The Peruzzi houses must have been used by the Signoria for lodging distinguished guests, as Villani writes: “On the 10th March [1345] the wife of the Prince of Taranto, daughter to the Duke of Bourbon, who called herself Empress of Constantinople without possessing an Empire, passed through Florence on her way to France. Great honour was paid to her, she being met and accompanied by many knights and ladies. She dismounted at the house of the Peruzzi, the Commune paying all the expenses of her coming and her going and of the two days she stayed in the city;” and nearly a century later, when the Greek Emperor Paleologus and the Patriarch came to attend the council of Florence “the whole circuit of the houses of the Peruzzi were assigned to them as their residence.” It is said that the street was called Borgo de’ Greci in memory of the Emperor’s visit; Passerini, however, thinks the name was older, and derived from a family called Greci, who lived there.
Ridolfo Peruzzi joined Rinaldo degl’Albizzi in opposing the return of Cosimo the Elder, and, like him, was banished, and all he had confiscated. He died in exile at Aquila in 1440, and as long as the rule of the Medici lasted the name of Peruzzi no longer appears among the magistrates of Florence. Among those of the family who found it impossible to live under them was Antonio, “a noble citizen of Florence,” writes Vasari, “who went to Volterra to live more quietly, and there after a time married in 1482, and in a few years had two children, a son named Baldassare, and a daughter, Virginia. But it happened that war, persecuting him who sought only peace and quiet, broke out, and Volterra was sacked; so Antonio was forced to fly to Siena, where, having lost nearly all he possessed, he lived in poverty.” Baldassare Peruzzi’s whole life was a perpetual struggle, he was miserably paid, and his name as painter, architect and decorator, stood higher after his death than during his life. He died at the age of fifty-eight, probably of poison.
In the latter half of the last century the name of Ubaldino Peruzzi was a household word in Florence. An honest politician and a kind man, he had a great deal of the peculiar Florentine humour and his favourite saying, “Gente allegra, Iddio l’aiuta,” was typical of the man. His wife was as popular as himself, and in their old palace in Borgo de’ Greci one was sure to meet every distinguished Italian and any foreigner of mark who chanced to be in Florence.
PALAZZO PICCOLELIS
Via de’ Pucci. No. 1.
Towards the end of the XVIIth century Paolo Falconieri built this palace for the Marquess Lodovico Incontri on the site of houses belonging to a branch of the Vespucci family. The Incontri were Lords of Acquaviva near Volterra. Antonio fought at Montaperti, was taken prisoner by the Ghibellines, but escaped and joined Charles of Anjou at Naples, who knighted him and gave him the command of 200 horse, when he fought against Manfred and Corradino. On his return to Volterra he volunteered to lead his fellow-citizens against the Pisans and was killed in a skirmish near Pontedera in 1291. Attilio Incontri married the daughter of a courtier of the Grand Duke Ferdinando I. and settled in Florence, and his son Ferdinando was made a Senator and Marquess of Monteverdi and Canneto in 1665; his other son was Lodovico who built the palace which now belongs to the Marquess Piccolelis.
The Vespucci to whom the original houses belonged came from Peretola and took their name from Vespuccio, a wine merchant, who was the first of twenty-five Priors of his house in 1350. Giuliano Vespucci was Gonfalonier of Justice in 1462, and his son Piero commanded the Florentine galleys on the coast of Barbary and of Syria. From him no doubt his young cousin Amerigo, who gave his name to America, heard many seafaring tales. Born in 1451 and brought up by his uncle, a learned Dominican in S. Marco to whom Marsilio Ficino entrusted the revision of his Platonic Theology, Amerigo studied languages, physics and geometry. Admitted to the Platonic Academy he became intimate with Toscanelli, who expounded to him his ideas as to the existence of another hemisphere. Amerigo was manager of the Medici bank at Seville when Columbus made his first discoveries, and entreated King Ferdinand of Spain to take him into his service as chief pilot of another expedition. When the news of his triumphant return after an eighteen month’s voyage reached Florence, the Signoria ordered his house, now incorporated in the hospital of S. Giovanni di Dio, in Borgognissanti, to be illuminated for three nights, an honour rarely accorded by the Commune.
PALAZZO PITTI
Piazza Pitti
Buonaccorso Pitti, in his delightful chronicle,[55] tells us that the Pitti, being Guelphs, were expelled from the castle of Semifonte by the Ghibellines in 1202, when they divided into three branches. “We of the third branch,” he writes, “settled at Castelvecchio in the Val di Pesa, where we bought large and rich estates.... A few years later our ancestors came to live in Florence, and their first houses were those which now belong to the Machiavelli in the parish of Sta. Felicita. I have heard tell by Neri, my father, that one of our ancestors, named Bonsignore, went to the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem and to Sta. Caterina on Mount Sinai; he never came back, nor is it known where he died. When he left Florence his wife was with child, and she bore a son who was called Bonsignore after his father. From him sprang Maffeo, who was a rich, powerful and honourable citizen, and from the book in which the names of all who have been Priors are written, it appears he was a Prior in 1283. Maffeo had, amongst others, two sons; the eldest was Ciore, the second Buonaccorso ... according to reliable accounts was a good and trustworthy man.... By his wife Monna Giovanna degl’Infangati he had six sons and three daughters.... Neri his son, our father, made a very large fortune in the wool trade. I find that every year he made eleven hundredweight of cloth, most of which was sent to Apulia. He was most industrious and active in his business, and the French wool that came into our workshops was turned into perfect cloth. His last building was the Tiratoio,[56] which cost about 3,500 florins. It seems he did not care about taking office under the Commune, but he was twice Prior. He was a handsome man, three braccie in height, not fat, but with good bone and muscle; his hair was reddish, and he was healthy and vigorous and lived sixty-eight years, may God give him eternal rest. His wife, my mother, Monna Curradina degl’ Strozzi, was a handsome, clever woman, of dark complexion; she lived sixty-six years. I, Buonaccorso, married Francesca degl’Albizzi ... and till now Francesca and I have had eleven children, of whom seven are alive, Luca, Ruberto, &c., &c.”
PALAZZO PITTI.