Part 19

Rastrelli tells us that “on the 5th January, 1536, in carnival time, the Duke and Lorenzino disguised themselves as mountaineers and on sorry donkeys rode about the town paying visits to their mistresses and playing practical jokes. Thus passed the day, and towards evening they returned weary to the palace and supped together. Then Lorenzino said to his cousin, What shall we do to-night? and the Duke replied, I shall go to bed for I am tired out. Whereupon the traitorous Lorenzino whispered something in the Duke’s ear, who sprang up, went to his room and took a mantle lined with rich fur. Girding on his sword and putting his dagger in his belt, he left the palace secretly by the garden wicket, followed by Giomo da Carpi, Unghero, Captain Giustiniani of Cesena and one of his own body servants. On the Piazza S. Marco he met Lorenzino who was awaiting him and dismissed his attendants, and the two cousins returned to Lorenzino’s house. The Duke began to loosen his belt, but Lorenzino undid it entirely and took from him his sword and dagger, entangling the belt so dexterously round the handles of both that they could not be easily drawn. After a while the Duke asked at what hour the expected lady would arrive, and Lorenzino answered: She waits for me to fetch her. Go then, said Alessandro, and in order that she may not be recognized give her my mantle, and as he spoke he began to take it off. But Lorenzino, who wished him to be wrapped round as far as possible and impeded in his movements, answered: No, she will know how to disguise herself properly; and without further ado left the room, taking care so to close the door that it could only be opened from the outside. The Duke, being very tired, threw himself on the bed in his mantle and fell asleep.

“The lady in question was Caterina Ginori, sister to Lorenzino’s mother. She lived close to the back entrance of the Palazzo Medici and was as virtuous as she was beautiful. But she lived in a poor way, as Leonardo, her husband, had dissipated his patrimony and was living as an outlaw in Naples. The Duke, falling in love with her beauty, had asked Lorenzino to help him to obtain speech of her, and Lorenzino encouraged him in his passion, hoping thereby to find means to effect his traitorous design. He went straight to the house of a certain Piero di Gioannabate, surnamed Scoronconcolo, a quarrelsome man of vile character, devoted to Lorenzino, who by his influence with the Duke had saved him from execution. Some days before Lorenzino had said to him: I have an enemy who is always jeering at me and turning me into ridicule, what can we do? Point him out to me, answered Scoronconcolo, and if he annoys you again, complain of me and not of him. Being thus sure of the villain’s courage, Lorenzino said: Pietro, the time has come for fulfilling the promise you made me; the enemy who continually derides me is now in my room, let us go and kill him. It is well, replied the fellow, it is not I that will fail you. At the threshold, fearing he might lose courage, Lorenzino turned to him and said: You will not fear even if it is a friend of the Duke’s? Strike hard. Were it the Duke himself I should not fear, answered Piero. You have guessed aright, said Lorenzino, it is the Duke; he cannot escape us, let us set to work heartily. For an instant the assassin seemed to hesitate, but plucking up courage he exclaimed: Here we are, let us proceed even though it were the devil himself. Entering the room Lorenzino advanced to the bed whereon the Duke was sleeping profoundly. Raising the curtain he called in an angered tone: What, Duke, are you asleep? and with a short sword pierced him in the back. The blade passed through his body, and rising in a fury the Duke staggered towards the door shouting: Traitor. Then turning his eyes, still heavy with sleep, he saw Lorenzino and exclaimed: This from thee, and attempted to defend himself. Lorenzino threw himself upon him and placed his open hand over his mouth to prevent his cries from being heard, while his abominable companion gave the Duke Alessandro a stab on the temple which crushed his left cheek. The bleeding and dying prince seized Lorenzino’s thumb between his teeth, and the pain caused him to fall on the top of the Duke; he called to Scoronconcolo for help, who could do nothing for fear of wounding him instead of the victim. Lorenzino recollecting that he had a knife in his pocket, took it out with the other hand and opening the blade with his teeth stabbed the Duke in the throat. Raising the bleeding body from the floor they placed it on the bed and Lorenzino wrote on a sheet of paper _Vincit amor patriae laudumque immenso cupido_, and laid it on the corpse. Then locking the door they went to the Bishop Angelo Marzi, who kept the keys of the city gates and was alone authorized to grant permits for post horses. Knowing the friendship which existed between the Duke and his cousin, the Bishop never hesitated about giving the permits and the murderers left Florence at once.”[76] There was considerable alarm in the Palazzo Medici next day when the Duke did not make his appearance. All the houses he was likely to frequent were searched in vain, and at first it was thought that he had gone with Lorenzino to Cafaggiuolo.

“Strange noises had been heard,” writes Varchi, “in Lorenzino’s house. But they excited no suspicion, as for some time he had been in the habit of taking boon companions to his room, where they made noises as though they were fighting; rushing about the house, shouting, hit him, kill him, traitor, and the like. The first to give the alarm was Lorenzino’s servant. He went to Cardinal Cibo in the palace, who commanded the men to maintain absolute silence under pain of losing his head, and then ordered the game of Saracino to be played to amuse the people. To those who inquired for the Duke, he smilingly answered that being tired he was still in bed.” The news had however got abroad. “Groups and parties of citizens,” continues Varchi, “were on the Piazza, and every one spoke out freely as though no doubt existed that the great Council would at once be summoned. They debated as to who would be chosen Gonfalonier, and whether for life or not ... and meanwhile the Forty-eight had been summoned to the Palazzo Medici by the Cardinal, and were assembled in the large gallery upstairs.” Francesco Guicciardini and Francesco Vettori proposed Cosimo de’ Medici, son of the famous Giovanni delle Bande Nere, and of Maria Salviati, as successor to the Duke Alessandro. “But,” as Varchi observes, “the Forty-eight were of forty-eight different opinions and so nothing was settled.” Full powers were given to the Cardinal Cibo to conduct the government of the city for three days, a decision so unpopular that when the burghers passed the shops of the smaller artisans they beat their instruments on the counters, shouting: “If you do not know how to, or cannot, act, call us. We will settle the question.”

“At this moment, when it only needed some one to begin a tumult,” writes Varchi, “Signor Cosimo arrived in Florence with but a few followers. As the son of Signor Giovanni, of fair aspect, and having always displayed a kindly disposition and a good understanding, he was liked by the people and they acclaimed him as the heir to Duke Alessandro with great affection. Showing neither grief nor joy, he rode on with a certain air of majesty, appearing rather to merit the throne than to desire it. Dismounting at the palace he visited the Cardinal and, first expressing his regret at the death of the Duke, he then with great tact, inspired either by his own natural prudence, or having been instructed by others said, that like a good son he had come to place not only his fortune, but his life, at the service of his country and of its citizens.” The following morning Cosimo de’ Medici was proclaimed, not Duke, but Head and Governor of the Florentine Republic.

Cosimo I., though but a lad of nineteen, soon showed that he intended to be the master. Cardinal Cibo and Francesco Guicciardini, the latter of whom had been chiefly instrumental in placing him at the head of the Florentine Republic, were set aside, and in June the following year the Emperor Charles V. granted him the rank and the title of Duke of Florence. In 1539 he married Eleonora di Toledo, second daughter of Don Pedro di Toledo the Viceroy of Naples, and once more the great palace was the scene of splendid festivities. It was soon afterwards deserted, as Cosimo I., to make it quite plain to his subjects that the whole government now centered in him alone, decided to take up his abode in the ancient Palazzo de’ Signori. The Medici palace was closed and abandoned until the Grand Duke Ferdinando II. sold it to the Senator Gabriello Riccardi in 1659 for 41,000 scudi, when it became the Palazzo Riccardi.

The Riccardi added considerably to the building, but care was taken to preserve the same style of architecture and only a close observer would notice that the arms of the Riccardi, a key, are in the triangles of the windows, instead of the Medici balls. The terrace, above which is a fine shield with the arms of the Riccardi; is often pointed out as occupying the site of the room in which the murder of the Duke Alessandro took place. But it was built on the site of a small house adjoining Cosimo’s palace, belonging to the Da Lutiano family, and Signor Corrazzini suggests that it was made in order to be able to continue the cornice and the “bozzi” round the corner of the palace, which would have been impossible had it been attached to the next house. The internal arrangements of the building were entirely changed, and many rooms were added at the back, where there is a second courtyard with an entrance into the Via de’ Ginori. It was then that the architect, G. B. Foggini, committed the unpardonable vandalism of cutting off a corner of the chapel in order to widen the chief staircase, and thus destroyed part of Gozzoli’s fresco.

The Riccardi were of German origin. A certain Annichino di Riccardo came from Cologne and was made a citizen of Florence in 1368. The family made a large fortune by trade, but their name does not appear in the annals of the city until Riccardo Riccardi was created a Senator and a Marquis in 1654, by Ferdinando II. He founded the fine library, still known as the Riccardiana, and his son, after purchasing the Medici palace, had the great gallery gorgeously frescoed and decorated by Luca Giordano with the apotheosis of the Medici family and allegories of the vicissitudes of human life. Francesco Riccardi married the only daughter and heiress of Vincenzo Capponi, and her father’s valuable library was added to the one already existing in the palace, which later was further augmented by Canon Riccardi’s fine collection of manuscripts and illuminated missals.[77]

Palazzo Riccardi must have been let to the French government, as in March, 1799, General Gaulthier had his head-quarters there until the arrival of M. Reinhard, the Commissary-General. A wondrous ceremony took place in June in the large room. Orders came from Paris to hold a solemn funeral service in commemoration of those who had fallen at Rastadt. So all the officers, municipal councillors and heads of departments met in the Palazzo Riccardi, which was hung with black and decorated with festoons of cypress. On a sarcophagus stood the cinerary urn and round it were placed three crowns of oakleaves with the inscription: “Ils travaillaient pour la paix des peuples, les tyrans les ont assassinés.” Two tricolour flags draped with crape were at one end of the room, and a raised stand for the band of the national guard and the singers had been erected. M. Reinhard then pronounced a funeral oration and, while the band played a slow and solemn symphony his wife, dressed in white, with a black scarf across her breast and a crown of laurel on her head, mounted the steps up to the urn. Dramatically casting her eyes up to heaven she first embraced it and then scattered flowers over it. The ceremony ended with the singing of _Ça ira_ and the _Marseillaise_. Eighteen months later Joachim Murat, the handsomest man in the French army, entered Florence at the head of a brilliant staff. Magnificently costumed, and with highly rouged cheeks, he rode proudly through the city and dismounted at the Riccardi palace, where General Gaulthier received him at the head of the staircase. He did not however stay long in the Via Larga, as he found the old palace too sombre, cold and _triste_, but requisitioned the Corsini palace where his wife, Caroline Bonaparte, soon joined him.[78] The Palazzo Riccardi was the head-quarters of the civil engineers as long as the French supremacy lasted. In 1814 it was bought by the Tuscan government, and during the few years that Florence was the capital of United Italy, it was the seat of the Home Office. Later the old palace was sold to the Province of Florence and is now the Prefecture.

PALAZZO RIDOLFI

_Via Maggio. No. 13._

From Rodolfo, son of a certain Diotifece who lived at Poppiano in the Val di Pesa in the XIIIth century, descend the three families of Ridolfi whose name occurs so frequently in the annals of Florence. The Ridolfi del Ponte, whose old tower still stands grey and grim opposite to that of the Mannelli in the Via de’ Bardi; the Ridolfi di Piazza, whose houses were clustered round the church of S. Felice (Borgo di Piazza was one of the three borghi, or parishes, of the Oltrarno); and the Ridolfi di Borgo, who had their houses in the Borgo S. Jacopo. In 1378 the Ridolfi, being Ghibellines, were expelled the city, and their houses were sacked and burnt; but three years later they returned to Florence and made a large fortune as wool merchants. Lorenzo Ridolfi, born in 1362, was a remarkable man. A great jurist, he expounded canon law at the Studio Fiorentino, attended to business in his shop in the Via Maggio, was Pro-consul of the Guild of Wool, four times Gonfalonier of Justice, and was sent (whenever a knotty question arose) as ambassador of the Republic to popes and foreign sovereigns. He had four sons, Bernardo, Luigi, Antonio and Giovanni, from the second of whom descend the present representatives of the family. They were all Gonfaloniers of Justice, and friends of the Medici; indeed, so devoted was Antonio, that when Lorenzo the Magnificent was stabbed in the cathedral on the occasion of the conspiracy of the Pazzi he sucked the wound, fearing the dagger might have been poisoned. One of Lorenzo Ridolfi’s grandsons, Giovan Battista, was a gallant soldier, who fought against Bentivoglio and took him prisoner at Faenza. He was elected Gonfalonier of Justice for life after Piero Soderini, and opposed the return of the exiled Piero de’ Medici, whilst another, Niccolò, lost his head in 1497 for conspiring with Bernardo del Nero for his recall. Niccolò bought the palace in the Via Maggio, which still belongs to the Ridolfi, from the powerful family of the Corbinelli. The architect is unknown, but it is evidently of the XIVth century, with its large windows and fine doorway. The _graffite_ on the façade are of course of a later date. All Niccolò’s possessions were confiscated when he was beheaded. But on the return of the Medici to power the estates were given back to his son Piero, husband of Contessina, daughter of Lorenzo the Magnificent, whilst the youngest, Niccolò, was made a Cardinal at twelve years of age, and became Archbishop of Florence at nineteen. He lived chiefly at Orvieto, where he kept up a princely establishment, and being intensely hostile to the Duke Alessandro de’ Medici, his house was the refuge of all the Florentine exiles. During the conclave of 1550 he died; poisoned, it was said, by the orders of Cosimo I., who feared he might be elected Pope.

Roberto Ridolfi, head of the banking-house in London, allowed his religious zeal to get the better of his discretion. He conspired in favour of Mary Queen of Scots, and was imprisoned in the Tower of London, but contrived to escape and took refuge in Rome.

Attached to the Ridolfi palace is another of the XVIth century, which was built on the site of two houses also belonging to the Corbinelli. Bought by the Sangaletti in 1583, they were soon afterwards sold to the Zanchini Da Castiglionichio, who threw them into one, employing, it is said, Santi di Tito as their architect. The courtyard is of pure XVth century design, and was probably incorporated with the new palace by the Zanchini, whose arms are still to be seen on the corner of the palace. Marchese Cosimo Ridolfi bought it in 1843, and added it to his own.

In the façade of a house nearly opposite the side entrance to the Boboli gardens in Via Romana is a bas-relief of S. Peter the Apostle seated; at either end are the old arms of the Ridolfi, and between is the inscription _Hospitium Nobilis Ridolforum Familiae_. This is all that remains of a hospital, which, according to the custom of those days when every great family had its own small hospital, Piero Ridolfi intended to build. He bought a house from the Calvacanti, but died in 1349 before he could carry out his intention. So his nephew Antonio built the hospital, and various members of the family left considerable sums for its maintenance. It was suppressed in 1751, and its funds given to the Bigallo.

PALAZZO RONDINELLI

_Via della Forca._

The family of the Rondinelli made a large fortune in trade, and owned several palaces in the old Via de’ Rondinelli (now Via della Forca), and their coat-of-arms, with six swallows, is still to be seen there on the façade of a house. They afterwards lived in what is now the Via de’ Rondinelli, and a palace in the Piazza S. Lorenzo, which was incorporated in the convent of S. Giovannino, also belonged to them.

The origin of the family is given differently by two old writers. Verino says:

“Unde sit ignoro, tribuit cui nomen Hirundo: Est antiqua tamen, carnit nec honore propago. Ili Fesulis genitam soboles eeu nobilis omnis Ist Flaminie dicunt ex arcibus ortam,”

while Gamurini declares they had nothing to do with Fiesole, but came from a castle near Arezzo called Rondine (Swallow). In 1192 a Rondinello di Ulivieri is mentioned in the records of the Opera del Duomo, and his son, Spinabello, commonly called Bello di Rondinello, was one of the Elders of the city who signed the league with Arezzo in Sta. Reparata in 1258. Vieri, Bello’s son, was the first of thirty-six Priors his family gave to Florence, and a few years later the first of twelve Gonfaloniers of Justice. The Rondinelli were Guelphs, and always in the van of every popular movement, and Michele, who was deputed to buy Lucca of the Scaliger in 1341, became extraordinarily beloved owing to his liberality and kindly manners, and was one of the leaders of the people when they rose against the _Grandi_. Rinaldo, his nephew, was twice sent as ambassador to the Republic of Lucca to watch the Pisan exiles who were plotting against Florence. He joined with Giovanni and Cosimo de’ Medici in building S. Lorenzo, but died before the church was half finished, and left strict orders in his will that his sons were to continue the work.

Antonio Rondinelli, whose name is linked for ever with that of the beautiful Ginevra degl’Amieri must, if he and Ginevra are not mere creations of the popular phantasy, have been a brother of Michele. The Amieri, one of the proudest and oldest families of Florence, whose magnificent palaces and towers stood near S. Andrea in the old market place, were strongly Ghibelline. Scorning an alliance with a Rondinelli, a _Popolano_ and a Guelph, they forced Ginevra to marry Francesco degl’Agolanti, whose family was on a par with her own. In vain she tried to forget the handsome, gentle Antonio. She sickened, and one day fell into a deep swoon, as dead; her death was attributed to the plague which was then raging in Florence, and she was hastily buried in the vault of the Amieri adjoining the Duomo.[79] In that terrible year (1400) people were often buried with their jewellery, and thieves, braving the infection, went at night to rob the corpses. Two of these fellows lifted the stone of the vault. The fresh air revived Ginevra, who sat up, whereupon the men, thinking she was a ghost, fled. Ginevra called her women, but to her horror saw she was surrounded by skeletons, and understood what had happened. Slipping off the linen bands which tied her hands, she was able to set her feet free. The moon was full as she climbed the steps out of the vault, and wrapping her shroud around her she crossed the Piazza, and went down the small street which has, they say, ever since borne the name of Via della Morte, to her husband’s house.[80] Francesco opened the window when she knocked, but thought that the spirit of his dead wife was asking for suffrages, and promising to have masses said for the repose of her soul, shut the window. Ginevra then went on to her father’s house, where her mother sat weeping by the fireside, and in the old popular ballad in _ottava rima_ by Agotino Velletti, we read:

“E spaventata e piena di paura Disse: va in pace, anima benedetta, Bella figliuola mia, onesta e pura; E riserro la finestra con fretta.”

Rejected by husband and mother, she turned her steps to the house of her uncle, who had always loved her, and implored his help, but:

“Fugli risposto: anima benedetta, Va, che Dio ti conservi in santa pace.”[81]

Shuddering with cold and misery, in utter despair she thought of Antonio Rondinelli. After praying under the portico of S. Bartolomeo she hurried to his door, and crying for aid, fell exhausted to the ground. “Then,” writes J. A. Symonds, “comes the finest touch in the poem. Antonio knows Ginevra’s voice; and loving her so tenderly, he hurries with delight to greet her risen from the grave. He alone has no fear, and no misgiving; for love in him is stronger than death. At the street door, when he reaches it, he finds no ghost, but his own dear lady yet alive. She is half frozen and unconscious, yet her heart still beats. How he calls the women of his household to attend her, prepares a bed, and feeds her with warm soups and wine, and how she revives, and how Antonio claims her to be his wife, and wins his cause against her former bridegroom in the bishop’s court, may be read at length in the concluding portion of the tale.”[82]

The Gonfalonier Tommaso di Vieri de’ Rondinelli was so beloved that on his death, in 1430, the people insisted on giving him a public funeral. The name of one of his descendants, Giovanni, is known as a poet of some note. When in 1790 the old family of the Vitelli died out, the Rondinelli inherited their estates and their name, and I believe the palace in Via della Stufa, where the last of the Rondinelli died, and which now belongs to his daughter, was a Palazzo Vitelli.

PALAZZO RUCELLAI

_Via della Vigna Nuova. No. 20._