Part 8

Machiavelli describes Corso Donati as “a promoter of every disagreement and every tumult; all who desired to attain anything extraordinary turned to him, so that he was hated by many citizens of repute.... But the authority wielded by him was such that he was feared by all. To deprive him of the popular favour it was spread about that he sought to seize the State, to which his magnificent way of living, far beyond the ordinary, lent colour. After he had taken to wife the daughter of Uguccione della Faggiuola, head of the Ghibelline and the White Party, and most powerful in Tuscany, this report gained more credit. The marriage encouraged his enemies and induced the people to abandon him, and many joined his adversaries. Their leaders were Rosso della Tosa, Pazzino de’ Pazzi, Geri Spini and Berto Brunelleschi who, with their followers, and a great concourse of people, went armed to the palace of the Signori. The Signori ordered Piero Branca, Captain of the People, to accuse Messer Corso of desiring to make himself tyrant of Florence by the aid of Uguccione. He was cited to appear, and then condemned as a rebel _in contumaciam_, and only two hours elapsed between the accusation and the condemnation. After the delivery of the sentence the Signori and the Compagnie of the People, with their banners, went to take him. Messer Corso, whose courage failed not when he saw himself abandoned by many and heard of his condemnation, was not abashed by the authority of the Signori or the number of his assailants, but fortified his houses, hoping to be able to defend himself until the arrival of Uguccione, to whom he had sent for help. His houses and the streets near by had been closed by him and fortified by his adherents, and their defence was so valiant that the people, although numerous, could not advance. The struggle was great, with dead and wounded on both sides. Seeing that nothing was to be done in the open the people took possession of the houses adjoining his and, breaking through the walls, burst into his house. Finding himself surrounded by enemies and despairing of victory, or of aid from Uguccione, Messer Corso decided to try and save his life. Placing himself and Gherardo Bordoni at the head of some of his strongest and most trusted friends, he charged the enemy with such impetuosity that they fell back, and fighting he was able to pass through their ranks and leave the city by the Porta Sta. Croce. Many, however, pursued him, Gherardo was killed on the banks of the Affrico by Boccaccio Cavicciulli, whilst some Catalan horsemen, soldiers of the Signoria, came up with Messer Corso at Rovezzano and took him prisoner. On the way back to Florence, to avoid meeting his victorious enemies face to face and being tortured by them, he threw himself off his horse, and thus, lying on the ground, was killed by one of his captors. The monks of S. Salvi found his body and buried it without any honours. Such was the end of Messer Corso, to whom both his country and the Black Party owed much good and much ill. Had his disposition been of a gentler kind, his memory would be more honoured.” Dino Compagni says that Corso Donati was ill and suffering from gout at the time of his flight. “Much talk there was of the evil manner of his death, according as to whether they were friends or enemies,” continues the old chronicler, “but to speak truthfully his life was perilous [for the quiet of Florence] and his death was blameworthy. He was a knight of great courage and of old name, of gentle blood and well-mannered, very handsome, even in his old age, finely built, with delicate features and a pale complexion; a pleasant, wise and ornate speaker, and always occupied with important affairs, a consort and a friend of great lords and noble persons, counting many adherents and renowned throughout Italy. He was an enemy to the people and to popular government, well-loved by his partisans, but full of evil designs, wicked and astute.”

PALAZZO FERONI (NOW AMERIGHI)

_Via de’ Serragli. No. 6._

A peasant named Balducci, from Vinci, was the ancestor of the Feroni family. One of his descendants, of the name of Ferone, established himself at Empoli as a dyer, and had dealings with Holland, where his grandson Francesco Feroni made a large fortune. Prince Cosimo de’ Medici made his acquaintance during his travels, and when he became Grand Duke summoned him to Florence, made him a citizen and a Senator, and in 1681 Marquess of Bellavista. He left an enormous fortune to his descendants, one of whom bought several houses in Via de’ Serragli, and built this large palace, which the Marquess Ubaldo Feroni enlarged in 1778. It was afterwards again considerably augmented by the addition of the suppressed church and monastery of S. Giuseppe, when another entrance into the spacious courtyard was made from Via S. Frediano. In the same year his brother the Marquess Alessandro bought the larger half of the ancient Palazzo Spini, which is sometimes called Feroni. In another palace in the Via Faenza they had a gallery of pictures, which the last of the family bequeathed to the city of Florence in 1850.

PALAZZO RICASOLI FIRIDOLFI

_Via Maggio. No. 7._

The fine palace now inhabited by the Baroness Ricasoli Firidolfi and her children was built by the Ridolfi family on the site of houses belonging to various families, in the XVth century, and bought in 1736 by Maria Lucrezia Firidolfi for her sons. The architect is unknown, but the palace, with its fine courtyard, evidently dates from the XVth century. On the first floor is a tiny chapel, entirely painted in oils by Giorgio Vasari in a manner very different from his usual style. Above the altar is a marble bas-relief of the Madonna and Child with S. John, by Rossellini.

The history of this family is a complicated and a curious one. Divided in the XIIth century into three branches, of which one retained the old name of Firidolfi, whilst the other two took that of Ricasoli, they were again reunited after eight hundred years in the person of the late Baron Giovanni Ricasoli Firidolfi. His mother was the only daughter of the great statesman Baron Bettino Ricasoli, his father the sole surviving son of Giovanni Francesco Ricasoli di Meleto, who married the only daughter of the last of the Firidolfi, whose name he added to his own.

One of those long-bearded northmen (Longobardi), who came into Italy in the VIth century, is said to have settled in the Mugello. But the first of the family of whom we have documentary evidence is Geremia, son of Ildebrando, lord of great estates in the Mugello and of nearly the whole province of the Chianti, who being old, and without children, made large donations to the Church. On the death of his first wife he married a young girl, by whom he had one son, Ridolfo, inscribed among the great Barons of Tuscany in a deed of 1029. From him the family took the name of Firidolfi (de filiis Rudolphi). Ranieri Firidolfi fought under Frederick Barbarossa, and obtained in fief the castles of Campi and of Tornano, and, according to a tradition in the family, the strong castle of Brolio. This originally belonged to Bonifazio, Marquess of Tuscany, who in 1009 gave it to the monks of the Badia of Florence, a donation confirmed by the Emperor Henry II. in 1012, and by Henry IV. in 1074. Henry VI. not only confirmed his father’s gifts to Ranieri, but added to them the castles of Moriano and of Ricasoli, not far from Fiesole, from which the most powerful branch of the family took its name.

Alberto Ricasoli, Ranieri’s son, served under the Emperor Otho IV., who increased the privileges bestowed by former emperors, and in 1230 he was elected Podestà of Siena. From his sons Ranieri and Ugo descended the Ricasoli di Meleto of Ponte alla Carraja, and the great baronial family. Ugo fought in the Guelph ranks at Montaperti, and in revenge the Ghibellines destroyed his castle of Ricasoli, for which he obtained compensation when his party returned to power. Bindaccio, his grandson, showed such valour at the battles of Montecatini and Altopascio that the Bolognese chose him as their Podestà, and Cardinal Albornoz made him Captain-General of the Papal forces. One of his sons was a Bishop of Florence, whilst another, Albertaccio, was so gallant a soldier that at his death in 1335 the Republic gave him a public funeral, and decreed that his arms, with the banner of the people and of the Guelph party, should be placed above his tomb in Sta. Croce.

Ranieri Ricasoli di Meleto, a strong partisan of the Medici, was sent to Flanders after the Pazzi conspiracy to sequester the monies in their banks in Bruges, Ghent, etc. He was a very rich merchant, and built the stately old Ricasoli palace on the Lung’Arno Corsini in 1480, said to have been designed by Michelozzi (now the Hotel New York). Cinelli describes the fine collection of pictures, and the beautiful garden and loggia opposite (where now is the Hotel Bristol), then connected with the palace by a passage under the street.[33] One of Ranieri’s descendants was an intimate friend of Alfieri, whose tragedy Saul was first acted in the private theatre of the Ricasoli palace.

Simone Ricasoli, son of Ranieri, was brought up with Lorenzo the Magnificent, and when the young Cardinal Giovanni, his son, went to Rome, Lorenzo confided him to the care of his devoted friend. On Giovanni becoming Pope as Leo X., he summoned another Ricasoli, Antonio, to direct the iniquitous war which despoiled the Della Rovere of the Duchy of Urbino in favour of his own nephew Lorenzo de’ Medici. The assault and capture of the strong fortress of S. Leo was famous in the annals of that time. In 1526 he was Commissary of the war with Siena, and the defeat of the Florentine troops was attributed to him; so on the exile of the Medici the following year he was condemned to death and his estates were forfeited. He escaped to Rome, and found an asylum with Clement VII. until Florence was once more ruled by the Medici, when he was created a Senator. After the battle of Montemurlo he sat as one of the judges, and was distinguished for the harsh brutality of his sentences on the wretched prisoners. His sons served Cosimo I. well by sowing discord in Siena, and when the city fell into the hands of the Duke he rewarded Giulio Ricasoli by restoring to him the old feudal castles of Trappola, Rocca Guicciarda and Sagona, which the Florentine Republic had confiscated in 1395. Giulio then reassumed the old title of Baron, which his ancestors had refused to exchange for the higher one of Count. The name of Ricasoli is connected with the island of Malta, as Giovanfrancesco, a knight of the Order, gave such large sums towards building the fortifications that one of the forts was named after him.[34]

The life of Bettino Ricasoli, one of the makers of United Italy, is too well known to need repetition here, and would take up too much space. “Il fiero Barone” (the proud, or great, Baron), as the Florentines called him (he was, I believe, the only Baron of Tuscany), died in an old family palace in the Via del Cocomero, now, according to the baneful habit they have in Florence of altering the names of ancient streets, and thus sweeping away the historical landmarks of the city, the Via Ricasoli.

PALAZZO FOSSI

_Via de’ Benci. No. 20._

Nearly all the palaces on the eastern side of Via de’ Benci once belonged to the Alberti and the street was called after them, until the Benci crossed the Arno and established themselves here, when it became Via de’ Benci. This palace was bought from Francesco degl’Alberti in 1456 by Duccio Mellini, whose family were rich bankers and great patrons of the arts. The fine pulpit in Sta. Croce by Benedetto da Majano was erected by them. Michelangelo has been named as the architect of the characteristic and elegant palace, but it bears no resemblance to his handiwork, and evidently dates from the middle of the XVIth century. It is one of the few which still preserves, though in a sad state of ruin, a frescoed façade, painted by Stalf, a Flemish artist, after the designs of Francesco Salviati. The Mellini sold it in 1634, since when it has changed hands often, and now belongs to Signor Fossi.

[Illustration: DOORWAY OF PALAZZO FRESCOBALDI.] PALAZZO FRESCOBALDI

_Piazza de’ Frescobaldi. No. 1._

Many were the houses belonging to the great family of Frescobaldi in the Borgo S. Jacopo and in the Via S. Spirito, besides the great palace in the Piazza de’ Frescobaldi. Opposite to the latter stood one of their towers and their loggia, of which a capital remains built into the wall of a small house. Another tower was near the church of S. Jacopo. The old palace in the Piazza in which Pope Gregory lodged in 1272 was burnt during the popular rising in 1343, but was rebuilt with greater magnificence. Afterwards it became a monastery, but when Florence became the capital the monks gave place to the Admiralty. It is now a communal school, and the fine façade is fast falling to pieces.

According to Verino, the Frescobaldi came originally from Germany. They were lords of several castles in the Val di Pesa in very early times, and their name appears among the first Consuls and Elders of Florence. One of them, Messer Lamberto di Fresco di Baldo, built the first bridge (of wood) of Sta. Trinita across the Arno in 1252. His sons Lapo and Neri fought at the battle of Montaperti on the side of the Guelphs, and their cousin Berto rode by the side of King Charles of Anjou and bore his banner at the famous battle of Campaldino in 1282. Three years later Ghino de’ Frescobaldi was created a Prior, but the power, military fame and riches, of the family aroused the jealousy of the popular party. As _Grandi_ they were declared incapable of holding any office, which they bitterly resented; and were driven to fury by the exile of Teglia de’ Frescobaldi, who had led the Florentine army to victory in 1303, and was too popular with his soldiers to please a republican government. Swearing to be revenged, he took service with Castruccio Castrocane, Lord of Lucca, and attempted to seize Montelupo and Capraja, while some of his relatives conspired to open the gates of Florence to her enemy. All those who were implicated in the plot were banished, and the cruelty and injustice of the newly created magistrate, “the Preserver of Peace,” drove the _Grandi_ to desperation, and ended in the revolt of the great Oltrarno families, so graphically described by Villani (see p. 40). For some hours the Frescobaldi defended their Piazza and palaces, but were at last forced to capitulate. Their houses and towers were destroyed, and those members of the family who were not beheaded or imprisoned, were banished.

There must also be mentioned the poet Dino de’ Frescobaldi, called by Boccaccio “famosissimo dicitore in rima in Firenze.” The world owes him a vast debt of gratitude, for he contrived to save the first seven cantos of the _Inferno_, when all that belonged to his friend Dante was confiscated, and sent them after him to the Marchese Malaspina’s castle in the Lunigiana. Matteo, Dino’s son, was also a poet, and Lionardo, whose interesting account of his travels in Egypt and the Holy Land in 1383 has been published, was, it is believed, a descendant of his.

Battista de’ Frescobaldi conspired against Lorenzo the Magnificent and was beheaded, and his brother Giuliano died by the side of Ferruccio Ferrucci in the battle of Gavinana. Bartolomeo was so ardent a republican that he withdrew from the world when the Medici attained to power, but his descendant Matteo was made a Senator in 1645. The present representative of the Frescobaldi lives in one of the old family palaces in Via S. Spirito.

PALAZZO GHERADESCA

_Borgo Pinti. No. 93._

The historian Bartolommeo Scala, son of a miller of Colle in the Val d’Elsa, built this palace. Cosimo de’ Medici, and his son Piero after him, paid for his education, and he became Chancellor of the Republic of Florence and was Gonfalonier of Justice in 1486. His learning was undeniable, but Lorenzo the Magnificent evidently was not satisfied with his Latin style, as he privately made Poliziano correct the despatches and letters written by Scala in the name of the Republic. At length the Chancellor suspected who was the real author of the corrections and a deadly hatred ensued between the two men. The hatred was embittered by the refusal of Scala’s beautiful and clever daughter Alessandra to listen to Poliziano, and by her marriage with Michael Tarcagnota, an inferior poet, but a better-tempered and a better-looking man than the famous Agnolo Poliziano.

Guido Scala, Bartolommeo’s grandson, died childless in 1581 and left the palace to Alessandro de’ Medici, Archbishop of Florence, afterwards Pope Leo XI. It then became the property of the Counts Gheradesca who laid out a beautiful garden and now it belongs to the Meridionale Railway Company.

PALAZZO GIANFIGLIAZZI

_Via Tornabuoni. No. 1._

The palace, or rather the palaces, of the great family of the Gianfigliazzi faced the Ponte a Sta. Trinita at the corner of the Lung’Arno Corsini and the Via Tornabuoni. As Guelphs they were expelled the city after the battle of Montaperti in 1260, but returned, and three of them signed the famous peace of 1280. Eight years later their palaces were nearly destroyed by the terrible flood which did so much damage in Florence. The palaces Nos. 2 and 4 on the Lung’Arno Corsini also belonged to them; in the former, with the lion of the Gianfigliazzi carved by Desiderio da Settignano in the coat of arms on the façade, the great poet Alfieri lived for some time, and there he died.

At the beginning of the XVth century they bought from the Fastelli the palace adjoining the church of Sta. Trinita, with a tower which had been built by the Ruggerini, a Guelph family who were ruined in 1260. The arms of the three different owners are still on the façade. The loggia of the Gianfigliazzi, on the opposite side of the church at the corner of the Via di Parione, was only closed and turned into a shop in 1732.

The Gianfigliazzi descend from a Giovanni son of Azzo (Gianni figlio d’Azzo), who signed a convention with Siena in 1201. Two of the family sat in the Council of Elders in 1278 and 1279; a few years later they were excluded from office as nobles and their name only appears again among the magistrates of the city after the departure of the tyrant Duke of Athens. Geri de’ Gianfigliazzi was a poet and a friend of Petrarch; Rinaldo, sent as Commissary of War against Visconti, was created a Count of the Holy Roman Empire by the Emperor Robert in 1402; and Bongianni, another gallant soldier, was publicly knighted by the Signoria in 1467 and died at the head of his troops under the walls of Pietrasanta. His son Jacopo was one of the twelve citizens named by Clement VII. to “reform” the State and elect Alessandro de’ Medici absolute ruler of Florence. Several of the family were Senators under the Medici, until the family became extinct in 1764.

PALAZZO GINORI

_Via de’ Ginori. No. 2._

The Ginori palace once belonged to Bacio Bandinelli who died there in 1559. There is a fine courtyard and the large saloon on the first floor is handsome; the building has been restored but not much spoiled. The Ginori descend from a notary who came to Florence from Calenzano, in the Val di Marino, in 1304, and lived close to the present palace of his descendants. His son Gino was the first of twenty-six Priors of the family and from him they took their name. Piero his grandson, the first Gonfalonier of five of his house in 1423, was an important person in the city and a friend of Giovanni de’ Medici, with whom he contributed towards the building of S. Lorenzo.

Benvenuto Cellini tells us that for Federigo Ginori, “a young man of a very lofty spirit,” he made a medal “with Atlas bearing the world upon his shoulders, and applied to Michelangelo for a design. Michelangelo made this answer: ‘Go and find out a young goldsmith named Benvenuto; he will serve you admirably, and certainly he does not stand in need of sketches by me. However to prevent your thinking that I want to save myself the trouble of so slight a matter, I will gladly sketch you something; but meanwhile speak to Benvenuto, and let him make a model, he can then execute the better of the two designs.’ Federigo Ginori came to me, and told me what he wanted, adding thereto how Michelangelo had praised me, and how he had suggested I should make a waxen model while he undertook to supply a sketch. The words of that great man so heartened me, that I set to work at once with eagerness ... and when Michelangelo saw it, he praised it to the skies. This was a figure, as I have said, chiselled on a plate of gold; Atlas had the heaven upon his back, made out of a crystal ball, engraved with the zodiac upon a field of lapis-lazuli. The whole composition produced an indescribably fine effect; and under it ran the legend _Summa tulisse juvat_.”[35] Federigo was killed during the siege of Florence and his brother Leonardo, a spendthrift and a gambler, was the husband of the beautiful Caterina Soderini, whose story is a sad one. Forced by her father to forget her early love the poet Luigi Alamanni, and married to Leonardo Ginori, who had to fly to Naples to escape from his creditors, she was exposed to the persecutions of the Duke Alessandro de’ Medici, and was the innocent cause of his murder (see p. 263). Her son Bartolommeo, famed for his strength and great stature, was chosen by Giovan Bologna for the model of the young man in his group of the rape of the Sabines. From him descended the Senator Carlo Ginori who founded the well-known china manufactory at Doccia near Florence in 1740. He chartered a ship for China and she brought back, not only models and specimens of the various earths used in making china, but many rare plants and the first gold fish that were seen in Europe.[36] The present Marquess Ginori lives in the old palace, and the Doccia factory, which has become a Company under the name of Richard Ginori, still keeps up its reputation.

PALAZZO GINORI CONTI

_Via Cavour. No. 7._