The sixteen coats-of-arms inlaid in the floor in marble, coral, jasper, agate, mother-of-pearl and lapis-lazuli are of the cities subject to the Grand Duchy. All the Grand Dukes were buried in the crypt below the mausoleum with their jewelled crowns still upon their heads and their sceptres in their hands. All the Grand Duchesses were also buried here with the one exception of Francesco I’s widow Bianca Capello. When Buontalenti asked Ferdinando I where his sister-in-law should be buried, the Grand Duke, who had detested her, replied ‘Wherever you like, we will not have her amongst us.’ The site of her grave is unknown.
11. The complicated and inventive plans for the GARDEN OF THE VILLA OF c ASTELLO (see note 6 to chapter XIII) were drawn up by Benedetto Varchi forDuke Cosimo I and put in hand by Tribolo, Ammanati and Buontalenti. Butthey were never fully realized. Works’ by Tribolo, Ammanati and Giambologna can all still be seen in the gardens, though Giambologna’s Fountain of Venus Wringing out her Hair has been removed to Petraia and his bronzeanimals from the grotto are in the Bargello.
CHAPTER XXI
1. The putto on the fountain at present in die COURTYARD OF THE PALAZZOVECCHIO is a copy of the original by Verrocehio, which is kept in one of the rooms off the Sala dei Gigli. The murals are by Marco da Fienza, Giovanni Lombardi and Cesare Baglioni.
2. BIANCA CAPBILO’S HOUSE is in the Via Maggio (nos. 24–6).
3. VILLA PRATOLINO – designed by Buontalenti and fifteen years in the making – was demolished in 1822 on the grounds that it was too expensive to maintain. Fifty years later the estate was purchased by Prince Paul Demidoff. The Villa Demidoff which replaced Pratolino passed into the hands of Prince Paul of Yugoslavia who restored it and has now sold it. Giambologna’s huge statue, L’APPENINO, remains in the grounds. Other statues were taken to the Boboli Gardens, like Perseus and the Dragon, which was intended as an allegorical portrait of the Grand Duke Cosimo I.
4. The PALAZZO ANTINORI at the junction of the Via Tornabuoni and the Via Rondinelli was built for the Boni family.
5. The VILLA OF CERETO GUIDI originally belonged to the Guidi. Buontalenti renovated it and built the immense double ramps leading up to it for the Grand Duke Cosimo I in the 1560s.
6. The headquarters of the ACCADEMIA DELLA CRUSCA, which will soon be transferred to the Villa Castello, are at present in the Palazzo dei Giudici.
7. The porcelain made in Florence in the time of the Grand Duke Francesco was the first to be made in Europe, and is now the rarest, there being only about seventy pieces in existence. One of these – a small, misshapen bowl – was sold in New York in 1973 for £180,000, the highest recorded price paid at an auction for European porcelain. Other pieces are in the Louvre, the Musée de Sèvres, the Metropolitan Museum in New York and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
8. The VILLA MEDICI in Rome, designed by Annibale Lippi for Cardinal Ricci in 1544, was purchased by Cardinal Ferdinando de’ Medici in 1577. He was the first of several Medici cardinals to live there. The façade and the ground plan of the garden remain unchanged. The figure of MERCURY (c. 1565), now at the Bargello, once formed part of a fountain in the villa grounds. The fountain now in front of the villa originally had a Florentine lily in the centre. This was replaced by the existing stone cannon-ball after Queen Christina, being given permission to experiment with one of the Castel Sant’ Angelo cannon, had fired at random down into the town instead of up into the air. Her shot struck the Villa Medici. Napoleon bought the villa in 1803. It now houses the French Academy.
9. The FORTE DI BELVEDERE, also known as the Fortezza di San Giorgio, now houses numerous murals removed from various buildings in other parts of the city, including those from the Chiostro degli Aranci at the Badia Fiesolana, from the Chiostro Verde at Santa Maria Novella, from the Loggia of the Bigallo in Piazza San Giovanni (by Ambrogio di Baldese and Rosello di Jacopo Franchi) and from Via Pietrapiana (No. 7) by Mino da Fiesole whose house this was. Also stored here is Botticelli’s Annunciation from the church of San Martino in Via della Scala.
10. The VILLA PETRAIA was brought by Cardinal Francesco de’ Medici from the widow of Filippo Salutati in 1593. The courtyard is decorated with frescoes celebrating the history of the Medici family by Baldassare Franceschini, ‘il Volterrano’, who painted them for the Grand Duke Ferdinando I’s son, Don Lorenzo de’ Medici. After the Risorgimento the villa passed into the hands of the House of Savoy and was altered and redecorated by King Victor Emmanuel II.
11. The villa ferdinanda at Artimino, which is about four miles south-west of Poggio a Caiano, was built in 1594–5. It was sold to Marchese Lorenzo Bartolommei in 1781 and, though restored in the early years of this century, now lies empty.
12. This sphere is now in the MUSEO NAZIONALE DI STORIA DELLA SCIENZE in the Palazzo dei Giudici overlooking the Arno, next to the Uffizi. The palazzo formerly belonged to the Castellani family whose chapel is in Santa Croce. It takes its present name from the Consiglio di Giustizia which was established here in the time of the Grand Duke Ferdinando I. The museum contains numerous terrestial globes, astrolabes, clocks and maps as well as Michelangelo’s compasses and Galileo’s telescopes.
13. The pal a zzo bellini is in Borgo Pinti (no. 26). The Grand Duke Ferdinando I’s bust is over the door.
14. The statue of duke cosimo in the Piazza della Signoria was made by Giambologna in the Palazzo Bellini between 1587 and 1599. The equestrian statue of grand duke ferdinando 1 in the Piazza Santissima Annunziata was begun by Giambologna in the last year of his long life and finished in 1608 by Pietro Tacca who moved into the Palazzo Bellini on his master’s death.
15. Although he decided that the Medici emblem, the palle, was too commercial in its associations and had it replaced by a bee (the ancient symbol of the autarch whose life is busily devoted to his people’s welfare). Ferdinando I nevertheless sought to honour the great founders of the Medici fortunes. At the base of the immense granite COLUMN OF JUSTICE which had been set up in the Piazza Santa Trinità in 1565 to mark the place where a messenger had given Cosimo I news of the victory of Montemurlo, Ferdinando erected four stucco statues. One was a representation of Augustus; another was of Charlemagne; the third was of Cosimo I; and the fourth was of Cosimo the Elder, PaterPatriot. The column came from the Baths of Caracalla and was presented to Duke Cosimo I by Pope Pius IV. It was hauled from Rome to Civitavecchia on rollers, and transported from Pisa to Florence on barges. The porphyry statue, which was placed on it in 1581, is believed to be by Romolo del Tadda.
16. The VILLA OF POGGIO IMPERIALS had once belonged to the Baroncelli and then to the Salviati. It derives its present name from the Grand Duchess Maria Maddalena of Austria who bought it in 1619. It was afterwards the home of Napoleon’s sister, Elisa Baciocchi, and is now a girls’ school.
17. Three hundred volumes of Galileo’s papers are now housed in the BIBLIOTEC AN A ZION ALE in the Corso dei Tintori where collections of Poliziano’s, Michelangelo’s and Machiavelli’s papers are also kept. Many of the manuscripts and books are from the Grand Ducal Library, the Palatina, formed by Ferdinando II and his brothers, Gian Carlo and Leopoldo.