. Spirito.
PALAZZO GHERADESCA
Borgo Pinti. No. 93.
The historian Bartolommeo Scala, son of a miller of Colle in the Val d’Elsa, built this palace. Cosimo de’ Medici, and his son Piero after him, paid for his education, and he became Chancellor of the Republic of Florence and was Gonfalonier of Justice in 1486. His learning was undeniable, but Lorenzo the Magnificent evidently was not satisfied with his Latin style, as he privately made Poliziano correct the despatches and letters written by Scala in the name of the Republic. At length the Chancellor suspected who was the real author of the corrections and a deadly hatred ensued between the two men. The hatred was embittered by the refusal of Scala’s beautiful and clever daughter Alessandra to listen to Poliziano, and by her marriage with Michael Tarcagnota, an inferior poet, but a better-tempered and a better-looking man than the famous Agnolo Poliziano.
Guido Scala, Bartolommeo’s grandson, died childless in 1581 and left the palace to Alessandro de’ Medici, Archbishop of Florence, afterwards Pope Leo XI. It then became the property of the Counts Gheradesca who laid out a beautiful garden and now it belongs to the Meridionale Railway Company.
PALAZZO GIANFIGLIAZZI
Via Tornabuoni. No. 1.
The palace, or rather the palaces, of the great family of the Gianfigliazzi faced the Ponte a Sta. Trinita at the corner of the Lung’Arno Corsini and the Via Tornabuoni. As Guelphs they were expelled the city after the battle of Montaperti in 1260, but returned, and three of them signed the famous peace of 1280. Eight years later their palaces were nearly destroyed by the terrible flood which did so much damage in Florence. The palaces Nos. 2 and 4 on the Lung’Arno Corsini also belonged to them; in the former, with the lion of the Gianfigliazzi carved by Desiderio da Settignano in the coat of arms on the façade, the great poet Alfieri lived for some time, and there he died.
At the beginning of the XVth century they bought from the Fastelli the palace adjoining the church of Sta. Trinita, with a tower which had been built by the Ruggerini, a Guelph family who were ruined in 1260. The arms of the three different owners are still on the façade. The loggia of the Gianfigliazzi, on the opposite side of the church at the corner of the Via di Parione, was only closed and turned into a shop in 1732.
The Gianfigliazzi descend from a Giovanni son of Azzo (Gianni figlio d’Azzo), who signed a convention with Siena in 1201. Two of the family sat in the Council of Elders in 1278 and 1279; a few years later they were excluded from office as nobles and their name only appears again among the magistrates of the city after the departure of the tyrant Duke of Athens. Geri de’ Gianfigliazzi was a poet and a friend of Petrarch; Rinaldo, sent as Commissary of War against Visconti, was created a Count of the Holy Roman Empire by the Emperor Robert in 1402; and Bongianni, another gallant soldier, was publicly knighted by the Signoria in 1467 and died at the head of his troops under the walls of Pietrasanta. His son Jacopo was one of the twelve citizens named by Clement VII. to “reform” the State and elect Alessandro de’ Medici absolute ruler of Florence. Several of the family were Senators under the Medici, until the family became extinct in 1764.
PALAZZO GINORI
Via de’ Ginori. No. 2.
The Ginori palace once belonged to Bacio Bandinelli who died there in 1559. There is a fine courtyard and the large saloon on the first floor is handsome; the building has been restored but not much spoiled. The Ginori descend from a notary who came to Florence from Calenzano, in the Val di Marino, in 1304, and lived close to the present palace of his descendants. His son Gino was the first of twenty-six Priors of the family and from him they took their name. Piero his grandson, the first Gonfalonier of five of his house in 1423, was an important person in the city and a friend of Giovanni de’ Medici, with whom he contributed towards the building of S. Lorenzo.