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in, with gardens in the parish of San Pier Maggiore, near the Porta a Pinti ... the place I built and where I spent my life».3 Scala did not pay much for the house: a life-rent of 108 lire yearly for Monna Piera, the widow of Francesco di Tuccio Della Volpaia, and only at the time of her death did he undertake to pay 500 florins to the Ospedale degli Innocenti, which owned it. This was not all: in the course of time he enlarged his property, ensuring that he bought various other neighbouring plots of land. In point of fact Scala’s “geographical” choice inaugurated the Laurentian quarter where, in the course of time, all official representatives and functionaries would reside. Marsilio Ficino was a guest in the house. In a short space of time the building would combine elegance and practicality and, like all the rest, it had been obtained gradatim,4 that is, gradually, as the motto under Scala’s coat-of-arms reads and about which Poliziano ironized: «In Scalam». In a similarly gradual way, over the years Scala’s property grew both in size and quality. The earliest interventions were on the original nucleus, the reconstruction of the roof, the doors, the windows and the floors. And it is certain that an initial phase of works ended in 1474, one year after his moving in (from which one would surmise that the works were not that extensive). In 1475 he requested and obtained permission to build a chapel, at that time an unusual thing, not just as a choice, but above all as an achievement. He subsequently devoted his energies to the gardens, the orchard and the vineyard, which he constantly improved.
Sangallo or not? Here we come to a mystery surrounding the precise attribution of the project for the palace in Borgo Pinti. Bartolomeo Scala had assimilated a taste for beauty from his conversations with Cosimo the Elder and for years it was believed that for the realization of the building he had hired the services of the best architect “on the market”, Giuliano da Sangallo. There are however no unequivocal references to the artist and, as Franco Borsi has indicated5, the attribution of the project for the palace to Sangallo «is simply not convincing». Firstly, because at the time of building the latter would have been too young; secondly, because it would have been unwise for Scala to approach Lorenzo the Magnificent’s favourite architect; thirdly, if the latter had recommended him to Scala there would today be at least some document testifying to it. Therefore the hypothesis that the project for Palazzo Scala is to be attributed to Giuliano da Sangallo remains entirely to be proven. In conclusion, the Chancellor did not choose an architect of undoubted renown, as was believed for years, but simply hired the best workers that could be found. It is known however that for the building of his house Scala spent more than half of his salary over a period of three years: his office in fact anticipated a retribution of 300 florins a year and on the house he spent 500.
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