“Strange noises had been heard,” writes Varchi, “in Lorenzino’s house. But they excited no suspicion, as for some time he had been in the habit of taking boon companions to his room, where they made noises as though they were fighting; rushing about the house, shouting, hit him, kill him, traitor, and the like. The first to give the alarm was Lorenzino’s servant. He went to Cardinal Cibo in the palace, who commanded the men to maintain absolute silence under pain of losing his head, and then ordered the game of Saracino to be played to amuse the people. To those who inquired for the Duke, he smilingly answered that being tired he was still in bed.” The news had however got abroad. “Groups and parties of citizens,” continues Varchi, “were on the Piazza, and every one spoke out freely as though no doubt existed that the great Council would at once be summoned. They debated as to who would be chosen Gonfalonier, and whether for life or not ... and meanwhile the Forty-eight had been summoned to the Palazzo Medici by the Cardinal, and were assembled in the large gallery upstairs.” Francesco Guicciardini and Francesco Vettori proposed Cosimo de’ Medici, son of the famous Giovanni delle Bande Nere, and of Maria Salviati, as successor to the Duke Alessandro. “But,” as Varchi observes, “the Forty-eight were of forty-eight different opinions and so nothing was settled.” Full powers were given to the Cardinal Cibo to conduct the government of the city for three days, a decision so unpopular that when the burghers passed the shops of the smaller artisans they beat their instruments on the counters, shouting: “If you do not know how to, or cannot, act, call us. We will settle the question.”
“At this moment, when it only needed some one to begin a tumult,” writes Varchi, “Signor Cosimo arrived in Florence with but a few followers. As the son of Signor Giovanni, of fair aspect, and having always displayed a kindly disposition and a good understanding, he was liked by the people and they acclaimed him as the heir to Duke Alessandro with great affection. Showing neither grief nor joy, he rode on with a certain air of majesty, appearing rather to merit the throne than to desire it. Dismounting at the palace he visited the Cardinal and, first expressing his regret at the death of the Duke, he then with great tact, inspired either by his own natural prudence, or having been instructed by others said, that like a good son he had come to place not only his fortune, but his life, at the service of his country and of its citizens.” The following morning Cosimo de’ Medici was proclaimed, not Duke, but Head and Governor of the Florentine Republic.
Cosimo I., though but a lad of nineteen, soon showed that he intended to be the master. Cardinal Cibo and Francesco Guicciardini, the latter of whom had been chiefly instrumental in placing him at the head of the Florentine Republic, were set aside, and in June the following year the Emperor Charles V. granted him the rank and the title of Duke of Florence. In 1539 he married Eleonora di Toledo, second daughter of Don Pedro di Toledo the Viceroy of Naples, and once more the great palace was the scene of splendid festivities. It was soon afterwards deserted, as Cosimo I., to make it quite plain to his subjects that the whole government now centered in him alone, decided to take up his abode in the ancient Palazzo de’ Signori. The Medici palace was closed and abandoned until the Grand Duke Ferdinando II. sold it to the Senator Gabriello Riccardi in 1659 for 41,000 scudi, when it became the Palazzo Riccardi.
The Riccardi added considerably to the building, but care was taken to preserve the same style of architecture and only a close observer would notice that the arms of the Riccardi, a key, are in the triangles of the windows, instead of the Medici balls. The terrace, above which is a fine shield with the arms of the Riccardi; is often pointed out as occupying the site of the room in which the murder of the Duke Alessandro took place. But it was built on the site of a small house adjoining Cosimo’s palace, belonging to the Da Lutiano family, and Signor Corrazzini suggests that it was made in order to be able to continue the cornice and the “bozzi” round the corner of the palace, which would have been impossible had it been attached to the next house. The internal arrangements of the building were entirely changed, and many rooms were added at the back, where there is a second courtyard with an entrance into the Via de’ Ginori. It was then that the architect, G. B. Foggini, committed the unpardonable vandalism of cutting off a corner of the chapel in order to widen the chief staircase, and thus destroyed part of Gozzoli’s fresco.
The Riccardi were of German origin. A certain Annichino di Riccardo came from Cologne and was made a citizen of Florence in 1368. The family made a large fortune by trade, but their name does not appear in the annals of the city until Riccardo Riccardi was created a Senator and a Marquis in 1654, by Ferdinando II. He founded the fine library, still known as the Riccardiana, and his son, after purchasing the Medici palace, had the great gallery gorgeously frescoed and decorated by Luca Giordano with the apotheosis of the Medici family and allegories of the vicissitudes of human life. Francesco Riccardi married the only daughter and heiress of Vincenzo Capponi, and her father’s valuable library was added to the one already existing in the palace, which later was further augmented by Canon Riccardi’s fine collection of manuscripts and illuminated missals.[77]
Palazzo Riccardi must have been let to the French government, as in March, 1799, General Gaulthier had his head-quarters there until the arrival of M. Reinhard, the Commissary-General. A wondrous ceremony took place in June in the large room. Orders came from Paris to hold a solemn funeral service in commemoration of those who had fallen at Rastadt. So all the officers, municipal councillors and heads of departments met in the Palazzo Riccardi, which was hung with black and decorated with festoons of cypress. On a sarcophagus stood the cinerary urn and round it were placed three crowns of oakleaves with the inscription: “Ils travaillaient pour la paix des peuples, les tyrans les ont assassinés.” Two tricolour flags draped with crape were at one end of the room, and a raised stand for the band of the national guard and the singers had been erected. M. Reinhard then pronounced a funeral oration and, while the band played a slow and solemn symphony his wife, dressed in white, with a black scarf across her breast and a crown of laurel on her head, mounted the steps up to the urn. Dramatically casting her eyes up to heaven she first embraced it and then scattered flowers over it. The ceremony ended with the singing of Ça ira and the Marseillaise. Eighteen months later Joachim Murat, the handsomest man in the French army, entered Florence at the head of a brilliant staff. Magnificently costumed, and with highly rouged cheeks, he rode proudly through the city and dismounted at the Riccardi palace, where General Gaulthier received him at the head of the staircase. He did not however stay long in the Via Larga, as he found the old palace too sombre, cold and triste, but requisitioned the Corsini palace where his wife, Caroline Bonaparte, soon joined him.[78] The Palazzo Riccardi was the head-quarters of the civil engineers as long as the French supremacy lasted. In 1814 it was bought by the Tuscan government, and during the few years that Florence was the capital of United Italy, it was the seat of the Home Office. Later the old palace was sold to the Province of Florence and is now the Prefecture.
PALAZZO RIDOLFI
Via Maggio. No. 13.
From Rodolfo, son of a certain Diotifece who lived at Poppiano in the Val di Pesa in the XIIIth century, descend the three families of Ridolfi whose name occurs so frequently in the annals of Florence. The Ridolfi del Ponte, whose old tower still stands grey and grim opposite to that of the Mannelli in the Via de’ Bardi; the Ridolfi di Piazza, whose houses were clustered round the church of S. Felice (Borgo di Piazza was one of the three borghi, or parishes, of the Oltrarno); and the Ridolfi di Borgo, who had their houses in the Borgo S. Jacopo. In 1378 the Ridolfi, being Ghibellines, were expelled the city, and their houses were sacked and burnt; but three years later they returned to Florence and made a large fortune as wool merchants. Lorenzo Ridolfi, born in 1362, was a remarkable man. A great jurist, he expounded canon law at the Studio Fiorentino, attended to business in his shop in the Via Maggio, was Pro-consul of the Guild of Wool, four times Gonfalonier of Justice, and was sent (whenever a knotty question arose) as ambassador of the Republic to popes and foreign sovereigns. He had four sons, Bernardo, Luigi, Antonio and Giovanni, from the second of whom descend the present representatives of the family. They were all Gonfaloniers of Justice, and friends of the Medici; indeed, so devoted was Antonio, that when Lorenzo the Magnificent was stabbed in the cathedral on the occasion of the conspiracy of the Pazzi he sucked the wound, fearing the dagger might have been poisoned. One of Lorenzo Ridolfi’s grandsons, Giovan Battista, was a gallant soldier, who fought against Bentivoglio and took him prisoner at Faenza. He was elected Gonfalonier of Justice for life after Piero Soderini, and opposed the return of the exiled Piero de’ Medici, whilst another, Niccolò, lost his head in 1497 for conspiring with Bernardo del Nero for his recall. Niccolò bought the palace in the Via Maggio, which still belongs to the Ridolfi, from the powerful family of the Corbinelli. The architect is unknown, but it is evidently of the XIVth century, with its large windows and fine doorway. The graffite on the façade are of course of a later date. All Niccolò’s possessions were confiscated when he was beheaded. But on the return of the Medici to power the estates were given back to his son Piero, husband of Contessina, daughter of Lorenzo the Magnificent, whilst the youngest, Niccolò, was made a Cardinal at twelve years of age, and became Archbishop of Florence at nineteen. He lived chiefly at Orvieto, where he kept up a princely establishment, and being intensely hostile to the Duke Alessandro de’ Medici, his house was the refuge of all the Florentine exiles. During the conclave of 1550 he died; poisoned, it was said, by the orders of Cosimo I., who feared he might be elected Pope.
Roberto Ridolfi, head of the banking-house in London, allowed his religious zeal to get the better of his discretion. He conspired in favour of Mary Queen of Scots, and was imprisoned in the Tower of London, but contrived to escape and took refuge in Rome.
Attached to the Ridolfi palace is another of the XVIth century, which was built on the site of two houses also belonging to the Corbinelli. Bought by the Sangaletti in 1583, they were soon afterwards sold to the Zanchini Da Castiglionichio, who threw them into one, employing, it is said, Santi di Tito as their architect. The courtyard is of pure XVth century design, and was probably incorporated with the new palace by the Zanchini, whose arms are still to be seen on the corner of the palace. Marchese Cosimo Ridolfi bought it in 1843, and added it to his own.