Florentine palaces & their stories

by Janet Ross

Some months later a deputation waited on Alessandro to announce that a new form of government had been decided on, “abolishing for ever the rule of the magistrate created by the people to oppress the nobility, and decreeing that all power was to reside in the Duke and four of his noble councillors.” Segni, in his History, tells us that “Alessandro de’ Medici, accompanied by his councillors, one of whom was Filippo Strozzi, and his guard in state, attended a solemn mass in San Giovanni to give thanks to God for his Dukedom and for the new form of the Republic, and then went to the Palace. There the last Signoria, descending to the ringhiera (Giovanfrancesco de’ Nobili being the Gonfalonier, the last we had), gave him, what he already possessed, the rank of Lord and Duke and absolute Prince. And thus amid the shouts of Palle! Palle! and Duke! Duke! by the people and a salute of artillery and of fireworks which exploding all together made the whole air resound, he returned in great pomp to his house, triumphant over the murdered liberty of Florence.” As already mentioned he broke up the great bell of the Palazzo Vecchio, “no less good than beautiful,” writes Varchi, “which weighed 22,000 lbs. Some think for coining money, as it was said to have so much silver that it might serve as alloy for crazie, but this was not the case.” The Florentine merchant Davanzati records in his diary, “the bell of the Council was taken from us in order that we should no more hear the sweet sound of Liberty.”

After the murder of Duke Alessandro by his cousin Lorenzino de’ Medici in 1537, the son of Giovanni delle Bande Nere succeeded to the throne as Cosimo I. He inhabited the Medici palace in the Via Larga for five years and then took up his abode in the Palazzo de’ Signori, “where,” writes Gianbattista Adriani, “he caused the rooms which once had been those of the Priors and of the Gonfaloniers to be arranged in princely fashion ... and this he did to show that he was absolute Prince and sole head of the Government, and to disabuse those who pretended, as some had done, that the government of the city was a separate thing from that of the Medici family. Also, as it was necessary to have a guard in the Palace, the principal seat of the State, he judged it to be safer, less expensive, more dignified and more conducive to authority to live there.” The Duke evidently mistrusted his subjects and had German soldiers, Lanzknechte, as his guards. Their quarters were close to the Loggia de’ Signori, in which they lounged during the day and which ever since has been called the Loggia de’ Lanzi. Having established himself in the old palace Cosimo called in Tasso, an admirable carver in wood and a good architect,[113] and ordered him to add to it by incorporating the two fine residences of the Captain and the Executor of Justice, and a large house with a courtyard where the lions were kept, which were then sent to S. Marco. These orders were only partially carried out as will be seen later on. Tasso superintended the works besides carving the windows, doors, ceilings and cornices, while Vasari, to whom the Duke took a fancy in 1550 when he presented him with a copy of his Lives of the Painters, began to paint the rooms. For the description of all he did I must refer my readers to his own delightful book, but no wonder he remarked, after he had raised the roof of the great Hall of the Five Hundred and, aided by his pupils, frescoed it all over, rebuilt the staircases, made two floors where originally there was but one, etc. etc., that Arnolfo, Michelozzo and others, who had worked at the palace from the beginning would not recognize it and would think it was not theirs, but a new marvel and another edifice. Vasari however omits to mention that he sacrilegiously destroyed the work of Leonardo da Vinci. Mr. Berenson has kindly called my attention to a letter written in 1549 by Anton Francesco Doni to Alberto Lollio who was going to visit Florence. Doni gives him excellent advice and after mentioning the “Giant” by Michelangelo at the door of Palazzo Vecchio, etc., he continues: “mount then the stairs to the great hall and carefully consider the group of horses and men (part of a battlepiece by Leonardo da Vinci), which you will see to be a miraculous thing.”[114] So that Leonardo’s fresco was in existence when Vasari began to paint in the Palazzo Vecchio.

After the death of Tasso the whole work was confided to Vasari, whose task was rendered easier as the Court moved into the Palazzo Pitti. Bronzino was called in to decorate the Duchess’s former apartments on the second floor of the old palace. In the chapel he painted three episodes from the life of Moses and an altarpiece, which was considered so fine that the Duke sent it as a present to Granvela in Flanders, and another was painted by Bronzino, now in the Gallery of the Uffizi.

Among the rooms built by Vasari on the second floor is a large one which served as a guardaroba, with cupboards all round the walls. It bears the name of Sala del Mappamondo, from the paintings on the cupboard doors by Egnazio Danti, a Dominican friar. For eight years he worked at these curious geographical maps until, for some unknown reason, he fell into disgrace, when they were continued, but not finished, by another friar, Don Stefano Buonsignore. These fifty-three large maps are exceedingly interesting, and merit more attention than they generally receive.

For the marriage of Francesco de’ Medici to the Archduchess Joan of Austria the old palace was sumptuously decorated. Round the courtyard, in the centre of which Cosimo I. had already placed a basin of porphyry with Verrocchio’s exquisite little bronze boy throttling a dolphin, were painted views of the principal cities of Austria by pupils of Vasari in honour of the Princess. At the same time the columns were encrusted with garlands of fruit, flowers and leaves, upheld by “putti” and grotesque masks in stucco. But the greatest work Vasari did for this marriage was the corridor connecting the Palazzo Vecchio with the Palazzo Pitti. On the 12th March, 1565, Messer Tommaso de’ Medici signed a contract, in the Duke’s name, with the master-mason Bernardo d’Antonio, in which the latter promises to finish a corridor between the two palaces by September. He obliges himself “to build two arches, one above the street where is the Dogana to the wall of the church of S. Piero Scheraggio, the second above the said church; and another arch at the house of Signor Trajano Boba, servant of His Excellency; and along the Lung’Arno a corridor with arches and pilasters as far as the Ponte Vecchio, proceeding onwards above the shops and houses of the said bridge on the side looking towards the Ponte a Rubaconte, and round the tower of the house of Matteo Mannelli by means of brackets of stone. From this tower another arch, spanning the Via de’ Bardi, shall repose upon the tower of the Guelph party opposite the house of the Mannelli. The corridor is then to follow the small alley behind the houses facing the principal street, and pass above the steps of the church of Sta. Felicita, where is to be built a loggia. Thence the corridor, supported on pilasters along the whole length of the cloisters of the priests of Sta. Felicita, shall gradually descend to the level of the garden of the Pitti. The said corridor and its adjuncts are to be roofed in, the ceilings plastered, whitewashed and finished, according to the order, design and model, given from time to time by the magnificent and excellent Master Giorgio Vasari, painter and architect of the aforesaid most Illustrious Excellency. The said Messer Tommaso declaring that he binds himself to remove any and every difficulty that may be thrown in the way of the said Master Bernardo, especially by the various owners of the houses, above or by the side of which this corridor is to be built.”[115]

Agostino Lapini records in his diary that the foundations of the first pilaster of the corridor were laid on the 19th March, 1565, and that it was entirely finished by the end of November, and six years later shops were built [along the Lung’Arno] in the arches. The passage between the two galleries was only thrown open to the public in 1866; and eighteen years later, on the proposal of Prince Corsini, then Syndic of Florence, the shops under the corridor in the Via degl’Archibusieri were swept away, to the great convenience of foot-passengers and the improvement of the view.

In 1569 the ambition of Cosimo I. was gratified. Pope Pius V. bestowed upon him and his heirs the title of Grand Duke of Tuscany, and on the 13th December Don Michele Bonelli, the Pope’s nephew, presented the Papal Bull to him in the Hall of the Five Hundred in the presence of his sons, the Papal Nuncio, the ambassadors of Ferrara and Lucca, the Senate of the Forty-eight, the magistrates of the city, the knights of S. Stefano, the nobles, and the representatives of the people. A many-rayed regal crown, with a red lily, the ancient emblem of Florence, in the centre, as ordered by the Pope, was placed above the Medici arms all over the city, and Cosimo’s subjects were informed that henceforth he was to be addressed as “Highness.” Like all his race, he loved festivities and splendour, and in carnival time the old hall in the Palazzo Vecchio was the scene of many banquets to the fair ladies of Florence, followed by recitations and plays with elaborate scenic effects. After Cosimo’s marriage with Camilla Martelli he withdrew almost entirely from public life, and his son Francesco lived in the Palazzo Vecchio until he succeeded to the throne.

We hear little about the palace until it was once more decorated and embellished by Poccetti for the wedding of the Cardinal Ferdinando de’ Medici, who left the Church to ascend the throne and marry Christine of Lorraine. He added considerably to the palace on the eastern side, “where,” writes an old chronicler, “from the great door made by Tasso, carpenter and architect, as far as the corner of the said palace which is opposite to Borgo de’ Greci where one turns to go into the Piazza, there was an old and ugly curtain wall, eight or ten braccie high, so that the rooms of the palace near the said door were exposed to the view of all who passed by, and one saw balconies, terraces, little gardens and such-like. And between the said rooms and the curtain wall we have just mentioned, was a large vacant space full of rubbish, where in the time of the Signoria the lions had been kept.... Seeing all this ugliness, the Cardinal decided that the palace should have a fine and lordly façade behind as it had in front, that the number of rooms should be increased, another courtyard be made, and many other conveniences. Bernardo Buontalenti was ordered to make a design, and the work was at once begun. In a few years the handsome and rich façade we now see was finished, all of hewn stone and ‘bozzi,’ in the rustic style. It has a grand air, and contains many fine rooms, and a courtyard in the centre.”

In those days great sculptors worked even in sugar for their patrons, as when Maria de’ Medici was married by proxy to Henry IV. of France in 1600, Giovanni da Bologna modelled various figures and statues in confectionery and in sugar, which were moved by hidden mechanism. Among them was an effigy of the King of France, mounted on a charger which trotted down the table in front of the Queen. He also arranged a huge fleur-de-lis, built up of an infinite number of gold and silver cups and goblets, statues of gold and silver, vases of rock crystal, and ornaments inlaid with precious stones, in the Sala of Leo X. in the Palazzo Vecchio.

The marriage of Cosimo de’ Medici, son of the Grand Duke Ferdinando I., with the Archduchess Maria Maddalena of Austria, was celebrated with extraordinary pomp in 1607. A great banquet was given in the Hall of the Five Hundred to the Florentine nobility, of which an anonymous eyewitness has left a long description. Two hundred and forty ladies sat opposite the Princes, as “being more fair to look upon than men,” and after dinner appeared a Venus’ shell gliding forward on sham waves, which bore Zephyr, the messenger of the goddess who, stopping in front of the bride, offered her all his mistress could give. Then came the chariot of Venus drawn by black sparrows in which sat Love, who declared all he had was hers. On the raising of a curtain at the end of the hall, angels floating among clouds were seen, who chanted: