Florence

by Christopher Hibbert

  4. Donatello's Judith Slaying Holofernes (c. 1460) was removed from the Medici Palace by order of the Signoria after the flight of the Medici in 1494 and set up on the ringhiera at the PALAZZO DELLA SIGNORIA with an inscription on its base to the effect that it had been placed there as a warning to all tyrants: ‘Exemplum. Sal[utis]. Pub[licae]. Cives. Pos[uere]. MCCCCXCV.’ A copy now stands in front of the Palazzo. The original is on display inside, in the Sala dei Gigli.

  5. For a description of this cycle of murals see Chapter 5, note 15.

  6. Among the works Filippo Lippi painted while living at the PALAZZO MEDICI were the Coronation of the Virgin for the church of SANT' AMBROGIO and, perhaps, the Annunciation altar-piece in the Martelli Chapel at SAN LORENZO. His later Virgin and Child with Saints Cosmas, Damian, Francis and Anthony of Padua, commissioned by the Medici and painted for the Noviziata at SANTA CROCE, is, now, together with several others of his works, in the UFFIZI, though the Nativity altarpiece, which used to be in the chapel of the Palazzo Medici, is now in Berlin and has been replaced by a copy. His Annunciation, now in the National Gallery in London (in which can be seen Cosimo's device of three feathers within a ring) and his Seven Saints (two of whom are once again Cosmas and Damian), also in the National Gallery, were commissioned by Cosimo in 1448 and probably served as bed heads in the Medici Palace.

  7. Other frescoes at SAN MARCO have been attributed to Zanobi Strozzi and Benozzo Gozzoli. The portrait of Savonarola in the prior's rooms is by Fra Bartolommeo.

  CHAPTER 9 (pages 97–108)

  1. The Palazzo Strozzi is bounded on three of its massive sides by the Via Tornabuoni, Via Strozzi and the little Piazza Strozzi. Its portals, one in each façade, are placed directly under the middle of the nine windows on the first and second floors. Originally, it was planned as a free-standing block with gardens laid out to Via Porta Rossa. It was more or less complete by 1536; but lack of funds left Cronaca's great overhanging cornice unfinished. The spacious rectangular courtyard, with its open ground-floor

  Palazzo Strozzi

  loggia, is one of the finest in the city. The palace now houses Giuliano da Maiano's original model for the building in a small museum. A lending library, the Gabinetto Viesseux, is housed on the ground floor. There are two Strozzi Chapels in SANTA MARIA NOVELLA. The Cappella di Filippo Strozzi, next to the sanctuary, has frescoes by Filippino Lippi, who also designed the stained-glass window. Filippo Strozzi's tomb was carved by Benedetto da Maiano. A party of young people meet here during the Black Death in Boccaccio's Decameron. The Cappella Strozzi is at the end of the north transept. It has frescoes by Nardo di Cione. The altarpiece of Christ Giving the Keys to St Peter is by Nardo diCione's brother, Andrea di Cione, known as Orcagna. Together they designed the stained-glass windows.

  2. The Palazzo Grifoni, now the Palazzo Riccardi-Mannelli, is in the PIAZZA SANTISSIMA ANNUNZIATA. Ammannati, Giuliano di Baccio d'Agnolo, Buontalenti and Giambologna all seem to have had a hand in its design. It was built in 1557–63 for Ugolino Grifoni, one of the Grand Duke Cosimo I's secretaries. It is now occupied by the Presidente della Regione Toscana.

  3. The Palazzo Ricasoli, No. 2 Piazza Goldoni, has been doubtfully attributed to Michelozzo. Begun in about 1480, it was finished much later. The statue of Goldoni in the piazza opposite is by Ulisse Cambi (1873). The sixteenth-century Palazzo Ricasoli-Firidolfi is at No. 7 VIA MAGGIO.

  4. The Palazzo Rucellai, on the corner of Via del Palchetti and Via della Vigna Nuova, was begun some time after 1446, and finished by Bernardo Rossellino for Giovanni Rucellai, author of Zibaldone. It was the first palace in Florence to apply the revived classical orders to a façade, but, although the superimposed pilasters and capitals became a commonplace in church architecture, the novelty did not catch on in other palaces.

  5. The late-fourteenth-century Palazzo Alberti is in Corso dei Tintori, which takes its name from the dyers' workshops which were estab-ished here from the thirteenth century. Further down the street is the Palazzo Spinelli, with graffiti decoration on the façade, which was built in the 1460s. Giorgio Vasari lived in the nearby Casa Morra.

  6. Palazzo Bartolini-Salimbeni (Palazzo Torrigiani), No. 1 Via delle Terme, was built in the 1520s by Giuliano di Baccio d'Agnolo for Giovanni Salimbeni. It was the first palace in the centre of Florence to be built entirely in High Renaissance style. It became the Hôtel du Nord in 1839 and was a favourite haunt of Americans: Herman Melville, James Russell Lowell and Ralph Waldo Emerson all stayed here. It is now mostly used as offices. The Bartolini-Salimbeni Chapel is in SANTA TRINITA.

  7. The statue of the Madonna and Child in the Cappella Rucellai in SANTA MARIA NOVELLA is by Nino Pisano, the bronze tomb plate of Francesco Lionardo Dati by Ghiberti. Duccio's Madonna, which used to be here, is now in the UFFIZI.

  8. The Cappella Rucellai (the Cappella di San Sepolcro) was built in 1467 by Alberti. The model of the Sanctuary of the Holy Sepulchre was based on measurements which Giovanni Rucellai had specially taken for him in Jerusalem. Bernardo Rucellai, who was married to Nannina de' Medici, Lorenzo il Magnifico's sister, arranged a sculpture gallery in the Orti Oricellari, Via Bernardo Rucellai. The Palazzo degliOrti Oricellari, formerly the Palazzo Ginori-Venturi, was sold to Bianca Cappello in 1573.

  9. The church of San Pancrazio, founded in the tenth century, was deconsecrated in 1809; and, having been used as a cigarette factory, is now a museum of sculptures by Marino Marini, who left them to Florence.

  10. No documentary evidence has come to light to support the traditional and generally undisputed attribution of the Pazzi Chapel to Brunelleschi. In exchange for burial rights, Andrea de' Pazzi commissioned the chapel as the chapter house for the Franciscan monks of SANTA CROCE – although no family members are buried here – and construction, based on designs of a simple square and circles, began in the 1430s. The interior is, for the period, uncharacteristically plain: twelve terracotta roundels, perhaps from Luca della Robbia's workshop, representing the Apostles, decorate the walls between the superimposed pilasters. The roundels in the frieze are probably by Desiderio da Settignano; while the four tondi of the Evangelists in the pendentives are attributed to Brunelleschi himself by some scholars, to Donatello by others. The ornate entrance door was carved by Giuliano da Maiano after Brunelleschi's death. It is highly unlikely that its appearance is as the architect would have wished, being somewhat out of keeping with the reticent interior. The portico, with enamelled terracotta decoration by Luca della Robbia, is probably also by Giuliano da Maiano.

  Pazzi Chapel Santa Croce

  11. Work on the Palazzo Pazzi-Quaratesi, No. 10 VIA DEL PROCONSOLO, may have begun as early as 1458 but it seems that the family did not move into the palace until 1478. The architect was evidently charged with designing the monumental façade deliberately to rival the PALAZZO MEDICI. There were small high windows in the heavily rusticated ground floor, all giving the traditional impression of fortress-like strength. The larger lower windows are a later addition. This suggestion of impregnability was emphasized by the fact that there was only one door on Via del Proconsolo which opened into the courtyard. The courtyard columns are without precedent in medieval or Renaissance Tuscany. According to Professor Andres, ‘they refer to late Roman examples, when traditional Greek and Hellenistic prototypes were abandoned in favour of inventive combinations of figures and vegetation’. The palace was once attributed to Brunelleschi; and certainly the architect must have had the PALAZZO DI PARTE GUELFA in mind when he placed oculi above the high round-arched windows in the smooth stucco of the upper floors. Giuliano da Maiano worked on the building, helped by his brother, Benedetto, as well, it seems, as Giuliano da Sangallo. Grand shields bearing dolphins, the Pazzi emblem, can be seen both in the vestibule and on the façade on the corner of Via del Proconsolo and Via degli Albizzi.

  The Convent of Santa Maria Maddalena dei Pazzi is dedicated to a member of the family, a Florentine Carmelite nun who was canonized in 1669. A Cistercian foundation, it was taken
over by the Carmelites and is now occupied by French Augustinians. The early-sixteenth-century Cappella del Giglio was frescoed by Bernardino Poccetti and his workshop. The cloister, completed in 1492, is by Giuliano da Sangallo. The Baroque choir chapel in the church (1675) is by Cirro Ferri and Pier Francesco Silvani. The well-preserved fresco, the Crucifixion and Saints, in the chapter house is by Perugino.

  12. The Palazzo Gondi, No. 2 Piazza San Firenze, was begun about 1490 by Giuliano da Sangallo. The first occupants moved in eight years later, although the building as it exists now was not completed until the nineteenth century, when the street between it and the PALAZZO VECCHIO, the Via dei Gondi, was widened, entailing the demolition of part of the palace. The façade on the Via dei Gondi was designed by Guiseppe Poggi in the late nineteenth century.

  The Gondi Chapel is in SANTA MARIA NOVELLA. It contains a wooden crucifix by Brunelleschi, which traditionally is the one described by Vasari, who said that Donatello had challenged the architect to make it, having been ridiculed for his version in the Bardi Chapel of SANTA CROCE Vasari describes how Brunelleschi then invited Donatello to supper and showed him his crucifix. So impressed was Donatello that he dropped the eggs he was carrying in his apron. The chapel was decorated in marble by Giuliano da Sangallo.

  Opposite the Palazzo Gondi, the buildings as San Firenze, one of the best examples of Florentine Baroque, were erected in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries by the Oratorian Fathers as their headquarters in the city.

  On the left is the church of San Filippo Neri, which stands on the site of an old oratory dedicated to San Fiorenzo. This was designed by Gherardo and Pier Francesco Silvani, with a façade of 1715 by Ferdinando Ruggieri. The church on the right, Sant'Apollinare (now suppressed), was designed by Francesco Zanobidel Rosso; this, too, has a façade by Ruggieri. The building in the centre (now the law courts, which extend into the former Sant‘Apollinare), 1772–5, is also by Francesco Zanobi del Rosso.

  13. The Villa of Poggio a Caiano was rebuilt by Giuliano da Sangallo for Lorenzo de' Medici, who had bought it from the Strozzi in 1479. The remains of Filippino Lippi's fresco on the façade can still be seen inside the loggia. The enamelled terracotta frieze, attributed to Andrea del Sansovino, which also once decorated the façade, is now inside, in the theatre. This was built for Cosimo III's wife, Marguerite-Louise. The frescoes in the salone on the first floor by Franciabigio and Andrea del Sarto were completed by Alessandro Allori. The lunette of the Etruscan god Vertumnus and his lover, Pomona, goddess of gardens, is by Pontormo. The villa was the favourite country retreat of several of the Medici family and their successors, and was also used for receptions. The Emperor Charles V was entertained here in 1536; Montaigne in 1581; Bianca Cappello died here in 1587. The house and its surrounding garden and park were presented to the nation by Victor Emmanuel III in 1912. After restoration the villa was reopened to the public in 1986.

  14. The long façade of the Pitti Palace overlooks the sloping Piazza dei Pitti. Some historians, taking their lead from Vasari, believe that it was Brunelleschi's plan for the PALAZZO MEDICI, rejected by Cosimo de' Medici, which the arrogant Luca Pitti used for his own palace, on which construction began in 1458. Originally it consisted only of the seven heavily rusticated central bays. The palace was unfinished by 1472, Luca having fallen out with the Medici and into penury. Eleonora di Toledo bought the palace in 1549 and charged Ammannati with enlarging it, making it one of the biggest palaces in Europe. Ammannati also designed the splendid Mannerist courtyard which overlooks the gardens. Vasari connected the palace to the UFFIZI by means of the CORRIDOIO VASARIANO, which now houses the Medici's famous collection of self-portraits. The curving wings which partially enclose the piazza were added to the south side in the late eighteenth century, and to the north in the early nineteenth. The royal family used the palace until 1919, when Victor Emmanuel gave it to the state.

  The palace now houses a vast collection of works of art, largely those acquired by the seventeenth-century Medici Grand Dukes. It was

  Pitti Palace, garden front

  opened to the public in 1833, and the state acquired it in 1911. There are six museums: the MUSEO DEGLI ARGENTI, the Galleria Palatina, the Galleria d'Arte Moderna, the Collezione Contini-Bonacossi, the Museo delle Carrozze (the coach museum), and the Appartamenti Monumentali (the Royal Apartments). The last is closed indefinitely. The Galleria Palatina contains works by Titian, Rubens, Raphael, Botticelli, Fra Filippo Lippi, Caravaggio and many Flemish artists, among others. The Contini-Bonacossi Collection contains earlier Italian works, and works by Goya, El Greco, and Velasquez. The Galleria d'Arte Moderna is devoted almost exclusively to nineteenth- and twentieth-century Italian painters, but there are two landscapes by Pisarro.

  15. Since SAN LORENZO is the basilica of St Ambrose and contains many martyrs' relics beneath the altar, the Church's rules did not allow the body to be buried in the nave immediately below the memorial. So it was placed in the vault; but, so as to join the tomb to the porphyry and serpentine memorial, a massive stone pillar, eight feet square, was placed between them. On this pillar are the words: ‘Piero has placed this here to the memory of his father.’

  CHAPTER 10 (pages 109–30)

  1. Diotisalvi Neroni lived at Palazzo Neroni (now Donati), No. 7 Via de' Ginori. Other palaces in this street include Palazzo Barbalani di Montauto, No. 9, with windows on the ground floor attributed to Ammannati; Palazzo Ginori, No. 11, attributed to Baccio d'Agnolo, the architect of No. 15, Palazzo Taddei, which was built for the merchant of that name who commissioned the Royal Academy's tondo from Michelangelo. Raphael stayed here in 1505.

  2. This bust is in the BARGELLO. Mino da Fiesole lived at No. 7 Via Pietrapiana.

  3. Giovanni Tornabuoni, Lucrezia's brother, acquired the patronage of the Cappella Maggiore at SANTA MARIA NOVELLA from the Ricci and Tornaquinci. It was he who commissioned the murals here from Ghirlandaio. Lucrezia is represented as the third female figure on the right in the Birth of the Baptist. Portraits of her brother and sister-in-law, Francesca Pitti, the donors, are on the altar wall. The murals present a vivid picture of contemporary Florentine life. Ghirlandaio also designed the stained glass in the lancet windows. The choir stalls are by Vasari.

  4. Some of Luca della Robbia's glazed terracotta decorations made for Piero de' Medici's study are now in the Victoria and Albert Museum.

  5. One of the panels of Uccello's Rout of San Romano is in the UFFIZI, another in the Louvre, the third in the National Gallery.

  6. Although the pretty young man in blue near the front of the procession riding a prancing horse on which a leopard also sits is usually identified as Giuliano de' Medici, it has been suggested that Gozzoli may have intended by way of a pleasant joke to represent the fearsome and cruel Castruccio Castracani degli Antelminelli, lord of Lucca, one of Florence's most powerful enemies in the fourteenth century. The leopard was the symbol of the Castracani.

  7. Both Botticelli's Primavera and his Birth of Venus are now in the UFFIZI.

  8. This portrait of a lady in a brown dress, now in the PITTI PALACE, was formerly believed to represent either Clarice Orsini or Simonetta Vespucci, but is now thought more likely to be Fioretta Gorini, mistress of Giuliano de' Medici and mother of Giulio, later Pope Clement VII.

  9. Botticelli appears to have introduced both Piero de' Medici's sons, Lorenzo and Giuliano, in the Madonna of the Magnificat, as angels kneeling before the Madonna, Giuliano in the saffron dress with the curl falling over his brow. The picture is now in the UFFIZI.

  10. The man on his knees in the foreground has been identified as Piero de' Medici; the king holding out his hands to the child as Cosimo il Vecchio; the arrogant figure on the left as Lorenzo; and the man in the red hat talking to him as Giovanni Pico della Mirandola. Between these last two is Angelo Poliziano and behind them Gaspare di Zanobi del Lama, who commissioned the picture. Among the figures on the right are Giovanni and Giuliano de' Medici, Filippo Strozzi and Lorenzo Tornabu
oni.

  11. The portrait, now in the UFFIZI, is conceivably of Botticelli's brother, Antonio, who was known to cast medals for the Medici.

  12. Piazza Santa Croce had been used for such spectacles as this since the fourteenth century. The Palazzo dell'Antella, at No. 2, was built by Giulio Parigi. The Palazzo Serristori (now Cocchi) opposite the church has been attributed to Giuliano da Sangallo.

  13. The portraits of Federigo da Montefeltro and his wife, Battista Sforza, are in the UFFIZI.

  14. The tabernacle commissioned by Piero at SAN MINIATO AL MONTE is in the Cappella del Crocifisso; the one at SANTISSIMA ANNUNZIATA was designed by Pagno di Lapo Portigiani.

  15. The treasures which so delighted Piero formed the basis of the collection called the Museo degli Argenti, now housed in the former state rooms of the Grand Dukes in the PITTI PALACE. Piero's descendants added to the collection. Here can be seen works in pietre dure, crystal, ivory and many other materials, as well as Lorenzo de' Medici's collection of vases, some classical. On the walls in the first room are seventeenth-century allegorical paintings of the Medici dynasty, notably by Giovanni da San Giovanni.

  CHAPTER 11 (pages 131–5)

  1. Santi Apostoli stands in the tiny PIAZZA DEL LIMBO, which was named after the former burial ground of unbaptized babies. Although legend ascribes the church's foundation to Charlemagne, it was probably built in the eleventh century. It has been restored many times, most recently in 1938; but its façade largely retains its original Romanesque features, apart from the sixteenth-century portal, which is possibly by Benedetto da Rovezzano. Nor has the interior, which follows the early Christian basilican plan, been greatly altered. It has a painted wooden ceiling and green marble columns and capitals, two of which are thought to come from Roman baths. Works of