Some ladies of the Cibo family were the first to introduce carriages into Florence in 1536, but Tommaso Rinnuccini writes: “They were not common even in the beginning of the present [XVIIth] century, and many of the nobility did not use them. Little by little, with the excuse of a marriage, or other such pretext, many adopted them; some with four, the richest even with six horses. At first they were small, made of leather both inside and out, and placed immediately over the axle, so that the movement was most uncomfortable; then they were hung on straps, to be less rough, and finally the straps were attached to carved bands of well-tempered steel which, yielding to any shock, made them still more easy. The handsomest are of black, or of coloured velvet, with fringes inside and out and the tops gilt inside. Till the middle of the century some of the richer inhabitants of the city used a cocchio, which was generally lined with rose-coloured velvet and covered with purple cloth; on the top were eight gilt-knobs (pomi), but these have gone entirely out of fashion. In 1672 a style of carriage, hung on long straps, was introduced from Paris, which swung and swayed to and fro; they are called poltroncine (small arm-chairs), because they are so comfortable.... At the time I write a sort of covered chair, placed on two long poles, has been imported from Paris; in front the poles rest on the back of a horse, and behind on two wheels, and they swing much. To this chair has been given the name of calesso, and in 1667 there were already near a thousand in the city.”

Alberigo Cibo sold the fine old palace in 1593 to Lorenzo Strozzi, in whose family it remained until bought by the Marquess Niccolò Quaratesi in 1760. The family came originally from Castello di Quarata, and Vanni Quaratesi took the side of the people, and was created a knight during the Ciompi riots. Castello, who held high office at various times in the first half of the XVth century, is said to have founded the monastery of S. Salvadore at Monte San Miniato. But dates do not agree, and Signor Passerini is probably right in suggesting that Castello Quaratesi built a small convent for the Franciscans at S. Miniato after the “Operai” of S. Croce refused to allow him to affix his arms on the façade he had intended to build for the church. He left his large fortune to the College of the Guild of Merchants, with a special clause recommending the convent to their care, and they probably carried out his wishes and erected the present church and conventual buildings, designed by Cronaca towards the end of the XVth century. The first Quaratesi houses were on the other side of the Arno, near the church of S. Niccolò, where they lived until the Marquess Niccolò bought the magnificent Pazzi palace built by Brunelleschi. In 1843 it again changed hands, and passed into the possession of the Baron de Rast, who left it by will to a charitable institution in Gotha.

It is curious that the well-known Pazzi arms, the three dolphins, said to have been carved by Donatello, are still in situ at the corner of Borgo degl’Albizzi, for a decree of 1478 ordered them to be destroyed all over the city. It is hardly likely that this shield was replaced after the banishment of Piero de’ Medici, when the decree permitting the descendants of Andrea de’ Pazzi to again put up their arms was passed, because the palace no longer belonged to them. It is, however, still called by their name, and the street corner to this day is known as the “Canto de’ Pazzi.” It is here that the famous colombina, or dove, beloved by all Florentines, flies on Holy Saturday along a cord stretched from the door of the Bank of Italy, built on the site of the greatest of the Pazzi palaces, to the wondrous old painted car, and sets fire to the squibs and crackers piled high upon it.

PALAZZO PERUZZI
Borgo de’ Greci. No. 10.

The first mention of the Peruzzi family occurs in 1150, when Ubaldino, son of Peruzzo of the Porta della Pera, appeared as a witness about a contract with the convent of S. Salvi. At Montaperti the Peruzzi fought on the side of the Guelphs, when Arnoldo was knighted on the field of battle, and with the rest of their party were exiled until peace was made between Ghibellines and Guelphs in 1280. Nine years later the name of Arnoldo’s son Pacino is mentioned in the archives of the Commune, as receiving rent for certain prisons in his palace on the site of the old Roman amphitheatre, where 800 Aretines and Ghibellines taken in the battle of Campaldino were immured. The name of the street behind S. Firenze, Via di Burella (prison or den), still records their existence. No doubt these were the dens of the wild beasts under the ancient amphitheatre in which S. Miniatus was twice exposed to lions under the Emperor Decius. The circular form can still be traced in the thick walls of the old Peruzzi houses in the Piazza. In 1293 Pacino appears as a purchaser from the Commune of that part of the old walls of the second circuit of Florence which stood where now is Via de’ Benci and the Arco de’ Peruzzi.[53] Four years later he was one of the nine Gonfaloniers of Justice of the family, who also had fifty-four Priors. They were among the richest and most powerful citizens of the XIIIth century, and when King Robert of Naples came to Florence in 1310 he was lodged and magnificently entertained for twenty-four days in their palaces in Piazza de’ Peruzzi. Here was their loggia, used as a kind of private exchange, to which the Arco de’ Peruzzi may have belonged. It stands either on the very spot, or at all events close to where once was—

“The gateway, named from those of Pera.”[54]

Vasari tells us that Paolo Uccello frescoed the arch “with triangles in perspective, and on the corners in the square spaces he painted the four elements, each represented by an appropriate animal. For the earth a mole, for water a fish, for fire a salamander, and for air a chameleon, which lives thereon and assumes every colour. As he had never seen a chameleon he painted a camel with its mouth wide open inhaling the air to fill its lungs. Showing certes great simplicity.”

PIAZZA AND ARCO DE’ PERUZZI.

Many of the houses on the western side of the Via de’ Benci belonged to the Peruzzi, others were in Borgo de’ Greci, where the present palace stands, and in the Via dell’Anguillara, the Via de’ Rustici, etc., the well-known coat-of-arms with six pears is still to be seen here and there on the façades. In 1339 the Peruzzi were ruined and forced to sell their lands and many of their houses. They and their partners the Bardi had lent money to Edward III. of England, who, owing to his wars with France, was unable to pay his debts. A decree dated 6th May, 1339, orders the suspension of all payments to the King’s creditors, “not excepting his well-beloved Bardi and Peruzzi,” to whom he owed 1,355,000 golden florins. The failure of the great banking house of Bardi Peruzzi was a calamity from which Florence did not recover for some time, and Dino Compagni, who suffered severely himself, exclaims: “O cursed and insatiable avidity, born of the vice of avarice which reigns amongst our blind and mad citizens who, for the sake of gaining from those above them, place their own and other people’s money in their power. For this was lost the strength of our Republic, as but little wealth remained to our citizens, save to some artificers and money-lenders who by usury consumed and gathered to themselves the scattered remnants of the poverty of our citizens.”