Part 4

“On the 24th September, 1343, the people rose against the Bardi, Rossi, Frescobaldi, Mannelli and Nerli, _Grandi_ of the Oltrarno, who at once seized and held the bridges. The palace of the sons of Messer Vieri de’ Bardi was strong and the tower well fortified, as was the house of the Mannelli at the head of the Ponte Vecchio, then built of wood. The people could not pass over it, nor could they cross the Ponte Rubaconte (now Ponte alle Grazie), on account of the strength of the palaces of the Bardi of S. Gregorio; so they left a guard under the houses of the Alberti and also at the Ponte Vecchio, and then, with many soldiers on horseback, they went to the Ponte alia Carraja which was guarded by the Nerli. The people of S. Frediano, Cuculia and the Fondaccio, were however so numerous that before the others arrived they had stormed the bridge-head and the houses of the Nerli, who were put to flight. And thus the victorious people passed over the bridge, and joined those of the Oltrarno and furiously attacked the Frescobaldi.... The Bardi seeing themselves bereft of any aid from the Rossi and the Frescobaldi were much alarmed, they nevertheless armed their barricades and fought in such manner that some were killed and many were wounded on either side; for the Bardi were well furnished with both horse and foot and had many mercenaries, so the people tried in vain to force their stockades. Four companies of those of the Oltrarno were then ordered to attack them from behind by the hill of S. Giorgio. The Bardi seeing themselves hotly besieged and assailed on all sides were much afeard, and began to abandon their barricades on the Piazza or Ponte, which were guarded by the tower of the Guelph party and by the palace of the sons of Messer Vieri de’ Bardi, in order to defend themselves against those who were coming from the cane-brakes of S. Giorgio. Then a certain Strozza, a German captain, got inside the barricades of the Piazza a Ponte with his brigade, with great peril to himself on account of the many stones and bricks which were hurled at him. He rushed to Sta. Maria Sopr’Arno, followed by the people, and was there joined by those of this side of the Arno who had crossed the bridge and, surmounting every obstacle on the other side, had joined with the people of the Oltrarno. They broke down the resistance and the power of the Bardi who fled to the Borgo S. Niccolò, imploring their neighbours and the company of the Gonfalone of the Scala, who had already taken possession of the palaces of the Bardi of S. Gregorio, to save their palaces from being sacked and burnt, and their lives from being taken. So the people who were on guard at the head of the bridge near the houses of the Alberti, saved the Bardi from death, but all their houses, from Sta. Lucia as far as the Ponte Vecchio, were robbed of everything by the _popolo minuto_ ... who in their fury, after sacking the houses set them on fire. Twenty-two rich and splendid palaces and houses were burnt and it is estimated that the loss was more than 60,000 golden florins. Thus ended the resistance of the Bardi, in their great pride and power, against the people.”

Piero scornfully rejected the conditions imposed on the _Grandi_ by the People and retired to his estate of Vernio where he died in 1345. His sons Sozzo and Notto were created Imperial Vicarii of the county of Vernio by the Emperor Charles IV., and the diploma was ratified by the Emperor Leopoldo in 1697 in favour of their descendants. It was abrogated by the treaty of Vienna in 1814, when Vernio became an integral portion of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. As long as Florence had been republican none of Piero de’ Bardi’s family entered the city, but under Cosimo I. his grandson Alberto settled there, whose son Pandolfo played the ugly part of confidant between Francesco de’ Medici and Bianci Cappello, whilst another son was the Franciscan friar who performed the first (secret) marriage of the Grand Duke and his mistress only a few days after the death of the Grand Duchess Joan of Austria. Alberto’s brother Camillo took up his residence in a palace in Via de’ Benci, bought by his ancestors from the old family of the Busini in 1482, and here his descendants still live. It is said to have been built by Brunelleschi and has a pretty courtyard surrounded by an arcade. The windows of the second floor are untouched, but the mural paintings (graffite) on the façade, believed to have been the first done in Florence, have been restored. A grandiloquent inscription records that Giovanni Bardi, Count of Vernio, founded in the XVIth century the society whose object was to reform recitative and melody; the first fruits of which were _Dafne_, with Peri’s music, and _Euridice_ with music by Caccini.

PALAZZO BARTOLINI SALIMBENI

_Piazza Sta. Trinita. No. 8._

In 1516 Messer Lorenzo Bartolini, Apostolic Pro-notary, and his brother Giovanni, bought five-eighths of a shop from Girolamo Deti, and a year later several more shops from heirs of other members of the same family. Two years afterwards garrulous old Giovanni Cambi notes in his Diary, “at this time Giovanni Bartolini began a small palace at the corner of Porta Rossa and the Terma, on the Piazza di Sta. Trinita, where was the tavern of the Camel, and painters, shoemakers and a baker. It will be a great ornament to the city, as it is in a good position. Some of the shops belonged to the Soldanieri, who have been for long away from the Florentine dominion, and now will have more reason than ever to remain abroad, as the sale was made without their consent.”

The Bartolini took possession of the property, and their _pulchrum edifitium_ as the notary termed it, was already far advanced when the Venerable Maestro Berdardino d’Oderigo Soldanieri, a Dominican, arrived in Florence after a long absence. He lost no time in attacking Bartolini for having taken unlawful possession of three-eighths of the shop which belonged to his family, and was appeased with difficulty. However finally all was arranged and Lorenzo Bartolini took up his abode in the palace in 1521. Baccio d’Agnolo (Baglioni) was the architect, and Vasari tells us, “this was the first edifice built with square windows having frontispieces, and of which the columns of the door support the architrave, the frieze, and the cornice; therefore the Florentines derided these novelties with jibes and with sonnets, and they hung it about with garlands of boughs as is done in churches for the festivals, saying that it was more like the façade of a church than of a palace; so that Baccio was nigh losing his reason: however knowing that he had followed good examples and that the building was beautiful, he took heart.” I may add that he revenged himself by inscribing over the door, CARPERE PROMPTUS QUAM IMITARI, as a lesson to the people of Florence.

Vasari again mentions this palace in his life of Cronaca, blaming Baccio for having, “in order to imitate Cronaca, placed a huge antique cornice, in fact the frontispiece of Montecavallo, on the top of a small and elegant façade, so that nothing could be worse, and all for lack of knowledge; it looks like a large hat on a small head.” However he admits that “nevertheless the building has always been much praised.” It has also been imitated, for the palace of the Duc de Retz, in the Rue Montmartre in Paris, is copied from it. The origin of the remarkably pretty friezes which surround the house under the first and the second floor windows, of three poppies tied together, and the motto _per non dormire_, which forms an architectural ornament, is said to have been a trick attempted on Messer Bernuccio di Giovanni Salimbeni of Siena, whose descendants came to Florence and took the name of Bartolini. He was a great silk merchant, and with other friends passed through Florence every year to go to the fair of Sinalunga with his Florentine acquaintances. They determined to steal a march on Messer Bernuccio, and one year mixed poppy juice with the wine served at the banquet, intending to start at daylight and thus obtain the pick of the market. But old Salimbeni was warned, and managed to change the flasks, thus turning the tables on the Florentines to the great advantage of the Sienese. He then invented the device and the motto, with which his descendants ornamented their palace.

[Illustration: PALAZZO BARTOLINI SALIMBENI. PALAZZO BUONDELMONTI. CORNER OF PALAZZO SPINI.]

In 1868 the palace was sold to Prince Ercole Pio di Savoia; whose daughters still own it, and many readers will doubtless remember it as the old Hôtel du Nord. Inside is a very pretty loggia and the rooms are well-proportioned. It is sad to see one of the most exquisite buildings in Florence falling to ruin.

Opposite the palace, on the Piazza di Sta. Trinita, stands the column described by Evelyn in his Diary as being “of ophite, upon which is a statue of Justice, with her balance and sword, out of porphyry, and the more remarkable for being the first which had been carved out of that hard material, and brought to perfection, after the art had been utterly lost; they say this was done by hardening the tools in the juice of certain herbs. This statue was erected on that spot, because there Cosimo was first saluted with the news of Siena being taken.... Looking at the Justice, in copper, we are told that the Duke, asking a gentleman how he liked the piece, he answered, that he liked it very well, but that it stood too high for poor men to come at.”

PALAZZO BARTOLOMMEI

_Via Lambertesca. No. 11._

The old palace of the Lamberteschi, with which the tower of the ancient family of the Gherardini had been incorporated, was bought in 1640 by Anton Maria Bartolommei, and to it was added, according to an entry in the catasto, “in 1824 a building, called the tower of the Girolami, at the corner of Via Lambertesca and Via Por Santa Maria, bought by the Marquess Girolamo Bartolommei from the heirs of Count Covoni, whose wife was the last of the Girolami. According to tradition the progenitor of the Bartolommei was Marcovaldo, who came into Italy with the Emperor Frederick I., and was created Marquess of Ancona and Count of Romagna. His descendant Sigismondo was Captain of War in Perugia in 1358; beaten by the Pontifical troops, he fled to Florence, where his son Bartolommeo obtained the citizenship and gave his name to the family. His son Girolamo was implicated in the conspiracy against the Medici with Orazio Pucci and Zanobi Girolami, and sentenced to death _in contumaciam_; another son fled to Lyons, where he made a large fortune in trade, which eventually came back to the family. Thus Anton Maria was enabled to buy the palace and restore the adjoining church of S. Stefano. Girolamo de’ Bartolommei, a poet of the XVIIth century, was Consul of the Florentine Academy in 1648, and published two volumes of tragedies, but his best known work is _America_, a poem written in honour of Amerigo Vespucci. Mattia, created Marquess of Montegiove by Fernando II., was ambassador at Paris under Cosimo III., and from his son descended the late Marquess Ferdinando Bartolommei, last of the family, who was one of the factors of United Italy.[20]

The Gherardini, whose old tower was incorporated in the Lamberteschi palace, were Guelphs; many of them fought at Montaperti, while eight signed the peace of the Cardinal Latino in 1280. Andrea Gherardini, one of the leaders of the White Party, was exiled together with Dante, and his brother Lotteringo was killed in a street skirmish by adherents of Corso Donato. They were a fighting race; five of them fell at the battle of Montecatini in 1315, and the two last scions of the family died in battle, one in the Seven Years War in Germany, the other in Flanders. Passerini affirms that a Gherardini went to Ireland in the XIIIth century, and was the progenitor of the great family of the Fitzgeralds.[21]

[Illustration: TOWERS OF THE GIROLAMI AND OF THE GHERARDINI.]

The Girolami whose tower adjoins that of the Gherardini claimed S. Zenobius, Bishop of Florence in the VIth century, as belonging to their family, and on the 25th May his statue in a niche in the tower used to be decorated with garlands of flowers, with great ceremony and much blowing of trumpets. The family possessed the ring of the saint, held in such estimation as a wonder-working relic that Lorenzo the Magnificent sent it in 1482 to Paris to Louis XI. The king was cured of a severe illness after touching it, and sent it back in a jewelled box of great value which the Gherardini sold, and founded a rich canonry in Sta. Maria del Fiore with the proceeds. In 1523 Raffaello de’ Girolami was Gonfalonier of Justice, and five years later Commissary of War. Condemned to death after the capitulation of Florence, the sentence was commuted at the request of Don Ferrante Gonzaga to imprisonment for life in the fortress of Pisa, where he was poisoned by order of Pope Clement VII., as soon as the Imperialists left Tuscany. One of his sons fought as a lad against Cosimo I. at Siena under Strozzi, and was sentenced to lose his head, but escaped to France. Another obtained permission to return to Florence after long years of exile, and as all his estates had been confiscated, left nothing to his son save the family hatred of the Medici. He joined Orazio Pucci and Girolamo Bartolommei in conspiring against the Grand Duke, and was condemned to death _in contumaciam_. Raffaello de’ Girolami founded the Academy of the Sapienza in Rome, and became a Cardinal in 1743, and the last of the family died about forty years later, appointing the sons of his sister, married to Count Covoni, his heirs.

PALAZZO BORGHESE

_Via Ghibellina. No. 110._

This palace is chiefly interesting because part of it (corner of Via de’ Giraldi and Via de’ Pandolfini) was built where once stood the house of Giovanni and Matteo Villani. The Salviati bought it with some others, and Silvani erected for them a large palace, which afterwards became the property of Prince Camillo Borghese. He purchased many adjoining houses, and enlarged it in 1823, when he must have spent a fortune on the magnificent internal decorations. It now belongs to the Borghese Club.

The family of the Villani came from Borgo S. Lorenzo in the XIIIth century, and took their name from Villano, son of Stoldo. Giovanni, the famous chronicler, was the eldest son of Villano, and superintended the building of the campanile of the Badia of Florence and of the doors of S. Giovanni. He was also Master of the Mint, and sat several times as Prior in the Palazzo de’ Signori. In 1325 he fought at Altopascio, and soon afterwards was imprisoned for debt as a partner of the Buonaccorsi, whose bank was ruined by the failure of the Bardi. His delightful _Cronica_, picturesque, pure and elegant in style, and wonderfully impartial, has been a mine of wealth to all students of the history of old Florence. It was continued, after he died of the plague in 1348, by his brother Matteo, until he fell a victim to the same malady in 1363. Matteo’s eldest son Filippo added forty-two chapters to the chronicle, but of very inferior interest, bringing it down to 1365. He was also the author of a commentary on Dante, and of _Philippi solitarii de origine civitatis Florentiæ, et ejusdem famosis civibus_, which remained in manuscript until 1747, when the second part, containing the lives of various famous persons, was published. He died in 1404, and the last descendant of his brother Giovanni in 1617.

PALAZZO BOUTURLIN

_Via de’ Servi. No. 15._

Bastiano, son of Zanobi Ciaini, also called Montaguto or Montauto, from his castle at Santa Maria a Montauto, made a large fortune in trade. In 1540 he bought several houses in the Via de’ Servi, and summoned Domenico, son of Baccio d’Agnolo (Baglioni), who Vasari declares to have been an architect of no common merit, “besides carving most excellently in wood,” to build him a palace. A brother inherited it, who must have had losses as in 1572 the house was let to Messer Raffaello de’ Medici, a knight of San Stefano, and four years later was sold to Messer Giovanni Niccolini, who after his wife’s death was created a Cardinal through the influence of the Medici.

Giovanni added to the palace, filled it with costly works of art, and fitted up one room for his fine collection of coins. Beneath the architraves of two doors on the ground floor, under the loggia, is still to be seen his name, IOANNES NICOLINUS AUG. CARD. F. As Giovanni Dosio was the architect employed by him to build the fine Niccolini chapel in Santa Croce, it is probable that he also made the additions to the palace. Filippo, his son, again enlarged it, and inscribed the date, A.D. MDCLV. on the central arch of the gallery above the loggia. About the same time the Grand Duke created him Marquess of Ponsacco and Camugliano, with remainder to collateral relations in case he had no children. In 1666 Lorenzo, a descendant of his great-uncle, inherited the palace, and added to it, as is shown by the inscription above a door in the courtyard, LAUREN. NICOLINI. PONTIS. SACCI. MARCHIO. He bought some small houses and adjoining land to make a garden, and tied up the palace and its contents upon his heirs male. But his son Filippo left it to his sons in common, and they sold the old family palace in 1824 to Count Demetrio Bouturlin, Privy Councillor and Chamberlain to the Emperor of Russia, whose descendants still own it. In 1854 the façade was plastered from the first floor upwards, and decorated in _graffite_, and with paintings. During the few years that Florence was the capital of Italy, Palazzo Bouturlin was the residence of the British ambassador, Sir Henry Elliot.

PALAZZO BUONDELMONTI

_Piazza Sta. Trinita_

Ancestor of the great and powerful family of the Buondelmonti was Sichelmo, who lived about 905, and whose son Azzo, Lord of Petrojo, was the grandfather of Giovanni, founder of the Vallombrosan Order. His other son, Rinieri Pagano, ruled the whole Val di Pesa and from him descended Uguccione and Rosso, whose feudal castle of Montebuoni was taken and razed to the ground by order of the Commune of Florence in 1135 at the instigation, it is said, of the Uberti who were jealous of their power. Half in derision, half in fear, they were called the Buoni del Monte (Good men of the Mountain) by travellers who dreaded being waylaid. Uguccione and Rosso were forced to come and live in Florence, and from Buondelmonte, son of Uguccione, the family took their name, while Rosso’s son Scolajo, founded the family of the Scolari.

Buondelmonte’s three sons, all hard fighters, were made knights of the Golden Spur, and it was the murder of his grandson and namesake by the Amidei, that plunged Florence into civil war in 1215.

Buondelmonte de’ Buondelmonti was among the young men invited by Messer Mazzingo Mazzinghi to a banquet at his castle near Campi, to celebrate his receiving the honour of knighthood. During dinner the buffoon of the house snatched a plate from before Uberto Infangati, a friend of Buondelmonte, who curtly reproved the jester’s insolence. Oddo Fifanti defended the man, and losing his temper, took the plate from him and hurled it at Infangati. Young Buondelmonte then rose from the table and attacked Fifanti with his dagger. Friends made peace between them and a marriage was arranged between Buondelmonte and a daughter of Lambertuccio Amidei and of Fifanti’s sister. A few days before the wedding the bridegroom rode under the windows of the Donati palace and Forese Donati’s wife, Madonna Gualdrada, called to him and bade him come up. She laughed him to scorn for a coward, who out of fear of the Uberti and the Fifanti was going to marry an ugly girl. “All the more do I grieve,” she added, “because I had intended your old playmate, my daughter, to be your bride.” Saying this she led him into the next room where her daughter “the most beautiful maiden in Florence,” writes Villani, sat singing. Buondelmonte, as the old saying is, “lost his intellect through his eyes,” and forgetting his plighted word asked for her hand. The wedding was fixed for the 10th February, the very day he was to have married the daughter of Lambertuccio Amidei. Furious at the insult offered to their house, the Amidei summoned their relations to meet in the church of S. Stefano, and Schiatta degl’Uberti proposed to slice the fair face of young Buondelmonte and spoil his beauty. But Mosca Lamberti replied in the well-known words: “Before thou beatest or woundest, dig thine own grave. Give him what he deserves. A thing finished is done with.” And so his death was determined.

On Easter morn 1315 the handsome young bridegroom, clothed in white with a garland of flowers on his head, was riding over the Ponte Vecchio on his favourite white palfrey. As he debouched into Por Sta. Maria the great doors of the Amidei palace flew open, and the murderers, led by Schiatta degl’Uberti who gave the first blow and knocked Buondelmonte off his horse, killed him near the old statue of Mars at the corner of the bridge. Well may Dante exclaim:

“O Buondelmonti! what ill counselling Prevail’d on thee to break the plighted bond? Many, who now are weeping, would rejoice, Had God to Ema given thee, the first time Thou near our city camest. But so was doom’d: Florence! on that maimed stone which guards the bridge, The victim, when thy peace departed, fell.”

Par. Canto xvi., _Cary’s_ trans.

“This day witnessed the beginning of the destruction of Florence,” writes an old chronicler. The beautiful young bride, seated on the funeral car with her dead husband’s head in her lap, went through the streets calling for vengeance on his murderers. The city was divided into two factions and Guelphs and Ghibellines flew at each other’s throats. After some years of incessant strife another marriage was arranged. This time it was the daughter of a Buondelmonti who wedded an Uberti. But at a banquet in the same old castle of the Mazzinghi at Campi, a quarrel arose in which Schiatta degl’Uberti was killed, while Oddo Fifanti had his nose cut off and his mouth slit from ear to ear. Neri degl’Uberti thereupon sent back his wife to her father saying he would not beget children from the daughter of a race of traitors.