2. The fourteenth-century PALAZZO SALVIATI is on the corner of the Via della Vigna Vecchia and the Via Palmiere.
3. The BORGO SAN PIERO is now the Borgo degli Albizi.
4. The Abbey of CAMALDOLI, mother house of the Camaldolensians, was founded at the beginning of the eleventh century by St Romualdo. Its name derived from Campus Maldoli, the three-thousand-acre forest site presented to the order by one Maldolus, a rich merchant from Arezzo. The pharmacy is sixteenth-century, other buildings are mostly seventeenth-and eighteenth-century.
CHAPTER X
1. The family palace, now known as the PALAZZO PAZZI-QUARATESI, was built in the last quarter of the fifteenth century possibly to the designs of Giuliano da Sangallo, and is in the Via Proconsolo (no. 10). After the Pazzi conspiracy it passed into the hands of the Medici, then into those of Cibò and Strozzi.
2. The CHURCH OF SANT’ APOSTOLI was built at about the same time as the Baptistery. The early-sixteenth-century main portal is by Benedetto da Rovezzano. The painted wooden roof is early-fourteenth-century.
3. After Brunelleschi’s death the PAZZI CHAPEL was completed by Giuliano da Maiano who made the wooden doors. The terracotta decorations are by Luca della Robbia. The stained-glass window of St Andrew is a copy of the original now kept, with many other treasures, in the Museo dell’ Opera di Santa Croce, which is approached from the cloisters.
4. The SCOPPIO DEL CARRO has been resumed. It used to take place at Midnight Mass on Easter Saturday. Now the ceremony is performed at noon on Easter Day. The flints are collected from the church of Sant’ Apostoli and, at the appointed hour, in front of the High Altar of the Cathedral, they are used to strike sparks which ignite a rocket, shaped like a dove. The dove shoots along a wire out of the Cathedral and into the Piazza where, it is earnestly hoped, it will reach a cart full of fireworks, set the fireworks ablaze and then fall back down the wire into the Cathedral. The operation successfully performed gives promise of a good harvest.
CHAPTER XI
1. The severe and unflattering Portrait of a Young Woman by BOTTICELLI in the Pitti Palace has been identified as Clarice Orsini and – less probably – as Simonetta Vespucci. A more likely identification seems to be Fioretta Gorini.
CHAPTER XIII
1. Lorenzo bought the VILLA OF POGGIO A CAIANO in 1479. Giuliano da Sangallo began converting it to a purely Renaissance design the next year, but it was not until the following century that the pediment and gabled loggia were added. The outside staircases were built in the seventeenth century. The mural inside the loggia is by Filippino Lippi. The walls of the salone, the courtyard of the original building, are decorated with paintings by Francesco di Cristofano Franciabigio, Alessandro Allori, Andrea del Sarto, and Jacopo Carrucci Pontormo. Apart from this room, the interior of the building has been much changed. It now belongs to the State and is being restored as a museum.
2. According to Vasari, the site of Lorenzo’s school was a garden near the Piazza San Marco which had once belonged to the Badia Fiesolana and had formed part of Clarice Orsini’s dowry. Contemporary records do not mention it and its precise location is unknown.
3. Various examples of Michelangelo’s earliest work may be seen at the CASA BUONARROTI (Via Ghibellina, 70) which was built by his nephew on the site of property long owned by his family. The Madonna of the Stairs was done in about 1490, the Battle of the Centaurs about 1492.
4. BOTTICELLI’S Primavera (now in the Uffizi), replete as it is with classical and literary allusion, has been the subject of the most complicated explanations. It has pleased some writers to recognize in both Venus and Flora the features of Simonetta Vespucci whose kinsman, Amerigo Vespucci, the navigator, was to give his name to America. The figure of Mercury on the left of the picture does certainly bear a resemblance to Botticelli’s Portrait of Giuliano de’ Medici (in the Crespi Collection, Milan) which was painted two or three years earlier – about 1475.
5. It has also been suggested that the model for Venus in BOTTICELLI’S Birth of Venus was Simonetta Vespucci. The picture (now in the Uffizi) was painted in about 1485.
6. BOTTICELLI’S Primavera, Birth of Venus and Pallas and the Centaur all once hung in the Medici VILLA OF CASTELLO. The villa was bought in 1477 by Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de’ Medici. The gardens were laid out in the time of Duke Cosimo I by Niccolò Pericoli Tribolo and his successor, Bernardo Buontalenti. Various stone and bronze statues in the ponds and grottoes are by Tribolo, Ammanati, Giambologna and Pierino da Vinci. Others of Giambologna’s bronze animals have now been transferred to the Bargello. The villa, which was remodelled and redecorated for the House of Savoy, is now being restored as the headquarters of the Accademia della Crusca.
7. It has been claimed that BOTTICELLI’S Pallas and the Centaur (in the Uffizi), painted in about 1482, is a celebration of Lorenzo’s successful negotations with King Ferrante. The bay in the background has been identified as the Bay of Naples. Undoubtedly Pallas’s dress is embroidered with the Medici device of interlocking diamond rings.
8. On Lorenzo’s recommendation, Ghirlandaio was commissioned in 1485 to decorate the CAPPELLA MAGGIORE in Santa Maria Novella. The murals, which were finished by his assistants, are his work; so is the stained-glass window. His altarpiece was broken up at the beginning of the nineteenth century and transported to Germany. Lorenzo also helped Ghirlandaio to obtain the commission to paint the murals and the altarpiece in the SASSETTI CHAPEL at Santa Trinità. Francesco Sassetti was general manager of the Medici Bank. He and his four sons are all depicted in the mural behind the altar. Standing next to Filippo is Lorenzo himself. Lorenzo’s sons can be seen walking up the steps with their tutors, Luigi Pulci and Agnolo Poliziano.
9. VERROCCHIO’S David, made in about 1474, is now in the Bargello.
10. VERROCCHIO’S Resurrection, made in about 1479, is also in the Bargello.
11. The medieval monastery of SANTO SPIRITO – all final remains of which, apart from the refectory, were destroyed by fire in 1471 – was rebuilt to the designs of Brunelleschi between 1434 and 1487, the monks having given up one of their daily meals for half a century to help to pay for it. After Brunelleschi’s death there was a dispute about his plans for the façade of the church, which, despite the protestations of Giuliano da Sangallo, other craftsmen wished to alter. Lorenzo’s help was sought, but the façade was never finished. Giuliano da Sangallo made a model for the sacristy at Lorenzo’s instigation.
12. The huge PALAZZO STROZZI on the corner of Via Tornabuoni and Via Strozzi was built for Filippo Strozzi towards the end of the fifteenth century and the beginning of the sixteenth. The original design may have been by Giuliano da Sangallo but most of the work was supervised by Benedetto da Maiano, Giuliano’s brother and Simone del Pollaiuolo.
Filippo Strozzi’s son told the story that his father overcame any opposition there might have been to his building so magnificent a palace by making it appear that he had done so on Lorenzo’s advice. At first he rejected the plans of the various architects and craftsmen he employed on the grounds that their suggestions were too grandiose: he wanted a more modest palace altogether. But on being told that Lorenzo desired the city to be adorned and exalted in every way, he allowed himself to be persuaded to consult him. So Lorenzo was invited to look at the plans; and, having done so, he gave his approval to one of the most imposing. Still Strozzi feigned modesty, yet at the same time flattered Lorenzo by praising his taste. He wondered if such a grand building was really suitable for a man in his position; he had to admit, though, that Lorenzo understood these matters of space and style far better than he did. Eventually Strozzi built the palace he had always wanted. The foundation stone, as was usual at the time, was laid on a day deemed propitious by his astrologers – 6 August 1489.
13. The CATHEDRAL FAÇADE was accordingly left unfinished. A temporary façade was erected in 1515 for the occasion of the entry of Leo X as described in Chapter 17. In the time of the Grand Duke Ferdinando I another attempt was made to
find a suitable design. Buontalenti, Giambologna and Lodovico Cardi all submitted models. So did Cosimo I’s gifted illegitimate son, Don Giovanni de’ Medici who helped also with the designs for the church of San Gaetano, the Cappella dei Principi at San Lorenzo and the Forte di Belvedere. Nothing came of the new proposals for the Cathedral façade, however, and eventually it was covered by a canvas curtain. When the wind tore this curtain down in the 1680s, Duke Cosimo III sent to Bologna for craftsmen to cover the brown stone with frescoes. These frescoes slowly crumbled away and were replaced in the late nineteenth century by the marble and mosaics which are there now.
CHAPTER XIV
1. Although the Medici collections, the richest ever assembled in Renaissance Italy, were widely dispersed, some of the treasures were later recovered. For example, four exquisite vases, two of jasper, one of agate and one crystal, all on gold or silver stands, with precious stones and bearing Lorenzo’s name engraved on their bases, were examined in 1502 by Leonardo da Vinci on behalf of Isabella d’E who had heard they were for sale. For some reasons, perhaps because of the high price demanded, she did not buy them; and they were afterwards acquired once more for the family by Duke Cosimo I. Various statues found their way to the Rucellai gardens, the Orti Oricellari.
CHAPTER XVI
1. THE TOMB OF PIERO DI LORENZO DE’ MEDICI in the abbey of Monte Cassino was designed by Antonio and Francesco da Sangallo. It was in the choir of the old church.
2. In particular BOTTICELLI expressed Florence’s tragedy in the Derelitta (now in the Pallavicini collection at Rome), the Story of Virginia (in the Galleria dell’ Accademia Carrara at Bergamo) and in The Tragedy of Lucrezia (in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston). The two latter were probably painted for the Vespucci, who lived in the Via de’ Servi.
CHAPTER XVII
1. The miraculous image of the Madonna is in the church of SANTA MARIA DEL IMPRUNETA. The church which was originally built in the thirteenth century was rebuilt in the fifteenth and after being severely damaged in the war, has now been restored. The marble predella of the Madonna is by a follower of Donatello.
2. Filippo Strozzi’s second wife was Selvaggia de’ Gianfigliazzi. The family chapel of the Gianfigliazzi is in Santa Trinità. The PALAZZO GIANFIGLIAZZI is in Lungarno Corsini (no. 2). This is where the Countess of Albany, wife of the Young Pretender, lived and where Byron and Stendhal both stayed. Sir Horace Mann’s house was nearby. On the opposite bank of the Arno, in Lungarno Guicciardini, was Charles Hadfield’s famous inn where in the middle of the eighteenth century hundreds of Englishmen stayed while visiting Florence on the Grand Tour. Many of them were painted here by Thomas Patch, who lived in Florence from 1755 until his death in 1782.
3. Orders were immediately given to the Florentine sculptor, Baccio Bandinelli, to prepare with all speed a copy of the marble group of Laocoön which might pass for the original. The original had been discovered by a man digging in his vineyard near the Baths of Trajan in January 1506. Pope Julius II bought it for 4,140 ducats and had it transported to the Vatican along roads strewn with flowers.
4. Michelangelo had competed against Giuliano da Sangallo, Jacopo Sansovino and Baccio d’Agnolo, but his winning design was never realized. After he had spent the best part of two years at the Carrara quarries, contending with all sorts of technical difficulties, the project for a new façade at San Lorenzo was abandoned.
5. Various complimentary allusions to Pope Leo X and the Medici were made in the STANZE DI RAFFAELLO. In the Stanza of Heliodorus, for example, Raphael was induced to change the meeting of Attila and St Leo into an allegory of the Battle of Ravenna, and to show the Pope, in the character of St Leo, riding the white palfrey which had been his mount on that momentous occasion. The features of Leo X are also to be seen in the Stanza dell’ Incendio which was painted by Raphael’s assistants as the Pope’s diningroom in 1514–17. The pictures here represent scenes from the lives of two popes of the eighth and ninth centuries, Leo III and Leo IV. The fresco on the wall opposite the window shows the great fire of 847 which threatened St Peter’s with destruction and which was halted, so it was said, when Pope Leo IV made the sign of the cross into the flames. Like St Leo in the Stanza of Heliodorus, Leo IV is here represented as Leo X.
CHAPTER XVIII
1. The villa which Raphael designed for Clement VII on the Monte Mario above the bend of the Tiber at the Ponte Molle was blown up, before it was finished, by the Pope’s enemy, Cardinal Colonna, during the sack of Rome in 1527. It was rebuilt for Margaret of Austria and became known as the VILLA MADAMA.
2. The NEW SACRISTY AT SAN LORENZO, known as the Medici Chapel, was completed by Michelangelo in 1534. Lorenzo and Giuliano are buried by the Madonna and Child near the entrance door. The sarcophagus of Giuliano, Duke of Nemours, is on the right. The Duke is portrayed as an officer in the service of the Church with a male statue of Day and a sleeping female Night reclining at his feet. On the left is the tomb of Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino, the dedicatee of Machiavelli’s The Prince, portrayed as a soldier, his eyes cast down in thought. Below him are statues of Dawn and Dusk. The decoration of the chapel was not finished when Michelangelo left Florence in 1534. Plans for tombs for Lorenzo il Magnifico and Giuliano, as well as for Pope Leo X, were never realized. In the seventeenth century the Prince of Denmark came to Florence to see this chapel which he described as being ‘one of the most magnificent pieces of art in the world’.
3. Michelangelo’s superb entrance and staircase to the BIBLIOTECA LAURENZIANA were largely finished by the time the artist left Florence. They were completed by Bartolommeo Ammanati and Giorgio Vasari in accordance with plans and instructions which Michelangelo left behind. The library was opened to the public in 1571.
CHAPTER XIX
1. MICHELANGELO’s David, which was finished in 1504, had been commissioned soon after Piero Soderini became Gonfaloniere in 1501. Although Botticelli wanted it placed in the Loggia dei Lanzi, and others proposed the steps of the Cathedral as a more suitable position, it was eventually placed in front of the Palazzo della Signoria where one of the arms was broken in a riot in 1527. The statue continued to stand in front of the Palazzo until 1873 when it was replaced by the copy which stands there now. The original – the gilding of the hair and the band across the chest long since worn away by sun, wind and rain – is in the MUSEO DELL’ ACCADEMIA (Via Ricasoli, 52).
The heraldic lion, the Marzocco, to the left of the copy of Michelangelo’s David (next to DONATELLO’s Judith and Holofernes) is also a copy of the original made by Donatello in 1418–20. The original is in the Bargello. After their removal from the Piazza San Giovanni in the fourteenth century, the city’s lions were brought to the Piazza della Signoria; but in the sixteenth century, when Duke Cosimo I occupied the Palace, he had the lions moved because of their smell. The VIA DEILEONI marks the site of their pen. Hercules and Cacus to the right of the David was finished by Baccio Bandinelli in 1534. The original commission for a Hercules had been given to Michelangelo; but, evidently supposing that Michelangelo might use this opportunity to hint at the virtues of the crushed Republic, Pope Leo X ordered that the marble block should be given instead to Bandinelli. The order was confirmed by Clement VII who wanted to keep Michelangelo fully occupied on work for the Medici.
2. Francesco Ferrucci’s birthplace was at VIA SANTO SPIRITO, 32. As in the case of many other Florentine heroes, a wreath is placed here every year in his honour.
3. Clement VII was ultimately buried, in a fine porphyry urn taken from the Pantheon, in the Corsini chapel at the Basilica of St John in Lateran.
4. The Porta alla Giustizia is now the PIAZZAPIAVE.
5. The forbidding symbol of despotism, the FORTEZZA DA BASSO, covered an area of almost 120,000 square metres and is the biggest historical monument in Florence. The foundation stone was laid on 15 July 1534, a date deemed appropriate by the skilful astrologers of Bologna. The convent of San Giovanni Evangelista was demolished in order to clear the site.<
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CHAPTER XX
1. The Viceroy of Naples conducted his daughter to Florence where he and his suite were lodged in the monastery of Santa Maria Novella. Thereafter the former chapter house in the Green Cloister, which was built and decorated in the middle of the fourteenth century, was known as the SPANISH CHAPEL and became the chapel of the Spanish colony in Florence.
2. Cosmopolis became Portoferraio rather more than a century later. The Casa del Duca at the foot of Colle Reciso is said to be the place from which Cosimo and his architect watched the building in progress. Cellini’s bust of Cosimo, which stood above the entrance to Forte Stella, is now in the Bargello.
3. The great NEPTUNE FOUNTAIN in the Piazza della Signoria was intended to symbolize Duke Cosimo’s naval achievements. The design of the fountain was originally entrusted to Bandinelli who died before he could begin it. After a competition had been held, the commission was given to Ammanati. The fountain was finished in 1575. The Piazza, now renamed the Piazza del Granduca, had been repaved in 1543.
4. The UFFIZI PALACE was paid for by the various government offices which originally occupied it. Their names or mottoes still appear over the big doors under the colonnade. After Vasari’s death in 1574 work on the Uffizi was continued by Bernardo Buontalenti and Alfonso Parigi. It has been one of the great art galleries of Europe for three centuries. Many of the finest pieces of the Medici collection were housed in the Tribuna in which Zoffany portrayed numerous well-known English connoisseurs, diplomats and collectors in the painting he did under the patronage of Queen Charlotte between 1772 and 1778. Sir Horace Mann is shown standing beneath the VENUS DE’ MEDICI, a Roman copy of a Greek original found at Hadrian’s villa at Tivoli, brought to Florence in the time of the Grand Duke Cosimo III and still in the Tribuna today. Other works of art shown in Zoffany’s picture, like Titian’s Venus of Urbino were brought in from other rooms in the Uffizi or from the Pitti Palace for the painter’s purpose.
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