Part 27

A great name is associated with this old Florentine palace--that of Savonarola. When in July, 1495, he preached a farewell sermon in the Duomo, in the presence of the Signoria and all the magistrates, he said: “I have preached to you four things, the fear of God, peace, the common weal, and the reform of Government, that is to say, the Great Council.... Accelerate the construction of the Hall of Council by every means in your power; take, if necessary, the workmen from the Duomo, for their labour will thus be more acceptable to God. Insist on this Council, ameliorate it, correct it and let it be the one hope, the one power of the people.” He preached to willing ears, for Francesco di Domenico, carpenter, and Simone del Pollaiuolo, had already been chosen by the _Operai_ of the Palazzo as master-builders. Vasari, who afterwards re-arranged the great Sala de’ Cinquecento as we now see it, states that it having been determined “according to the desire of Fra Jeronimo Savonarola, then a famous preacher, to build the great Hall of Council in the Palazzo della Signoria of Florence, counsel was taken of Lionardo da Vinci, of Michelagnolo Buonarroti, though he was but a youth, of Giuliano da San Gallo, of Bacio d’Agnolo and of Simone del Pollaiuolo, surnamed Cronaca, a great friend and follower of Savonarola. After much dispute they collectively ordered the hall should be built as it remained until almost entirely remodelled in our day. The work was entrusted to Cronaca as a competent man, and moreover a friend of the said Fra Jeronimo; he did it with great celerity and diligence, showing especial cleverness in building the roof, for the edifice was immense....” After describing how Cronaca overcame all the difficulties, and praising him, Vasari condemns the hall as being “without light, and in comparison with its great length and breadth, dwarfed, and far too low, in short it is all out of proportion.” At first the work went slowly, but after Savonarola’s return from Rome, Cronaca displayed such zeal and energy that the hall was nearly finished early in 1496; indeed the building made such extraordinary progress that it was commonly said that angels had helped him.

The following year the Signori looked down from the windows of the old palace upon the bonfires, in the Piazza, of “vanities and obscenities,” as playing cards, masks and dominoes, drawings, pictures, illustrated books and the like, were called by the partisans of Savonarola, and on the 20th August he preached before the magistrates and principal citizens in the great hall. But a few years later the friar was a prisoner in the old palace, confined in the small, dark Alberghettino where Cosimo de’ Medici had passed so many anxious weeks. On the evening of Sunday, the 8th April, 1498, he was arrested by order of the Signoria, and with his faithful Fra Domenico passed through the surging mob which once hung upon his words and now insulted, taunted and even struck him. Fra Silvestro had hidden himself when the convent was attacked and was only taken prisoner next day. In the great hall, built but a few years before by Savonarola’s advice, a few lines of the accusations against him were read in his absence, the chancellor of the “Otto” declaring to the people that he had refused to appear because he was afraid of being stoned. On the 22nd May the Apostolic Commissaries decided the fate of Fra Girolamo and his followers. Only one man, Agnolo Niccolini, raised a warning voice. “This man,” he exclaimed, “could not only give faith anew to the world, in case it died out, but also science. Keep him in prison if you will; but let him live and give him leave to write, so that the world may not lose the fruits of his genius.”

In the great hall the three friars met once more after forty days of rigorous imprisonment and horrible torture, and next morning Savonarola was allowed to say mass in the chapel and to communicate himself and his two companions before going to the stake. In the eloquent pages of Pasquale Villari’s _Life of Savonarola_ the reader has this episode, but it must be added that the “pious women” mentioned by Luca Landucci in his Diary still have many imitators, for every year in the Piazza della Signoria there is a _fiorita_ on the 23rd May in memory of the great friar; rose leaves are scattered, and garlands are laid, upon the place of his martyrdom, and many a poor woman kneels in prayer.

When Michelangelo’s statue of David was finished the question arose where to place it. Giuliano da San Gallo declared that “seeing the imperfections in the marble, being friable and corroded, and having been much rained upon, I do not think that it will be durable; it should therefore be put under the Loggia de’ Signori in the middle arch of the said Loggia, or under the centre of the vaulted roof so that one may walk round it; or on one side in the centre of the wall with a black niche behind it in the shape of a hood; for if it is exposed to the rain it will suffer. It ought to be covered.” Others, like Maestro Francesco, herald of the Signoria, wanted the statue to be in the open. “I have turned over in my mind,” he writes, “what my judgment suggests to me. There are two places where such a statue will do well; the first is where stands the Judith; the second is in the centre of the courtyard of the palace, in the place of the first David;[109] for the Judith is a deadly emblem and not a good thing, as we have the X for our emblem and the Lily. It is not fitting that the woman should kill the man; also she was set up under an evil constellation, for ever since we have gone from bad to worse and have lost Pisa. Then the David in the courtyard is not a perfect figure because his leg lacks symmetry. Therefore I advise putting the statue in one of these two places, but by preference where stands the Judith.” Michelangelo was of the same opinion, so his Giant, as the people called it, was set up on the ringhiera by the entrance door of the Palazzo Vecchio, and Donatello’s statue was moved to the arch of the Loggia facing the Piazza, where now stands the Rape of the Sabines. The Judith had been placed on the ringhiera in 1494 when Piero de’ Medici was driven out of Florence and his possessions, amongst them the statue, confiscated, not so much as an ornament as to warn the people to maintain their liberty and to kill tyrants, as is proved by the inscription on the pediment: _Exemplum Sal. Pub. Cives posuere. MCCCCXCV._

During the riots which ended in the Medici being again exiled, a large stone fell from the balustrade of the alur of the palace upon an arm of Michelangelo’s statue and broke it into three pieces. For several days the fragments lay on the pavement, until two lads, Giorgio Vasari and Francesco Salviati, picked them up and took them to Salviati’s father, who sixteen years afterwards gave them to the Duke Cosimo I. In a letter from a certain Riccio, of 7th November, 1543, we find that “the people pass their time in watching the building of a scaffolding round the giant David. It is put up for the mending of his poor arm, but many think that his face is to be washed.” In 1875 the statue, which showed signs of deterioration was, after much consideration, removed to the Gallery of the _Belle Arte_, where it now is. Michelangelo was to have made a companion giant for the other side of the door of the Palazzo Vecchio--Hercules slaying Cacus; but Clement VII. was persuaded to give the block of marble to Baccio Bandinelli, with what result we see at the present day. That madcap, egoistical, highly-gifted artist, Benvenuto Cellini, thus described the statue to Duke Cosimo in the presence of Bandinelli, to whom he said: “You must know that it pains me to point out the faults of your statue; I shall not, however, utter my own sentiments, but shall recapitulate what our most virtuous school of Florence says about it.... Well then, this virtuous school says that if one were to shave the hair of your Hercules, there would not be skull enough left to hold his brain; it says that it is impossible to distinguish whether his features are those of a man or of something between a lion and an ox; the face too is turned away from the action of the figure, and is so badly set upon the neck, with such poverty of art and so ill a grace, that nothing worse was ever seen; his sprawling shoulders are like two pommels of an ass’s pack-saddle; his breasts and all the muscles of the body are not portrayed from a man, but from a big sack full of melons set upright against a wall. The lions seem to be modelled from a bag of lanky pumpkins; nobody can tell how his two legs are attached to that vile trunk; it is impossible to say on which leg he stands, or which he uses to exert his strength; nor does he seem to be resting upon both, as sculptors who know something of their art have occasionally set the figure. It is obvious that the body is leaning forward more than one-third of a cubit, which alone is the greatest and most insupportable fault committed by vulgar commonplace pretenders. Concerning the arms, they say that these are both stretched out without one touch of grace or one real spark of artistic talent just as if you had never seen a naked model. Again, the right leg of Hercules and that of Cacus have got one mass of flesh between them, so that if they were to be separated, not only one of them, but both together, would be left without a calf at the point where they are touching. They say, too, that Hercules has one of his feet underground, while the other seems to be resting on hot coals.”[110] On either side, nearer the door, were placed two terminal statues, which are still there; one by Bandinelli is intended to represent the power and magnanimity of Tuscany, the other, a woman about to change into a laurel, by Vincenzio de’ Rossi, the grace and intellect Tuscany has shown in the arts. They are commonly called Philomen and Baucis.

When Piero Soderini was elected Gonfalonier for life in 1502, Landucci notes in his Diary, “For the first time the wife of the Gonfalonier, by name Madonna Argentina, went to live in the Palazzo de’ Signori. It seemed odd indeed to see women abiding in the palace.” Large sums were spent in decorations, and Soderini determined that Leonardo da Vinci should paint the great Hall of Council. It seems certain that Leonardo devoted two years to this work, the beauty of which is minutely described by Vasari, who says he abandoned it because having attempted to paint on the wall in oils the colours ran. Michelangelo was then deputed to paint one side of the hall, and his cartoon excited extraordinary enthusiasm and admiration in all who beheld it. Vasari accuses Baccio Bandinelli of tearing the magnificent drawing to pieces during the riots of 1512, when the Gonfalonier Soderini was deposed and the Medici returned to power.

Giuliano de’ Medici entered Florence first, he dismounted at the Albizzi palace, as the family palace in the Via Larga had been sacked when the Medici were driven out. There he waited until joined by the Cardinal Giovanni, when they went to the Palazzo de’ Signori and established themselves there as masters. The great bell was rung to summon the people to a parliament, and at sundown on the 16th September the Signoria assembled on the ringhiera and read the new laws to the people. Landucci notes in his Diary that “on the 2nd October the Medici caused their arms to be re-painted on their palace, on the Annunziata and in many other places, they also caused the effigy of the Gonfalonier to be removed out of the S.S. Annunziata.[111]

Not content with abolishing the Great Council and the Ten of Balìa, and nominating their own people to all important posts, the Cardinal and Giuliano de’ Medici installed a strong guard of Spanish soldiers in the old palace, and to lodge them the noble hall of the Five Hundred was ruined. “At this time it pleased the new government,” writes Landucci, “to destroy the woodwork of the hall of the Great Council, besides many other beautiful things, which had been made at enormous outlay. Rooms were built for the soldiers, and a new entrance was made, which things were lamented by all Florence; not the change of government, but the loss of that beautiful woodwork which had cost so much. It had been a great glory and honour for the city to have such a splendid residence. When ambassadors came to visit the Signoria all who entered were astounded when they saw such a magnificent palace and such a multitude of citizens in council.” It must however be said that a hoarding was erected in front of the painting by Leonardo da Vinci when the hall was turned into barracks, so that it might not be spoiled. Seventeen years later the Medici were again driven out, and again there was a “tumult” in the Palazzo de’ Signori. In a very long letter[112] from that most excellent of men old Jacopo Nardi to Benedetto Varchi, who was writing his famous history, he describes the scenes at which he, as Gonfalonier of one of the quarters of the town, assisted. After stating the difficulty he had to reach the palace, he goes on: “I found a great multitude in council, without order or head, uncertain what to demand or what to desire, so that they did nought but shout, etc., as though that constituted a victory. Meanwhile the Signori were conducted, almost by force, to their usual seats, _jam redacti in ordinem_, with no more reverence than if they had been private persons. The Gonfalonier did not lose his head, but asked in a loud voice what they wanted, saying we had met to carry out their wishes, if they expressed them quietly and without violence. But the Compagnie, who were always arriving and entering the Council Hall, did not see what was being done and by their shouts increased the tumult; so that the Signori were not heard, nor the Gonfalonier, who declared that he was ready to propose anything, etc., and above their heads were a hundred swords and halberds. I advanced with due obeisance to the Signoria and addressed the young men, repeating in a loud voice what the Gonfalonier had proposed for their satisfaction, reproving those I knew and entreating those who were unknown to me. So at last some resolutions were put and carried with shouts by those around, one by one as they were convinced, and they were inscribed by Giuliano da Ripa, who was brought up almost by sheer force, for no other notary could be found in the palace. The resolutions carried were: that all those who had been condemned, exiled, banished (to other towns or to their villas), or imprisoned for political offences, should be pardoned and liberated; that the government should be what it was in the time of Piero Soderini, before 1512; that the great bell should again be rung for parliaments; and that the exile of the Medici be proclaimed to the sound of trumpets. I do not recollect the order in which these were voted on account of the confusion and the violence of certain youths, which was so great that, whilst I was in front of the Signoria, a blow was aimed at the Gonfalonier; the flat of the sword hit him on the shoulder near the neck, but not severely, and I put my handkerchief to his neck, fearing it would bleed.”

After the departure of the Cardinal of Cortona with Ippolito and Alessandro de’ Medici the great hall of the Five Hundred was cleared of the barracks erected for the Spanish soldiers and restored to its proper use. Niccolò Capponi, head of the _ottimati_ party, was elected Gonfalonier of Justice and began to treat with the Pope to gain time, which incensed the _popolani_, or popular party, who were already angry because he showed such reverence for the memory of Savonarola. “At this time,” writes Varchi, “the Gonfalonier, either persuaded by the friars of S. Marco, with whom he consorted, or more probably to gain the party of the friars, which was considerable and of no small reputation, favoured and seconded as much as he could all that Fra Girolamo had instituted, so that he was blamed and scoffed at by many. Amongst other things he repeated almost word for word a sermon of the friar’s, in which he first predicted much evil, and afterwards much good, to the city of Florence, and at the end he threw himself on his knees and crying out _misericordia_ in a loud voice, persuaded the whole council to repeat _misericordia_. Not content with this he proposed in the Great Council that Christ should be accepted as the especial King of Florence. There were twenty dissentients, and thinking that no one would ever obliterate it, Capponi had the following inscription placed above the door of the palace--

Y.H.S. CHRISTO REGI SUO DOMINO DOMINANTUM DEO SUMMO OPTMAX LIBERATORI MARIAEQUE VIRGINI REGINAE DICAVIT. AN.SAL.M.D.XXVII.S.P.Q.F.

The curious thing is that Segni gives two other different inscriptions and that none of the three coincide with the one still over the door--

REX REGUM ET DOMINUS DOMINANTIUM,

with the monogram Y.H.S. in the centre of a star above.

The old palace saw stormy scenes in 1529 when Niccolò Capponi was deposed and Francesco Carducci, a leader of the _Arrabiati_ or ultra democratic party, was elected Gonfalonier. Florence, that “most republican of all Republics,” stood alone facing the united forces of the Pope and of Charles V. After a hopeless struggle, which lasted two years, the Signoria met in the Hall of the Two Hundred to hear the death warrant of Florentine liberty. Duke Alessandro entered in state, and then the envoy of Charles V. and the Pope’s Nuncio took their seats on either side of the Gonfalonier, the Priors and other magistrates sitting below them. The envoy preached a homily on the sins of the Republic and the graciousness and goodness of the Pope and the Emperor, and then read the Brieve of Charles V. which all present swore to obey. Meanwhile the crowd in the Piazza below raised the well-known cry of _Palle.Palle.Eviva i Medici_.

Some months later a deputation waited on Alessandro to announce that a new form of government had been decided on, “abolishing for ever the rule of the magistrate created by the people to oppress the nobility, and decreeing that all power was to reside in the Duke and four of his noble councillors.” Segni, in his History, tells us that “Alessandro de’ Medici, accompanied by his councillors, one of whom was Filippo Strozzi, and his guard in state, attended a solemn mass in San Giovanni to give thanks to God for his Dukedom and for the new form of the Republic, and then went to the Palace. There the last Signoria, descending to the ringhiera (Giovanfrancesco de’ Nobili being the Gonfalonier, the last we had), gave him, what he already possessed, the rank of Lord and Duke and absolute Prince. And thus amid the shouts of _Palle! Palle!_ and _Duke! Duke!_ by the people and a salute of artillery and of fireworks which exploding all together made the whole air resound, he returned in great pomp to his house, triumphant over the murdered liberty of Florence.” As already mentioned he broke up the great bell of the Palazzo Vecchio, “no less good than beautiful,” writes Varchi, “which weighed 22,000 lbs. Some think for coining money, as it was said to have so much silver that it might serve as alloy for crazie, but this was not the case.” The Florentine merchant Davanzati records in his diary, “the bell of the Council was taken from us in order that we should no more hear the sweet sound of Liberty.”

After the murder of Duke Alessandro by his cousin Lorenzino de’ Medici in 1537, the son of Giovanni delle Bande Nere succeeded to the throne as Cosimo I. He inhabited the Medici palace in the Via Larga for five years and then took up his abode in the Palazzo de’ Signori, “where,” writes Gianbattista Adriani, “he caused the rooms which once had been those of the Priors and of the Gonfaloniers to be arranged in princely fashion ... and this he did to show that he was absolute Prince and sole head of the Government, and to disabuse those who pretended, as some had done, that the government of the city was a separate thing from that of the Medici family. Also, as it was necessary to have a guard in the Palace, the principal seat of the State, he judged it to be safer, less expensive, more dignified and more conducive to authority to live there.” The Duke evidently mistrusted his subjects and had German soldiers, _Lanzknechte_, as his guards. Their quarters were close to the Loggia de’ Signori, in which they lounged during the day and which ever since has been called the Loggia de’ Lanzi. Having established himself in the old palace Cosimo called in Tasso, an admirable carver in wood and a good architect,[113] and ordered him to add to it by incorporating the two fine residences of the Captain and the Executor of Justice, and a large house with a courtyard where the lions were kept, which were then sent to S. Marco. These orders were only partially carried out as will be seen later on. Tasso superintended the works besides carving the windows, doors, ceilings and cornices, while Vasari, to whom the Duke took a fancy in 1550 when he presented him with a copy of his _Lives of the Painters_, began to paint the rooms. For the description of all he did I must refer my readers to his own delightful book, but no wonder he remarked, after he had raised the roof of the great Hall of the Five Hundred and, aided by his pupils, frescoed it all over, rebuilt the staircases, made two floors where originally there was but one, etc. etc., that Arnolfo, Michelozzo and others, who had worked at the palace from the beginning would not recognize it and would think it was not theirs, but a new marvel and another edifice. Vasari however omits to mention that he sacrilegiously destroyed the work of Leonardo da Vinci. Mr. Berenson has kindly called my attention to a letter written in 1549 by Anton Francesco Doni to Alberto Lollio who was going to visit Florence. Doni gives him excellent advice and after mentioning the “Giant” by Michelangelo at the door of Palazzo Vecchio, etc., he continues: “mount then the stairs to the great hall and carefully consider the group of horses and men (part of a battlepiece by Leonardo da Vinci), which you will see to be a miraculous thing.”[114] So that Leonardo’s fresco was in existence when Vasari began to paint in the Palazzo Vecchio.

After the death of Tasso the whole work was confided to Vasari, whose task was rendered easier as the Court moved into the Palazzo Pitti. Bronzino was called in to decorate the Duchess’s former apartments on the second floor of the old palace. In the chapel he painted three episodes from the life of Moses and an altarpiece, which was considered so fine that the Duke sent it as a present to Granvela in Flanders, and another was painted by Bronzino, now in the Gallery of the Uffizi.

Among the rooms built by Vasari on the second floor is a large one which served as a _guardaroba_, with cupboards all round the walls. It bears the name of _Sala del Mappamondo_, from the paintings on the cupboard doors by Egnazio Danti, a Dominican friar. For eight years he worked at these curious geographical maps until, for some unknown reason, he fell into disgrace, when they were continued, but not finished, by another friar, Don Stefano Buonsignore. These fifty-three large maps are exceedingly interesting, and merit more attention than they generally receive.