Part 13
Towards the end of the XVIIth century Paolo Falconieri built this palace for the Marquess Lodovico Incontri on the site of houses belonging to a branch of the Vespucci family. The Incontri were Lords of Acquaviva near Volterra. Antonio fought at Montaperti, was taken prisoner by the Ghibellines, but escaped and joined Charles of Anjou at Naples, who knighted him and gave him the command of 200 horse, when he fought against Manfred and Corradino. On his return to Volterra he volunteered to lead his fellow-citizens against the Pisans and was killed in a skirmish near Pontedera in 1291. Attilio Incontri married the daughter of a courtier of the Grand Duke Ferdinando I. and settled in Florence, and his son Ferdinando was made a Senator and Marquess of Monteverdi and Canneto in 1665; his other son was Lodovico who built the palace which now belongs to the Marquess Piccolelis.
The Vespucci to whom the original houses belonged came from Peretola and took their name from Vespuccio, a wine merchant, who was the first of twenty-five Priors of his house in 1350. Giuliano Vespucci was Gonfalonier of Justice in 1462, and his son Piero commanded the Florentine galleys on the coast of Barbary and of Syria. From him no doubt his young cousin Amerigo, who gave his name to America, heard many seafaring tales. Born in 1451 and brought up by his uncle, a learned Dominican in S. Marco to whom Marsilio Ficino entrusted the revision of his Platonic Theology, Amerigo studied languages, physics and geometry. Admitted to the Platonic Academy he became intimate with Toscanelli, who expounded to him his ideas as to the existence of another hemisphere. Amerigo was manager of the Medici bank at Seville when Columbus made his first discoveries, and entreated King Ferdinand of Spain to take him into his service as chief pilot of another expedition. When the news of his triumphant return after an eighteen month’s voyage reached Florence, the Signoria ordered his house, now incorporated in the hospital of S. Giovanni di Dio, in Borgognissanti, to be illuminated for three nights, an honour rarely accorded by the Commune.
PALAZZO PITTI
_Piazza Pitti_
Buonaccorso Pitti, in his delightful chronicle,[55] tells us that the Pitti, being Guelphs, were expelled from the castle of Semifonte by the Ghibellines in 1202, when they divided into three branches. “We of the third branch,” he writes, “settled at Castelvecchio in the Val di Pesa, where we bought large and rich estates.... A few years later our ancestors came to live in Florence, and their first houses were those which now belong to the Machiavelli in the parish of Sta. Felicita. I have heard tell by Neri, my father, that one of our ancestors, named Bonsignore, went to the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem and to Sta. Caterina on Mount Sinai; he never came back, nor is it known where he died. When he left Florence his wife was with child, and she bore a son who was called Bonsignore after his father. From him sprang Maffeo, who was a rich, powerful and honourable citizen, and from the book in which the names of all who have been Priors are written, it appears he was a Prior in 1283. Maffeo had, amongst others, two sons; the eldest was Ciore, the second Buonaccorso ... according to reliable accounts was a good and trustworthy man.... By his wife Monna Giovanna degl’Infangati he had six sons and three daughters.... Neri his son, our father, made a very large fortune in the wool trade. I find that every year he made eleven hundredweight of cloth, most of which was sent to Apulia. He was most industrious and active in his business, and the French wool that came into our workshops was turned into perfect cloth. His last building was the Tiratoio,[56] which cost about 3,500 florins. It seems he did not care about taking office under the Commune, but he was twice Prior. He was a handsome man, three braccie in height, not fat, but with good bone and muscle; his hair was reddish, and he was healthy and vigorous and lived sixty-eight years, may God give him eternal rest. His wife, my mother, Monna Curradina degl’ Strozzi, was a handsome, clever woman, of dark complexion; she lived sixty-six years. I, Buonaccorso, married Francesca degl’Albizzi ... and till now Francesca and I have had eleven children, of whom seven are alive, Luca, Ruberto, &c., &c.”
[Illustration: PALAZZO PITTI.]
Numerous were the adventures of Buonaccorso Pitti. Rich, able and of fine presence, he was constantly employed on embassies to divers sovereigns and sister Republics. An inveterate gambler, but with a keen eye to business, generous to his family and friends, but keeping a minute account of his daily expenses, well educated, a good Latin scholar, a bad poet and an amusing boon-companion, Buonaccorso was a typical Florentine of the XVth century. His son, Luca, born in 1398, founder of the splendid palace which still bears his name, began his political career when most lads are still at college, and his enormous wealth gave him considerable power in his native city.
About 1440 Luca Pitti commissioned the great architect Brunelleschi to build for him a palace more magnificent than that of the Medici in Via Larga (now Palazzo Riccardi). “Not only,” writes Machiavelli, “did citizens and private persons contribute, and aid him with things necessary to the building, but communes and corporations lent him help.” As Gonfalonier of Justice he was able to do signal service to Cosimo de’ Medici by causing Girolamo Machiavelli, Carlo Benizzi and Niccolò Barbadori, who had lifted up their voices to warn the Florentine citizens against the ambition of the Medici, to be murdered in prison. Cosimo in return used his influence to obtain a public decree, ordaining that Luca Pitti should be created a Knight of the People in S. Giovanni with great pomp; in memory thereof Luca added the red cross, emblem of the People, to his arms. On the death of Cosimo, who was succeeded by his infirm and gouty son Piero, Luca thought his opportunity had come. Together with a far abler man, Diotisalvi Neroni, he put himself at the head of the anti-Medicean party and Florence was divided into two camps, the party of the Hill, so-called because Luca’s palace stood on the highest point of the city; and of the Plain, because the palace of the Medici was on the flat. But discord soon broke out among the Hill party, as Luca perceived that if the Medici were beaten Neroni, and not himself, would be the head of the Republic; so in 1466 he made peace with Piero de’ Medici after which, as Machiavelli tells us, “friends and relations avoided saluting him in the streets. The superb edifices begun by him were abandoned by the builders, the benefits bestowed on him in the past were changed to injuries, the honours to insults. And many of those who had freely given something of great value now demanded it back, as having been merely lent; others who had been wont to praise him to the skies, blamed him as an ungrateful and violent man. Wherefore too late did he repent that he had not believed Niccolò Soderini, and sought rather to die honoured with arms in hand, than live dishonoured amongst his victorious enemies.”
Brunelleschi’s original design for Palazzo Pitti had only seven windows to the front, and Herr von Fabriczy in _Filippo Brunelleschi Sein Leben und Seine Werke_ writes: “The choice of such dimensions (59 metres wide and 38 metres high) shows that he immediately grasped the advantages of a position on sharply rising ground and knew how to use it as a mighty factor for the desired effect.... In order to gauge the talent with which Brunelleschi turned to signal advantage what in other hands would have been a cause of failure, one need only imagine any one of the Florentine palaces, with the exception of the Palazzo Vecchio, in the place of the Pitti palace, to realize what a miserably meagre impression they would make as the crowning edifice on the summit of the steep hill.”
Vasari tells us “that Brunelleschi began and directed the building up to the second-floor windows,” so it cannot have been roofed in when Luca’s descendant Buonaccorso sold the huge unfinished pile to Eleonora of Toledo, wife of Cosimo I., for 9,000 golden florins (about £5,400) in 1549. In the following spring Niccolò Braccini, better known by his surname of Tribolo, began to lay out the adjacent garden, the Grand Duchess having bought much land to enlarge it. The origin of the name--Boboli--is unknown. Some say it is an Etruscan word, others that a family called Borgoli owned the land, which then became commonly known as Bogoli and, as often happens in Italy, the “g” was changed into a “b.” Or it may be derived from the Tuscan name of the hoopoe--bubula--which frequents the garden in spring uttering its weird note hoop, hoop, hoop, among the ilex groves. However that may be, Tribolo made a wonderful garden that has been the delight of many generations.
The original plan by Brunelleschi having been lost, the famous architect Ammannati was called in. He made considerable changes in the interior, in the windows of the first floor, and, according to an old manuscript, “finished the façade up to the roof.” He also built the magnificent courtyard, but did not change the length or the height of the palace, as is proved by a ground plan drawn twenty-four years after his death, which shows the front with Brunelleschi’s original seven windows. “In June, 1566,” writes Agostino Lapi in his Diary, “was begun the splendid and imperial building of the magnificent Palazzo Pitti of the city of Florence; that is to say, the new part in the courtyard which is opposite the convent and the monastery of Sta. Felicita--the façade and all the part facing the street and S. Spirito being ancient, while the right and left sides of the courtyard are modern and were begun in this century. Nearly all the stone, at least all that is of good quality, used for the ‘bozzi’ and the pilasters and suchlike, was quarried in the courtyard of the palace, the rest came from the Belvedere and other parts of the garden; so that the stone which adorns and beautifies the palace was quarried in the courtyard or in various places in the garden, a thing most convenient for the building. In the courtyard the old building on the side towards the Porta a S. Pier Gattolini was demolished. There were many fine rooms in the said courtyard, and a deep drain more than two feet wide which received all the rain water and that which came from the kitchens and other places, and passing under the said palace it carried off all filth.... Maestro Bartolommeo Ammannati, the principal architect of the new palace, told me that he had found the date of the commencement of the old building, 1466, carved on a stone.”
In July, 1558, the marriage of Lucrezia de’ Medici, Cosimo’s daughter, was solemnized in the chapel of the palace. One hundred and ten ladies, resplendent in brocade dresses and many jewels, were assembled to see the masquerade in five parts acted by young Florentine nobles. First came twelve Indians, alarming, but very gorgeous; then twelve Florentines habited as in ancient times; twelve Greeks in fine armour followed; then twelve emperors blazing with jewels; finally came twelve pilgrims with long mantles of cloth of gold, on which were emblazoned cockle shells of silver, and music proper to the different character of each masquerade was played by hidden musicians.
Later in the same year, Isabella, the most beautiful of Cosimo’s daughters, was married to Paolo Giordano Orsini, Duke of Bracciano. Her beauty was enhanced by her many talents. She was a good musician; spoke and wrote elegant Italian, Latin, French and Spanish; was a poetess and an _improvisatrice_, and accompanied herself on the lute. Her father doted on her, and opposed her departure for Rome with her husband. The name of the beautiful young Duchess was soon coupled with that of Troilo Orsini, her husband’s cousin, who had been left by him as her guardian. Troilo became jealous of a handsome page, Lelio Torello, whom he stabbed one night in the garden. After the death of Cosimo the scandal reached the ears of Isabella’s husband, who came from Rome, and with the connivance of her brother, the Grand Duke, strangled her at his villa of Cerreto but a few days after her brother, Don Pietro, had killed his lovely young Spanish wife at Cafaggiuolo.
The birth of the only son of Francesco I. and of Joan of Austria, supposed to have been poisoned a few years later by Bianca Cappello, was celebrated with great rejoicings; money was showered down among the crowd from the windows of the Palazzo Pitti, and great butts of wine were broached on the balustrade of the Palazzo Vecchio. Not only did every man drink at will, but Settimanni declares that the Via Vachereccia and the Mercato Nuovo ran with wine as far as the Ponte Vecchio. Poor ugly, misshapen Joan had no happy life with her Medici husband, who was completely under the dominion of the handsome and dissolute Bianca Cappello, to whom he was secretly married in his private chapel very soon after his wife’s death. A few months later the Venetian Republic proclaimed Bianca a daughter of Venice, and the marriage was then solemnized with great pomp in the cathedral, while a tournament was held in the courtyard of the palace in her honour.
Montaigne, who was in Florence in 1580, notes in his delightful _Journal_: “On Sunday I saw the Pitti Palace, and among other things a mule in marble, which is the effigy of one that is still alive; this honour has been paid on account of its long services in carrying materials for the building, at least so says a Latin inscription. We saw in the palace the Chimæra (antique), which has a head with horns and ears coming out of its shoulders, and a body like a small lion. On the preceding Saturday the Grand Duke’s palace was thrown open and filled with peasants, to whom nothing was closed; they danced in every corner of the large saloon. The concourse of this class of people is, it seems to me, emblematic of their lost liberty, which is thus evoked every year during the principal festival of the town” [24th June, St. John’s Day]. The Grand Duke invited Montaigne to dine at the palace, and he was evidently astonished at seeing Bianca take the place of honour above her husband. “This Duchess is handsome,” he writes, “according to the Italian idea, with an agreeable but imperious countenance, a coarse figure and breasts to match. She seems to have entirely subjugated the Prince, and to have had him under her dominion for a long time.”
Torquato Tasso evidently admired the Grand Duchess, to whom he addressed many madrigals and sonnets, often playing fancifully with her “bel nome” Bianca, and praising her golden hair.
“Voi rosati e bei labri E rosate le guancie avete ancora, Come vermiglio Aurora, E dorate le chiome E bianca sete come il vostro nome.”
She must have been kind to the unhappy poet, who wrote, when sending to her fifty madrigals in manuscript: “Had your Highness not experienced both good and evil fortune, you would not so well understand the misfortunes of others.” Her husband, Francesco de’ Medici, however, declared he did not want a madman at his court; and when Tasso returned to Florence in 1590 his patroness was dead, and he is described as wandering about the Palazzo Pitti like a spectre, and the Florentines wrote, _actumi est de eo_.
Francesco I. had a particular liking for fountains and grottoes. He ordered four unfinished colossal statues, rough-hewn out of marble by Michelangelo, to be used as supports for a mass of rockwork in a grotto near one of the entrances to the Boboli gardens. These are generally supposed to be four of the prisoners destined for the tomb of Pope Giulio II., but according to J. A. Symonds, “this attribution involves considerable difficulties. In the first place the scale is different, and the stride of one of them, at any rate, is too wide for the pedestals of that monument. Then their violent contortions and ponderous adult forms seem to be at variance with the spirit of the captives.... Their incompleteness baffles criticism; yet we feel instinctively that they were meant for the open air and for effect at a considerable distance.”
After the deaths of Francesco I. and of Bianca Cappello within a few hours of each other at Poggio a Cajano, Cardinal Ferdinando de’ Medici succeeded to the throne. Quitting the ecclesiastical state, he married Christine of Lorraine in 1589, and to amuse his young, good-looking French wife, gave entertainments which put to shame anything attempted in our days. Buontalenti, that most ingenious of men, painter, sculptor and architect, transformed the great courtyard of the Pitti palace into an amphitheatre covered in with scarlet cloth, and erected a castle on the side next the garden, while in the middle stood a stockade containing fireworks. On the firing of a cannon a triumphal car appeared, in which sat a magician who performed tricks of sleight of hand, and told fortunes to those who desired. Then followed a huge dragon drawing a chariot in which were the Duke of Mantua and Don Pietro de’ Medici attended by musicians, who sang sweet songs in praise of the bride. After them a mountain advanced without any visible motor power; it opened in front of the Grand Duchess, and two knights sprang out and challenged the others to mortal combat. “They fought,” writes Baldinucci, “with lances and then with swords, and meanwhile appeared the other masquerades, each one more beautiful and singular than the last. To make our story short, there were fountains, clouds, forests, shells, images of animals on chariots, ships, rocks, sirens, birds and elephants of extraordinary size; then came a great mountain, a crocodile and a conjurer, followed by a triumphal car, in which sat Don Virginio Orsini with eight nymphs, who offered beautiful vases filled with flowers and a programme of the festival, to the princes and princesses, the ladies and the cavaliers. A garden then glided into the amphitheatre, expanding and advancing without any visible agency, and in a short time admirable designs, formed out of clumps of myrtle and of box, such as ships, towers and castles, men, horses, pyramids and the like, were seen, such as we make of plants in our gardens, while the theatre was filled with sweet melody from the birds among the trees. Don Virginio descended from his car and attacked an adversary with his lance, whereupon all the other knights joined in the fray until separated by the explosion of the fireworks, and this finished the tournament. It was already four o’clock in the night when the princes, the noble ladies and the cavaliers, were conducted into the palace to a sumptuous banquet, and meanwhile the courtyard was filled with most limpid water to the depth of four feet.... No less than eighteen ships, large and small, among them a galleon of three decks, arranged themselves in line of battle. To the sound of drums, pipes, cymbals and other instruments used in naval warfare, and the firing of cannon, the spectators again took their seats, wondering exceedingly at the change that had taken place in so short a time. Thereupon a frigate advanced towards the castle and was saluted by two cannon shot, when with proper demonstrations of alarm she fled and returned to the fleet. The Turks sent out four galleys, and then began a fierce battle, during which fine set pieces of fireworks went off, burning even in the water. Horrible cries of wounded Turks and imprecations in the Turkish language were heard, as some fell into the artificial sea, and fought, whilst swimming, with Christians who had also lost their footing. Soon the water was covered with disabled ships and men who, acting their parts well, attempted to save themselves by swimming.... In a short time the Christians were victorious. They set fire to a Turkish galley, of which the captain, soldiers and crew, with loud cries swam to the castle, whilst the other ships surrendered. It was pretty to see how the Christians, withdrawing somewhat after their victory, occupied themselves in clearing the decks of their ships of broken tackle, and in giving meat and drink to their crews before advancing in two lines against the castle, firing so many broadsides that the air was filled with smoke. Casting lines with hooks at one end, they scaled the walls, and a hand-to-hand struggle took place ere the Christian soldiers reached the top of the castle, where they hoisted their flag. Then with joyous music, singing and dancing, the festival ended only just before the break of day.”
Rejoicings in honour of the marriage continued for a month, during which time more than two thousand strangers lived at the expense of the court; nine thousand barrels of wine were emptied, and 6,056 scudi were spent on sweetmeats. On the 12th June the Grand Duchess Christine received the homage of the Florentine Senate in the beautiful saloon of the Nicchie in the Palazzo Pitti, and thus ended the series of her marriage festivities.
Ferdinando I. found full scope for exercising his love of splendour and pomp when MM. de Sillery and d’Agincourt came to Florence to ask the hand of his niece, Maria de’ Medici, for Henry IV. The contract was signed on the 25th April, 1600, and on the 30th was solemnly announced to the senate, nobles and principal citizens, in the throne room. The bride, dressed with extraordinary magnificence, sat on the throne, while the Grand Duke and Duchess sat below her. After the contract had been read aloud the Grand Duke rose and, as is quaintly described, “laying aside all air of majesty and sobbing for joy, was the first to bend the knee and kiss the hem of his niece’s dress, as Queen of France. After him followed the Grand Duchess and the dignitaries of the court in their proper order, and then the whole court, the senate and the nobility, accompanied the Queen in triumph, amid the acclamations of the people, to the church of the S.S. Annunziata to give thanks to God.”
Never did the Florentines pass such a summer. Every day brought some entertainment more magnificent than that of the day before, and the Palazzo Pitti resounded with music and gaiety. In October arrived the Cardinal Aldobrandini, sent by the Pope to perform the marriage ceremony. Don Antonio de’ Medici met him some miles outside the city at the head of five hundred cavalry, and at the town gate he was received by the Grand Duke under a velvet baldaquin, who escorted him, walking on his left, to the palace. Cannon fired, trumpets sounded and people cheered, as the Cardinal, followed by high dignitaries of the Church and an enormous train of barons and cavaliers, passed through Florence. On the 5th October Ferdinando I., as proxy for the King of France, espoused his niece, Maria de’ Medici, and the inventive talents of Buontalenti and of Giovanni da Bologna were taxed to the utmost to provide extraordinary and unheard-of feasts and entertainments. The former painted and arranged the wonderful scenery for Rinuccini’s _Eurydice_, which was performed in the big saloon, with music by Jacopo Peri, the inventor of recitative and the forerunner of Pergolesi, Jomelli and Cimarosa.