The Rise and Fall of the House of Medici

CHAPTER I

1. The PALAZZO DELLA SIGNORIA, or Palazzo Vecchio, the seat of the city’s government, was begun in 1299 and enlarged and altered at various times up till the end of the sixteenth century. The courtyard was rebuilt by Michelozzo Michelozzi in the 1440s. The Sala del Maggior Consiglio was formed to accommodate the Grand Council in the time of Savonarola. During the reign of Duke Cosimo I, who moved here from the Medici Palace in 1340, the palace was remodelled and redecorated by Giorgio Vasari. When Duke Cosimo took up residence in the Pitti Palace, he handed over the Palazzo della Signoria to his son, Francesco, for whose bride, the Archduchess Joanna of Austria, the courtyard was specially decorated.

2. There has been a bridge where the PONTE VECCHIO now stands since Roman times. The present structure, which replaced a twelfth century bridge destroyed by the floods of 1333, was built in 1345. At that time most of the shops on the bridge were occupied by tanners and pursemakers. The butchers who succeeded them were replaced by goldsmiths and jewellers at the end of the sixteenth century on the orders of Grand Duke Ferdinando I.

3. ORSANMICHELE derives its name from the ancient oratory of San Michele in Orto which originally occupied the site. The present building, started in 1336, was designed for use as a communal granary as well as a chapel. The statues in the niches along the outside walls were commissioned by the city’s guilds. The original of Donatello’s marble St George which was made for the Armourers’ Guild, and a copy of which stands in the most westerly niche on the northern wall, is now in the Bargello.

4. The MERCATO VECCHIO was demolished at the end of the nineteenth century to make way for the present Piazza della Repubblica.

5. VIA CALIMALA which literally means Street of Ill Fame is perhaps a corruption of the Roman Callis Major.

6. The church and convent of SANTA CROCE in the Piazza Santa Croce was built between 1228 and 1385. In 1863, the distinctive marble façade was added to a seventeenth-century design. The tombs of Michelangelo and of Cosimo de’ Medici’s friends Leonardo Bruni, Carlo Marsuppini and Vespasiano da Bisticci are all here; as also are the chapels of several of the leading families of Florence, including those of the Bardi family into which Cosimo married. The Novices’ Chapel was built for Cosimo by Michelozzo in about 1445.

7. The BARGELLO known as the Palazzo del Podestà in the fifteenth century was originally built as the city hall in 1254–5. It was reconstructed in the middle of the fourteenth century when the stairway in the courtyard was built. In 1574 it became the residence of the Chief of Police. It is now the Museo Nazionale and contains many busts and statues of the Medici family as well as works of art commissioned by them.

8. The Alberti family palace in the Via de’ Benci (no. 6) is now the MUSEO HORNE. The Alberti were responsible for the chancel in Santa Croce.

9. The PALAZZO RUCELLAI, which was finished in the 1450s, is in the Via della Vigna Nuova (no. 18). It was built by Bernardo Rossellino after a design by Leon Battista Alberti. Alberti was also commissioned by Giovanni Rucellai to design the façade of the Dominican church of Santa Maria Novella which contains the Rucellai chapel. Part of the restored Rucellai gardens, the ORTI ORICELLARI, can be seen between the railway station and the Porta al Prato.

10. Niccolò da Uzzano lived in the Via de’ Bardi in the palace now known as the PALAZZO CAPPONI (no: 36).

CHAPTER II

1. The number of palle (or balls) on the MEDICI EMBLEM was never fixed. Originally there were twelve; but there were usually seven in Cosimo de’ Medici’s time – as on the shield on the south-east corner of the Medici palace – though there are only six at the corners of Verrocchio’s roundel in the chancel at San Lorenzo. There are eight on the ceiling of the old sacristy at San Lorenzo, five on Duke Cosimo’s tomb in the Capella dei Principi and six on the Grand Duke Ferdinando’s arms on the entrance to the Forte di Belvedere.

2. Work on the Cathedral of SANTA MARIA DEL FIORE, known as the DUOMO, was begun towards the end of the thirteenth century to a design by Arnolfo di Cambio. Brunelleschi’s dome was not finished until 1436 and the exterior was still not completed when he died ten years later. The neo-Gothic façade is late-nineteenth-century (see note 13 to Chapter XIII).

3. The Via Porta Rossa was then dominated by the PALAZZO DAVANZATI (no:9). At that time it was owned by the Davizzi who had built it in about 1330. It is now a museum.

4. The MERCATO NUOVO, now known as the Straw Market, was built by Giovanni Battista del Tasso in 1547–59.

5. The FLORENTINE LILY appears less frequently on the buildings of Florence than the palle of the Medici. One example is on the fifteenth-century doorway of the old Mint behind the Loggia dei Lanzi.

6. The Dominican church and monastery of SANTA MARIA NOVELLA was begun in the middle of the thirteenth century and finished in the sixteenth. The apartments which were built for Pope Martin V overlook the Chiostro Grande. The interior of the church was redecorated by Vasari in the 1560s. The Rucellai, Bardi and Strozzi all built chapels here. A chapel in the Chiostro Grande was redecorated for the visit of Giovanni di Lorenzo de’ Medici, Pope Leo X, by Jacopo Carrucci Pontormo and Ridolfo Ghirlandaio in 1515.

7. The grim, late-thirteenth-century palace of the Spini family, now the PALAZZO SPINI-FERRONI is on the corner of Via Tomabuoni and Lungamo Acciaiuoli by the Ponte Santa Trinità. The next palazzo downstream is the fourteenth-century Palazzo Gianfigliazzi (see note 2 to chapter XVII). A few doors further down (Lungamo Corsini, 10) is the seventeenth-century PALAZZO CORSINI whose picture gallery is occasionally open to the public.

8. The monastery of Santa Maria degli Angeli has now been absorbed by the Hospital of Santa Maria Nuova. The octagonal chapel known as the ROTONDA DI SANTA MARIA ANGELI in the Via degli Alfani was started in 1434 to designs by Brunelleschi.

9. Tournaments were traditionally held in the PIAZZA SANTA CROCE where chariot races and the football game known as calcio were also played. A plaquedated 10 February 1565 marks the centre of the calcio field.

10. It was Palla Strozzi who commissioned Gentile da Fabriano to paint the altarpiece, the Adoration of the Magi, for the chapel of Palla’s father, the CHAPEL OFONOFRIOSTROZZI in the church of Santa Trinità. The altarpiece, which contains portraits of various members of the Strozzi family, is now in the Uffizi. The STROZZI CHAPEL in the Dominican church of Santa Maria Novella has an altarpiece by Andrea Orcagna and murals by Nardo di Cione. The Strozzi family villa of Poggio a Caiano was later acquired by Lorenzo il Magnifico.

11. The VIA DE’ BARDI was almost entirely redeveloped by the Bardi family. Before they built their palace (which no longer exists) the street was a slum known as the Borgo Pigiglioso (the Fleapit). The fourteenth-century BARDI CHAPEL in the church of Santa Croce contains murals by Giotto and his assistants.

12. Carlo di Cosimo de’ Medici was also a collector in a modest way. Roger vander Weyden’s Entombment, now in the Uffizi, was one of his pictures.

CHAPTER III

1. The medieval tower house of the ALBIZZI is in the Borgo degli Albizzi. The palazzo built by Rinaldo degli Albizzi no longer exists, PALAZZO ALTOVITI stands on its site at no. 88.

2. Domenico Veneziano’s Saints Francis and John the Baptist from the Cavalcanti chapel is in the MUSEO DELL’ OPERA DI SANTA CROCE. The Cavalcanti Annunciation by Donatello is in the church of Santa Croce.

3. The Studio Fiorentino has developed into the UNIVERSITÀ DEGLISTUDI. The present building near the Piazza San Marco was converted from the stables of the Grand Dukes of Tuscany. The botanical gardens to the north, the GIARDINO DBI SEMPLICI, which face onto the Via Lamarmora, were laid out on Cosimo I’s instructions in the middle of the sixteenth century.

4. IL TREBBIO stands at the top of a hill about a mile from Cafaggiolo where the Medici had owned property for generations. According to Vasari the original medieval fortress was altered for Cosimo by Michelozzo who made it less bleak by rebuilding the courtyard, adding the loggia and the covered passage round the ramparts and tower. It was sold by the Medici to Giuliano Serragli in 1644. In 1864 it passed into the hands of Prince Marcantonio Borghese and was later bought by Dott. Enrico Scaretti who restored it in the 1930s. His widow, Lord Gladwyn’s sister, is still living there at the time of writing.

5. The PALAZZO GUADAGNI in Piazza Santo Spirito (nos. 7–9) was built for the Dei family in the early sixteenth century. Donato Guadagni bought it in 1684.

6. The sixteenth-century PALAZZO PUCCI is in Via de’ Pucci (nos. 2–4). The coat of-arms on the corner of Via de’ Servi is that of Giovanni di Lorenzo de’Medici, Pope Leo X. The Pucci paid for the loggia in Santissima Annunziata which was designed by Caccini and finished in 1601. The Pucci Chapel flanks the eastern wall of the Chiostrino dei Voti in Santissima Annunziata where Verrocchio’s now lost effigy of Lorenzo il Magnifico was displayed after his escape from assassination by the Pazzi. According to Vasari, Botticelli’s tondo, the Adoration of the Magi, now in the National Gallery, London, was commissioned by the Pucci.

CHAPTER IV

1. The library at San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice has been destroyed; but the dormitory may have been begun by Michelozzo whose influence is apparent in the design.

2. The Acciaiuoli had several houses in the Borgo Santi Apostoli, including the PALAZZO DEGLI ACCIAIUOLI (nos. 3–10). Their palace on the Arno was destroyed in 1944 when the retreating Germans blew up the nearby bridge.

3. The PALAZZO GUICCIARDINI is in the Via Guicciardini. Francesco Guicciardini wrote his History of Italy in the Villa Ravia in the Via di Santa Margherita a Montici (no. 75).

4. The houses and palaces of the Peruzzi family were in the PIAZZA PERUZZI where several buildings bear the family emblem – pears. The PERUZZI CHAPEL in Santa Croce contains murals by Giotto and his assistants.

5. The CAPPONI CHAPEL in the church of Santa Felicità was built for the Barbadori who made over their rights in it to the Capponi in 1525.

6. The church of San Pier Scheraggio was pulled down to make way for the Uffizi.

7. The MASTELLI CHAPEL is in the Basilica of San Lorenzo. It has an altarpiecc by Fra Filippo Lippi.

8. The VILLA OF CAREGGI was purchased in 1417 by Cosimo de’ Medici’s brother, Lorenzo. Michelozzo enlarged it for Cosimo, and Giuliano da Sangallo added the loggias on the south side for Lorenzo il Magnifico. It was looted and damaged by fire after the flight from Florence of Lorenzo’s son, Piero. Verrocchio’s David, his terracotta Resurrection (both now at the Bargello) and his fountain of a little boy holding a spouting fish (now at the Palazzo della Signoria) were all commissioned by the Medici for this villa. Restored by the Grand Duke Cosimo I, it subsequently fell into disrepair and was sold by the Medici’s successors to Count Vincenzo Orsi. It is now a hostel for staff of the Ospedale di Careggi.

CHAPTER V

1. Ficino’s villa is now known as LE FONTANELLE.

2. Cosimo kept the MEDICI LIBRARY first at Careggi and later at the Medici Palace. Confiscated by the Signoria in 1494, when fines of as much as fifty florins were imposed on borrowers who did not return books immediately, it was transferred to San Marco at the suggestion of Savonarola. The library was bought back in 1508 by Pope Leo X who removed it to Rome. Returned to Florence by Clement VII, it was – in 1532 – placed in the building in the cloisters of San Lorenzo where it remains.

3. Long supposed to have once been a Roman temple, the octagonal black-and-white BAPTLSTERY OF ST JOHN was probably built in the twelfth century. The portal surround to Pisano’s bronze doors on the southern front are by Vittorio Ghiberti, Lorenzo’s son.

4. Lorenzo Ghilberti’s BRONZE DOORS on the northern front show scenes from the life of Christ with the four Evangelists and four Church Fathers.

5. The HOSPITAL OF SANTA MARIA NUOVA was founded in 1286 by Folco Portinari, the father of Dante’s Beatrice.

6. Lorenzo Ghiberti’s GILDED BRON ZE DOORS on the eastern front contain a self-portrait of the artist whose bald head can be seen poking out of a round aperture.

7. The TOMB OF POPE JOHN XXIII in the Baptistery was designed by Donatello and, apart from the bronze effigy, made by Michelozzo.

8. In the building of the OSPEDALE DEGLI INNOCENTI, which faces onto the Piazza Santissima Annunziata, Brunelleschi was helped by his assistant Francesco della Luna. The middle nine arches are theirs; the others were added in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The medallions of swaddled babies were made by Andrea della Robbia.

9. The fourth-century basilica of SAN LORENZO had been replaced by another in the eleventh century. Brunelleschi’s early Renaissance masterpiece was begun in 1421. The old sacristy, where Giovanni di Bicci de’ Medici was buried, was completed in 1429. Brunelleschi did not live to finish the work; and his death in 1446 led to outbursts of violent quarrelling between various Florentine craftsmen who wanted to take over its direction and who appealed to Cosimo to support their conflicting claims. Giovanni di Domenico and Antonio Manetti, under Cosimo’s personal direction, seem to have been largely responsible for finishing it.

10. Brunelleschi’s carefully guarded secret was to provide a double cupola for the DOME OF SANTA MARIA DEL FIORE, the biggest in Europe, one dome inside another, each resting on a drum and bound together, the stones carefully dovetailing one into the next so that they were almost self-supporting.

11. Ghiberti’s ST MATTHEW at Orsanmichele, which was made between 1419 and 1422, occupies the most northerly niche in the western wall. The bronze St John the Baptist and St Stephen are also by Ghiberti.

12. The NOVICES’ CHAPEL was built about 1445 by Michelozzo. The glazed terracotta altarpiece is from Andrea della Robbia’s studio. The Grand Duke Ferdinando II arranged for Galileo to be buried here in 1642.

13. Also know as the Rotonda, the CHOIR OF SANTISSIMA ANNUNZIATA was started by Michelozzo in 1451 and finished by Alberti in the 1470s.

14. The BADIA FIESOLANA at San Domenico di Fiesole was the cathedral of Fiesole until 1018. Rebuilding continued between 1456 and 1469 at Medici expense.

15. Michelozzo was working at SAN MASCO for Cosimo from 1437 to 1444 when his library was finished. The double-chambered cell at the end of the corridor by the library is the one used by Cosimo. Savonarola’s cell is at the end of the western corridor.

16. The Via Larga is now known as the Via Cavour. The church of SAN GIOVANNINO DEGLI SCOLOPI was rebuilt in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries by Bartolommeo Ammanati and by Giulio and Alfonso Parigi.

17. The MEDICIPALACE was built between 1444 and 1460. The ‘kneeling windows’on the Via dc’ Gori front were subsequently replaced by flat, square bars of a more austere design. The iron rungs to be found on either side of these windows were intended for holding the staffs of banners or flambeaux and for tying up horses. The stone benches beneath them were provided not only for servants of visitors to the palace, but also for the convenience of any passers-by who might care to accept this modest offer of Medicean hospitality. According to the unreliable evidence of Giovanni Avogrado, the original palace had a polychrome façade of red, white and green. The building narrowly escaped destruction in 1527 when the Medici were forced to flee from Florence after the sack of Rome. Michelangelo, an enthusiastic republican, proposed that it should be razed and that a piazza, known as the Square of the Mules in allusion to the illegitimate birth of the Medici Pope, Clement VII, should be built on the site. It survived, however, to be taken over by the State for the Trustees of Minors until reverting to Medici possession on their return to Florence in 1550. It remained in the possession of the Medici until 1659 when the Grand Duke Ferdinando II sold it to Marchese Gabrielle Riccardi. (The palace was much enlarged by the Riccardi who added another seven to the ten windows of the upper floors.) Purchased by the government of the Grand Duchy in 1814, it is now known as the Palazzo Medici-Riccardi and serves as the Prefecture.

18. Permission to attach these large spiked lamps to the walls of a palace had to be obtained from the government. Niccolò Grosso was given his nickname because he always insisted on payment in advance. Caparra means pledge.

19. CAFAGGIOLO was more like a fortress than a villa. Vasari described it as having ‘all the requisites of a distinguished country house’ with a pleasant garden, groves and fountains. But its high towers and battlemented arches were surrounded by a moat crossed by a drawbridge. It was bought, together with Il Trebbio, by Prince Borghese who had the central tower pulled down and the moat filled in. It now presents a rather desolate appearance and the garden has been taken over by dandelions and chickens.

20. The VILLA MEDICI – formerly BELCANTO – originally belonged to the Bardi. The reconstruction carried out for Giovanni de’ Medici was finished in 1461. Sold by the Grand Duke Cosimo III in 1671, it was renovated in the 1770s for Horace Walpole’s sister-in-law, the Countess of Orford; and in the nineteenth century was bought by the English painter and collector, William Blundell Spence, when it became known as the Villa Spence. More recently it belonged to Lady Sybil Cutting whose daughter, Marchesa Iris Origo, was brought up there.

CHAPTER VII

1. DONATELLO’S David (c. 1430) is now in the Bargello. On its confiscation by the Grand Council after the expulsion of Piero de Medici in 1494 orders were given for it to be erected on a column in the courtyard of the Palazzo della Signoria.

2. DONATELLO’S Judith Slaying Holofemes (c. 1460) was removed from the Medici Palace by order of the Signoria after the flight of the Medici in 1494. It was set up on the ringhiera at the Palazzo della Signoria – it now stands in front of the Palazzo – with an inscription on its base to the effect that it had been placed there as a warning to all tyrants: ‘Exemplum.Sal[utis].Pub[licae].Cives.Pos[uere]. MCCCCXCV’. The original inscription read: ‘Kingdoms fall through luxury. Cities rise through virtue. Behold the head of pride severed by humility. Piero di Cosimo de’ Medici dedicates the statue of this woman to the liberty and fortitude bestowed on the Republic by the invincible and constant spirit of its citizens.’

3. Most of SANTA MARIA DEL CARMINE was destroyed by fire in the eighteenth century when it was rebuilt by Giuseppe Ruggieri and Giulio Mannaioni. The Brancacci chapel was, however, spared by the fire. The cycle of murals by Masaccio and Masolino was completed by Fra Filippo Lippi’s son, Filippino Lippi.

4. FILIPPO LIPPI’S Coronation of the Virgins is now in the Museo dell’ Accademia (Via Ricasoli, 52).

5. FRA ANGELICO’S Crucifixion is in the Chapter Room at San Marco on the opposite side of the cloister from the San Marco Museum which contains the high altar of San Marco with Cosimo’s patron saints, Cosmas and Damian, shown kneeling on a carpet.

6. All the CELLS AT SAN MARCO are decorated by Fra Angelico and his assistants. Fra Angelico’s Annunciation is at the top of the stairs to the dormitory corridor.

7. Giovanni di Bicci de’ Medici’s sarcophagus in the old SACRISTY AT SAN LORENZO is by Andrea Cavalcanti Buggiano. It is placed beneath a marble table on which are the seven red balls of the Medici emblem.

8. COSIMO’S MARBLE MEMORIAL in the chancel at San Lorenzoc, the only memorial ever to be placed here, was designed by Verrocchio. The inscription reads:

Cosmus Medices

Hie situs est

Detreto Publico

Pater Patriot

Vixit

Annos LXXV Menses III Dies XX

CHAPTER VIII

1. In grirlandaio’s murals in the Cappella Maggiore at Santa Maria Novella, Lucrezia Tornabuoni, sister of the donor, Giovanni Tomabuoni, is represented as the third female figure on the right in the Birth of the Baptist.

2. The tabernacle of the crucifix in San Miniato al Monte was built for the crucifix of San Giovanni Gualberto, whose chapel, designed by Caccini, is in Santa Trinità. The Guild of the Calimala, which was responsible for the maintenance and ornamentation of San Miniato al Monte, gave permission for the tabernacle to be built provided that the guild’s coat-of-arms was the only one displayed on it. Piero de’ Medici, however, insisted that his own arms – a falcon holding the Medici diamond ring with the motto ‘semper’ and three feathers – should also be displayed; and so they were.

3. The TABERNACLE OF SANTISSIMA ANNUNZIATA was made in about 1450. Like the tabernacle in San Miniato al Monte it was designed for Piero de’ Medici, probably by Michelozzo.

4. LUCA DELLA ROBBIA’S SINGING-GALLBRY is now in the Museo dell’ Opera del Duomo (Piazza del Duomo, 9). Donatello’s gallery is also here. They were both removed from the Cathedral in 1688 to make room for more singers at the wedding of Prince Ferdinand to Princess Violante Beatrice.

5. Work on the CAMPANILE began in the 1330s when Giotto was Capomaestro of the Cathedral works. Luca della Robbia’s reliefs were done in the 1430s.

6. Part of LUCA DELLA ROBBIA’S GLAZED TERRACOTTA decorations made for Piero de’ Medici’s study are now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

7. The three panels of uc CELLO’S Rout of San Romano have been dispersed. One is in the Uffizi, another in the Louvre, the third in the National Gallery, London. The Florentine commander pictured in the National Gallery panel is Niccolà da Tolentino, the subject of the marvellous cenotaph memorial by Andrea del Castagno in the Duomo. The cenotaph next to it in the Duomo, a memorial to the English condoukre, John Hawkwood, is by Uccello.

8. POLLAIUOLO’S Labours of Hercules are in the Uffizi. His Hercules and Antaeus is in the Bargeilo.

9. BOTTICELLI’S Madonna of the Magnificat is in the Uffizi.

10. BOTTICELLI’S Adoration of the Magi was painted as an altarpiece for SantaMaria Novella and is now in the Uffizi. According to Giorgio Vasari, the King holding out his hands towards the Holy Child’s feet is Cosimo; the kneeling figure in the white robe is Giuliano, Lorenzo’s brother; and the man behind him, ‘shown gratefully adoring the child’, is Cosimo’s second son, Giovanni. The man on his knees in the centre foreground has been identified as Piero de’ Medici; and the man on the extreme right in the saffron gown as Botticelli himself. The figure in the black gown with a red stripe down the shoulder may be an idealized portrait of Lorenzo il Magnifico.

11. BOTTICELLI’S Fortitude is in the Uffizi.

12. FILIPPO LIPPI’S The Virgin Adoring the Child was removed from the Medici Chapel in 1814 and is now in Berlin. The painting at present in the chapel is a copy by Neri di Bicci.

13. GENTILE DA FABRIANO’S Adoration of the Magi is now in the Uffizi.

14. The pretty young man in blue near the front of the procession riding a prancing horse on which also sits a leopard is usually identified as Giuliano de’Medici, though it has been suggested that Gozzoli may have intended by way of a pleasant joke to represent the fearsome and cruel Castruccio Castracani degli Antelminelli, lord of Lucca, Florence’s most powerful enemy in the fourteenth century. The leopard was the symbol of the Castracani. In accordance with the custom of his time Gozzoli, of course, made little attempt to portray accurate likenesses being content to represent the people in his pictures by symbols and details immediately recognizable by their contemporaries.

15. VERROCCHLO’S TOMB FOR PIERO AND GIOVANNI in the old sacristy at San Lorenzo, a magnificent structure of serpentine, bronze, porphyry and marble, was finished in 1473.

CHAPTER IX

1. The RIDOLFI were shortly to build the palazzo on the corner of Via Maggio – now known as the Via Maggiore – and Via Mazzetta. It is now known as the Casa Guidi. This is where Elizabeth Barrett Browning died in 1861.

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, wasbuilt in the last quarter of the fifteenth century possibly to the designs ofGiuliano da Sangallo, and is in the Via Proconsolo (no. 10). After the Pazziconspiracy 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 pa zzi 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 San-gallo 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 bulit 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, Alcssandro 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 Pritnavera (now in the Uffizi), replete as it is with classical andliterary allusion, has been the subject of the most complicated explanations. Ithas pleased some writers to recognize in both Venus and Flora the features ofSimonetta Vespucci whose kinsman, Amerigo Vespucci, the navigator, was togive his name to America. The figure of Mercury on the left of the picture doescertainly bear a resemblance to Botticelli’s Portrait of Giuliano de Medici (in theCrespi 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 Niccolà 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’sbronze 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. VEKBOCCHIO’S David, made in about 1474, is now in the Bargello.

10. VBRROOCHIO’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’Este 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 BOTTICELII 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 IMPRUNCTA. 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 Donatcllo.

2. Filippo Strozzi’s second wife was Selvaggia de’ Gianflgliazzi. 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 Amo, in Lungamo 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 SAFFAELLO. 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 die 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 in 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 lauren-ziana 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 Marzoao, to the left of the copy of Michelangelo’s David (next to DONATELLO’s Judith and Holofemes) is also a copy of the original made by Donatello in 1418–20. The original is in the Baigello. 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 DEI LBONI 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 PIAZZA PIAVE.

5. The forbidding symbol of despotism, the fortbzza 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.

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 Ouca 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 DB’ 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.

5. The original PITTI PALACE was built in the 1450s and 1460s by Luca Pitti who received 20,000 florins from Cosimo as a contribution towards its cost as a reward for his political services to the Medicean party. It was probably designed by Luca Fancelli. After Ammanati had finished his alterations for Duke Cosimo I and Eleonora of Toledo – the courtyard was completed in 1562 – the façade was again widened by Giulio and Alfonso Parigi in the seventeenth century and two new wings were added by Giuseppe Ruggieri in the eighteenth century. At that time it was known as the Grand Ducal Palace. After the Risorgimento, the Pitti was made over to the House of Savoy and was presented to the nation by King Victor Emmanuel III. It now houses five museums. The Museo degli Argenti on the ground floor contains many of the treasures collected by the Medici.

6. The BOBOLI GARDENS still contain works by all these artists as well as by Giambologna, Fancelli, Cioli, Pietro Tacca, Caccini and Romolo del Tadda. The amphitheatre, shaped on a Roman model, was the site of the performanceof II Hondo Festeggiante given to celebrate the marriage of the Grand Duke Cosimo III. The Giardino del Cavaliere is laid out on the site of a bastion built by Michelangelo during the siege of 1529. The terrace beneath was built for Cardinal Leopoldo de’ Medici.

7. The original PONTE SANTA TRINITÀ was built in the thirteenth century. The statues on Ammanati’s bridge, Spring and Autumn (by Giovanni Caccini), Summer (by Pietro Francavilla) and Winter (by Taddeo Landini) were made for the Grand Duke Cosimo’s marriage in 1608. The bridge was blown up in 1944. It was rebuilt after the war exactly as it had been before, the masons using copies of sixteenth-century tools to ensure its authenticity. The façade of the CHURCH OF SANTA TRINITÀ was commissioned by the Grand Duke Ferdinando I from Buontalenti and completed in 1594.

8. The PONTE ALLA CARRAIA, first built at the beginning of the thirteenth century, was three times destroyed by floods, and once, in 1304, collapsed under the weight of spectators watching a river festival. It was re-built for the fifth time by Ammanati in 1559. The present bridge was built after the last war, its predecessor having been blown up in 1944.

9. The LOGGIA DEI LANZI was originally known as the Loggia dei Signori. It was built towards the end of the fourteenth century to plans drawn by Simone Talenti as a covered area for public ceremonies. Its present name is derived from Duke Cosimo I’s Swiss soldiers, the Landsknechte, who were quartered in barracks nearby. In Duke Cosimo’s time, it became the open-air sculpture gallery that it still is. Cellini’s Perseus was placed there in 1554. Giambologna’s Rape of the Sabines came in 1583 when Donatello’s Judith and Holofemes, which had formerly been placed on the ringhiera of the Palazzo della Signoria, was returned to the Piazza. Behind these two pieces are another Giambologna, a Roman copy of a Greek statue of Menelaus supporting the body of Patroclus and Pio Fedi’s Rape of Polixena. Six Roman statues which the Grand Duke Ferdinando I brought from the Villa Medici in Rome are in the back row.

10. Although work began in 1605, under the direction of Ferdinando I, to realizeCosimo I’s conception of a huge CAPPELLA DEI PRINCIPI, the structure wasnot finished until 1737, and the decoration of the cupola not completed until 1836. Until ready to receive them in the reign of Cosimo III, the bodies of theGrand Dukes and their wives and sons were temporarily buried in the new andold sacristies. Generations of craftsmen in pietra dura were kept intermittentlyat work on the elaborate tombs of the three Cosimos, the two Ferdinandos andthe Grand Duke Francesco which surround the walls.

The sixteen coats-of-arms inlaid in the floor in marble, coral, jasper, agate, mother-of-pearl and lapis-lazuli are of the cities subject to the Grand Duchy. All the Grand Dukes were buried in the crypt below the mausoleum with their jewelled crowns still upon their heads and their sceptres in their hands. All the Grand Duchesses were also buried here with the one exception of Francesco I’s widow Bianca Capello. When Buontalenti asked Ferdinando I where his sister-in-law should be buried, the Grand Duke, who had detested her, replied ‘Wherever you like, we will not have her amongst us.’ The site of her grave is unknown.

11. The complicated and inventive plans for the GARDEN OF THE VILLA OF c ASTELLO (see note 6 to chapter XIII) were drawn up by Benedetto Varchi forDuke Cosimo I and put in hand by Tribolo, Ammanati and Buontalenti. Butthey were never fully realized. Works’ by Tribolo, Ammanati and Giambologna can all still be seen in the gardens, though Giambologna’s Fountain of Venus Wringing out her Hair has been removed to Petraia and his bronzeanimals from the grotto are in the Bargello.

CHAPTER XXI

1. The putto on the fountain at present in die COURTYARD OF THE PALAZZOVECCHIO is a copy of the original by Verrocehio, which is kept in one of the rooms off the Sala dei Gigli. The murals are by Marco da Fienza, Giovanni Lombardi and Cesare Baglioni.

2. BIANCA CAPBILO’S HOUSE is in the Via Maggio (nos. 24–6).

3. VILLA PRATOLINO – designed by Buontalenti and fifteen years in the making – was demolished in 1822 on the grounds that it was too expensive to maintain. Fifty years later the estate was purchased by Prince Paul Demidoff. The Villa Demidoff which replaced Pratolino passed into the hands of Prince Paul of Yugoslavia who restored it and has now sold it. Giambologna’s huge statue, L’APPENINO, remains in the grounds. Other statues were taken to the Boboli Gardens, like Perseus and the Dragon, which was intended as an allegorical portrait of the Grand Duke Cosimo I.

4. The PALAZZO ANTINORI at the junction of the Via Tornabuoni and the Via Rondinelli was built for the Boni family.

5. The VILLA OF CERETO GUIDI originally belonged to the Guidi. Buontalenti renovated it and built the immense double ramps leading up to it for the Grand Duke Cosimo I in the 1560s.

6. The headquarters of the ACCADEMIA DELLA CRUSCA, which will soon be transferred to the Villa Castello, are at present in the Palazzo dei Giudici.

7. The porcelain made in Florence in the time of the Grand Duke Francesco was the first to be made in Europe, and is now the rarest, there being only about seventy pieces in existence. One of these – a small, misshapen bowl – was sold in New York in 1973 for £180,000, the highest recorded price paid at an auction for European porcelain. Other pieces are in the Louvre, the Musée de Sèvres, the Metropolitan Museum in New York and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

8. The VILLA MEDICI in Rome, designed by Annibale Lippi for Cardinal Ricci in 1544, was purchased by Cardinal Ferdinando de’ Medici in 1577. He was the first of several Medici cardinals to live there. The façade and the ground plan of the garden remain unchanged. The figure of MERCURY (c. 1565), now at the Bargello, once formed part of a fountain in the villa grounds. The fountain now in front of the villa originally had a Florentine lily in the centre. This was replaced by the existing stone cannon-ball after Queen Christina, being given permission to experiment with one of the Castel Sant’ Angelo cannon, had fired at random down into the town instead of up into the air. Her shot struck the Villa Medici. Napoleon bought the villa in 1803. It now houses the French Academy.

9. The FORTE DI BELVEDERE, also known as the Fortezza di San Giorgio, now houses numerous murals removed from various buildings in other parts of the city, including those from the Chiostro degli Aranci at the Badia Fiesolana, from the Chiostro Verde at Santa Maria Novella, from the Loggia of the Bigallo in Piazza San Giovanni (by Ambrogio di Baldese and Rosello di Jacopo Franchi) and from Via Pietrapiana (No. 7) by Mino da Fiesole whose house this was. Also stored here is Botticelli’s Annunciation from the church of San Martino in Via della Scala.

10. The VILLA PETRAIA was brought by Cardinal Francesco de’ Medici from the widow of Filippo Salutati in 1593. The courtyard is decorated with frescoes celebrating the history of the Medici family by Baldassare Franceschini, ‘il Volterrano’, who painted them for the Grand Duke Ferdinando I’s son, Don Lorenzo de’ Medici. After the Risorgimento the villa passed into the hands of the House of Savoy and was altered and redecorated by King Victor Emmanuel II.

11. The villa ferdinanda at Artimino, which is about four miles south-west of Poggio a Caiano, was built in 1594–5. It was sold to Marchese Lorenzo Bartolommei in 1781 and, though restored in the early years of this century, now lies empty.

12. This sphere is now in the MUSEO NAZIONALE DI STORIA DELLA SCIENZE in the Palazzo dei Giudici overlooking the Arno, next to the Uffizi. The palazzo formerly belonged to the Castellani family whose chapel is in Santa Croce. It takes its present name from the Consiglio di Giustizia which was established here in the time of the Grand Duke Ferdinando I. The museum contains numerous terrestial globes, astrolabes, clocks and maps as well as Michelangelo’s compasses and Galileo’s telescopes.

13. The pal a zzo bellini is in Borgo Pinti (no. 26). The Grand Duke Ferdinando I’s bust is over the door.

14. The statue of duke cosimo in the Piazza della Signoria was made by Giambologna in the Palazzo Bellini between 1587 and 1599. The equestrian statue of grand duke ferdinando 1 in the Piazza Santissima Annunziata was begun by Giambologna in the last year of his long life and finished in 1608 by Pietro Tacca who moved into the Palazzo Bellini on his master’s death.

15. Although he decided that the Medici emblem, the palle, was too commercial in its associations and had it replaced by a bee (the ancient symbol of the autarch whose life is busily devoted to his people’s welfare). Ferdinando I nevertheless sought to honour the great founders of the Medici fortunes. At the base of the immense granite COLUMN OF JUSTICE which had been set up in the Piazza Santa Trinità in 1565 to mark the place where a messenger had given Cosimo I news of the victory of Montemurlo, Ferdinando erected four stucco statues. One was a representation of Augustus; another was of Charlemagne; the third was of Cosimo I; and the fourth was of Cosimo the Elder, PaterPatriot. The column came from the Baths of Caracalla and was presented to Duke Cosimo I by Pope Pius IV. It was hauled from Rome to Civitavecchia on rollers, and transported from Pisa to Florence on barges. The porphyry statue, which was placed on it in 1581, is believed to be by Romolo del Tadda.

16. The VILLA OF POGGIO IMPERIALS had once belonged to the Baroncelli and then to the Salviati. It derives its present name from the Grand Duchess Maria Maddalena of Austria who bought it in 1619. It was afterwards the home of Napoleon’s sister, Elisa Baciocchi, and is now a girls’ school.

17. Three hundred volumes of Galileo’s papers are now housed in the BIBLIOTEC AN A ZION ALE in the Corso dei Tintori where collections of Poliziano’s, Michelangelo’s and Machiavelli’s papers are also kept. Many of the manuscripts and books are from the Grand Ducal Library, the Palatina, formed by Ferdinando II and his brothers, Gian Carlo and Leopoldo.

18. Galileo’s body was removed from the Novices’ Chapel in Santa Croce in 1737 and reburied on the north side of the west door.

CHAPTER XXII

1. The ORIFICIO DELLE PIETRB DUBE was moved from the Uffizi in 1796 and is now in the Via degli Alfani (no. 78) where craftsmen still work and are trained.

2. The work of GIOVANNI DA SAN GIOVANNI may be seen on the east wall of Room IV at the Pitti Palace. Assisted by Baldassare Franceschini, il Volterrano, he also painted the Allegory of the Union of the Houses of Medici and Delia Rovere in the vault. Lorenzo and the Platonic Academy at Careggi and the Allegory of Lorenzo’s death on the north wall are by Francesco Furini. Lorenzo the Magnificent Receives Apollo on the south wall is by Cecco Bravo. Lorenzo surrounded by Artists, between the windows, is by Ottavio Vannini.

3. Among these latest acquisitions were numerous beautiful pieces of sculpture including the Hermaphrodite, the head of Cicero, and the Idolino. Ruben’s Consequences of War was bought by Ferdinando II. Veronese’s Daniele Barbaro, Portrait of a Man and Holy Family with Santa Barbara were in Cardinal Leopoldo’s collection. Raphael’s portrait of Pope Julius II, Titian’s Recumbent Venus, Magdalena, La Bella and Portrait of a Grey-eyed Nobleman, together withPiero della Francesca’s famous portrait of Federigo da Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino, and his wife Battista Sforza, were all acquired in 1634 on Ferdinando’s marriage to Vittoria della Rovere.

4. Most of these turned-ivory ornaments were brought back to Florence by Prince Manias de’ Medici from the Castle of Coburg. They are in Room X.

5. The TEATRO DELLA PERGOLA (Via della Pergola, 12) was built by Ferdinando Tacca in 1656. The present building, designed by Bartolommeo Silvestri, is early-nineteenth-century.

6. The Via del Cocomero is now the Via Ricasoli.

7. Gian Carlo’s garden in the Via della Scala, where the members of the Platonic Academy had sometimes held their debates, has now been built over.

8. The enormous, forbidding VILLA AMBSOGIANA was originally built as a hunting lodge. The Grand Duke Cosimo III hung its walls with pictures of rare animals and flowers. It is now a mental hospital.

CHAPTER XXIII

1. The VILLA LAPFEGGI stood for longer than eighteen years, though after the Cardinal’s death the second storey had to be removed for fear that the walls supporting it would fall down into the garden. Its shaky structure was badly damaged by an earthquake in 1895 and will soon, by all appearances, collapse altogether.

CHAPTER XXIV

1. It was left to the despised Lorrainers and the ministers of the Grand Duke Francesco’s energetic son, Pietro Leopoldo, to reform the exhausted and oppressed State, the chaotic legislation and the exploited countryside of Florence which were the social and economic legacy of the later Medici. The splendour of their artistic and cultural legacy – the exuberance and elaborate craftsmanship of Florentine baroque art as triumphantly exemplified by such masters as Cosimo Ill’s sculptor, Giovanni Battista Foggini – has only recently been recognized. The exhibition held in Detroit and at the Pitti Palace in 1974, The Twilight of the Medici’ – which would have made scant appeal to Bernard Berenson – was the first of its kind.