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.