Florence

by Christopher Hibbert

  2. The Piazza Maria Antonia laid out in 1869 was the first of Florence's nineteenth-century squares. It is now the Piazza dell'Indipendenza. The statues here are of Baron Bettino Ricasoli, the statesman, who had been elected Gonfaloniere of Florence in 1848, and Ubaldino Peruzzi, Mayor of Florence in 1870. The former is by A. R. Valta (1893), the latter by Raffaello Romanelli (1897).

  3. The Pension Suisse, an inexpensive estab-lishment, was much favoured by foreigners. Dos-toevsky stayed here in 1861 before moving to No. 8 (now 22) Via Guicciardini, where he worked on The Idiot.

  4. The Casa Guidi, Piazza San Felice, was built in the late fifteenth century. It was bought by Count Camillo Guidi, the Grand Duke's Secretary of State, in 1619. The Brownings' rooms have been occupied by the Browning Institute since 1971. A painting by George Mignaty shows how they appeared in the Brownings' time. The façade of the house bears an inscription to the effect that Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote here, and died here in 1861.

  5. The villas at Bellosguardo are on the high ground to the west of the PITTI PALACE above the late-sixteenth-century church of SAN FRANCESCO DI PAOLA. The view over Florence from the Villa Brichieri-Colombi is described by Elizabeth Barrett Browning in the seventh book of Aurora Leigh. Florence Nightingale was born in 1820 at the Villa La Colombaia, now a school. The names of other celebrated people who have lived at Bellosguardo are shown on a plaque on the wall of VILLA DELL' OMBRELLINO. They include, in addition to those mentioned above, Ugo Foscolo, James Fenimore Cooper, Henry James, Franz Brentano, Hans von Bülow, Ouida, Jessie White Mario and Galileo.

  6. Henry James was talking about the fourteenth-century frescoes in the Chiostrino dei Morti at SANTA MARIA NOVELLA. These were then attributed not to Giotto di Bondoni but to Giotto di Stefano, known as Giottino.

  7. The villa of Castagnolo belonged to the Marchese Lottaringa della Stufa, who came occasionally to stay while the Rosses were living there. From here they moved to Poggio Gherardo, formerly known as Il Palagio del Poggio, the Palace on the Hill. It had come into possession of the Gherardi family in the fifteenth century. The Rosses bought it in 1888 from three old sisters, the Contesse Gherardi, the last of their line.

  8. Hildebrand bought the convent and its sur-rounding garden in 1874. He added an upper storey for his friend, Hans von Marées, the reti-cent German painter who lived in Italy for twenty years from 1864. The nearby church of San Francesco di Paola was built in 1589. Its fresco of the Madonna del Parto is by Taddeo Gaddi. The large Villa Pagani with a tower opposite the church was built in 1896.

  9. The Cimitero degli Inglesi is on a large mound in the middle of the Piazza Donatello. Opened in 1827, it was closed fifty years later when the Cimitero degli Allori in the Via Senese took its place. It is Swiss property and is officially known as the Cimitero Protestante rather than the English Cemetery, but when it was in use all foreigners were commonly known as ‘Inglesi’, whatever their nationality. Among those buried here were Arthur Hugh Clough (d. 1861); Gian Pietro Vieusseux (d. 1863); Isa Blagden (d. 1873); Frances Trollope (d. 1863); Walter Savage Landor (d. 1864); William Holman Hunt's wife, Fanny, who died at Fiesole in 1866 while her husband was at work on his Isabella and the Pot of Basil; and, as recorded on a plaque on the wall, ‘the great American preacher, Theodore Parker' (d. 1860). Robert Davidsohn, the German historian of Florence, who lived in the city for many years, was buried here in 1937. Elizabeth Barrett Browning's tomb was designed by her husband and sculpted by Lord Leighton and Luigi Giovanozzi.

  10. The Villa Fabbricotti is at No. 48 Via Vittorio Emanuele. It is now the Università per gli Stran-eri.

  11. Princess May and her parents had a suite of rooms at Paoli's Hotel, where ‘English comfort & tastes' were considered. The proprietor had been courier to Sir James Hudson. After the Duke suffered a stroke here he was taken to the Villa Stibbert (see Chapter 20, note 4). He later joined his wife and daughter at the Villa I Cedri, which is about four miles from the Porta San Niccoló Bagno a Ripoli. This villa was built in the fifteenth century for the Laroni family and was later owned by Miss Bianca Light, whose family had bought it in the 1840s.

  CHAPTER 24 (pages 277–84)

  1. The park of the VILLA PRATOLINO was bought in 1872 by the Demidoff, who built what is now known as the Villa Demidoff.

  2. The Russian Church, designed by Russian architects, was consecrated in 1904. The majolica decoration on the façade was made by the Ulisse Cantagalli workshop. Other non-Roman Catholic churches in Florence are the American Episcopalian St James's at No. 9 Via Bernardo Rucellai, a neo-Gothic building of 1911; the Lutheran Church, No. 11 Lungarno Torrigiani, built in 1899; the Greek Orthodox Church, No. 76 Viale Mattioli; and the neo-Gothic Waldensian Church, No. 26 Via Micheli, built as Holy Trinity in 1903 by G. A. Bodley and Cecil Hare on the site of an earlier Anglican church. At a Sunday service at the Anglican church in 1837 Edward Lear once found a congregation of ‘300 English, besides servants!!!!!’ The Anglican church of St Mark's is at No. 16 Via Maggio. For the synagogue, see GHETTO.

  CHAPTER 25 (pages 285–93)

  1. Lina Waterfield found premises for the British Institute's library in the Loggia dei Rucellai, which she leased from her friends Conte and Contessa Rucellai. It is attributed to Alberti. The British Institute's library, the largest English–language library in Italy, is now in the Palazzo Lanfredini on the Lungarno Guicciardini.

  2. The Villa Mirenda is next to the church of San Paolo a Mosciano.

  3. The Villa I Tatti, Via Vincigliata, probably takes its name from its sometime owners, the Zati family. It was bought in 1905 by Bérnhard Berenson, the American art historian of Lithu-anian descent and author of Italian Painters of the Renaissance (1930). He lived here for the rest of his long life, receiving innumerable visitors, who have left accounts of his remarkable scholarship, his astonishing memory and fascinating talk. Although, according to Sir Harold Nicolson, ‘he debauched his talent to make money’, he was an inspiration to younger men. He ‘resembled an Old Master, whether a Titian or an El Greco depended upon his mood,’ Sir Harold Acton has written. ‘Most art critics are limited by the exigencies of their profession, but Berenson's mind ranged far beyond it.’ Sir John Pope-Hennessy felt ‘permeated by his personality. One felt protective and affectionate and uncritical.’ However, Pope-Hennessy found the inside of I Tatti, ‘despite the presence of great works of art, a little daunting… The most unnerving feature of the house in those days [the 1930s] was its quietness. It was a temple where the prevailing silence was never, save at mealtimes, broken by a human voice.’ Berenson left the house, with its library and art collection, to Harvard University as a centre for Italian Renaissance studies. The garden was laid out by Cecil Pinsent in 1908–15.

  4. Casa Boccaccio near Poggio Gherardo was owned by Giovanni Boccaccio's father. Boc-caccio himself lived there until his stepmother persuaded her husband to move down into Florence.

  5. The Jennings-Riccioli still stands at No. 2 Lungarno delle Grazie near the BIBLIOTECA NAZIONALE.

  6. The Castello Montegufoni was bought by Sir George Sitwell in 1909, when it was occupied by almost 300 peasants. It had formerly belonged to the Acciaiuoli. ‘The roof is in splendid order,’ Sir George told his elder son in whose name he purchased it, ‘and the drains can't be wrong, asthere aren't any.’ He came to live here permanently in 1925.

  7. The Villa dell'Ombrellino at BELLOSGUARDO was once rented by Galileo. Mrs Keppel's daughter, Violet Trefusis, lived there until her death in 1973. Restored in 1988, it is now a conference centre, and partly occupied as the consulate of the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg (see also Chapter 23, note 5).

  8. The Villa of La Pietra off the Via Bolognese in the middle of Montughi Hill takes its name from a stone pillar indicating the distance of one mile from the old city gate, PORTA SAN GALLO. In the fourteenth century the villa belonged to the Macinghi. It was subsequently acquired by the Sassetti, then by the Capponi. The gardens were created at the beginning of this century by Sir Harold'
s father, Arthur Acton, who collected the statues and the early Tuscan paintings. Many of these were acquired from the American painter, Francis Alexander, who had settled in Florence for the sake of the health of his daughter Francesca, whose illustrations to Italian folk stories were so much admired by John Ruskin.

  9. The Parterre was laid out as a park in the eighteenth century on the site of the Convent of San Gallo. The exhibition halls have been largely demolished.

  10. The architect of the final and principal buildings of the Biblioteca Nazionale was Cesare Bazzani.

  11. The Stadio Comunale was renovated for the World Cup Soccer Championship in 1990.

  12. The group of Tuscan architects and engineers responsible for the Stazione Centrale Santa Maria Novella included Giovanni Michelucci, Piero Berardi, Nello Baroni and Italo Gamberini.

  CHAPTER 26 (pages 294–304)

  1. The interior of the Teatro Comunale, which is on the corner of Via Magenta and Corso Italia, was reconstructed in 1961. Florence's annual musical festival, the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, is usually held here and in the TEATRO DELLA PERGOLA. The nearby American Consulate, facing the Lungarno Amerigo Vespucci, was designed by Giuseppe Poggi, who also built the Villa Favard on the other side of the Via Palestro.

  2. The Villa Torrigiani is in Via Fratelli Rosselli. Alfred Lord Tennyson stayed here in 1851 when his brother Frederick was living in the house with his Italian wife.

  3. Primavera and her sister seasons had been carved to celebrate Cosimo III's wedding. Since her head was found, Primavera's right arm has been broken off.

  CHAPTER 27 (pages 305–13)

  1. Donatello's wooden St Mary Magdalen, formerly in the BAPTISTERY, is now in the MUSEO DELL' OPERA DEL DUOMO.

  TABLE OF PRINCIPAL EVENTS

  1st CENTURY BC Foundation of Florentia

  AD 405 Ostrogoths besieging the city are defeated by Flavius Stilicho

  476 German warlord, Odoacer, becomes King of Italy, establishing capital at Ravenna

  751 Lombard King, Aistulf, captures Ravenna

  978 La Badia founded

  1013 Work begins on San Miniato al Monte

  1018 Mercato Nuovo built

  1076 Matilda becomes Countess of Tuscany

  1078 New circle of walls begun

  1125 Florentines capture Fiesole

  1216 Murder of Buondelmonte de' Buondelmonti seen as inaugurating quarrel between Guelphs and Ghibellines

  1228 Santa Croce begun

  1246 Santa Maria Novella begun

  1252 Gold florin first minted

  1255 Guelph government of Florence orders construction of Palazzo del Popolo

  1260 Florentines and their allies defeated by Sienese at Montaerti

  1265 Dante born in Florence

  1289 Florentines defeat Ghibellines of Arezzo at Campaldino

  1293 Ordinances of Justice institute office of Gonfaloniere

  1296 Foundation stone laid of new cathedral

  1299 Work begins on Palazzo della Signoria

  1302 Dante exiled and Cimabue dies

  1308 Giovanni Villani begins his Storia fiorentina Corso Donati killed

  1315 Florentines defeated at Montecatini

  1328 Death of Castruccio Castracani

  1333 Florence flooded

  1334 Gotto appointed Capomaestro of cathedral Foundations of Campanile laid

  1337 Orsanmichele built as a market

  1339 King Edward III of England repudiates his debts with the Bardi and Peruzzi banks

  1342 The Duke of Athens elected Lord of Florence

  1345 New Ponte Vecchio completed

  1348 Black Death

  1350 Boccaccio at work on the Decameron

  1374 Death of Petrarch

  1378 Riots of the ciompi

  1393 Maso degli Albizzi becomes Gonfaloniere

  1406 Pisa surrenders to Florence

  1419 Work begins on Brunelleschi's Ospedale degli Innocenti

  1421 Florence buys Leghorn Giovanni de' Medici becomes Gonfaloniere

  1420s Masolino and Masaccio at work on frescoes in Santa Maria del Carmine

  1432 Florence forces under Niccolò da Tolentino defeat Sienese at San Romano

  1434 Cosimo de' Medici returns from exile Fra Angelico enters monastry of San Marco

  1436 Brunelleschi's dome completed Uccello completes monochrome fresco of Sir John Hawkwood in the cathedral

  1437 Fra Filippo Lippi returns to Florence from Padua

  1439 General Council of Greek and Roman Catholic churches held in Florence

  1440 Defeat of the Visconti at Anghiari

  c. 1440 Donatello completes his David

  1444 Michelozzo's new buildings at San Marco consecrated

  1452 Ghiberti's east doors of the Baptistery finished

  1457 Pitti Palace begun

  1464 Death of Cosimo de' Medici

  1469 Lorenzo de' Medici succeeds his father, Piero

  1472 Benedetto Dei's Cronaca fiorentina Sack of Volterra

  1478 Pazzi consirac

  1481 Savonarola arrives in Florence

  c. 1482 Domenico Ghirlandaio starts work on Sassetti Chapel in Santa Trinita

  c. 1485 Botticelli's Birth of Venus

  1489 Foundation stone of Strozzi Palace laid

  1492 Death of Lorenzo de' Medici

  1494 Medici driven from the city King Charles VIII's troops enter the city

  1497 The Bonfire of the Vanities

  1498 Trial and execution of Savonarola

  1504 Michelangelo's David finished

  1505 Machiavelli organizes Florentine militia

  1512 The return of the Medici

  1515 Giovanni de' Medici enters Florence as Pope Leo X

  1520 Michelangelo begins work on the New Sacristy at San Lorenzo

  c. 1524 Michelangelo's staircase to Biblioteca Laurenziana begun

  1527 Alessandro and Ippolito de' Medici flee from Florence after the sack of Rome

  1529 Florence under siege

  1530 Florence surrenders

  1531 Alessandro de' Medici becomes Duke of Florence

  1537 Alessandro murdered by Lorenzino de' Medici

  Cosimo de' Medici is chosen as Alessandro's succssor

  Cosimo's enemies defeated at Montemurlo

  1545 Benvenuto Cellini returns to Florence

  1555 Siena surrenders

  1557 Giambolona settles in Florence

  1559 Ammannati reconstructs the Ponte alla Carraia

  1560 Uffizi begun to the designs of Vasari

  1567 Ponte Santa Trinita rebuilt by Ammannati

  1569 Cosimo proclaimed Grand Duke of Tuscany

  1574 Francesco I succeeds father as Grand Duke

  1584 Buontalenti builds Tribuna

  1587 Ferdinando I succeeds his brother, Francesco I

  1590 Work begins on Forte di Belvedere

  1604 Cappella dei Principi begun at San Lorenzo

  1609 Cosimo II succeeds his father, Ferdinando I

  1621–70 Reign of Cosimo II's son, Ferdinando II

  1670–1723 Reign of Ferdinando II's son, Cosimo III

  1723–37 Reign of Cosimo III's son, Gian Gastone

  1737 Francis, Duke of Lorraine installed as Grand Duke

  1740 – 86 Sir Horace Mann British envoy in Florence

  1743 Death of the last Medici, Gian Gastone's sister, Anna Maria, who bequeaths Medici treasures to the House of Lorraine on condition that none is removed from Tuscany

  1743 – 65 Florence ruled by foreign regents after Grand Duke Francis's return to Austria

  1765 The Grand Duke Francis dies and is succeeded by his younger son, Peter Leopold

  1775 La Specola built

  1784 Accademia delle Belle Arte opened

  1790 The Grand Duke Peter Leopold becomes Emperor of Austria and appoints his second son Grand Duke Ferdinand III

  1799 French troops enter Florence

  1801 Tuscany becomes part of Napoleon Bonaparte's Kingdom of Etruria


  1809 Napoleon's sister, Elisa Bacciochi, created Grand Duchess of Tuscany

  1814 The Grand Duke Ferdinand III welcomed back to Florence

  1824 Death of Ferdinand III and succession of his son, Leopold II

  1840 Florence flooded

  1848 The Grand Duke Leopold II grants a constitution

  1849 The Grand Duke joins the Pope at Gaeta Republican government established The Grand Duke invited to return

  1859 Demonstrations in Florence in support of a united Italy force the Grand Duke to leave the city

  1860 The people of Tuscany vote for the unification of the former Grand Duchy with the constitutional monarchy of Victor Emmanuel II, King of Piedmont

  1865 Florence becomes capital of Italy

  1871 Capital of Italy removed to Rome

  1915 Italy enters the war

  1922 Fascists march on Rome

  1940 Mussolini declares war

  1943 Germans enter Florence after the Italian surrender

  1944 Allies enter Florence

  1966 The year of the flood

  THE MEDICI FAMILY

  1. DESCENDANTS OF COSIMO DI GIOVANNI DI BICCI DE' MEDICI

  2. DESCENDANTS OF LORENZO DI GIOVANNI DI BICCI DE' MEDICI

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Ackerman, J. S., The Architecture of Michelango, London, 1961

  Acton, Harold, The Last Medici, rev. edn, London, 1958; illustrated edn, 1980

  —— Memoirs of an Aesthete, London, 1948

  —— More Memoirs of an Aesthete, London, 1970

  —— The Pazzi Conspiracy: The Plot against the Medici, London, 1979

  —— Tuscan Villas, London, 1973

  Acton, Harold, and Edward Chaney, Florence: A Travellers' Companion, London, 1986

  Acton, Harold, with photographs by Martin Hürlimann, Florence, London, 1960