This was the famous Ciompi revolt, which but for the level head and strong will of Michele di Lando, a poor wool carder, whose father sold earthenware pots and pans, would have overthrown all law and order in Florence. When the mob invaded the Palazzo de’ Priori, Michele, who, according to an old chronicler, “was without stockings and had but little on, held the banner of Justice aloft and turned to the crowd asking what they intended to do. With one voice they saluted him as Gonfalonier and Lord of Florence. He accepted the office, and to put an end to robbery and arson ordered the erection of a gallows and threatened all disturbers of the peace.... Creating new magistrates, four chosen from the popolo minuto, two from the major Guilds, and two from the minor, he dismissed the Dieci di Guerra; so that for eighteen hours Michele may be said to have been absolute master of Florence. Thinking that the new Gonfalonier favoured the popolani nobili at their expense, the mob returned to the piazza shouting and rioting; not being listened to they went to Sta. Maria Novella and created eight magistrates with consuls, so that the majesty of Government was divided in two. But Michele di Lando would not suffer such arrogance; with the weapon he had in his belt he severely wounded the members of the deputation who had come to announce that he had been superseded, and mounting a horse he took armed men and beat the rebels, thus remaining in peaceful possession of his dignity.” Machiavelli, in his narrative of the Ciompi riots bears eloquent testimony to the poor wool carder. “The riots were put down solely by the energy of the Gonfalonier, who far surpassed all other citizens of that time in courage, prudence, and goodness; he deserved to be named among those who have been benefactors of their country.”
In September, 1433, the Piazza della Signoria was once more invaded by an angry crowd of popolani. Their benefactor and favourite, Cosimo de’ Medici, had been treacherously seized and imprisoned in the small, dark Alberghettina, or Barberia, in the tower of the palace, and they feared the Signoria would make away with him. The great bell rang to summon a parliament, and it is said that Cosimo heard the crowd below debating as to his fate. For some days he refused all food fearing poison. He appears to have had grounds for suspicion, as it is said that the Captain of the Guard, Federigo de’ Malavolti of Siena, had been asked to do away with him. He not only refused, but warned his prisoner, and to prove his good faith tasted everything that was placed before Cosimo, and thus induced him to eat. Machiavelli relates that one evening Malavolti brought a facetious and pleasant fellow, a friend of the Gonfalonier, surnamed il Fargonaccio, to supper to amuse Cosimo, and then left them alone together. Cosimo, knowing the man he had to deal with, gave him a token for the governor of the hospital of Sta. Maria Nuova, who on receiving it was to give him 1100 ducats, 100 for himself, and 1000 for the Gonfalonier. Cosimo in his diary remarks: “They were people of small intelligence, for I would have given them 10,000 or more to escape from peril.”
Thanks to the Gonfalonier and the many friends Cosimo had in the city and outside, he escaped with his life; but was condemned to exile for ten years. He was recalled a year later and received with all honour by the Signoria in the very palace in which he had been imprisoned. With him came his friend and favourite architect, Michelozzo Michelozzi, who had gone with him to Venice, and built there by his orders the library of S. Giorgio Maggiore. To him was given the task of restoring the noble old Palazzo de’ Priori, which showed signs of collapsing. Vasari in his life of Michelozzi states that, “several columns in the courtyard had suffered; either on account of the great weight they had to bear, or that the foundations were weak and insufficient, or because they were ill-built and the stones badly joined.... Michelozzi made new foundations and rebuilt the columns as they now are, having first put strong, upright beams of thick wood to support the curves of the arches, with three-inch boards of walnut under the vaults, so that the weight which had rested on the columns was evenly distributed and sustained; and little by little he took those down which had been badly put together and rebuilt them with well-wrought stone, in such guise that the building suffered no harm and has never moved a hairsbreadth. And in order to distinguish his columns from the others, he made the octangular ones in the corners with leaves on the capitals sculptured in the modern fashion, and some circular ones which can be well distinguished from the old ones made by Arnolfo. Afterwards, by the advice of Michelozzi, the ruler of the city ordered that the weight resting on the arches of the columns should be diminished, that the courtyard be rebuilt from the arches upwards, and that windows of a modern order, like those he had designed for Cosimo in the courtyard of the Medici palace, should be made, and the walls ornamented a sgraffio, with the golden lilies which are still to be seen. All this Michelozzi did with extreme rapidity, fashioning circular windows, different from the others, above the windows of the second floor in the said courtyard, to give light to some rooms above, where now is the Hall of the Two Hundred. The third floor, where the Priors and the Gonfalonier lived, he made more ornate, and arranged rooms for the Priors on the side looking towards S. Piero Scheraggio; till then they had slept all together in one room. Eight rooms were made for the Priors, and a larger one for the Gonfalonier, all leading out of a passage with windows on the courtyard, and above these he made another set of convenient rooms for the servants of the palace ... also rooms for the office and house servants, trumpeters, pifferi, mace-bearers, and heralds, and various others necessary for such a palace. He also made a stone cornice surrounding the courtyard above the alur, and there he arranged a tank for rain water, in order to feed provisional fountains when needed. Michelozzi also adorned the chapel where mass was said, and made very rich ceilings, painted with golden lilies on an azure ground, to many rooms near it, and in those above and below in the palace he made new ceilings, covering all the old ones, which were according to ancient fashion.... Only one thing the genius of Michelozzi could not overcome, and that was the public staircase, which was badly designed, built in the wrong place and most inconvenient, being steep and dark, and made of wood from the first floor upwards. Still he worked to such purpose that at the entrance to the courtyard he made an approach of circular steps and a door with pilasters of stone, whose beautiful capitals he sculptured with his own hand, a cornice with double architraves of good design, and in the frieze were the various arms of the Commune. He also made stone stairs up to the floor where the Priors lived, and fortified them at the top and in the middle with portcullises in case of tumults: and at the top of the staircase he made a door which was called la catena, or ‘the barred,’ where one of the servants of the magistrates always stood to shut or to open it, according to the orders of the master. The tower, which had cracked owing to the weight of that part which rests obliquely, that is to say on the corbels overlooking the Piazza, he fortified with huge bands of iron. In short he improved and restored the palace in such a way that the whole city praised him, and in addition to other rewards he was appointed to be one of the ‘Collegio,’ magistrates whose office is of the most honourable in Florence. If I seem to have been too prolix in all this it must be excused, because having told, in the Life of Arnolfo, how the palace was first built in 1298, crooked, lacking every rational measurement, with columns in the courtyard that did not match, large and small arches, inconvenient stairs, and dark and ill-proportioned rooms, it was fitting that I should point but how it was changed by the genius and judgment of Michelozzi.”
About the same time the Ten of Balìa, considerato defectu et penuria presentis Palatii circa pannos darazza et circa gausape seu tovaglias et argentum seu vasa argentea, et quod multum condecens esset in hujus modi tali Palatio, voted two thousand golden florins for refurnishing the palace, and also commissioned Neri di Bicci to paint and gild the tabernacle in which the celebrated Pandects of Justinian were kept. Neri thus describes his work: “I undertook to paint and gild for fiorini 56 a tabernacle of wood made according to ancient fashion, at each side were columns, above was an architrave, a frieze, a cornice and a lunette, and below the base was all of fine gold. In the picture of the said tabernacle I painted Moses and the four animals of the Evangelists, and in the lunette S. John the Baptist; round Moses and the animals I put golden lilies, and inside was the picture, which is to be the front of the cupboard where the Pandects, and another book which came from Constantinople, and certain other most rare things of the Florentine people, are kept, and it is to stand in the Hall of Audience of the Signori.”
In 1441 the old palace was soiled by the blood of Baldaccio d’Anghiari, a gallant soldier in the service of the Republic, and an intimate friend of Neri Capponi. Therefore Cosimo de’ Medici and all his party hated him, and according to Machiavelli, decided to do away with a man whom it was dangerous to keep, and still more dangerous to dismiss. The Gonfalonier of Justice at that moment was Bartolomeo Orlandini, a man devoted to Cosimo with a personal grudge against Baldaccio, who had openly accused him of rank cowardice at Marradi, where he fled and left the pass open and undefended. One of the principal actors in this cold-blooded murder, Francesco di Tommaso Giovanni, describes the scene in his diary much as a sportsman would tell how he shot a stag. “On Tuesday evening, the 5th September, being in the audience chamber after supper, all of us save Cante (Compagni, one of the Priors), with cautious words agreed to do whatever appeared good to the Gonfalonier; the allusions to Baldaccio were manifest, but his name was not mentioned because during the day many of us had talked of doing a thing, and of him, in such manner that we all understood. So on Wednesday the 6th, having called the cavalier and eight soldiers of the Captain of Florence, and shut them into my room, the Gonfalonier sent for the said Baldaccio, who was in the Piazza, and he came in about an hour’s time. He and the Gonfalonier being alone in the passage between the rooms, we caused the soldiers to come into the small chamber, and I stood at the end of the passage pretending to read letters. When the Gonfalonier made me a sign I signalled to the soldiers, who instantly threw him down and bound him as I had commanded. Now Baldaccio, in the attempt to defend himself and to attack the Gonfalonier, wounded one of the men; the others, to save themselves, wounded him, and then by order of the Gonfalonier threw him into the Captain’s courtyard below, and struck off his head on the doorstep. The people showed their satisfaction and praised the deed; but afterwards, as it had displeased some, they blamed it; however, in the end it was acknowledged to have been an excellent thing.” One of the people who was “displeased” was Pope Eugenius IV., who had taken Baldaccio into his service the day before he was murdered, and who left Florence in an angry mood.
In 1452, when the members of all the major and minor Guilds were admitted to sit in the great council, the Hall, or Sala de’ Dugento, was declared to be too small, but seventeen years passed without any decision being taken. It was then determined to use certain moneys “the Jew Isahac owes to the Monte, or public pawnshop, for rebuilding the Council Hall in the Palace of our Magnificent Signori.” This second decision also came to nought, as the money of Isahac went to rebuild the walls and castle of Castrocaro. At last, in 1472, Giuliano di Nardo da Majano and Francesco di Giovanni, alias Francione, were charged to do the work. Vasari attributes it to Benedetto da Majano, and in his life of that artist gives a long description of how he rebuilt the Sala de’ Dugento, and made two rooms above it; one called the Clock Room, because in it was a clock made by that excellent mechanician Lorenzo della Volpaia, the other the Audience Hall, with the triumph of Camillus painted by Salviati, while Domenico and Giuliano, brothers of Benedetto, made the ceilings. The marble door was sculptured by Benedetto himself, who “made a figure of Justice seated, with the sphere of the world in one hand and a sword in the other, and round the arch is written, Diligete justitiam qui judicatis terram.” The outer door of the Audience Hall was, according to tradition, a beautiful work. But nothing remains of Benedetto’s boys holding up festoons of flowers. Only the statue of the youthful S. John, which stood in the centre, is now in the National Museum in the Bargello. Vasari also attributes to Benedetto the wonderful intarsia doors, with Dante on one side and Petrarch on the other; but the archives show them to be the work of his brother Giuliano, and of Francione. The old Palazzo de’ Signori was decorated in a strange and horrible manner in 1478, when, in consequence of the Pazzi conspiracy, an Archbishop and several nobles, with priests, men-at-arms and serving-men, were hung round the outside from the columns of the windows. Filippo Strozzi was in the cathedral when the attempt to murder the Medici brothers was made, and has left a vivid account of what he saw. “I note a terrible event which happened in our city of Florence on the 26th April, 1478, a Sunday morning. The Very Reverend Messer Raffaello da Saona, Cardinal of S. Giorgio, nephew of Count Girolamo, a youth of about nineteen or twenty, had been at Montughi for about two months in the house of Messer Jacopo de’ Pazzi. He had lately received the cardinal’s hat at Pisa, and his chief adviser was Messer Francesco Salviati the Archbishop of Pisa. He, with others, instigated Lorenzo de’ Medici to invite him, and he did so for the said Sunday, and Messer Marino, ambassador of King Ferrando, Messer Filippo Sagramoro, orator of the Duke of Milan, Messer Niccolò of Ferrara, and six or seven cavaliers were asked to meet him. The said Cardinal was in Sta. Maria del Fiore at mass, and at the words missa este, Ser Stefano da Bagnone, secretary of Messer Jacopo de’ Pazzi, and Messer Marco Maffei of Volterra, with some armed followers, assaulted Lorenzo de’ Medici; while Francesco de’ Pazzi and Bernardo Bandini fell upon Giuliano, as both were walking round the choir. Lorenzo saw them, drew his weapon, and jumped into the choir. Passing in front of the altar, he entered the new sacristy and ordered the door to be bolted. There he remained until aid came from his house, and he only had a wound in the neck, which healed in a few days. Giuliano, assailed by both Francesco de’ Pazzi and Bernardo Bandini, fled into the choir, and in front of the chapel of the Cross received ten or twelve such blows that he fell to the ground dead; they also gave two blows to Francesco Nori, who was beside Giuliano, and killed him. Then arose a great tumult in the church. Messer Bongianni and the other cavaliers with whom I was talking were all stupefied; one fled here, the other there, loud shouts filled the church, and one saw arms in the hands of the adherents of the Pazzi, who made common cause with them. The Cardinal remained all alone by the side of the altar until he was conducted by the priests into the old sacristy, whence he was fetched away by two of the Eight, with a strong guard, and taken to the Palazzo de’ Priori. During the time all this was happening, the Archbishop of Pisa had gone to the Palazzo under pretence of visiting the Signoria, and hearing the tumult he tried to seize the palace. With him were Jacopo his brother, Jacopo di Jacopo Salviati, Jacopo di Messer Poggio, Perugini and others. The Signori and their guards defended themselves and rang the great bell to call the people to arms, and the citizens rushed into the Piazza and forced open the door of the palace, which had been bolted on the inside, and took them all. The instigators of all this are said to have been Francesco de’ Pazzi and the Archbishop of Pisa, together with Count Girolamo, the Pope’s nephew, and Messer Jacopo de’ Pazzi. The latter was in Sta. Maria del Fiori in the morning with armed followers, and as soon as the deed was done he returned home, and with some of his nephews and friends went into the Piazza shouting ‘Liberty.’ When he came to the door of the palace he was warned by those on the battlements to withdraw, or stones would be hurled on him. Seeing that the palace had not been taken, he returned straight to his house, and with his followers mounted on horseback rode to the gate of Sta. Croce. Taking the keys from the citizen who kept them, he opened the gate and set his people as guards, and then again returned to his house, where he remained for about two hours. Finding the city was quiet, and that all the armed popolani were either at Lorenzo’s house or in the Piazza, he decided to depart, and left by that same gate with nigh two hundred men. On the same day the Signoria hung from the windows of the palace the Archbishop of Pisa, Jacopo di Messer Poggio, and others of good birth, such as Jacopo, Jacopo Salviati, and several of his friends, and the servants of the Cardinal, who had gone with him to the palace. They also hung Francesco d’Antonio de’ Pazzi, who was taken in his own house. On Tuesday Messere Jacopo and Renato de’ Pazzi were hung, and Ferugini and many others were killed in the palace at the foot of the staircase. About eighty were killed either in the Palazzo or in the Palazzo del Podestà....”
A great name is associated with this old Florentine palace—that of Savonarola. When in July, 1495, he preached a farewell sermon in the Duomo, in the presence of the Signoria and all the magistrates, he said: “I have preached to you four things, the fear of God, peace, the common weal, and the reform of Government, that is to say, the Great Council.... Accelerate the construction of the Hall of Council by every means in your power; take, if necessary, the workmen from the Duomo, for their labour will thus be more acceptable to God. Insist on this Council, ameliorate it, correct it and let it be the one hope, the one power of the people.” He preached to willing ears, for Francesco di Domenico, carpenter, and Simone del Pollaiuolo, had already been chosen by the Operai of the Palazzo as master-builders. Vasari, who afterwards re-arranged the great Sala de’ Cinquecento as we now see it, states that it having been determined “according to the desire of Fra Jeronimo Savonarola, then a famous preacher, to build the great Hall of Council in the Palazzo della Signoria of Florence, counsel was taken of Lionardo da Vinci, of Michelagnolo Buonarroti, though he was but a youth, of Giuliano da San Gallo, of Bacio d’Agnolo and of Simone del Pollaiuolo, surnamed Cronaca, a great friend and follower of Savonarola. After much dispute they collectively ordered the hall should be built as it remained until almost entirely remodelled in our day. The work was entrusted to Cronaca as a competent man, and moreover a friend of the said Fra Jeronimo; he did it with great celerity and diligence, showing especial cleverness in building the roof, for the edifice was immense....” After describing how Cronaca overcame all the difficulties, and praising him, Vasari condemns the hall as being “without light, and in comparison with its great length and breadth, dwarfed, and far too low, in short it is all out of proportion.” At first the work went slowly, but after Savonarola’s return from Rome, Cronaca displayed such zeal and energy that the hall was nearly finished early in 1496; indeed the building made such extraordinary progress that it was commonly said that angels had helped him.
The following year the Signori looked down from the windows of the old palace upon the bonfires, in the Piazza, of “vanities and obscenities,” as playing cards, masks and dominoes, drawings, pictures, illustrated books and the like, were called by the partisans of Savonarola, and on the 20th August he preached before the magistrates and principal citizens in the great hall. But a few years later the friar was a prisoner in the old palace, confined in the small, dark Alberghettino where Cosimo de’ Medici had passed so many anxious weeks. On the evening of Sunday, the 8th April, 1498, he was arrested by order of the Signoria, and with his faithful Fra Domenico passed through the surging mob which once hung upon his words and now insulted, taunted and even struck him. Fra Silvestro had hidden himself when the convent was attacked and was only taken prisoner next day. In the great hall, built but a few years before by Savonarola’s advice, a few lines of the accusations against him were read in his absence, the chancellor of the “Otto” declaring to the people that he had refused to appear because he was afraid of being stoned. On the 22nd May the Apostolic Commissaries decided the fate of Fra Girolamo and his followers. Only one man, Agnolo Niccolini, raised a warning voice. “This man,” he exclaimed, “could not only give faith anew to the world, in case it died out, but also science. Keep him in prison if you will; but let him live and give him leave to write, so that the world may not lose the fruits of his genius.”
In the great hall the three friars met once more after forty days of rigorous imprisonment and horrible torture, and next morning Savonarola was allowed to say mass in the chapel and to communicate himself and his two companions before going to the stake. In the eloquent pages of Pasquale Villari’s Life of Savonarola the reader has this episode, but it must be added that the “pious women” mentioned by Luca Landucci in his Diary still have many imitators, for every year in the Piazza della Signoria there is a fiorita on the 23rd May in memory of the great friar; rose leaves are scattered, and garlands are laid, upon the place of his martyrdom, and many a poor woman kneels in prayer.
When Michelangelo’s statue of David was finished the question arose where to place it. Giuliano da San Gallo declared that “seeing the imperfections in the marble, being friable and corroded, and having been much rained upon, I do not think that it will be durable; it should therefore be put under the Loggia de’ Signori in the middle arch of the said Loggia, or under the centre of the vaulted roof so that one may walk round it; or on one side in the centre of the wall with a black niche behind it in the shape of a hood; for if it is exposed to the rain it will suffer. It ought to be covered.” Others, like Maestro Francesco, herald of the Signoria, wanted the statue to be in the open. “I have turned over in my mind,” he writes, “what my judgment suggests to me. There are two places where such a statue will do well; the first is where stands the Judith; the second is in the centre of the courtyard of the palace, in the place of the first David;[109] for the Judith is a deadly emblem and not a good thing, as we have the X for our emblem and the Lily. It is not fitting that the woman should kill the man; also she was set up under an evil constellation, for ever since we have gone from bad to worse and have lost Pisa. Then the David in the courtyard is not a perfect figure because his leg lacks symmetry. Therefore I advise putting the statue in one of these two places, but by preference where stands the Judith.” Michelangelo was of the same opinion, so his Giant, as the people called it, was set up on the ringhiera by the entrance door of the Palazzo Vecchio, and Donatello’s statue was moved to the arch of the Loggia facing the Piazza, where now stands the Rape of the Sabines. The Judith had been placed on the ringhiera in 1494 when Piero de’ Medici was driven out of Florence and his possessions, amongst them the statue, confiscated, not so much as an ornament as to warn the people to maintain their liberty and to kill tyrants, as is proved by the inscription on the pediment: Exemplum Sal. Pub. Cives posuere. MCCCCXCV.