Part 15

After the battle of Figline in 1250, when the Guelphs obtained so decided a victory over the Ghibellines, it was decided to create a Captain of the People and a Council of Elders; and soon afterwards the erection of a palace worthy of the new government was decreed. Many houses (built both of stone and wood), towers, and plots of land were bought, the last chiefly from the monks of the Badia. The contracts for these still exist, stating that they were bought _a edificatum est pro particula palatium populi fiorentini_, one of the houses belonged to the brothers Riccomanni, and its tower is the one we still see crowning the fine old building. Another house belonged to the Boscoli, in which the Captain of the People temporarily took up his abode. In 1255, as is recorded by an inscription, building was commenced. According to Vasari the first architect was Arnolfo di Lapo, but some ten years later the Dominican friars, Fra Sisto da Firenze and Fra Ristoro da Campo, who together built the church of Sta. Maria Novella, were called in. Whether the palace was ever inhabited by the Captain of the People, or when it was finished, is not known, but in 1261 Guido Novello, the Podestà who ruled the city in the name of King Manfred, was living in it, and named the street Ghibellina, after his party. By law the Podestà had to be a “foreigner,” _i. e._ not a citizen of Florence, or of any town within fifty miles of Florence, as he might be supposed to be influenced by friendship or by fear. He remained in office for one year and took precedence of every one in the city, administering civil and criminal justice, but not interfering in political matters. In 1282, when the city of Florence was “reformed,” the Podestà and his councillors met in the loggia which led into the great hall, so that the heads of the Guilds and the principal citizens could assist at their deliberations. The first notice we find of any internal decoration being attempted in the palace of the Commune, as it was then called, where the Podestà lived, to distinguish it from the palace of the People, the residence of the Priors, is in 1292, when the painter, Fino di Tedaldo, painted certain images above the door of the hall and above the judge’s seat. These frescoes probably perished three years later when, as old Villani tells us, the Podestà absolved Corso Donati who had been accused of treacherously murdering a Florentine burgher, an adherent of Simone Galastrone. “No sooner was the sentence read condemning Messer Simone Galastrone as the perpetrator of the deed, than the _popolo minuto_ shouted ‘death to the Podestà,’ and rushed out of the palace crying, ‘To arms, to arms, long live the People.’ Many seized their weapons, and went to the house of their head man, Giano della Bella who, they say, sent them with his brother to the palace of the Priors to follow the Gonfalonier of Justice. But they went not thither, but to the palace of the Podestà, which the said people furiously assaulted with arms and arquebuses; they stormed the palace and set fire to the doors thereof, and entering, they took the Podestà and his followers prisoners and robbed them without shame.”[60] Dino Compagni, who was an eyewitness of the storming of the palace, however says that the Podestà with his wife, “who was greatly esteemed in Lombardy, and of wonderful beauty, hearing the shouts of the mob calling for their death, fled to an adjacent house and were taken in and hid. The next day the Council met and decided, for the honour of the city, that what had been stolen from the Podestà should be given back to him and his salary be paid. This was done, and he departed.” The damage done was great, and the loss of prestige suffered by the Podestà almost greater, so the Commune decided to fortify the building. Three rooms for the use of the judges of the Sestieri of S. Pier Scheraggio, Borgo and the Oltrarno were added, and a new entrance was constructed on the south side (Via della Vigna Vecchia) with the Keys, the arms of the Holy See, sculptured above, those of the house of Anjou immediately beneath them, the Cross, emblem of the People, to the right, and to the left, the Lily of Florence. The two empty shields may, Passerini thinks, have borne the arms of Messer Antonio Galluzzi, who held the office of Podestà while the repairs were being done. These were probably effaced in obedience to a law of 1329, forbidding any Podestà, or any Captain, to have his portrait painted or his arms inscribed in the palace, and ordering any then existing to be effaced. Paintings of Our Saviour and of the Madonna, the arms of the Church, of King Charles of Anjou, of the Commune and of the People, were alone allowed. But a Podestà was allowed to place his arms within the palace, if they commemorated any notable event, or in the courtyard of the palace, or in the apartments of the tribunals of the Sestieri.[61] Canti de’ Gabrielli of Gubbio was installed as Podestà in 1298 by Charles of Anjou, and four years later the crier of the Republic called Dante degl’Alighieri to appear before the Podestà’s court to hear the sentence of banishment with the loss of all his worldly goods and possessions pronounced against him.

The new fortifications did not prove strong enough to withstand the furious onslaught of a mob led by the Adimari, which broke into the palace in 1304, liberated Messer Talamo from prison and forced the Podestà, Messer Gigliolo de’ Puntagli, of Parma, to fly for his life. The Commune was then engaged in war, and did not begin to repair the palace until peace was made with Pisa, thirteen years later. The work must have continued for two years, as in August, 1319, eighteen golden florins were expended in order to render the house of the Cerchi a fit habitation for the Count of Battifolle, Vicario of King Robert of Naples. He only took up his abode in the Palazzo del Podestà the following year. Even then the masons were still busy, as in the State archives a deed exists showing that the loggia on the first floor was then altered to its present form by an architect called Toni di Giovanni; at all events as far as regards the columns and the pilasters. The vaulted roof, as Passerini points out, was finished later, during the tyrannical rule of Walter de Brienne, Duke of Athens, as his arms are on the keystones. In 1326 the Duke of Calabria, who had been elected ruler of Florence after the disastrous defeat of the Florentine arms at Altopascio, held his court in the renovated palace, until his death, two years later, freed Florence from his hated rule. The Commune then voted thirty golden florins to restore the palace to its pristine condition, an additional sum was spent for desks in the audience chamber, for a rostrum in the great hall and for a fire-place. But in the terrible conflagration of 28th February, 1332, as Villani tells us, “the palace of the Podestà caught fire, the entire roof of the old palace was burnt and two-thirds of the new, from the first vault upwards. So the Commune ordered that it should be rebuilt and every room be vaulted up to the very roof.” After fire came water, for in the same year the Arno rose to an unprecedented height, and devastated the city and the surrounding country. “The water stood 6 braccie deep in the courtyard,” reports Villani. Neri di Fioravanti, a skilful architect, whose name often occurs in the books of the Commune as superintendent of the principal works of the city, was called in to restore, or rather, to rebuild the palace. Vasari attributes this work to Agnolo Gaddi, and writes that, “according to his orders all the rooms in the palace of the Podestà were built with vaults instead of flat ceilings, so that, besides being more beautiful, they should not again be exposed to damage from fire as had happened not long before. And afterwards, by the advice of Agnolo, the battlements we still see were built round the said palace, of which there had formerly been no trace.” The name of Gaddi, who was then a mere youth, does not however exist in the account books of the work done in the palace, only _Nerio Fioravantis magister lapidum et lignaminum_, is mentioned.

The reader may have wondered why the frescoes in the chapel of the palace have not yet been mentioned; “where,” writes Vasari, “Giotto depicted amongst others, as can be seen to-day, Dante Alighieri, his contemporary and very great friend, no less famous as a poet than was Giotto as a painter.” The theory is that Giotto painted the chapel in 1295, or between 1300 and 1304 when Florence was at peace, thanks to the mediation of the Pope’s Legate, Cardinal Aquasparta. Now every one acquainted with Florentine history knows that the city was then in a state of internecine warfare and that the well-intentioned efforts of the Cardinal were abortive. The Bianchi were driven out in 1302 when furious faction fights ensued between the “Grandi” and the “Neri,” or popular party, ending in the murder of Corso Donati. The Italian translation of the old chronicler Filippo Villani’s booklet, _De origine civitatis Florentiae et eiusdem famosis civibus_, is often quoted to prove that the portrait of Dante is by Giotto; it says: “He, [Giotto] painted himself, by the aid of a looking-glass, and his contemporary the poet Dante Alighieri in the chapel of the palace of the Podestà, on the wall.” Now the original Latin text runs: _pinxit insuper speculorum suffragio semetipsum sibique contemporaneum Dantem IN TABULA alteris cappelle palatii potestatis_, that is to say, he painted his own and Dante’s portrait in the altar picture on panel. This picture was still extant in 1382, as it is mentioned in an inventory then made of the contents of the palace. Many other cogent reasons, too long to quote here, against the possibility of the fresco being by Giotto are given by Milanesi, in his notes to Vasari’s life of Giotto, and both he and Passerini agree that no mural paintings could have survived the terrible fire which devastated the building in 1332. The altar picture, on the other hand, must have been saved, or it would not have been mentioned by Filippo Villani, or be in the inventory. Signor Milanesi suggests that it was painted about 1326, when large sums were being spent on the decoration of the palace to fit it for the reception of the Duke of Calabria, and Florence was beginning to recognize the genius of the man she had exiled and vilified. Certainly it is unlikely that Giotto, however great his friendship for Dante may have been, would have painted the portrait of a condemned exile, as Dante was in 1302, in a picture destined for an altar in the palace of the chief magistrate of the city. The frescoes on the east wall of the chapel, divided by a window, represent Paradise in three divisions. The King standing in front of the almost entirely repainted effigy of Dante probably represents Robert of Anjou, King of Naples, and the cardinal on the opposite side of the window, Messer Bertrando del Poggetto; at his feet a kneeling figure, part of whose face and head is effaced, may be the Bishop of Florence. The figure beside Dante is supposed to be his master, Brunetto Latini. Above the entrance door the wall still bears faint traces of Hell. Episodes from the life of S. Mary Magdalene are painted on the right hand wall and continued on the opposite one, where the two windows are divided by a pilaster on which is painted S. Venantius, whose name is almost illegible. Below is another inscription (with many abbreviations) which indicates the date of the frescoes,[62] as Messer Fidesmini da Varano was Podestà of Florence in 1337, the year of Giotto’s death.[63]

Work was still going on in the palace in 1342 when Baglione Baglioni was installed as Podestà by Walter de Brienne, Duke of Athens and Count of Lecce, whose arms, a lion with two tails, are still to be traced on the large windows of the courtyard. When the Florentines rose against the tyrant, Baglioni fled and took refuge with the Albizzi while the people sacked the palace, burst open the prisons, made a bonfire of all the archives and carried off everything that was portable, even the windows. Six citizens were elected to govern the city in the place of the Podestà, and took up their abode in the palace. They effaced the Duke’s arms and summoned, writes Vasari, Tommaso di Stefano,[64] commonly called Giottino, to paint him and his followers “in infamous fashion, hanging by the neck,” on one side of the tower, with verses descriptive of their evil deeds attached to each figure.[65]

This was not the first time that malefactors were thus held up to public execration. In 1288 Ciampollo di Cantino and Andrea di Guido Cavalcanti, whose lives were spared at the intercession of the ambassadors of Siena, were condemned to lose all their possessions and to be painted on the walls of the Podestà’s palace. In 1308 Carlo Ternibili of Amelia, who stole the seal of the Commune, was not only painted on the tower with the seal in his hand, but on the gates of the town.

In 1345 Neri Fioravanti, with seven _maestri_ under him, one of whom was Benci di Cione, finished the great Hall of Council, restored various rooms and the vaultings of others, which were painted by Bartolo di Corso and Jacopo di Baldo, artists of whom nothing, save their names, is known, and put battlements round the top of the walls; while the eastern door and the magnificent staircase, which was only completed in 1367, were begun. Under the lion at the foot of the staircase are the arms of Baruffaldi de Griffis, who was Podestà at that time.

Hardly had the palace risen from its ashes when the Ciompi riots broke out and once more the mob devastated the building. Uccelli gives a curious extract from an old manuscript written by an eyewitness of the doings on the 21st July, 1378. “Then the people sent for all the Minor Guilds, some came, some did not; and when there were about seven thousand men with arms collected together, they took counsel and decided to do much mischief. But it pleased God that rain should fall in such abundance that none could go about the streets. So they remained until the third hour and then deliberated amongst themselves to attack the Palazzo del Podestà, and moving all together they went to the said palace and surrounded it. The followers of the Podestà, who were on the tower, began to throw stones and hail arrows on the people and the artificers, who then said that if the palace was not given up to them they would have the blood of all within. Bowmen climbed up into the campanile of the Badia and shot with arquebuses at the followers of the Podestà, but little harm did they do; none could get near the palace by reason of the shower of stones. So the people took tables out of the taverns and, getting under them, advanced to the door of the said palace and set fire to it with many faggots. Some citizens, neighbours of the Podestà, then made signs to him with their hoods not to throw any more stones, and said that if the palace was given up all the persons therein should be saved. He answered that he was willing to surrender the palace, save only the chamber of the Commune. And they replied that they were content. He descended with his followers in great fear, begging in God’s name for mercy; the people entered and he left without any harm being done to him. They went up the tower and there placed the emblem of the smiths, that is, a pair of pincers; and all the other emblems of the Great Guilds and of the Minor Guilds were placed in the windows of the palace, save that of the Guild of Wool. Everything that was in the palace was thrown out, and every book or written page was burnt. All that day and night much people remained in the palace for the honour of God, and rich and poor stayed to guard each one the banner of his Guild.”[66]

The great bell _La Montanina_, which tolled when the Podestà and the judges administered justice, was injured and had to be re-cast, after which it rang every evening, to notify that no man could leave his house unarmed or without a lantern, and also whenever a prisoner was executed. Some two hundred years later a law was passed that any servant, unless he was with his master, who was found armed in the streets after the last stroke of the bell at ten at night in winter, and twelve in summer, should lose his hand. The law fell into abeyance, but the deep notes of the bell were heard every night until 1848, when the ringing was abolished. The Podestà of 1457 was a great admirer of Dante, and in the Magliabechiana library is a copy of the Divine Comedy, curious as having been written in the old Palazzo. It belonged to “the noble and illustrious lady Madonna Marina, wife of the magnificent knight and noble Count Messer Cristofano degli Amieri of Pesaro, which book the aforesaid M. Cristofano had written in the city of Fiorenza at the time when he was Podestà of the excellent and noble city of Fiorenza, where, on account of his good government, he received great honours.” The honours conferred on him are set forth and the inscription concludes: “this book the aforesaid M. Cristofano has had written in his office with great affection for his wife to whom he gave it, and whom he loves beyond aught else. And it was written by the hand of the worshipful man maestro Lodovico de Bella, a soldier from Savoy in the city of Fiorenza. He began to write it on the first day of September, 1457, and finished it on the sixteenth day of November of the same year.”

That traitor to his country, Ridolfo Varano, Captain-General of the Republic during the war with Gregory IX., who went over to the Pope, was also figured, hung by the feet, in 1377, not only on the tower of the palace, but on the gates of the town. But when peace was made with Urban VI., the painting was effaced. Eleven years later Bonaccorso di Lapo Giovanni, who had been three times a Prior and twice Gonfalonier of Justice, intrigued with Gian Galeazzo Visconti against the Republic, and was condemned to death _in contumaciam_. As a warning to all traitors his effigy was painted at the foot of the tower of the Palazzo del Podestà, hung in chains and surrounded with devils.[67] The old palace must have been covered with these ghastly frescoes when, at the instigation of Cosimo de’ Medici, Albizzi, Peruzzi and Strozzi, who had taken up arms to oppose his return to Florence in 1434, were also gibbeted as traitors to their country. Nearly fifty years later, after the conspiracy of the Pazzi, Vasari tells us: “the Signori passed a resolution that the portraits of all those concerned in the conspiracy should be painted on the façade of the Palazzo del Podestà. The work was offered to Andrea del Castagno who, as a servant of the house of Medici and much indebted to them, willingly accepted the commission and performed it so well that it was a marvel. It is impossible to describe the art and the judgment displayed in these figures which were nearly the size of life, hanging by their feet in strange attitudes, all varied and of great beauty. This work was so pleasing to the whole city, particularly to those who were learned in the art of painting, that Andrea was ever after called Andrea degli impiccati (of the hanged), instead of by his own name Andrea del Castagno.” In 1480, when peace was made with Sixtus IV., these paintings were effaced, as amongst them were his nephew Girolamo Riario, Francesco Salviati, Archbishop of Pisa, and a priest, Stefano di Bagnone. Fourteen years later, when the Medici were driven out of Florence, the portraits of Albizzi, Peruzzi and Strozzi were also destroyed.

In 1502 the powers of the Podestà were curtailed by the institution of a Council of Justice, the _Ruota_, which necessitated great changes in the old palace. Room had to be found for the five judges constituting the council, and Baccio d’Agnolo and Giuliano da San Gallo were the architects selected by the Signoria to do the work. They abolished an old staircase which led up into the great hall (now filled with the works of Donatello) where the 300 citizens, forming the council of the Commune, used to meet, and built a new hall of audience looking out on the Piazza S. Apollinare (now Piazza S. Firenze). Fourteen rooms were decorated by the painters Agnolo Donnini and Domenico di Marco, while Bernardino of Settignano sculptured the windows and the doors. The judges’ rooms were on the ground floor, near the prisons and the torture chambers.[68] There were also a few underground cells, and in the courtyard suspected people, whom the Podestà wished to have under his own eye, were kept, but he could not detain them more than three days. A chain near the doorway marked the limit beyond which they were forbidden to go, under pain of severe punishment. In a curious and rare little pamphlet a list is given of the malefactors condemned to death in Florence from 1328 to 1759, and their crimes. Three hundred and three names, many of them of the most illustrious Florentine families, are set down; some were burnt alive, others hung and others decapitated. Such names as Alberti, Strozzi, Ridolfi, Salviati, Vitelli, Soderini, etc., are nearly all followed by the short sentence, “for affairs of state,” or “for speaking ill of the Republic,” or “for unknown reasons.” There are also common robbers and thieves and some heretics, the latter were always condemned to the stake.[69] Massimo d’Azeglio has taken one of the political “delinquents,” Niccolò de Lapo, as the hero of his well-known novel. But far more interesting is a description by Luca della Robbia, great-nephew of the famous Luca, of a night he passed in the Bargello with his friend Pietro Pagolo Boscoli, who was condemned to death. It is so curious a human document that I have translated the greater part.[70]