2. The fourteenth-century palazzo salviati is on the corner of the Via della Vigna Vecchia and the Via Palmiere.
3. The BORGO SAN PIERO is now the Borgo degli Albizi.
4. The Abbey of CAMALDOLI, mother house of the Camaldolensians, was founded at the beginning of the eleventh century by St Romualdo. Its name derived from Campus Maldoli, the three-thousand-acre forest site presented to the order by one Maldolus, a rich merchant from Arezzo. The pharmacy is sixteenth-century, other buildings are mostly seventeenth-and eighteenth-century.
CHAPTER X
1. The family palace, now known as the palazzo pazzi-quaratesi, wasbuilt in the last quarter of the fifteenth century possibly to the designs ofGiuliano da Sangallo, and is in the Via Proconsolo (no. 10). After the Pazziconspiracy it passed into the hands of the Medici, then into those of Cibò and Strozzi.
2. The CHURCH OF SANT’ APOSTOLI was built at about the same time as the Baptistery. The early-sixteenth-century main portal is by Benedetto da Rovezzano. The painted wooden roof is early-fourteenth-century.
3. After Brunelleschi’s death the pa zzi chapel was completed by Giuliano da Maiano who made the wooden doors. The terracotta decorations are by Luca della Robbia. The stained-glass window of St Andrew is a copy of the original now kept, with many other treasures, in the Museo dell’ Opera di Santa Croce, which is approached from the cloisters.
4. The SCOPPIO DEL CARRO has been resumed. It used to take place at Midnight Mass on Easter Saturday. Now the ceremony is performed at noon on Easter Day. The flints are collected from the church of Sant’ Apostoli and, at the appointed hour, in front of the High Altar of the Cathedral, they are used to strike sparks which ignite a rocket, shaped like a dove. The dove shoots along a wire out of the Cathedral and into the Piazza where, it is earnestly hoped, it will reach a cart full of fireworks, set the fireworks ablaze and then fall back down the wire into the Cathedral. The operation successfully performed gives promise of a good harvest.
CHAPTER XI
1. The severe and unflattering Portrait of a Young Woman by BOTTICELLI in the Pitti Palace has been identified as Clarice Orsini and – less probably – as Simonetta Vespucci. A more likely identification seems to be Fioretta Gorini.
CHAPTER XIII
1. Lorenzo bought the VILLA OF POGGIO A CAIANO in 1479. Giuliano da San-gallo began converting it to a purely Renaissance design the next year, but it was not until the following century that the pediment and gabled loggia were added. The outside staircases were bulit in the seventeenth century. The mural inside the loggia is by Filippino Lippi. The walls of the salone, the courtyard of the original building, are decorated with paintings by Francesco di Cristofano Franciabigio, Alcssandro Allori, Andrea del Sarto, and Jacopo Carrucci Pontormo. Apart from this room, the interior of the building has been much changed. It now belongs to the State and is being restored as a museum.
2. According to Vasari, the site of Lorenzo’s school was a garden near the Piazza San Marco which had once belonged to the Badia Fiesolana and had formed part of Clarice Orsini’s dowry. Contemporary records do not mention it and its precise location is unknown.
3. Various examples of Michelangelo’s earliest work may be seen at the CASA BUONARROTI (Via Ghibellina, 70) which was built by his nephew on the site of property long owned by his family. The Madonna of the Stairs was done in about 1490, the Battle of the Centaurs about 1492.
4. BOTTICELLI’S Pritnavera (now in the Uffizi), replete as it is with classical andliterary allusion, has been the subject of the most complicated explanations. Ithas pleased some writers to recognize in both Venus and Flora the features ofSimonetta Vespucci whose kinsman, Amerigo Vespucci, the navigator, was togive his name to America. The figure of Mercury on the left of the picture doescertainly bear a resemblance to Botticelli’s Portrait of Giuliano de Medici (in theCrespi Collection, Milan) which was painted two or three years earlier – about 1475
5. It has also been suggested that the model for Venus in BOTTICELLI’S Birth of Venus was Simonetta Vespucci. The picture (now in the Uffizi) was painted in about 1485.
6. BOTTICELLI’S Primavera, Birth of Venus and Pallas and the Centaur all once hung in the Medici villa of castello. The villa was bought in 1477 by Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de’ Medici. The gardens were laid out in the time of Duke Cosimo I by Niccolà Pericoli Tribolo and his successor, Bernardo Buontalenti. Various stone and bronze statues in the ponds and grottoes are by Tribolo, Ammanati, Giambologna and Pierino da Vinci. Others of Giambologna’sbronze animals have now been transferred to the Bargello. The villa, which was remodelled and redecorated for the House of Savoy, is now being restored as the headquarters of the Accademia della Crusca.
7. It has been claimed that Botticelli’s Pallas and the Centaur (in the Uffizi), painted in about 1482, is a celebration of Lorenzo’s successful negotations with King Ferrante. The bay in the background has been identified as the Bay of Naples. Undoubtedly Pallas’s dress is embroidered with the Medici device of interlocking diamond rings.
8. On Lorenzo’s recommendation, Ghirlandaio was commissioned in 1485 to decorate the CAPPELLA MAGGIORE in Santa Maria Novella. The murals, which were finished by his assistants, are his work; so is the stained-glass window. His altarpiece was broken up at the beginning of the nineteenth century and transported to Germany. Lorenzo also helped Ghirlandaio to obtain the commission to paint the murals and the altarpiece in the sassetti chapel at Santa Trinità. Francesco Sassetti was general manager of the Medici Bank. He and his four sons are all depicted in the mural behind the altar. Standing next to Filippo is Lorenzo himself. Lorenzo’s sons can be seen walking up the steps with their tutors, Luigi Pulci and Agnolo Poliziano.
9. VEKBOCCHIO’S David, made in about 1474, is now in the Bargello.
10. VBRROOCHIO’S Resurrection, made in about 1479, is also in the Bargello.
11. The medieval monastery of Santo spirito-all final remains of which, apart from the refectory, were destroyed by fire in 1471 – was rebuilt to the designs of Brunelleschi between 1434 and 1487, the monks having given up one of their daily meals for half a century to help to pay for it. After Brunelleschi’s death there was a dispute about his plans for the façade of the church, which, despite the protestations of Giuliano da Sangallo, other craftsmen wished to alter. Lorenzo’s help was sought, but the façade was never finished. Giuliano da Sangallo made a model for the sacristy at Lorenzo’s instigation.
12. The huge palazzo strozzi on the corner of Via Tornabuoni and Via Strozzi was built for Filippo Strozzi towards the end of the fifteenth century and the beginning of the sixteenth. The original design may have been by Giuliano da Sangallo but most of the work was supervised by Benedetto da Maiano, Giuliano’s brother and Simone del Pollaiuolo.
Filippo Strozzi’s son told the story that his father overcame any opposition there might have been to his building so magnificent a palace by making it appear that he had done so on Lorenzo’s advice. At first he rejected the plans of the various architects and craftsmen he employed on the grounds that their suggestions were too grandiose: he wanted a more modest palace altogether. But on being told that Lorenzo desired the city to be adorned and exalted in every way, he allowed himself to be persuaded to consult him. So Lorenzo was invited to look at the plans; and, having done so, he gave his approval to one of the most imposing. Still Strozzi feigned modesty, yet at the same time flattered Lorenzo by praising his taste. He wondered if such a grand building was really suitable for a man in his position; he had to admit, though, that Lorenzo understood these matters of space and style far better than he did. Eventually Strozzi built the palace he had always wanted. The foundation stone, as was usual at the time, was laid on a day deemed propitious by his astrologers – 6 August 1489.