Part 12

The Pazzi, who claim a Roman descent, came originally from Fiesole, and were always Guelphs. Excluded by Giano della Bella, in 1292, from all participation in the government of the city, it was only after Cosimo de’ Medici’s return from exile that Andrea de’ Pazzi became a Prior in 1439; when Cosimo gave his granddaughter Bianca in marriage to Gugliemo, Andrea’s grandson. The houses of the various members of the Pazzi family, who all made large fortunes in trade, once extended for some distance along both sides of Borgo degl’Albizzi. But when, towards the middle of the XVth century, the Florentine nobles began to erect palaces in lieu of their old fortified houses, Messer Andrea de’ Pazzi commissioned Filippo Brunelleschi, who designed the beautiful chapel for him in the cloister of Sta. Croce, to build a palace. Poliziano’s statement that Jacopo, Andrea de’ Pazzi’s son, destroyed his father’s house to build this palace, is controverted by documents found by Signor Iodico Del Badia in the archives of the old _catasti_, which show that Jacopo only incorporated an adjoining house he had bought with the one inherited from his father. The splendid palace cannot, however, have been completed when Andrea died in 1445, as his son employed Giuliano da Majano and his brothers to finish it. Another reason for attributing the building to Messer Andrea de’ Pazzi, and not to his son Jacopo, is that the sail, an emblem always used for indicating that the proprietor had made his fortune in trade, is among the ornaments in the centre of the arches of the windows. On the capitals in the courtyard are the dolphins, the arms of the Pazzi, and the vase containing the Holy Fire. This, according to ancient custom, was lit by means of certain stones, brought from the Holy Sepulchre by Pazzino de’ Pazzi, said to have been the first to scale the walls of Jerusalem in one of the crusades.

Under Lorenzo il Magnifico the Pazzi found themselves excluded from office, and their animosity was further aroused by the loss of a lawsuit involving the large fortune of Giovanni Borromeo, whose only daughter had married Giovanni de’ Pazzi, Andrea’s nephew. By Florentine law the daughter should have inherited from her father who died intestate, but it was assigned to her cousin, Carlo Borromeo. Guicciardini makes Pier Capponi say, “Tyrants are forced to watch the action of every one, and to cast down those who seem to them too powerful or too intelligent. Hence arose the wronging of the Pazzi, by an iniquitous law which deprived them of the inheritance of the Borromei, and the varied persecutions of the family, so that desperation drove them into that conspiracy whence came such infinite evils.” Francesco de’ Pazzi, Giovanni’s brother, described by Poliziano as “a man of blood who, when he meditated any design, went straight to his goal, being hindered by no regard for morality, religion, reputation, or fair fame,” quitted Florence and went to Rome, where the Pazzi had a banking house. He knew Sixtus IV. and was aware of his hatred of the Medici, a hatred he gratified by appointing Cardinal Francesco Salviati, a man of evil reputation and bitterly hostile to Lorenzo, to the See of Pisa. At Rome Francesco de’ Pazzi became intimate with the Pope’s so-called nephew, Count Girolamo Riario, Lord of Imola; and Stefano Infessura, the well-informed Roman diarist, affirms that “these things [_i. e._ the murder of the Medici] were ordered by Pope Sixtus, together with the Count Girolamo and others, in order to take away the dominion from Lorenzo and to confer it on the Count Girolamo.” The dying confession of one of their instruments, Giovanbattista di Montesecco, captain in the papal service, fully confirms this.

Advantage was taken of the presence at Pisa of Riario’s nephew, Raffaello, who had just been created a Cardinal. He was summoned to Florence, and Lorenzo, as was his wont, invited him to an entertainment at the Medici villa at Fiesole. The conspirators then determined to murder the two brothers, but Giuliano, being ill, did not go, so the attempt was postponed. Cardinal Raffaello expressing a desire to hear mass in the cathedral of Florence, Lorenzo invited him to go on Sunday, 26th April, and to dine at his palace in Via Larga afterwards. The conspirators then settled, that at the elevation of the Host, when it is customary for all to kneel, the deed should be done. Their design was nearly frustrated by the refusal of Captain Montesecco to commit a murder “where Christ would surely see him.” His place was hastily filled by Stefano da Bagnoni, parish priest of Montemurlo, and secretary to Jacopo de’ Pazzi, and by Antonio Maffei of Volterra, an Apostolic notary, who were to kill Lorenzo; while Francesco de’ Pazzi and one of his braves, Bernardo Bandini, were to fall on Giuliano. Montesecco’s scruples proved fatal to the success of the plot, as the two ecclesiastics blundered and only wounded Lorenzo slightly in the neck. Francesco de’ Pazzi did his work with such fury that he inflicted nineteen stabs on Giuliano, and wounded himself on the thigh. While this was going on in the cathedral, the Archbishop Salviati went to the Palazzo della Signoria, which he intended to seize, while Jacopo de’ Pazzi was to incite the people to revolt. Cesare Petrucci, the Gonfalonier, a shrewd man devoted to the Medici, was struck by the Archbishop’s embarrassed manner and confused speech; so he suddenly left the room, locked the door behind him and went to look out on the Piazza. There he saw Jacopo de’ Pazzi and his followers shouting “Liberty! liberty!” and at once ordered the gates of the palace to be closed. Citizens came running with the news of the assassination of Giuliano, and without a moment’s hesitation Petrucci seized the Archbishop and hung him from the column of a window overlooking the Piazza. Some of his followers, including Jacopo Poggio, son of the historian, were hung beside their leader, the rest were cut down on the staircase or in the courtyard. Francesco de’ Pazzi was seized in bed at his own house, and naked and bleeding from the wound in his thigh was hung by the side of the Archbishop, in whose shoulder he is said to have fixed his teeth in his death agony.

Gugliemo Pazzi, who knew of, but did not participate in, the plot, took refuge from the popular fury in the palace of his brother-in-law Lorenzo de’ Medici. He was banished. Giovanni de’ Pazzi, the husband of the Borromei heiress, eventually died in prison at Volterra, and the seven sons of Francesco de’ Pazzi’s brother Piero were either hung, condemned to perpetual exile, or to imprisonment for life. Jacopo was caught while crossing the frontier into the Romagna, brought back to Florence, and executed. His body was laid in the family vault in Sta. Croce, but the mob disinterred it, dragged it through the streets to his palace and battered the head against the door, amidst ironical shouts that the master wanted to come in. At length the body was thrown into the Arno, followed, as it floated down stream, by a jeering crowd.

In 1498 the fine palace was bought by Francesco Cibo, son of Pope Innocent VIII. and at his death went to his son Lorenzo, whose wife Ricciarda Malaspina was one of the many ladies admired by the base-born Duke Alessandro de’ Medici. Her brother-in-law, the Archbishop of Marseilles, then determined to murder the Duke. Varchi relates that “when Alessandro went to the palace he used to sit on a certain chest which was in the room of the Marchesana, very close to the bed in which she slept. So the Archbishop planned to fill a similar chest with gunpowder, and to set it in the place of the one the Duke was wont to use, and it was to be so made that he might easily set fire to the powder inside when the Duke sat on it. This he did because it seemed to him that the close friendship and great familiarity between the Duke and the Marchesana was a matter of reproach and most shameful. But while all things necessary for carrying out his evil intent were being prepared, the plot was discovered. He was imprisoned until the Emperor came to Florence, when he was released and allowed to go where it best pleased him.”

Some ladies of the Cibo family were the first to introduce carriages into Florence in 1536, but Tommaso Rinnuccini writes: “They were not common even in the beginning of the present [XVIIth] century, and many of the nobility did not use them. Little by little, with the excuse of a marriage, or other such pretext, many adopted them; some with four, the richest even with six horses. At first they were small, made of leather both inside and out, and placed immediately over the axle, so that the movement was most uncomfortable; then they were hung on straps, to be less rough, and finally the straps were attached to carved bands of well-tempered steel which, yielding to any shock, made them still more easy. The handsomest are of black, or of coloured velvet, with fringes inside and out and the tops gilt inside. Till the middle of the century some of the richer inhabitants of the city used a _cocchio_, which was generally lined with rose-coloured velvet and covered with purple cloth; on the top were eight gilt-knobs (_pomi_), but these have gone entirely out of fashion. In 1672 a style of carriage, hung on long straps, was introduced from Paris, which swung and swayed to and fro; they are called _poltroncine_ (small arm-chairs), because they are so comfortable.... At the time I write a sort of covered chair, placed on two long poles, has been imported from Paris; in front the poles rest on the back of a horse, and behind on two wheels, and they swing much. To this chair has been given the name of _calesso_, and in 1667 there were already near a thousand in the city.”

Alberigo Cibo sold the fine old palace in 1593 to Lorenzo Strozzi, in whose family it remained until bought by the Marquess Niccolò Quaratesi in 1760. The family came originally from Castello di Quarata, and Vanni Quaratesi took the side of the people, and was created a knight during the Ciompi riots. Castello, who held high office at various times in the first half of the XVth century, is said to have founded the monastery of S. Salvadore at Monte San Miniato. But dates do not agree, and Signor Passerini is probably right in suggesting that Castello Quaratesi built a small convent for the Franciscans at S. Miniato after the “Operai” of S. Croce refused to allow him to affix his arms on the façade he had intended to build for the church. He left his large fortune to the College of the Guild of Merchants, with a special clause recommending the convent to their care, and they probably carried out his wishes and erected the present church and conventual buildings, designed by Cronaca towards the end of the XVth century. The first Quaratesi houses were on the other side of the Arno, near the church of S. Niccolò, where they lived until the Marquess Niccolò bought the magnificent Pazzi palace built by Brunelleschi. In 1843 it again changed hands, and passed into the possession of the Baron de Rast, who left it by will to a charitable institution in Gotha.

It is curious that the well-known Pazzi arms, the three dolphins, said to have been carved by Donatello, are still _in situ_ at the corner of Borgo degl’Albizzi, for a decree of 1478 ordered them to be destroyed all over the city. It is hardly likely that this shield was replaced after the banishment of Piero de’ Medici, when the decree permitting the descendants of Andrea de’ Pazzi to again put up their arms was passed, because the palace no longer belonged to them. It is, however, still called by their name, and the street corner to this day is known as the “Canto de’ Pazzi.” It is here that the famous colombina, or dove, beloved by all Florentines, flies on Holy Saturday along a cord stretched from the door of the Bank of Italy, built on the site of the greatest of the Pazzi palaces, to the wondrous old painted car, and sets fire to the squibs and crackers piled high upon it.

PALAZZO PERUZZI

_Borgo de’ Greci. No. 10._

The first mention of the Peruzzi family occurs in 1150, when Ubaldino, son of Peruzzo of the Porta della Pera, appeared as a witness about a contract with the convent of S. Salvi. At Montaperti the Peruzzi fought on the side of the Guelphs, when Arnoldo was knighted on the field of battle, and with the rest of their party were exiled until peace was made between Ghibellines and Guelphs in 1280. Nine years later the name of Arnoldo’s son Pacino is mentioned in the archives of the Commune, as receiving rent for certain prisons in his palace on the site of the old Roman amphitheatre, where 800 Aretines and Ghibellines taken in the battle of Campaldino were immured. The name of the street behind S. Firenze, Via di Burella (prison or den), still records their existence. No doubt these were the dens of the wild beasts under the ancient amphitheatre in which S. Miniatus was twice exposed to lions under the Emperor Decius. The circular form can still be traced in the thick walls of the old Peruzzi houses in the Piazza. In 1293 Pacino appears as a purchaser from the Commune of that part of the old walls of the second circuit of Florence which stood where now is Via de’ Benci and the Arco de’ Peruzzi.[53] Four years later he was one of the nine Gonfaloniers of Justice of the family, who also had fifty-four Priors. They were among the richest and most powerful citizens of the XIIIth century, and when King Robert of Naples came to Florence in 1310 he was lodged and magnificently entertained for twenty-four days in their palaces in Piazza de’ Peruzzi. Here was their loggia, used as a kind of private exchange, to which the Arco de’ Peruzzi may have belonged. It stands either on the very spot, or at all events close to where once was--

“The gateway, named from those of Pera.”[54]

Vasari tells us that Paolo Uccello frescoed the arch “with triangles in perspective, and on the corners in the square spaces he painted the four elements, each represented by an appropriate animal. For the earth a mole, for water a fish, for fire a salamander, and for air a chameleon, which lives thereon and assumes every colour. As he had never seen a chameleon he painted a camel with its mouth wide open inhaling the air to fill its lungs. Showing certes great simplicity.”

Many of the houses on the western side of the Via de’ Benci belonged to the Peruzzi, others were in Borgo de’ Greci, where the present palace stands, and in the Via dell’Anguillara, the Via de’ Rustici, etc., the well-known coat-of-arms with six pears is still to be seen here and there on the façades. In 1339 the Peruzzi were ruined and forced to sell their lands and many of their houses. They and their partners the Bardi had lent money to Edward III. of England, who, owing to his wars with France, was unable to pay his debts. A decree dated 6th May, 1339, orders the suspension of all payments to the King’s creditors, “not excepting his well-beloved Bardi and Peruzzi,” to whom he owed 1,355,000 golden florins. The failure of the great banking house of Bardi Peruzzi was a calamity from which Florence did not recover for some time, and Dino Compagni, who suffered severely himself, exclaims: “O cursed and insatiable avidity, born of the vice of avarice which reigns amongst our blind and mad citizens who, for the sake of gaining from those above them, place their own and other people’s money in their power. For this was lost the strength of our Republic, as but little wealth remained to our citizens, save to some artificers and money-lenders who by usury consumed and gathered to themselves the scattered remnants of the poverty of our citizens.”

The Peruzzi houses must have been used by the Signoria for lodging distinguished guests, as Villani writes: “On the 10th March [1345] the wife of the Prince of Taranto, daughter to the Duke of Bourbon, who called herself Empress of Constantinople without possessing an Empire, passed through Florence on her way to France. Great honour was paid to her, she being met and accompanied by many knights and ladies. She dismounted at the house of the Peruzzi, the Commune paying all the expenses of her coming and her going and of the two days she stayed in the city;” and nearly a century later, when the Greek Emperor Paleologus and the Patriarch came to attend the council of Florence “the whole circuit of the houses of the Peruzzi were assigned to them as their residence.” It is said that the street was called Borgo de’ Greci in memory of the Emperor’s visit; Passerini, however, thinks the name was older, and derived from a family called Greci, who lived there.

Ridolfo Peruzzi joined Rinaldo degl’Albizzi in opposing the return of Cosimo the Elder, and, like him, was banished, and all he had confiscated. He died in exile at Aquila in 1440, and as long as the rule of the Medici lasted the name of Peruzzi no longer appears among the magistrates of Florence. Among those of the family who found it impossible to live under them was Antonio, “a noble citizen of Florence,” writes Vasari, “who went to Volterra to live more quietly, and there after a time married in 1482, and in a few years had two children, a son named Baldassare, and a daughter, Virginia. But it happened that war, persecuting him who sought only peace and quiet, broke out, and Volterra was sacked; so Antonio was forced to fly to Siena, where, having lost nearly all he possessed, he lived in poverty.” Baldassare Peruzzi’s whole life was a perpetual struggle, he was miserably paid, and his name as painter, architect and decorator, stood higher after his death than during his life. He died at the age of fifty-eight, probably of poison.

In the latter half of the last century the name of Ubaldino Peruzzi was a household word in Florence. An honest politician and a kind man, he had a great deal of the peculiar Florentine humour and his favourite saying, “Gente allegra, Iddio l’aiuta,” was typical of the man. His wife was as popular as himself, and in their old palace in Borgo de’ Greci one was sure to meet every distinguished Italian and any foreigner of mark who chanced to be in Florence.

PALAZZO PICCOLELIS

_Via de’ Pucci. No. 1._

Towards the end of the XVIIth century Paolo Falconieri built this palace for the Marquess Lodovico Incontri on the site of houses belonging to a branch of the Vespucci family. The Incontri were Lords of Acquaviva near Volterra. Antonio fought at Montaperti, was taken prisoner by the Ghibellines, but escaped and joined Charles of Anjou at Naples, who knighted him and gave him the command of 200 horse, when he fought against Manfred and Corradino. On his return to Volterra he volunteered to lead his fellow-citizens against the Pisans and was killed in a skirmish near Pontedera in 1291. Attilio Incontri married the daughter of a courtier of the Grand Duke Ferdinando I. and settled in Florence, and his son Ferdinando was made a Senator and Marquess of Monteverdi and Canneto in 1665; his other son was Lodovico who built the palace which now belongs to the Marquess Piccolelis.

The Vespucci to whom the original houses belonged came from Peretola and took their name from Vespuccio, a wine merchant, who was the first of twenty-five Priors of his house in 1350. Giuliano Vespucci was Gonfalonier of Justice in 1462, and his son Piero commanded the Florentine galleys on the coast of Barbary and of Syria. From him no doubt his young cousin Amerigo, who gave his name to America, heard many seafaring tales. Born in 1451 and brought up by his uncle, a learned Dominican in S. Marco to whom Marsilio Ficino entrusted the revision of his Platonic Theology, Amerigo studied languages, physics and geometry. Admitted to the Platonic Academy he became intimate with Toscanelli, who expounded to him his ideas as to the existence of another hemisphere. Amerigo was manager of the Medici bank at Seville when Columbus made his first discoveries, and entreated King Ferdinand of Spain to take him into his service as chief pilot of another expedition. When the news of his triumphant return after an eighteen month’s voyage reached Florence, the Signoria ordered his house, now incorporated in the hospital of S. Giovanni di Dio, in Borgognissanti, to be illuminated for three nights, an honour rarely accorded by the Commune.

PALAZZO PITTI

_Piazza Pitti_

Buonaccorso Pitti, in his delightful chronicle,[55] tells us that the Pitti, being Guelphs, were expelled from the castle of Semifonte by the Ghibellines in 1202, when they divided into three branches. “We of the third branch,” he writes, “settled at Castelvecchio in the Val di Pesa, where we bought large and rich estates.... A few years later our ancestors came to live in Florence, and their first houses were those which now belong to the Machiavelli in the parish of Sta. Felicita. I have heard tell by Neri, my father, that one of our ancestors, named Bonsignore, went to the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem and to Sta. Caterina on Mount Sinai; he never came back, nor is it known where he died. When he left Florence his wife was with child, and she bore a son who was called Bonsignore after his father. From him sprang Maffeo, who was a rich, powerful and honourable citizen, and from the book in which the names of all who have been Priors are written, it appears he was a Prior in 1283. Maffeo had, amongst others, two sons; the eldest was Ciore, the second Buonaccorso ... according to reliable accounts was a good and trustworthy man.... By his wife Monna Giovanna degl’Infangati he had six sons and three daughters.... Neri his son, our father, made a very large fortune in the wool trade. I find that every year he made eleven hundredweight of cloth, most of which was sent to Apulia. He was most industrious and active in his business, and the French wool that came into our workshops was turned into perfect cloth. His last building was the Tiratoio,[56] which cost about 3,500 florins. It seems he did not care about taking office under the Commune, but he was twice Prior. He was a handsome man, three braccie in height, not fat, but with good bone and muscle; his hair was reddish, and he was healthy and vigorous and lived sixty-eight years, may God give him eternal rest. His wife, my mother, Monna Curradina degl’ Strozzi, was a handsome, clever woman, of dark complexion; she lived sixty-six years. I, Buonaccorso, married Francesca degl’Albizzi ... and till now Francesca and I have had eleven children, of whom seven are alive, Luca, Ruberto, &c., &c.”

Numerous were the adventures of Buonaccorso Pitti. Rich, able and of fine presence, he was constantly employed on embassies to divers sovereigns and sister Republics. An inveterate gambler, but with a keen eye to business, generous to his family and friends, but keeping a minute account of his daily expenses, well educated, a good Latin scholar, a bad poet and an amusing boon-companion, Buonaccorso was a typical Florentine of the XVth century. His son, Luca, born in 1398, founder of the splendid palace which still bears his name, began his political career when most lads are still at college, and his enormous wealth gave him considerable power in his native city.