Part 2

Lorenzo Alberti, son of Benedetto, seems to have established himself for a time at Genoa where Leon Battista was born, probably in 1404 (some give 1398 as the date of his birth and others 1414). He was educated at Bologna and had a hard struggle after his father’s death in 1421, as the relations in whose charge he and his brother were left cheated them out of their patrimony. Brought up for the church, he was ordained a priest and at twenty became a Canon of the cathedral of Florence. But intense study brought on a disorder of the nerves which caused loss of memory, and he applied himself to mathematics and the physical sciences, and adopted architecture as his profession. He invented several mechanical instruments, the _Reticola de’ dipintori_, the _Bolide Albertiana_ and the _Camera optica_, a precursor of the Camera obscura.[4] His principal prose work is the _Trattato della Famiglia_, three books of which are said by the anonymous writer of his life to have been composed in Rome in ninety days. “Taken in its whole extent,” remarks J. A. Symonds, “this treatise is the most valuable document which remains to us from the times of the oligarchy.... From its pages a tolerably complete history of a great commercial family might be extracted; and this study would form a valuable commentary on the public annals of the commonwealth during the earlier portion of the XVth century.”

Much discussion was aroused, and still continues, about the fourth book of the Trattato, published by D. M. Manni in 1734 as the work of Agnolo Pandolfini under the title of _Trattato del Governo della Famiglia_. Pandolfini has champions like Signor Virginio Cortesi, who in his _Studio Critico_ ably pleads his cause. But the _Governo della Famiglia_ is now generally acknowledged to be by Alberti, in whose _Trattato_ it figures as the third book, under the name of the _Economico_, or the _Padre della Famiglia_. Professors Alessandro d’Ancona and Orazio Bacci, in their admirable manual of Italian literature[5] write: “It may be considered as definitely proved that the _Governo della Famiglia_” (as it is usually called) “is nothing more than a travestied and altered copy, often not to its advantage, of the third book of the _Famiglia_ written about 1460.”[6] Alberti was a strenuous advocate for writing in Italian; “I admit willingly,” he says, “that the ancient Latin tongue is very copious and of a beauty polished to perfection. Yet I do not see what our Tuscan contains so hateful, that worthy matter, when conveyed therein, should be displeasing to us.” In the dedication of his essay on painting to Filippo Brunelleschi the same note is struck with regard to the arts. After sorrowing over the loss of many arts and sciences and fearing that Nature is weary and worn out, he exclaims: “But when I returned from the long exile, in which we of the Alberti have grown old, to this our mother city which exceeds all others in the beauty of her monuments, I perceived that many living men, but first of all you, Filippo, and our dearest friend Lorenzo Ghiberti, and Luca della Robbia and Masaccio, were not of less account for genius and noble work than any ancient artist of great fame.” Leon Battista Alberti died in Rome in 1472, and no stone marks the spot where one of the greatest Florentines lies, though one of his descendants put up a monument to him in Florence.

“He indeed might serve,” writes Symonds, “as the very type of those many-sided, precocious and comprehensive men of genius who only existed in the Renaissance. Physical strength and dexterity were given to him at birth in measure equal to his mental faculties. It is recorded that he could jump standing over an upright man, pierce the strongest armour with his arrows, and so deftly fling a coin that it touched the highest point of a church or palace roof. The wildest horses are said to have trembled under him, as though brutes felt, like men, the magnetism of his personality. His insight into every branch of art was innate. At the age of twenty he composed the comedy of “Philodoxius” which passed for an antique, and was published by the Aldi in 1588 as the work of Lepidus Comicus. Of music, though he had not made it a special study he was a thorough master, composing melodies that gave delight to scientific judges. He painted pictures, and wrote three books on painting; practised architecture and compiled ten books on building. Of his books nothing remains; but the church of S. Andrea at Mantua, the Palazzo Rucellai at Florence, and the remodelled Church of S. Francesco at Rimini attest his greatness as an architect.”[7]

The palaces of the Alberti were numerous, and they built or decorated chapels in the churches of Sta. Croce, the Carmine, S. Miniato al Monte, degl’Angeli and others. Their villas were superb, especially the Paradiso degl’Alberti, described in one of Giovanni da Prato’s tales.[8] Under the dynasty of Lorraine eight of the family attained the dignity of Senator, and in 1758 Giovan-Vincenzio Alberti was created a Count Palatine by the Emperor Francis. His son, named Leon Battista after his illustrious ancestor, died in 1836 the last of his race, leaving his name and his property to Cav. Mario Moriubaldini.

PALAZZO ALBIZZI

_Borgo degl’Albizzi. No. 12._

The name of Albizzi appears for the first time in the annals of Florence in 1251, when Benincasa di Albizzo was an Elder. In 1282 Ser Compagno was the first of the long list of ninety-eight Priors of the house of Albizzi who sat in the Palazzo de’ Signori. Piero, the son of Filippo, the first Gonfalonier of Justice of thirteen the family gave to Florence, became immensely rich and by his prudence and sagacity obtained such preponderance in the affairs of the city that he was the recognized head of the _nobili popolani_. Acute rivalry between the Ghibelline Albizzi and the Ricci, who were Guelphs, had always existed; and Uguccione de’ Ricci, thinking to crush his rivals, advocated the revival of the magistrature of the Captains of the Guelph party, proposing at the same time that all who professed themselves Ghibellines should be admonished, _i. e._ excluded from all offices of state. Piero di Albizzo, to hide his Ghibelline tendencies, not only made no opposition, but took a foremost part in the doings of the tribunal, which became odious to the Florentines under his presidency. The Ciompi revolt was the direct consequence of the tyranny of the Captains of the Guelph party, Piero was beheaded and the other members of the Albizzi family were banished, only to return more powerful when the old system of government was revived in 1381. According to Passerini it was to the wise administration of Maso, Piero’s nephew, that the prosperity and the greatness of Florence, feared and respected by the other Italian Republics, were due. “He formed political relations apt to preserve the prosperity of the Republic, built great public edifices, protected nascent studies and arts and promoted the foundation of the Florentine University, the basis of the literary glory afterwards culled by the Medici family. The wars against the Visconti were prosecuted with constancy and without losses; indeed the state was enlarged, a thing which could not have happened amid such conflicting opinions as then reigned in Florence, if the man at the head of affairs had not been a politician of the first order.”[9] Maso degl’Albizzi died in 1417 and his son Rinaldo inherited part of his father’s vast wealth and his ambition, but not his caution. The oligarchy of the _nobili popolani_ became odious under his leadership, and the strong party led, but not ostensibly, by Cosmo de’ Medici, divided the city into two hostile factions. The death of that wise old citizen Niccolò da Uzzano, who had kept Rinaldo in check was, writes Machiavelli, “a misfortune for Florence, as Messer Rinaldo, thinking now to be head of the party, never ceased entreating and worrying all the citizens he thought might become Gonfaloniers, to rise and liberate the country from the man destined, through the malignity of some and the ignorance of the many, to enslave it.” Albizzi’s friend, Bernardo Guadagni, whose debts he paid in order to enable him to become Gonfalonier of Justice in September, 1433, confined Cosimo de’ Medici in the Palazzo de’ Signori and then exiled him for ten years. “Meanwhile,” writes Machiavelli, “in Florence, widowed of a citizen so great and so universally beloved, everyone was confounded. Conquerors as well as conquered were afeard;” and Rinaldo and his friends were beginning to realize “that great men should not be assailed, but so be they are assailed they should be done away with.” They attempted to retrieve their mistake by proscribing many of Cosimo’s party, and the government, occupied with private quarrels and enmities, became futile and uncertain. In September the following year, a Signoria devoted to the Medici was elected, and Rinaldo degl’Albizzi urged his party to take up arms. Whereupon the Gonfalonier summoned him and others of the _Grandi_ to appear before him. Instead of obeying the order they collected their followers and with a strong armed force invaded the Piazza. The old palace of the Signori was at once closed and barricaded, and civil war seemed imminent.

It was averted only by the intervention of Eugenius IV. then living as a refugee in Florence. He sent Giovanni Vitelleschi, Bishop of Recanati, to beg Rinaldo degl’Albizzi to come to him and assured him there was no question of recalling Cosimo de’ Medici, and that if he went quietly home all would be well. Rinaldo was kept so long that his followers got tired and dispersed, leaving the Signoria masters of the situation. Sentences of banishment against Albizzi, his son Ormanno, Ridolfo Peruzzi, Palla Strozzi and many others of the _Grandi_ were passed, and before they left the city Eugenius sent once more for Rinaldo and “told him,” writes Machiavelli, “that he blamed himself for the evil that had befallen him through trusting his word; exhorting him to have patience and to hope for a change of fortune. To which Messer Rinaldo replied, the small confidence shewn by those who ought to have trusted me, and the too great faith I put in you, have been the ruin of myself, of my party. But above all do I blame myself for believing that you, who were driven out of your own country, could keep me in mine. I have had ample experience of the tricks of Fortune; prosperity I never trusted much, so adversity does not affect me. I know that when Fortune pleases she will be kinder, but should she continue unkind, I care not to live in a city where men are above the law. For a country in which riches and friends can be enjoyed in security, is preferable to one in which you can easily be deprived of the former, and where your friends, for fear of losing their all, abandon you in your direst need. It was ever less hard for discreet and good men to hear tell of their countries’ woes, than to see them, and an honourable rebel is more esteemed than an enslaved citizen. So, full of ire, he left the Pope, thinking how fruitless his counsels had been and how cold his friends, and went into exile.” He died at Ancona in 1452.

His brother Luca, on the contrary, was an ardent adherent of the Medici and his descendants filled important posts under the Republic. The stern, grey palace, now divided into many houses, at the eastern end of Borgo degl’Albizzi, under which passes a small street was, I believe, built by him for one of his sons. The Albizzi arms, two golden rings one inside the other under a cross of the Teutonic order, are still to be seen on the façade. The Marquess Vittorio degl’Albizzi, to whose memory there is an inscription on the great family palace, was the last of his race.

PALAZZO ALESSANDRI

_Borgo degl’Albizzi. No. 15._

In 1372 Alessandro and Bartolomeo degl’Albizzi quarrelled with their brothers, and obtained the consent of the Signori to take the name of Alessandri and to adopt another coat of arms. They chose the emblem of the Guild of Wool to which they belonged, adding a second head to the well-known lamb. Later the house of Aragon bestowed upon them the privilege of adding a golden crown and palm leaves to their shield. Twenty-three Priors and nine Gonfaloniers of Justice of the family sat in the Palazzo de’ Signori and many of them were sent on important embassies. Alessandro degl’Alessandri was knighted by the Emperor Frederick IV., while his brother Bartolomeo gained such favour with the King of Naples that he made him Chancellor of the Exchequer. In 1439 the Emperor Paleologus bestowed the title of Count on one of the Alessandri and some eighty years later Leo X. created them Counts of the Holy Roman Empire, a title confirmed by Gregory XVI. in 1845.

On either side of the windows on the upper floor of this palace are still to be seen the iron cramps which supported the frames on the roofs for drying cloth, source of the family riches. Part of the palace was burned during the Ciompi riots while it still belonged to the Albizzi; the side which was saved is distinguished by the pointed arches of the windows. The Alessandri were great patrons of horse racing--as racing was understood in those days--and owned a famous barb “Il Gran Diavolo,” who won for them many of the magnificent _palii_ of cloth of gold and velvet with which some of the rooms are hung. The ladies of the family must often have stood at the windows clapping their hands with delight at the victory of the fiery black horses which carried their colours, for the winning-post was just beyond the old palace. The race in Borgo degl’Albizzi on the 24th June, the day of St. John, patron saint of Florence, is thus described by Goro Dati. “After dinner when midday had passed and everyone had slept, enjoying themselves, the women and children go to where the racers, who are to contend for the Palio, pass through a straight street in the centre of the city where are the finest houses of the chief citizens; and from one end to the other the said street is full of flowers, and all the women and the jewels and the richest ornaments of the city, and great is the rejoicing. Many lords, cavaliers and foreign gentlemen come every year to see the fine festival, and the number of people, foreigners and citizens, is incredible, and not to be believed save by one who has seen them. At the sound of three strokes of the bell of the Palazzo de’ Signori the horses start, and on the tower are stationed boys, who by certain signals show to whom belong the horses, which have come from all parts of Italy and are the most famous Barbary racers in the world. The winner is he who first reaches the Palio, which is borne on a four-wheeled triumphal car, with a lion at each corner. So well are they sculptured that they seem alive. It is drawn by two richly-caparisoned horses, with the emblems of their Commune. The rich and large Palio, of two lengths of the finest crimson velvet joined together by gold insertion a handsbreadth wide, lined with miniver, bordered with ermine and a gold and silken fringe, altogether cost 300 and more golden florins. But of late it has been made of brocade woven with gold, most beautiful, and of the value of 600 florins or even more.”[10]

The old palace is still inhabited by the Counts Alessandri.

CASTELLO D’ALTAFRONTE

_Piazza de’ Giudicci. No. 1._

In 1180 Schiatta degl’Uberti, whose family had houses and towers near the present Piazza de’ Giudicci, sold one fourth part, _pro indiviso_, of the castle to one of the Altafronte family. The sons of Lottieri d’Altafronte, who seemed to have been in perpetual need of money, borrowed from various people, and were at last obliged to sell it, as appears by an act of 1304, when Cecchino Bardi became “master of a habitation in the parish of S. Piero Scheraggio, called the castle of Altafronte, surrounded on all sides by streets.”

In 1333, according to Gaddi, the castle was devastated and ruined, together with many other houses, by the terrible flood which carried away the old statue of Mars near the Ponte Vecchio. It must have been at once restored, as fifteen years later a certain Bencivieni Buonsostegni, to whom it then belonged, made a will forbidding his descendants to alienate it; in case they did so it was to go to the Commune. His sons having to pay their sister’s dower petitioned for leave to sell, which was granted. The Commune itself may have been the purchaser, as there is a petition from the _Operai_, or clerks of the works, of the Duomo, who were obliged to buy houses and lands in order to continue the building of Sta. Maria del Fiore, complaining that the 4,500 florins promised to them, had been spent in rebuilding the walls of the castle of Altafronte, three towers and the Porta d’Arno.[11] It then passed into the possession of the Castellani family, one of whom left the castle, together with a farm at Rome, to the hospital of Sta. Maria at Ripoli. But either the family bought it back or the testator could only leave a part of the great building, as when Matteo Castellani died, and was buried with the greatest pomp in Sta. Croce in 1429, “his son Francesco was publicly knighted by the side of his father’s bier; his mourning habiliments were torn off in the church and, habited as a cavalier, the other knights of the order accompanied him most honourably to his palace.” Ten years later Demetrio Paleologo, Despot of the Morea, took up his abode there when he accompanied his brother the Emperor to the Council of Florence.

In 1558 the Grand Duke Cosimo I. bought the castle of Altafronte from the Castellani, and fourteen years later, under the reign of Francesco I., it became the residence of the Judges of the Ruota, and the shops near by were turned into offices for the notaries. In 1858 many wretched houses, with the arms of the judges and the notaries on their façades, which had sprung up in the Piazza de’ Castellani, were swept away, and two years later the wall of the Lung’Arno della Borsa was built.

Opposite to the Castello d’Altafronte, which is now part of the National Library, is a marble slab in the parapet wall of the Arno with an inscription which often arouses the curiosity of the passers-by.

OSSA EQUI CAROLA CAPELLI

LEGATI VENETI

NON INGRATUS HERUS SONIPES MEMORANDE SEPULCRUM

HOC TIBI PRO MERITIS HAEC MONUMENTA DEDIT

OBSESSA URBE

M.D.XXX.III ID MARTII

It marks the grave of the favourite horse of Carlo Cappello, who was the Venetian ambassador during the siege of Florence in 1529. Varchi says, “he was most popular in the city and much loved, not only for his many good qualities, being a man of letters, but also because when Luigi Alamanni and Zanobi Buondelmonti were declared rebels, on account of the conspiracy against the Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici, he gave them hospitality in his house at Venice; and afterwards, when they had been imprisoned at Brescia at the request of Pope Clemente, he so managed that they were set free and sent on their way, the Venetians either not knowing, or pretending not to know, who they were.”

The horse was buried with his fine velvet housings in the Piazza d’Arno, close to the old city gate.

PALAZZO ALTOVITI

_Borgo degl’Albizzi. No. 18._

This palace was built by Rinaldo degl’Albizzi, Cosimo de’ Medici’s great rival, next to that of his father, and after his exile it was bought by the Valori. Taldo de Valore, four times a Prior, and Gonfalonier of Justice in 1340, was the grandfather of the influential citizen Bartolomeo, one of the _Dieci di Guerra_, and thrice Gonfalonier. One of his sons, Niccolò, devoted to the Medici, was elected to the most important offices under the Republic. Francesco, his grandson, four times Gonfalonier of Justice and ambassador to various foreign powers, was killed in 1498 when Savonarola, of whom he was a staunch partisan, was arrested. To Filippo Valori, a friend of Lorenzo the Magnificent and of all the circle of brilliant men who surrounded him, we owe the publication of Marsilio Ficino’s translation of Plato; whilst his son Baccio was “that worst of bad citizens” who conspired against the liberties of Florence in favour of the Medici, and was then set aside by the Duke Alesandro. Being, as Varchi writes, “of an unquiet, prodigal, and rapacious nature and not well off, he could not live as a gentleman and satisfy his wants, which were infinite, without holding some high office in the city; so his discontent was extreme.” He joined the party of the exiles and was taken prisoner together with Filippo Strozzi at Montemurlo. Bernardo Segni describes how “all the people ran down the Via Larga to the house of the Medici to see the miserable and affecting sight of Baccio on a sorry nag, in a rusty coat of mail and without a cap; he who but a short time before had been so fortunate a Commissary-General at the camp, and for so many months master in Florence, and afterwards Governor of various provinces; and Filippo Strozzi, who had been accounted the first man in Italy and honoured for every great quality, on a similar beast, in a leathern jerkin and coarse cloth overcoat. It seemed a spiteful, dishonest trick of fortune. Antonfrancesco degl’Albizzi excited no less compassion. Of a most noble family and proud by nature, he had ruled Florence like a Prince, had changed her government, and now was led on foot meanly and had shameful words cast at him by the onlookers. All dismounted at the fortunate house of the Medici and were led before the Lord Cosimo, being vilified and insulted by the sycophants and abettors of the Pallesca grandeur. Kneeling humbly before the Lord Cosimo and before his mother, they begged heartily for pardon; he replied in a few quiet words, with an aspect rather kindly and benign than angry and cruel.... Five were beheaded on that day [20 August, 1535], to wit Baccio, Filippo his son, Filippo his nephew, Antonfrancesco degl’Albizzi and Alessandro Rondinelli. Messer Alessandro Malgonelle, who, being one of the Eight, was present when they were examined and tortured, with great joyfulness said aloud in public: ‘To-day we have wrung the necks of four thrushes and of one blackbird; the blackbird being Rondinelli, who was inferior to the others in birth and riches.’”[12] Niccolò Valori, member of the Platonic Academy, was Commissary at Pistoja in 1501, and soon afterwards ambassador to Louis XII. of France, who named him a chamberlain and a councillor. In 1507 he was sent on an embassy to Ferdinand the Catholic at Naples, and in the same year became Commissary of the Tuscan Romagna. Five years later he was accused of conspiring against the Medici together with Boscoli and Capponi, and sentenced to life-long imprisonment in the tower of Volterra. His grandson obtained his release by presenting Leo X. with the life of his father, Lorenzo de’ Medici, written by him.