Palazzo Portinari Salviati, Your place in history

TAVOLA 6

“This is not just any Palazzo.

This is the belief in humanism, in kindness.

A fascinating story of love, jealousy, beauty and power.

This is Palazzo Portinari Salviati.

A creation that withstands the manifestation of time.

For whoever and whenever stepping into this time machine, This is “YOUR PLACE IN HISTORY”

Nelson Chang

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface

7

HISTORICAL PERIOD Portinari Period

8

Salviati Period

12

Alessandro Allori

18

Ricciardi Serguidi Period

26

19th Century and Onwards

32

YOUR PLACE IN HISTORY

36

Francesco I de’ Medici

38

Dante Alighieri

44

Marie de’ Medici

48

Beatrice Portinari

54

Frederik IV of Denmark

60

Francesco Petrarca

64

Giorgio Vasari

68

Cardinal Giovanni Salviati

72

The Medici Popes: Leo X & Leo XI

75

Lorenzo Ghiberti

80

Don Giovanni de Medici

83

Lionardo Salviati

86

Galileo Galilei

90

ODYSSEUS EMBRACING HIS WIFE PENELOPE

PREFACE

How do we give “meaning” to a palazzo that was built long before our existence? It is a work of art, a collection of poetry, a house filled with allegories and imaginations.

The journey to renovate and complete Palazzo Portinai Salviati was long, challenging and at times deeply philosophical. While there were guidelines on the approaches of conservations, the true meaning of the project became a quest to understand the meaning of being human. Many questions were asked and yet answers could only be found slowly and gently along the way, behind each brick, stone and fading fresco.

The project started amidst decaying architecture just like the dark forest in Dante’s Inferno. There was no clear path so one had to walk through the ruins of time, peel deeply into layers of dust, and wander among the remains of history, tales and fictions, before earning the right to peek into the light behind Dante’s door to Paradiso.

If it was “the love that moves the Sun and the other stars” that guided Dante through his treacherous journey, what has led to the completion of Palazzo Portinari Salviati is our love and our belief in being human.

In the year 2022 while the world is still plagued by pandemics, warfares and the looming threats of climate change, Palazzo Portinari Salviati stands transformed once again in the heart of Florence. Its metamorphosis shows not only the beauty of the Renaissance but also what human life can do as its best. As Palazzo Portinari Salviati shines once more, so does the spirit of humanism. The difference between good and bad, kindness and cruelty, sustainability and destruction, depends solely on the directions of our hearts.

Come to Palazzo Portinari. Savor its beauty with each step, feel its history with each touch, and ignite the Renaissance of the 21st century–a scientific, philosophical and desperate search for a more sustainable future.

7

8

THE PORTINARI PERIOD

The story of the Palazzo Portinari Salviati, as it is known today, began as a cluster of houses owned by the Portinari family dating from the end of the 13th century. The Palazzo is located on the Corso di Porta San Piero, an important thoroughfare during the Roman Florentia era up to medieval times. The street is now better known as Via del Corso.

The Portinari family was originally from Fiesole and was forced to move to Florence after that town was conquered by the Florentines in 1125. Ultimately, the Portinari flourished to become one of the most important families in medieval Florence.

Folco di Ricovero Portinari was the purchaser of the Palazzo’s original houses, near the church of Santa Margherita dei Cerchi, in what is today known as the Dante district. Best known as the father of Beatrice, Dante Alighieri’s lifelong muse and inspiration, Folco Portinari made his fortune in banking, and was elected as a city official on several occasions.

“A man of great goodness” in Dante’s words, Folco was also a philanthropist who founded the Florentine hospital of Santa Maria Nuova in 1288 and bequeathed much of his fortune to its development after his death. This historically important hospital still serves Florence today.

Generations of bankers In the 14th century the Portinari heirs continued to enrich themselves, bought large land holdings, and consolidated their

social position through a series of marriages that linked them to major Florentine families, such as the Biliotti, the Caponsacchi, the Cavalcanti, the Soderini, and the Strozzi. Starting in the 14th century, the merchant activities of the Portinari developed further in the wool trade and in making loans to the English Crown. In the 15th century some members of the family became entrusted to Cosimo de’ Medici, known as Cosimo Il Vecchio (the Elder). One such Portinari was Bernardo di Sandro who worked for the Medici bank branches in Venice and Bruges, accumulating enormous personal wealth.

Most well-known in Italy among the Portinari of the 15th century was Pigello Portinari, who became director of the Medici bank in Milan and his name became closely associated with Milanese humanism. Another renowned Portinari was Tommaso, Pigello’s brother. Tommaso Portinari, started his career working in the Bank of Bruges, and his prosperity grew so great that in 1472 he was able to make a donation of 700 gold florins to the Hospital of Santa Maria Nuova to commission an altarpiece to the Flemish painter Hugo van der Goes. Originally created for the main altar of the hospital’s church, it is now preserved in the Uffizi Gallery.

Patrons of Santa Maria Nuova Hospital With their wealth accumulating from trade and banking, generations of the Portinari were able to contribute significant resources to support the Hospital of Santa Maria Nuova, beginning with the hospital’s original benefactor, Folco Portinari. The hospital is remarkable for innovating the prototype of the modern medical hospital recognizable today.

In medieval times, hospitals mainly provided hospitality to travelers and shelter to the poor and elderly, and occasionally, dispensed food to those in need. There was basic nursing but no substantial medical treatment. In the first 50 years of Santa Maria Nuova’s existence, the hospital began to provide “the good service of the poor and sick” and eventually, no longer to just the poor, with several resident medical specialists and on-call consultants, making Santa Maria Nuova a pioneering model of the modern hospital.

PORTRAIT OF FOLCO PORTINARI

by Hans Memling, Uffizi Gallery, Florence

Portinari Altar piece by Hugo Van der Goes, Uffizi Gallery

12

SALVIATI PERIOD

After the Portinari, one of the most prominent families in Florentine history, the Salviati family, came into ownership of the Palazzo, ushering it into its golden age with the Salviati’s wealth and power in society. The Salviati family played an important role not only in Tuscany, but also in Italian and European history, both for their commercial and banking activities and for the political positions they held in the Florentine state. In 1386, the family entered Arte della Lana (the Florentine wool guild), marking the beginning of the Salviati’s flourishing fabric trade. They also established several banks in Florence and Pisa, later expanding to other European cities such as London and Bruges. The Salviati’s commercial activities paved the way for their political standings in Florence as well. Over the course of three centuries, the Salviati family provided a total of 63 priors, 21 gonfalonieri di giustizia (the prestigious Gonfaloniere of Justice), and many ambassadorships for the Florence Republic.

The preeminence of the Salviati family was not based solely on economic and political perspectives but also its solid relations with the most prominent Tuscan families. Foremost of these relationships was with the Medicis, with whom the Salviatis shared extensive networks of trading companies, financial services and artists. The ties between the two families were reinforced by strategic marriages celebrated from the 14th to the 16th centuries.

The most famous of these marriages was the union between

PORTRAIT OF COUNT ALAMANNO SALVIATI

16th century, oil on panel

14 Lucrezia Maria Romola de’ Medici (1470-1553), eldest

daughter of Lorenzo the Magnificent, and Jacopo Salviati (1462-1533). This marriage brought close ties with the Medici popes Leo X and Clement VII, helping to extend Jacopo’s economic activities to the Papal State. Jacopo and Lucrezia had ten children together. A portrait of their eldest son, Giovanni Salviati (1490-1553), can be found in room #301. Jacopo and Lucrezia’s daughter, Maria Salviati (1499–1543) also married a member of a cadet branch of the Medici, Giovanni de’ Medici, better known as Giovanni dalle Bande Nere. The two were the parents of the famous Cosimo I - the first Grand Duke of Tuscany. Lastly, Jacopo and Lucrezia’s youngest son, Alamanno (1510-1571), was likely to have been the first Salviati owner of Palazzo Portinari Salviati and his portrait can be seen in the Cosimo I Court.

finely painted wall paintings by Mannerist master Alessandro Allori, that have been conserved and can be seen in the Palazzo today. Through Allori’s beautiful works and the descriptions in historic documents one can imagine the glory and splendor of the Palazzo during the Salviati period.

THE SALVIATI FAMILY TREE

In 1546, the Palazzo became the property of Alamanno’s son, Jacopo Salviati (1537-1586), who was named after his grandfather. Between 1572 and 1582, Jacopo renovated and decorated the Palazzo extensively. He enlarged the compound and incorporated nearby houses located in via dello Studio.

He constructed the beautiful internal courtyard with loggia, a grotto, a garden and a private chapel, filling these spaces with antique sculptures from Rome. Other works of art by famous artists, such as Donatello, Verrocchio, Cellini, Baccio Bandinelli, Andrea del Sarto, Bronzino, Alessandro Allori, and Francesco Salviati were also added to the Palazzo. On top of the grandeur, Jacopo completed a series of portraits of his ancestors to glorify and commemorate the family.

Le bellezze della città di Firenze (“The Beauties of the City of Florence’’) published in 1591 by Francesco Bocchi (1548 -1613 or 1618), offered illustrative accounts of the Palazzo. Bocchi’s work takes readers on a walk through the Salviati palazzo in its golden age with an emphasis on its art collection. The Palazzo was truly a treasure house, filled with works of art that are currently located in renowned museums worldwide, including Donatello’s Christ Giving the Keys to St. Peter in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and Andrea del Sarto’s The Holy Family in the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica (Palazzo Barberini) in Rome. Finally, Bocchi’s text also mentioned the

next page ODYSSEUS ARCHERY CHALLENGE

by Alessandro Allori. Odysseus has to prove himself by shooting an arrow thrugh the holes of twelve axes

16

ALESSANDRO ALLORI (1535 - 1607)

Alessandro Allori, a master of the late Florentine Mannerist school and a painter for the Medici Grand Duke Francesco I, was one artist whose magnificent work has remained in Palazzo Portinari Salviati to this day. When Jacopo Salviati (15371586) began to enlarge and restructure Palazzo Salviati which he’d inherited from his father Alamanno, he commissioned Allori and his workshop to decorate the walls and ceilings of the new spaces in the Palazzo in Via del Corso, in 1573. The works carried out were described in detail in valuable records, including Raffaello Borghini’s famous 1584 Il Riposo, Francesco Bocchi’s 1591 guide. Le bellezze della città di Firenze (“The Beauties of the City of Florence”), as well as in the documents conserved in the Salviati Archives.

Alessandro Allori was born in Florence in 1535 to Cristofano di Lorenzo, better known as Tofano spadaio (a swordsman).

Allori lost his father at age 5 and was adopted by his father’s friend, Agnolo Bronzino, a leading painter of 16th century Florence and court artist to Cosimo I de’ Medici. Bronzino took in Alessandro not only as a pupil but also as his own son, “and they have lived and still live together with the same love, one for another, that there is between a good father and his son,” according to Renaissance art historian Giorgio Vasari.

Young Alessandro learned the fundamentals of painting from Bronzino, to whom he was so grateful for the fatherly care and tutelage that in his signatures he used to add the master’s name to his own–”Bronzino’s pupil” or “Alessandro del Bronzino,” and after Bronzino’s death, “Alessandro Bronzino-Allori.”

GRAND DUKE COSIMO I DE’ MEDICI IN ARMOR

by Angelo Bronzino (1503 - 1572) Uffizi Gallery, Florence

Allori went on to occupy an important place in the Florentine artistic milieu of the second half of the 16th century, demonstrated by the affirmations from his contemporaries and his versatility in various aspects of artistic practices, including painting, theater costume design, architectural projects and teaching painting to the gentlemen and ladies of the court.

Allori’s first association with the Salviati family was his commission by Jacopo’s father, Alamanno, to paint three large paintings for the main room of the Salviati’s Villa del Ponte alla Badia in the northern hill of Florence. Years later, Jacopo Salviati commissioned Allori and his workshop for more elaborate works on the walls and ceilings for Palazzo Salviati.

While a considerable amount of paintings was believed to have been done by Allori and his associates, what has been successfully preserved and restored for the Palazzo Portinari Salviati today are those in the Hall of Hercules, the Emperor’s Court, and the Chapel.

18 SALA D’ERCOLE (HALL OF HERCULES)

The Sala d’Ercole, or Hall of Hercules, was the first room of the new apartment painted by Allori and his workshop, between 1575 and 1576. In the room, which overlooks the Emperors’ Court, ten lunettes depict episodes from the life of Hercules, while the vault is dominated by grotesques that combine with the emblems, merging the figure of Hercules and that of the Salviati family in a single glorification.

In the two ovals at the ends of the vault are represented Fortune and Fame, while in the other medallions are six landscapes, perhaps alluding to the hero’s wanderings. The two shields on the sides are likely to have once contained the Salviati coat of

arms, later replaced by the Ricciardi’s and the Serguidi’s on the right (see page 27).

Documents show that the series of six landscapes on the ceiling of the Hall of Hercules were commissioned from a “Giovanni Fiammingo,” who was most probably the Flemish painter Giovanni Ponsi. Ponsi was a specialist in landscapes and in that capacity often collaborated with Allori. He appeared in the payments for the Sala di Ercole from 1574, and was specifically mentioned in connection with landscapes in 1574.

The backgrounds of the ten lunettes with the Life of Hercules are also certainly attributable to him, while the figures were probably completed by another painter.

LIFE OF HERCULES

The series of ten lunettes include stories such as: Hercules strangles the Nemean lion Hercules confronts the Hydra, the nine-headed aquatic monster Hercules killing the Centaur Nessus

20 EMPEROR’S COURT - STORIES OF ODYSSEY

The Emperors’ Court takes its name from the twelve missing bronze heads of Roman emperors that once adorned the now-empty niches, and were believed to have been executed to a design by Giambologna. However, documents show that they arrived from Venice in 1575 and were gilded by Bastiano di Benedetto. In the courtyard, there are two barrel-vaulted loggias, each decorated with six episodes from the Odyssey.

Alessandro Allori and his assistants produced these following an allegorical programme that coherently linked Hercules and Ulysses, who had been linked since antiquity for their wanderings and the difficult trials they endured and heroically

overcame. Broad bands decorated with grotesques frame the scenes, while at the base of the vault runs a frieze with fish and birds shown within cartouches. Two lunettes close the decoration of the vaults. As art historian Mina Gregori writes in her book Banca Toscana: storia e collezioni, 1982, these frescos seem to be the work above all of Allori, who was certainly responsible for the composition of the various stories, but we can also recognise the significant intervention of Butteri.

The Emperors’ Court is protected from the elements by a 19th-century polychrome stained-glass window depicting the Allegory of Abundance.

22 THE CHAPEL

Accessible from inside the Palazzo and from outside, the Chapel dedicated to Saint Mary Magdalene was decorated by Alessandro Allori from 1579 to 1580 and consecrated in 1581.

The painter accurately described the iconographic programme in his record book, Il Ricordi (“Memories”), specifying that he personally executed the heads of the termini and the four small figures in frames on the faux marble base, while for the rest he was helped by Giovanni Maria Butteri and Alessandro Pieroni. The small chapel’s pictorial cycle includes Prophets and Sibyls on the vault, flanked by cherubs holding scrolls with passages from the Holy Scriptures alternating, in the corners, with allusions to the four sacrifices mentioned in the Old Testament. Further down, below the frieze with an elegant vine shoot, there are three episodes from the life of Mary Magdalene (Mary Magdalene drying Christ’s feet in the house of Simon, Noli me tangere, Communion of Mary Magdalene), painted as though on imitation tapestries. These are completed by the altarpiece showing Christ in the house of Martha and Mary, and a predella, now lost, which contained the Resurrection of Lazarus. A rich decoration, enhanced by the abundant use of gold, covers the remaining spaces of the small room, including, above the entrance door, the depiction of Christ supported by two angels and, on the nearby walls, Saints James, Francis and Laurence.

The art historian Carlo Sisi writes in his book Invito a Palazzo Portinari Salviati, “the frescoes of the Salviati Chapel are an important document, at the beginning of the 1580s, of the process of transformation affecting the painting of sacred subjects precisely as a result of the work of Allori, Santi di Tito and other minor artists, who were engaged not only in the decoration of churches but also of places intended for domestic devotion, such as the Salviati Chapel, which is a precious example of those that were realized in Florentine palaces between the mid-sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.”

JUDITH WITH THE HEAD OF HOLOFERNES

by Alessandro Allori, in the Palazzo’s Chapel

24

MARY MAGDALENE ANOINTING CHRIST’S FEET

and

THE RISEN CHRIST APPEARS TO MARY MAGDALENE AS A GARDENER

by Alessandro Allori, in the Palazzo’s Chapel

26

THE RICCIARDI SERGUIDI PERIOD

Transfer of ownership With the passing of the decades and by virtue of a constant matrimonial policy (the Salviati married more and more often to ladies of the Roman aristocracy), the Salviatis’ relations with Florence weakened and instead, became more solidified in their ties with Rome, where the family owned the beautiful Palazzo alla Lungara, overlooking the Tiber.

Jacopo Salviati (1607-1672), the grandson of the Jacopo Salviati (1537-1586) who had renovated the Palazzo and invited Allori and his workshop to decorate the palace, was named the first Duke of Giuliano. The title was passed down to Gian Vincenzo Salviati (1693-1757). Gian’s eldest son, Averardo Salviati (1721-1783), died without a male heir, and thus the Salviati’s enormous real estate patrimony went to his younger brother, Cardinal Gregorio Antonio Maria Salviati (1722-1794), the last male heir of the Salviati family.

The cardinal left his name and titles to Marcantonio IV Borghese, husband of his niece Anna Maria Salviati, and sold the Palazzo Portinari Salviati on 22 June, 1768, to the knight Niccolò Maria Ricciardi Serguidi, a family originally from San Gimignano in the province of Siena.

At the time of the sale, the palace already had the same frontal extension as it does today on Via del Corso, while the houses and shops located between Via dello Studio and the Portinari’s chiasso (a small alley), which had been closed for some time, remained the property of the Salviati family even after the sale.

DEDICATORY PLAQUE TO PIETRO LEOPOLDO

A marble plaque dated 1785 with a dedication to Grand Duke Pietro Leopoldo of Lorraine regarding the extension and decoration of the Palazzo, which was adorned with statues and paintings by Niccolò Maria Ricciardi Serguidi.

The Palazzo was purchased on 22 June 1768 by Niccolò Maria Ricciardi, who had taken the surname Serguidi.

Finally, on 31 August 1782, according to a contract drawn up by a notary, Cavalier Serguidi purchased them, adding them to the property already acquired to create a single building.

During the Ricciardi Serguidi ownership, important restoration and extension works were carried out, although it is unknown when they were done. In addition, the palace was enriched with statues and paintings, as much of the palace’s content had been emptied during the Salviati ownership. It can be assumed that that work on the walls began as early as 6 May, 1779, as supported by a statement made by the masons who worked there, while the completion of the work can be dated to 1785, as shown by the marble plaque with a dedication to Grand Duke Pietro Leopoldo of Lorraine, which can still be seen in the palace to the left of the courtyard of Cosimo I.

On the noble floor, the Grand Gallery was decorated with 27 the great fresco of Olympus between the allegories of Day and Night. The major Olympian deities such as Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Athena, Hermes, and Dionysus are all presented on the ceiling. The initials “T.G. 1783” can be found along the frame on the left side, indicating that the large vault was completed by Tommaso Gherardini in 1783, commissioned by Niccolò Maria Ricciardi Serguidi.

RICCIARDI COAT OF ARM

SERGUIDI COAT OF ARM

Tommaso Gherardini Tommaso Gherardini was born in Florence in 1715.

According to historical sources, as a child he preferred drawing ‘picturesque whimsy’ to studying, so his parents placed him in the workshop of the elderly sculptor Giuseppe Piamontini and later allowed him to complete his training in the academies of Venice, Bologna and Florence. While still attending the academy, Gherardini began to collaborate with Vincenzo Meucci, a painter who was much appreciated in 18th-century Florence for his fresco decorations. Meucci instructed his pupil in the art of monochrome painting (i.e. in a single color), imitation of bas-reliefs and detailed cameos, a speciality in which the painter was later to become famous for, and introduced him to the Martelli family, a powerful Florentine family that the artist became linked to throughout his life. His apprenticeship with Meucci and the protection of the Martelli family soon earned Gherardini a place among the new generation of Florentine painters. The frescoes in Palazzo Portinari Salviati are among the last works executed by the master; in addition to the Olympus in the gallery, several other artworks on the noble floor are also attributed to Gheradini, including a fresco depicting Marco Curzio riding into the abyss to save Rome, and one depicting the four seasons. Gherardini died in Florence in 1797.

32

I9th CENTURY AND ONWARDS

Florence as capital of the Kingdom of Italy In 1803, Palazzo Portinari Salviati passed from the Ricciardi Serguidi family, through inheritance, to Pietro Leopoldo di Giannozzo Da Cepperello (or Da Cepparello). The building was then acquired by the City of Florence when it became the capital of the Kingdom of Italy and was used as a government office building.

In 1864, the Senate approved a bill to authorize the transfer of the capital of the Kingdom of Italy from Turin to Florence in 1865. Choosing Florence as the capital indicated the significance of the Tuscan Renaissance. Florence was called the Italian Athens. Artists such as Michelangelo and Raphael, as well as the Florentine popes of the 16th century, played an important role in forming Italian art and culture. Additionally, as the city was located in the center of Italy, far away from borders and seas, it was a secure location for the most important political and military authorities.

Victor Emmanuel II’s triumphant entry into Florence On February 3, 1865, King Victor Emmanuel II left Turin and settled in Florence. A sense of festivity spread throughout the city with flags hanging from all the windows. The Florentines accompanied the king from the station to the Pitti Palace, where he looked out from the balcony several times to greet the cheerful crowd. A 19th century painting depicted the triumphant entry of Victor Emmanuel II into Florence as follows: “surrounded by jubilant citizens, the king prepares to

KING VICTOR EMMANUEL II IN FLORENCE

in front of Palazzo Vecchio

PIAZZA SANTA CROCE ON 14 MAY 1865

the statue of Dante was inaugurated

by SM Victor Emmanuel II in Florence, commemorating the sixth centenary of the poet’s birth

34 cross the threshold of the new capital of the Kingdom of Italy.”

To adapt to its new role as Italy’s capital, Florence had to change its infrastructure. Employing the urban planning work of architect Giuseppe Poggi, the ancient walls were demolished and in their place, following the Paris model, wide ring roads were built to converge on Piazzale Michelangelo.

The “modernization” or “redevelopment” as it was called, was impressive. Some areas of the city were completely destroyed, such as Piazza della Repubblica, where the old city market and Jewish ghetto had once stood.

The Ministry of Grace, Justice and Religion The king took lodgings in the Pitti Palace, in the secluded Meridiana quarter. The lodgings remained secluded to give the king the opportunity to easily slip through a back door and join his mistresses. The Prime Minister, La Marmora, chose Palazzo Medici Riccardi as his residence, the Chamber of Deputies was housed in the Salone dei Cinquecento in Palazzo Vecchio, while the Senate was seated in the ancient Medici Theatre of the Uffizi. Palazzo Portinari Salviati, then known as Palazzo da Cepparello, housed the Ministry of Grace, Justice and Religion.

To better suit its new role as the Ministry, the Palazzo was enlarged once again, adding a third floor on Via dello Studio side with a total of sixteen rooms in July 1866.

The United School of the Piarist Fathers The capital of Italy moved from Florence to Rome in 1871.

Florence had accumulated heavy debts during its short time as the capital and in 1881 the Municipality went into a liquidity crisis. It had to give up several properties, including Palazzo Portinari Salviati, at the time known as the Palazzo da Cepparello. A local bank, Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze, offered to act as a guarantor of the debt and bought the building to

save the city from bankruptcy. The bank held the property for just two months and was then ready to resell it.

The new buyers were the Calasanzians, better known as the Piarist Fathers (Scolopi in Italian). The group had been in Florence since 1630 and had been looking for a new location for their religious and scholastic activities.

The first school of the Piarist Fathers was founded in Rome in 1597 by San Giuseppe Calasanzio (José de Calasanz in his native Spanish). It was the first free popular school in Europe, at a time when education was the prerogative and privilege of the wealthiest classes. In 1630, the Piarist Fathers set up their headquarters in Florence and moved to the church San Giovannino in Via dei Martelli in 1775, where they remained until August 1878.

When the municipal administration fell apart, it ordered the schools to close. Many talented teachers who had dedicated their lives teaching young talents of all social conditions, were evicted. The whole of Florence, including the main noble families, rose up against this senseless decree. Soon the Piarist Fathers were able to raise a considerable sum of money and began to seek new locations for over 1700 pupils. Various temporary offices of the Piarist Schools were opened and finally, in 1881, all the schools were reunited once again in Palazzo Portinari Salviati (then Palazzo da Cepparello) on Via del Corso.

On the third centenary founding of the Piarist Fathers’ school in Florence in 1930, the city added a commemorative plaque on the facade of Palazzo Portinari Salviati, to remember the Piarist Fathers’ contribution towards Florence and efforts towards equal education.

The headquarter of Banca di Credito Toscano After the First World War, in 1918, the Piarist Fathers sold Palazzo Portinari Salviati to the Società Anonima di Conserve alimentari L.Torrigiani, which had its headquarters in Sesto Fiorentino. In 1921, Banca di Credito Toscano (later became Banca Toscana), under the chairmanship of Rodolfo Arnoldo Bürgisser, purchased the Palazzo to house its headquarters.

Rodolfo Arnoldo Bürgisser was the first president and a leading figure in the history of the Bank. Swiss by origin, he founded a straw factory in Florence for making hats and extended his entrepreneurial activities throughout the 20th century, guided always by a Christian-social spirit. The Florentines knew him as “commendatore Arnoldo” or the “good Swiss Florentine.”

Banca Toscana was a bank established in Florence on 4 April

1904 under the name of Piccolo Credito Toscano. It is a 35 cooperative society promoted by a committee of citizens from different social backgrounds, mostly artisans, merchants and farmers. The Bank, which had its first headquarters in Palazzo Portinari Salviati (Via del Corso 3), was a credit institution of Catholic faith. Its first Board of Directors, chaired by Rodolfo Arnoldo Bürgisser, was composed of a monsignor, a canon and a lawyer.

After the purchase of Palazzo Portinari Salviati, the Bank began to restore and renovate the Palazzo, furnishing the rooms with valuable works for art. Giuseppe Castellucci was the main architect and applied a stylistic restoration in vogue in the first half of the 20th century. The most noticeable creation was the velarium roof of the Emperors’ Courtyard, by Francesco Mossmeyer, depicting an Allegory of Abundance in 1922. The tall stained glass windows in the rooms on the noble floor, which are decorated with the coats of arms of the Florentine Arts, were probably made as part of the renovation as well.

The Bank’s new headquarters were inaugurated on 11 December 1922, with a private blessing. Yet there were no special celebrations due to the passing of Rodolfo Bürgisser.

To commemorate Bürgisser, an elegant marble bas-relief by Dante Sodini was erected on 23 November 1924 in the atrium of Palazzo Portinari Salviati. On the plaque it reads: his Swiss origins, his love for Florence, his constant commitment to all forms of social engagement, and his Christian convictions.

Banca Toscana was officially founded in 1930 and retained ownership of the Palazzo until 2008, when it was sold to Beatrice Srl (a company wholly owned by Sansedoni SpA, controlled by the Monte dei Paschi di Siena Foundation).

20TH CENTURY PALAZZO PORTINARI SALVIATI

36

YOUR PLACE IN HISTORY A Tribute to the Personages of Florence

The history and culture of Florence is the combined creation of countless talented individuals.

Their geniuses and influences range from art to military, literature to politics, science to religion.

Palazzo Portinari Salviati would like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to the personages who once walked down the streets of Florence, and some may or may not have even passed through the gate of this Palazzo.

Thirteen individuals were carefully selected for their association with Palazzo Portinari Salviati and the city of Florence.

Artworks correlated with the characters were watchfully chosen to enrich the overall story.

We would like to invite our guests to enter the world where the old meets the new and where history connects with the present.

38

FRANCESCO I DE’ MEDICI (1541 - 1587) The alchemist Grand Duke

THE SPACE The original wooden ceiling tells a beautiful story connecting to the making of Palazzo Portinari Salviati. The upper layer begins with the Portinari coat of arms of two lions holding a gate, which possibly dates from the 16th century. The lower section includes the more recent embellishment, most noticeably the presence of the Salviati coat of arms, displaying red and white stripes and dating from the late 16th century.

Above the historic pietra serena stone fireplace is the painting of a pomegranate tree in bloom representing life and eternity.

Behind the gold and emerald green curtains are the newly discovered mural paintings of seashell and elegant motifs on the wall.

One of the most historical and majestic rooms in Palazzo Portinari Salviati, it is now dedicated to Francesco I de’ Medici, the eldest son of Cosimo I and the second Grand Duke of Tuscany.

PORTRAIT OF FRANCESCO I DE’ MEDICI

17th century, oil on canvas, inspired by a 16th-century painting done by Scipione Pulzon, which is currently in the Uffizi Gallery.

In the lower left corner of the portrait are the Medici crown and sceptre, a symbol of power used by the Grand Duke.

40 THE STORY

The Second Grand Duke of Tuscany After the death of Cosimo I de’ Medici in 1574, his son Francesco I de’ Medici inherited Cosimo’s position and became the second Grand Duke of Tuscany. Unlike his father, who had always been committed to his wife and occasional political advisor, Eleanor de Toledo of Spain, the son’s first marriage was not happy nor peaceful. Francesco was married to Joanna of Austria, the youngest daughter of the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand I. The result of this political marriage was displeasing to both; Joanna was homesick and Francesco was unfaithful.

A few months after Joanna’s untimely death at the young age of 31, Francesco married his Venetian mistress, the celebrated Bianca Cappello.

The scandalous love with Bianca Cappello The romance between Francesco and Bianca was one of the greatest scandals of the Renaissance period and grist for rumors and gossip in Florence at the time. Bianca was a well-educated and sophisticated woman, who also happened to be married.

When her husband, a banker for the Salviati family, was conveniently found shot to death on the street one morning in 1572, it eased the barriers for their affair. Francesco and Bianca eventually legitimized their relationship by marrying in 1578.

To please Bianca, Francesco had his court architect Bernardo Buontalenti design and build the Villa di Pratolino and its gardens on the Florentine hills. The remains of the Villa di Pratolino are today part of the Villa Demidoff and most likely also included the neighboring Villa Ortaglia (a countryside property owned by LDC Hotels Italy). Villa Ortaglia is an architectural work of rare beauty, which overlooks the stunning landscape of the Florentine hills.

Mysterious death and the end of a 24-year long romance Despite its controversy, the relationship between Bianca and Francesco was a contented one. Bianca was one of the few individuals who truly understood and supported Francesco, until their dramatic ending in 1587. In October 1587 the Grand Duke invited his brother, Cardinal Ferdinando (later Ferdinando I) to a hunt at Villa di Poggio a Caiano. According to legend, after dinner one night at the villa, Francesco and

Bianca both fell sick and never recovered. They died one day apart, tragically ending their 24-year long romance. Although malaria was listed as the official cause of death, it has been widely speculated that the couple had been poisoned by Ferdinando, who subsequently replaced Francesco and became the third Grand Duke of Tuscany.

An alchemist and the creator of the Medici porcelain Although Francesco was best remembered for his torrid love affair with Bianca, his other accomplishments are also worth mentioning. Francesco was fond of manufacturing, alchemy, medicine and collecting objects of natural wonder. He sponsored the first successful imitations of Chinese porcelain in Europe – the Medici porcelain. His strong passion towards alchemy triggered him to commission a private laboratory in the Palazzo Vecchio, where he immersed himself in alchemical schemes. It is difficult to imagine, walking down the corridor of the Uffizi Gallery today admiring the paintings, marbles and other masterpieces, that alchemists once practiced their art in these same halls. The renowned barrel-vaulted room, Studiolo di Francesco I in the Palazzo Vecchio, still holds clues of the Grand Duke’s keen interests. The 20 cabinets which line the walls are where Francesco had stored his collection of precious and exotic works of art and natural specimens. The studio is decorated with paintings, the subjects of which indirectly recall the exotic collection, which were held in each cabinet. For example, Vasari’s Perseus and Andromeda were used to decorate the cabinet containing corals.

Apart from his passionate interest in alchemy, Francesco also continued his father’s patronage of the arts and architecture.

Through his collection Francesco I demonstrated himself to be an educated ruler. He may not have been as politically influential or talented as his father, Cosimo I, but he definitely left his mark in history.

On the left hand side of the fireplace is the fresco of Nessus and Deianira.

Nessus carried the wife of Heracles, Deianira, across the river and attempted to abduct and violate her.

Heracles saw this and shot Nessus with a Hydra-poisoned arrow.

42

WOODEN CEILING

Late 16th-century wooden beams with grotesque motifs and the coats of arms of the Salviati and Portinari families. The Portinari coat of arms is indicated by two lions holding a gate, while the Salviati coat of arms features red and white checkers

44

DANTE ALIGHIERI (1265-1321) The poet who journeyed through Inferno and reached Paradise

THE SPACE The Dante Alighieri suite has been painted in a romantic blue with wooden ceilings carrying once again the Portinari coat of arms. The room boasts an original fireplace constructed in classic Pietra Serena stone with the Salviati coat of arms.

Mounted between the stained windows are the historical stone benches and stairs. The flooring, though completely renovated, maintains the Tuscan tradition of cotto finishing to better match the historical setting.

Palazzo Portinari Salviati has dedicated this suite to the legendary poet Dante Alighieri.

As the English Poet T.S. Eliot once said “Dante and Shakespeare divide the world between them. There is no third.”

DANTE ALIGHIERI

A marble bust of Dante, 19th century, is next to the large fireplace in Serena stone with the carved Salviati coat of arms CEILING PAINTING

The wooden beam is decorated with the lions from the Portinari coat of arms from the 16th century. The coat of arms was partly covered by paper painted with the Salviati family crest. The wooden ceiling received a massive structural restoration in a fairly recent period (19th-20th century)

46 THE STORY

Dante Alighieri was a great Italian poet, thinker and philosopher. His narrative poem, the Divine Comedy “Divina Commedia” or “Commedia” in Italian, written in the Tuscan vernacular, provided the linguistic foundation for standard literary Italian, and established him as one of the great pioneers and visionaries of the early Renaissance era.

Meeting Beatrice, the inspiration in Dante’s creative journey Dante, believed to have been born in Florence in 1265, lived near the cathedral, Santa Maria del Fiore. When he was 9, Dante attended a party with his father in the current Palazzo Portinari Salviati, not far from his family’s home. It was there where he met Beatrice Portinari, a year younger than him. The young boy was immediately smitten, and Beatrice became the great love of his life and the muse for his life’s work. According to his own recollection, their second meeting took place 9 years after the first, on the Ponte Santa Trinita bridge near their homes. Beatrice was walking with a companion and gave Dante an acknowledging look, leaving him so ecstatic he lost his breath. That was also their last encounter. Without ever having exchanged words, they went on to marry other people and never met again.

Even so, Beatrice became the subject of many of Dante’s poems that conveyed his love and admiration. She was an important source of inspiration in Dante’s lifelong creative journey. After Beatrice’s untimely death at the age of 25, a grieving Dante published a collection of lyric poems and prose, in La Vita Nova (“The New Life”). In it he tells the story of his unrequited love for Beatrice, who served as the symbol of the ultimate salvation that led Dante out of purgatory and into paradise in his epic masterpiece, the Divine Comedy.

A Defeated Politician Permanently Exiled from Florence Dante was not just a poet. Around the late medieval period, two political factions, the Guelphs and the Ghibellines, formed and clashed with each other. Dante joined the Guelphs with its backing of the Italian papacy while the Ghibellines were in support of the Holy Roman Empire and its feudal system.

Dante quickly became an active figure in the Florentine

political scene, and even served as a Prior in its government for some time. However after defeating the Ghibellines, the Guelphs themselves split into two factions. The Black Guelphs supported the Pope, while the White Guelphs, to which Dante belonged, fought for greater independence from Rome.

The Black Guelphs eventually triumphed and formed a new government. Dante was soon accused of wrongdoings, ordered to pay a fine and condemned to exile for two years. As he refused to pay the fine or admit guilt, Dante’s possessions were confiscated and he was permanently banished from Florence. In exile, an unbridled Dante expressed his criticism of society and sought comfort for his own fate through writing, leading to his greatest work, the Divine Comedy.

The first italian literature masterpiece Written over a 14-year period, and describing Dante’s journey from purgatory to heaven in poetic form, the Divine Comedy is one of the most important and contextually rich books in the world. It is a masterwork of dexterous literature with artful and lyrical texts. Its theological and philosophical perspective created allegories that explore the relationship between God and Man. It can also be seen as a historical tale with characters and stories drawn from ancient Greek and Roman times, interspersed with his current social commentary. Perhaps most significantly, Dante’s decision to compose the Divine Comedy in the Tuscan vernacular instead of Latin, made it accessible to the masses rather than only the elite classes and eventually helped to unify the Italian language.

An empty tomb in Florence Shortly after he completed all segments of the Divine Comedy, Dante died in exile in Ravenna, on 14 September, 1321. He was buried there and his tomb still exists today in the Basilica of San Francesco. Having regretted Dante’s exile, the city of Florence wished for Dante’s remains to return home, which was ordered by the Medici pope Leo X. However, Ravenna secretly refused the Pope’s order, hid Dante’s remains and returned only an empty casket to Florence. For the following centuries, Ravenna’s Franciscan friars protected Dante’s remains from theft and war. They moved Dante’s remains numerous times to keep them in Ravenna up to this day. In Florence, a cenotaph

was built at the Basilica di Santa Croce in honor of its greatest poet.

Dante had profound influence in Italy and over Europe, with the Divine Comedy being one of the most important works in the history of literature, and serving as a prelude to the glorious period that was the Renaissance. In 2005, the Municipality of Florence apologized for expelling Dante, and his exile was officially revoked in 2008. In 2021, Florence commemorated the 700th anniversary of Dante’s death with a series of events.

The closing ceremony was held at Palazzo Portinari Salviati, where the poet had first met his muse Beatrice.

PARADISE CANTO (image above) DANTE’S CONFESSION (image below)

by Salvador Dalí 1964, color woodblock print on paper.

These colored illustrations by the renowned Spanish surrealist painter, Salvador Dalí, is an indication of Dante’s influence on generations of artists and thinkers

48

MARIE DE’ MEDICI (1575-1642) The “big banker” Queen of France

THE SPACE The lofty Maria de’ Medici suite is decorated with an elegant 18th-century ceiling that tells the story of the allegorical Roman hero - Marcus Curtius, who leaped into a deep pit in the middle of the Roman Forum as a sacrifice to the gods to save Rome. Clouds of various shades float across the ceiling, foretelling the dramatic legend. As the hero gazes courageously into the abyss below him, he breaks the hearts of the spectators.

Palazzo Portinari Salviati has dedicated this room to Marie de’ Medici, the crowned queen of France whose innate love for beauty spread the message of Italian art and culture far beyond the Tuscan land.

THE STORY The richest heiress in Europe Born to Francesco I de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, and a Habsburg princess, Joanna of Austria, Maria de Medici’s childhood was spent in luxury and splendor in her birthplace, the Palazzo Pitti. Both of Maria’s parents died when she was 12, which left her to be considered the richest heiress in Europe.

Her uncle, Ferdinando I, assumed the role of the Grand Duke and provided Maria with a good education. As a curious and open-minded student, Maria showed interest in math, philosophy, astronomy, and had a passion for jewelry and precious stones. Maria was also a talented painter, tutored by many of Florence’s artists. She enjoyed singing, guitar and the theater, and remained a patron of these arts throughout her life.

MARIE DE’ MEDICI

A portrait of Marie de’ Medici, oil on canvas From the school of Anthony van Dyck (Flemish, 1599-1641)

A political marriage to King Henry IV of France 51 Due to her lineage, personal qualities, and as well, her family’s power and great wealth, Maria was attractive to many potential suitors. The most prestigious among them, King Henry IV of France, became the obvious choice. The union was a political one with important financial considerations. Henry was in debt to Maria’s father Francesco I, who had financially supported the king’s war efforts and as Maria would carry a handsome dowry into the marriage, this would offset France’s debt to the Medici family bank. For this reason, Maria or Marie, as she would later be known in France, earned the nickname “the big banker” (la grosse banquière).

In 1600, Marie set off for France accompanied by 2000 people in tow, arrived in Marseilles and was married to the king in Lyon. The next year she gave birth to a boy, Louis, who upon birth automatically became heir to the French throne, or Dauphin de France, much to the delight of Henry and of all France. Marie bore five more children, but her marriage to the king was not a happy one, and the gossip in court was that she was for breeding purposes only. Henry was not a loyal husband and Marie was increasingly jealous of his many mistresses. Her quarrels with the most well-known among them, Catherine de Balzac d’Entragues, were indiscreet and shocking to the court.

Another source of unhappiness was money. Despite the wealth that she’d brought to Henry and France, Marie was prohibited by the king to spend as she wished to maintain the household with the extravagance to which she had been accustomed and to show off her royal status. The king was frugal by modern standards, and preferred to spend their fortune on battles and conquests rather than on decorating. A further reason for Marie’s discontentment was that she had not been crowned since her marriage. She had to wait until 13 May 1610 to finally be formally crowned Queen of France. The next day, Henry IV was assassinated, immediately raising suspicions of a conspiracy.

Upon Henry’s death, Marie’s son became the king of France, crowned Louis XIII, with Marie as his regent. However, Marie, abusive of her position, refused to give up power even after the

52 king had come of age. This ultimately led to her exile in 1617.

Even though she was subsequently readmitted to the king’s council in 1622, her feud with cardinal Richelieu, formally her most trusted advisor, led to her second and last banishment to Brussels. Marie remained the rest of her life in exile and died destitute in 1642 in Cologne, Germany.

Art patronage and the Rubens commission Marie had innate taste and an affinity for beauty. Throughout her life in the French court, she brought and commissioned works of art from Italy, including paintings, statues, and rare objects such as the ones that her father Francesco, the second Grand Duke of Tuscany, had collected in the Uffizi Gallery. She had never forgotten her roots. When she was forced to cede the Louvre to her daughter-in-law, she desired to replace it with a new residence castle similar to Pitti.

No discussion of Marie de Medici would be complete without mentioning her epic commission to Peter Paul Rubens to depict her life in 21 paintings. Rubens, who had attended her wedding in 1600, became one of the many portrait painters in Marie’s circle. Composed between 1622 and 1625, the paintings were displayed at the newly built Luxembourg Palace. Rubens’ paintings of Marie offered glorified versions of scenes from her life. In one of the best known, “the Landing of Marie de’ Medici at Marseilles,” he depicted the moment a young Marie walked upon the gang plank, carpeted in red, onto French territory, with an array of mythical Roman figures as symbols to memorialize the scene and Marie herself. At the top is Fame, heralding his trumpet, as the young and beautiful Queen enters Marseilles. On the awning of the boat is the Medici coat of arms, signifying Marie’s heritage. Cloaked in a rich velvet is France represented as a soldier bearing the French national symbol, the fleur-de-lys as he opens his arms to welcome Marie.

Although the queen’s life was sometimes a far cry from the version that she’d hoped to be her legacy, Marie was nonetheless an important figure in the Medici family tree. Her life embodied the wealthy family’s pursuit of nobility, alliance, art and recognition.

CEILING PAINTING OF MARCO CURZIO

Marco Curzio, or Marcus Curtius, was a mythological Roman hero known as the savior of Romans. After an earthquake in 362 BC, a huge deep pit appeared in the Roman Forum, which the Romans tried to fill unsuccessfully.

An oracle told the people that the gods demanded the most valuable possession of Rome, and what constituted the greatest strength of the Roman people, be thrown into the chasm in order to close it. The young Marcus Curtius, fully armed and decorated on his horse, declared that nothing was more precious than a brave citizen, then leapt into the chasm.

The chasm immediately closed behind him, and Rome was saved. Marcus Curtius hence became the legendary namesake of the Lacus Curtius in the Roman Forum.

54

BEATRICE PORTINARI (1265-1290) The muse who guided the journey into Paradise

THE SPACE A heavenly painted ceiling dominates this elegant suite with a scene from Greek mythology “Allegory of Night.” The woman covered in the marian blue flying veil is the personification of “Night.” She gently cradles two babies, representing “Sleep” and “Death.” Twinkling stars against a royal azure sky are painted below her as a hint of her identity while the rest of the ceiling is illuminated with heavenly pastels and flying angels.

There is a French window at the end of the suite, perfectly designed for the youthful Lady Beatrice. Inside this charming space, there is an interesting interplay between the real pane glass windows looking onto the Florentine street of Via dello Studio, juxtaposed with painted French window depicting scenes from an imaginary countryside. The window ceiling is rendered in the style of a garden house protected by a stained glass roof decorated with greenery and the Ricciardi-Serguidi coat of arms.

Surely one of the most elaborately adorned suites in Palazzo Portinari Salviati, it is dedicated to Beatrice Portinari, the muse of Dante Alighieri, and his symbol of divine love.

THE STORY No mention of Dante Alghileri, the great Italian poet, is complete without including the name Beatrice Portinari. In his works La Vita Nova (“The New Life”) and the epic La Divina Commedia (“The Divine Comedy”), Beatrice was alluded to

CEILING PAINTING OF THE ALLEGORY OF NIGHT

A heavenly painted ceiling with a scene from Greek mythology “Allegory of Night” The woman covered in the marian blue flying veil is the personification of “Night,” the goddess Nyx. She is the mother of the twins, “Sleep” (Hypnos) and “Death” (Thanatos).

56

and portrayed in ways that reveal the poet’s undying admiration for her, her role as his lifetime muse, and his ideal of the all things graceful and divine.

The daughter of an influential banker Beatrice was born to Folco Portinari, a banker whose family had come to Florence from the nearby town of Fiesole which had been conquered in 1125 by the Florentines. In medieval Florence, the Portinari were among the most important families, whose greatest contribution was the donation of the first hospital in town - the Hospital of Santa Maria Nuova in 1288. The family continued to support the hospital for generations and it is still in service today.

The Portinari family resided in a house that stood where the Palazzo Portinari would later come into being. It was here that the young Dante supposedly met Beatrice for the first time, when he attended a May Day party with his father in the house. Dante described the encounter in La Vita Nova:

Nine times, the heaven of the light had returned to where it was at my birth, almost to the very same point of its orbit, when the glorious lady of my mind first appeared before my eyes - she whom many called Beatrice without even knowing that was her name.

She had already been in this life long enough for the heaven of the fixed stars to have moved toward the east a twelfth of a degree since she was born, so that she was at the beginning of her ninth year when she appeared to me, and I saw her when I was almost at the end of my ninth.

Despite both being only 9 years old, Dante was drawn to Beatrice, with a powerful attraction that he described in La Vita Nova, “At that time, truly, I say, the vital spirit, which dwells in the innermost chamber of the heart, started to tremble so powerfully that its disturbance reached all the way to the slightest of my pulses.”

By Dante’s own account, the two met for a second time a few years later on the Ponte Santa Trinita bridge. However, it is

58 believed that the two never even conversed. They went on to

marry other people; Beatrice to a banker, Simone dei Bardi, while Dante married Gemma Donati, who in comparison to Beatrice, was never mentioned in any of Dante’s work.

Dante’s guide into Paradise Beatrice’s untimely death at age 24 left Dante in deep anguish.

He retreated into intense study to compose prose and verse that, combined with his work done over the previous decade, became La Vita Nova. It is a chronicle of Dante’s passion for Beatrice since their first encounter up until her death. In the final chapter of La Vita Nova, Dante vowed not to write anything further of Beatrice until he could produce something “concerning her what hath not before been written of any woman.” He fulfilled this promise years later in La Divina Commedia, in which Beatrice takes over from Virgil as Dante’s guide into Paradise, for Virgil is pagan and not allowed to enter heaven.

The most famous literary muse of all time In La Divina Commedia, when Dante first sets sight on Beatrice in Purgatory, he is mesmerized by her presence as he had been in real life at the age of nine. Dante wrote a powerful description of her appearance, which is now carved on the outer wall of Palazzo Portinari Salviati (see below):

The window’s ceiling is painted in the style of a garden house the Ricciardi coat of arms.

Eventually, she leads him into divine bliss through their journey in Paradise. And in the presence of Beatrice’s transcendent beauty and spiritualized love, they are enveloped in light and enter the abode of God. Despite there existing very few facts known of her actual life or even the accuracy of her encounters with Dante, Beatrice Portinari has become the most famous literary muse of all time.

Dante’s platonic love for Beatrice guided his understanding of the divine, purified his life, and inspired one of the greatest works of literature in human history.

DANTE ENCOUNTERING BEATRICE

Over her snow-white veil encircled with olives, appeared a lady under a green mantle, vested in the color of the living flame. Dante Purgatorio Canto XXX 31-33

1850, oil on canvas This is an imaginary scene that depicts the encounter between Dante and Beatrice.

Famous Florence architecture such as the Palazzo Vecchio tower as well as the Giotto tower can be seen in the background.

60

FREDERIK IV OF DENMARK (1671-1730) The fine prince and his impossible love

THE SPACE This elegant suite at the end of the Olympian Gallery is a hidden jewel on the noble floor. The bedroom is brightly decorated with a dynamic fresco ceiling in the theme of the four seasons. Flora, the goddess of flowers representing the season of spring, dresses in a rosy pink palette holding flowers in bloom. Ceres, the goddess of agriculture symbolizing summer, appears in a bright yellow gown wearing a headdress made of wheat stacks. Bacchus, the god of grape harvest, fertility and festivity, stands for the season of autumn, holding in his hands bunches of grapes. Lastly Saturn, the deity of time and periodic renewal, is personified as an old man representing the season of winter.

Palazzo Portinari Salviati has now dedicated this romantic suite to Frederik IV, King of Denmark, a famous guest who was housed twice in the Palazzo and received grandiose receptions from the city. Although his Tuscan romance never came true, the dreams of the young lovers linger on as do our perpetual quests for love.

THE STORY On 5 May 1692, Frederik Augustus, then Crown Prince of Denmark and eldest son of King Christian V, arrived in Florence. He was lodged in Palazzo Salviati, which had been prepared for the Prince’s 15 day visit by his host, Princess Violante of Bavaria, wife of the Grand Prince Ferdinando de’ Medici, heir to the throne. Crown Prince Frederik,

CEILING PAINTING OF THE FOUR SEASON

Spring is depicted as a young woman with a garland of flowers in her hair and hands; Summer is depicted as a woman with ears of corn in her hair and a mirror in her left hand; Autumn is depicted as a naked man crowned with vines and grapes and holding bunches of grapes in his hands; Winter is depicted as an old man, naked, with his head wrapped in a cloak and trembling from the cold.

62 traveling under the alias of the Count of Oldenburg, was “very aristocratic in bearing, but rather frail, pale and unattractive,” according to the chroniclers of the time.

The prince’s young unrequited love Sumptuous receptions were held in his honor while he was in Florence. For his entertainment, a fight was organized between two lions, a bear and a hornless cow, and a race was run with seven Berber horses.

From Florence, Prince Frederik then went to Lucca, where he was housed in Palazzo Controni, today the Pfanner. In Lucca, the 21 year old Frederik met the beautiful Maria Maddalena Trenta who was just 20 years old. Maria was rich in virtues, and able to speak several languages. She accompanied the prince as an interpreter to show him the sights of the city. A mutual affection soon developed between the two youngsters but the differences between them made the romance impossible. While Federik was a Lutheran and a prince, Maria was a Catholic of inferior rank.

On top of that, Maria Maddalena was promised in marriage to a marquis. With great sadness, Prince Frederik returned to Denmark and married Louise of Mecklenburg, and in 1699 ascended the throne as King Frederik IV. Return of the Danish king Seventeen years later, in the spring of 1709, King Frederik IV returned to Florence for a second time. He was again hosted in Palazzo Salviati and the plan to receive him was studied in great detail by the master of ceremonies of the grand ducal court. The Palazzo was illuminated by 1,080 lamps.

Silverware, crockery and paintings were brought to enhance its extravagance. Rumors were flying all over town that the intention of King Frederik’s return was to see the girl he had once fallen in love with in his youth in Lucca. The Florentines flocked in droves to see the illustrious guest.

At the other end of the story, Maria Maddalena Trenta had broken off her engagement and lost hope of Frederik’s return.

In 1693, she entered a Florentine monastery, Santa Maria Maddalena de’ Pazzi, and became a cloistered nun, Sister Teresa Maria Maddalena di San Giuseppe. Since then, she rejected a

miniature portrait studded with diamonds that Frederik had sent her as a gift, and in return had a small silver crucifix delivered to him, explaining to him that her bridegroom was now Jesus.

Nevertheless the king was determined to see her. Although no one wanted to authorize this meeting that would break the rules of the cloister (a nun was forbidden to have any contact with anyone outside of the monastery except with her closest family members), Frederik eventually managed to meet her at least four times during his stay in Florence. It is not known what the king and the nun said to each other, but various witnesses recalled that at the end of the last meeting, Frederick IV of Denmark left the parlor with tears in his eyes, carrying in his heart the memory of his stays in Florence and of an impossible love.

A 19TH-CENTURY PORTRAIT OF FREDERIK IV

dressed in armor and a reddish cloak with a long, white-powdered all-long wig, tempera on ivory.

FLORENTINE FOOTBALL During King Frederik IV’s second stay in Tuscany, on 21 April 1709, a football match was held in the king’s honor and much to his appreciation, according to a drawing depicting the game preserved in the State Archives of Lucca. Calcio Fiorentino (“Florentine football”), also known as “calcio in livrea,” is an early form of football that originated during the Middle Ages in Italy with its first games played in the Piazza Santa Croce in Florence. The first Italian language dictionary of 1612, published by the Accademia della Crusca, carries the following definition for calcio, “…is also the name of a game, proper and ancient to the city of Florence, in the guise of an orderly battle, passed from the Greeks to the Latins, and from the Latins to us.”

One famous occasion for calcio fiorentino took place on 17 February, 1530, when the Florentines held a match in Piazza Santa Croce in defiance of the imperial troops sent by Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, as the city was under siege.

64

FRANCESCO PETRARCA (1304-1374) The poet of romance and “The Father of Humanism”

Francesco Petrarca, commonly referred to as Petrarch, was one of the greatest Italian poets and one of the first “humanists” in history. Born in Arezzo in 1304, Petrarch spent most of his 70 years assiduously studying the classics, writing in Latin and traveling. His extensive travel through Europe earned him the title of “the first tourist” by some scholars.

Petrarch’s father, Ser Pietro, known as Petracco, was a Florentine jurist and a friend of the poet Dante Alighieri.

Similar to Dante, Petracco belonged to the White Guelphs’ who advocated for moderate papal power and upon the White Ghelphs’ defeat at the hands of the Black Guelph faction, was sentenced to exile as was his friend Dante. Petracco left Florence for Arezzo in 1302, while his son Petrarch was very young. The family followed the French Pope Clement V’s displacement to Avignon, where the seat of the papacy remained throughout Petrarch’s life. At his father’s urging, Petrarch studied law in Montpellier and then in Bologna, where he would remain for six years. While he was passionate about civil law, Petrarch was not interested in legal practice.

Instead he spent his time writing and studying Latin literature, and befriended young poets.

Passion for the classics After his father’s death, Petrarch abandoned his studies and returned to Avignon, where he took up clerical jobs to be able to spend his free time writing. On Good Friday in 1327 while in the church of Sainte-Claire d’Avignon, he met the love of

PORTRAIT OF FRANCESCO PETRARCA

16th century, oil on panel, from Florentine School

66 his life, Laura, who would become his muse and

the focus of his literature. Though it was love at first sight for the young Petrach, Laura, being married, would constantly turn down his advances.

Petrarch’s feelings for Laura would keep him “burning for 21 years” and his adulations would not cease even after her death. Petrarch wrote Il Canzoniere, a series of love poems addressed to Laura, including 317 sonnets. The lyrical, fixed verse form came to be known as the Petrarchan (or Italian) sonnet, and remains to this day one of the two principal sonnet forms along with those composed by Shakespeare.

When his financial situation became difficult, Petrarch chose an ecclesiastical career, although he never became a fully ordained priest. He took a job as a house chaplain for an important church official, for whom he made his first trip to Rome, a destination he had long dreamed of. Visiting Rome’s ruins inspired him to begin writing in Latin and draw more references from the classics and humanism. Back in his country house in Avignon, far from the worldliness of the papal court and in solitude, Petrarch would go on to compose a prolific and diverse collection of works in Latin, including De Viris Illustribus (“On Famous Men”), Africa, and letters such as Epystole.

The traveling poet laureate 1341 marked a significant turning point in Petrarch’s life, earning him a rare and distinguished recognition. On 8 April, in the Roman Senate building on the Campidoglio, Petrarch was crowned poet laureate, only the second since classical antiquity. Now established as an exceptionally cultured scholar, Petrarch then began a whirlwind tour of Italian cities, including Parma, Naples, Verona (where he discovered Cicero’s letters), Mantua, Padua and again returning to

Rome. Between trips, he would retreat to 67 his house in Valchiusa to devote himself to writing in Latin. These were the years in which he wrote the Secretum (“My Secret Book”) and the treatise De Vita Solitaria (“Of Solitary Life”). During this time he also wrote some of the I Trionfi (“The Triumphs”), poems inspired by Dante, that were written in the Tuscan vernacular.

There were, however, several fundamental differences between the two poets. For one, Dante’s work was rooted in the cultural and social backdrop of his day and sometimes were reflections of his own predicaments.

His language also evolved as he aged.

In contrast, Petrarch’s thought and style remained consistent throughout his life.

He spent much time revising the songs and sonnets of Il Canzoniere rather than taking on new subjects. Poetry alone provided consolation for his personal grief, absent of the philosophy or politics that were to be found in Dante’s works.

Petrarch continued to travel throughout northern Italy as a poet-diplomat, and eventually settled with his daughter’s family in Arquà, a tranquil town on the Euganean Hills near Padua. This is where he would spend his remaining years in philosophical and religious contemplation and revisioning of his works.

Because of Petrach’s lifetime study of the classics, his belief that they would enhance a person not only intellectually but morally as well to help develop one’s own awareness as a human, Petrarch has been called “the Father of Humanism.” Humanism became the cultural movement that would pave the way for the Renaissance.

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GIORGIO VASARI (1511-1574) The first art historian

An eclectic and prolific artist, Giorgio Vasari is best known as the world’s first art historian. Born in Arezzo on 30 July 1511, into a family of modest cloth merchants, the young Vasari attended workshops of several artists in the city, from whom he learned notions of painting and architecture and acquired a humanistic education.

He traveled to Florence to study under Andrea del Sarto, and came in contact with Cardinal Silvio Passerini, a great patron who recommended him to the powerful Medici family.

However, his promising career was abruptly interrupted upon the death of his father in 1527. Merely 16 years old, Vassari took on the role of family provider, for his mother and four younger brothers. It was a difficult period for Vasari who, in order to make a living, devoted himself entirely to painting and worked tirelessly to produce altarpieces for the churches of Arezzo and the surrounding area. With the money he earned, he was able to build a beautiful house in Arezzo (now the Vasari Museum). Unhappily though, he suffered from a deep melancholy and went to reside in a hermitage in nearby Camaldoli, painting for the monks while searching for serenity in nature. In 1538, having secured financial stability for his family, and with his health restored, Vasari could now left modest Arezzo in search of more ambitious projects.

Return to Medici’s Florence For the next 15 years Vasari traveled throughout Italy and gained a reputation as a painter while expanding his knowledge

THE HOLY FAMILY WITH THE INFANT, SAINT JOHN THE BAPTIST, AND SAINT ELIZABETH

from the circle of Giorgio Vasari, oil on panel, 16th century

70 in architecture. In 1554, at the insistence of Cosimo I de’

Medici, Duke of Florence, Vasari returned to Florence as an artist and architect in the service of the Medici court.

Cosimo wanted to give Florence the dignity of a ducal seat and commissioned important projects to Vasari, including the restructuring of the ancient Palazzo dei Priori, now known as the Palazzo della Signoria or Palazzo Vecchio, which was transformed from an austere castle into a sumptuous government building.

It is to Giorgio Vasari and his large group of collaborators artists, craftsmen and laborers, that we owe the current appearance of the Great Hall, better known as the Salone dei Cinquecento. A room of enormous dimensions, it was renovated at the behest of Cosimo I de’ Medici with the intent to represent the most important episodes in Florentine history and to celebrate the Medici power over the Duchy of Tuscany.

It is still the venue of the most important institutional events of the city today. Vasari then undertook the construction of the Uffizi, adjacent to the palace, to house the administrative offices. The Uffizi today is among the most renowned and respected art galleries in the world.

His final construction was the Vasari Corridor, an elevated pathway to run above the Ponte Vecchio connecting the Palazzo Vecchio, the political and administrative center, with the Palazzo Pitti, across the Arno River, where the dukes of Florence were building the new Royal Palace. Vasari completed the Vasari Corridor in only six months, in time for the 1565 wedding of the Medici heir Francesco and Joanna of Austria, daughter of Ferdinand I of Habsburg, the Holy Roman Emperor.

In 1594, by order of the new Grand Duke Ferdinando I de’ Medici, who detested the noises and smells of the butchers’ stores on the Ponte Vecchio, the butcheries were replaced by the numerous jewelry shops which remain to this day.

Le Vite (“The Lives”) In 1550, Vasari published the first edition of the Le Vite de’ Più Eccellenti Pittori, Scultori, e Architettori (“Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors and Architects”), one of the first and fundamental texts in Italian art history. Through pages rich in facts, anecdotes and background, the reader can not only retrace the lives of great and universally known artists, but also of more obscure and often forgotten painters. Vasari contextualized art works that we have come to know, by placing them in the history and culture of their time. The Lives is a fundamental work, having gathered in a systematic way a collection of biographies of artists, from Cimabue to Vasari’s own contemporaries whom he considered “most excellent.”

Vasari wrote of the critical fortune (or, as it may have been, the critical misfortune) of many artists. The Lives is also important because with this work Vasari contributed in part to form a precise vision of the history of art, of the rebirth of the arts after centuries of decadence of ancient art, and according to which, art reached its maximum height and fulfillment with the work of Michelangelo Buonarroti, the only contemporary artist mentioned in the book’s second edition in 1568.

It was Vasari’s work as an art historian that left a lasting cultural impact and influenced generations of art historians despite his great achievements in painting and architecture. A term he used to describe Giotto’s painting, “rinascita,” meaning “rebirth,” was later picked up by the French historian Jules Michelet to apply to the iconic artistic and cultural period that we know today as “the Renaissance.”

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CARDINAL GIOVANNI SALVIATI (1490-1553) The “cardinal-nephew” and papal candidate of intellect

Giovanni Salviati was born in Florence in 1490, the eldest son of Jacopo Salviati and Lucrezia de’ Medici, daughter of Lorenzo the Magnificent. He was the only one of his ten siblings to attend his father’s alma mater, Lo Studio Fiorentino, the city’s prestigious university where he was tutored by distinguished Greek and Latin scholars and received a full humanist education.

Becoming Cardinal to Pope Leo X After his uncle, Giovanni de’ Medici, was elected as Pope Leo X, Giovanni Salviati followed his path into an ecclesiastical career. Rising rapidly in the church, Giovanni Salviati first held the important post of the protonotary apostolic (the Latin word for the first notary), in charge of registering all the acts issued by the Roman Court, and ultimately became a cardinal in July 1517. Cardinal Giovanni Salviati was carried in triumph into the Florence Cathedral. He had previously been the bishop of Fermo and Ferrara, as well as the titular bishop of several abbeys in Lombardy and France. These posts brought Giovanni a considerable income of about 8,000 ducats a year, on top of his large family fortune.

After the death of Leo X, Salviati’s ecclesiastical career suffered a setback but it quickly recovered after the ascension of Pope Clement VII (Giulio de’ Medici, son of Lorenzo de’ Medici) in November, 1524. The new pope entrusted Salviati with the important position of Ambassador to Lombardy, a key region at a time when there were intense military conflicts between

PORTRAIT OF CARDINAL GIOVANNI SALVIATI

16th century, oil on panel in a carved and giltwood Florentine frame.

74 France and the Habsburg Empire. Following the defeat of

France, Cardinal Salviati acted as a papal legate on behalf of Pope Clement VII to repair the relationship with the Spanish King, Charles V, as well as King of France, Francis I. Later life and humanist qualities Cardinal Giovanni’s fierce opposition to the unpopular Alessandro de’ Medici, the first Duke of Florence, escalated after the death of Clement VII in 1534. The cardinal left Florence and joined outlaws led by Filippo Strozzi. He traveled to Naples to meet Charles V and defended the Florentine exiles who were in opposition to Duke Alessandro. After Alessandro’s assassination in January 1537, Giovanni returned to Florence with a small mercenary army and was asked to dismiss his troops and to negotiate with his nephew Cosimo, who eventually became the Grand Duke of Tuscany.

Cardinal Salviati retained a great deal of influence and esteem in Pope Paul III’s court. He was described as a “person of great intellect, prudent and well-practiced” according to the Venetian ambassador Antonio Soriano. Upon the death of Pope Paul III, Cardinal Salviati was considered one of the papal candidates, but was defeated in the conclave of 1549-1550. The cardinal died in Ravenna a few years later in October 1553.

Giovanni Salviati was a “bon vivant,” a lover of earthly pleasures and artistic refinements. A refined reader and humanist, he was friends with Niccolò Machiavelli and one of the first recipients of his writings - The Art of War. He also collaborated with Cardinal Niccolò Ridolfi and Pope Innocent VIII to build tombs for the Medici popes in the Roman Basilica di Santa Maria sopra Minerva. He was no doubt an influential “cardinalnephew” (i.e. a cardinal created by a pope who was his relative, a practice that originated in the Middle Ages) with intellectual qualities as well as an artful diplomat. Unfortunately, as a politician, Giovanni Salviati was never effective in face of major confrontations and was not destined to become another Medici pope.

THE MEDICI POPES

The Medici of Florence, one of the most legendary and influential families in the history of Europe, achieved its position through meticulous and strategic planning that passed down the generations.

In 1397, Giovanni di Bicci de’ Medici founded the Medici Bank and provided the foundation for the Medici legacy.

Other than running its family business, the Medicis worked to great lengths to solidify its power by being involved in local politics and through securing influences on the Roman Curia (also known as the Roman Court, the adminstrative body of the Roman Catholic Church), which ultimately ruled over Florence.

From the 15th to the 17th century, there were three Medici popes and two queens of France, all holders of the most supreme power in their realms and who would secure the standing and longevity of the Medici family.

SEAL OF LEO X

leaden with red and yellow silky thread

75

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LEO X (1475-1521) The indulgent pope who brought on Reformation

Pope Leo X, was born Giovanni di Lorenzo de’ Medici, the second son of Lorenzo de’ Medici, known as “Lorenzo the Magnificent.” His father understood well the importance of obtaining power in the Roman Curia. Despite Giovanni’s lack of religious interest, his father paved his path towards an exceptional ecclesiastical career. So much so that Giovanni Giovanni was chosen as a cardinal-deacon at age 13, the youngest at the time. In 1513, Giovanni was elected as Pope Leo X, the first Medici pope who ascended the pontificate for political reasons.

Born into the wealthiest and most powerful family in Florence, Giovanni received a humanistic education and grew up to become a gentleman with pleasant manners and refined tastes.

After he was elected as Pope Leone X, he did not exchange luxury for modesty as his father had advised. Rather as Pope Leo X, he pursued grand architecture for the churches and commissioned legendary works of art such as those by Raphael and Michelangelo, which still remain in the Vatican today.

Leo X enjoyed leisure activities such as hunting and gambling.

To much criticism, he was complacent in his attitude towards papal duties. During his pontificate, he squandered the papal treasury. To balance the debt resulted from the renovation of St. Peter’s Basilica, the Church had to sell indulgences (i.e. (papers sold in order to bring remission of punishment due to sins), which precipitated the Protestant Reformation by Martin Luther and went on to change the history of Europe forever.

However, Leo X was not without merit. He lowered the tax on salt and increased the power of the three Roman magistrates who were responsible for the financial management and security of the city. In 1515, he commissioned Raphael to devise a conservation plan for Rome, preventing the destruction of many Roman monuments. He sent the papal army to recover the Medici’s control over Florence, which had been lost by his older brother Piero the Unfortunate. This effort restored the prestige of the Medici and led Florence back to the glory that it had once enjoyed under his father’s reign.

Lastly, Leo X expanded the Medici’s influence outside of Italy through arranging the political marriage between his great niece Catherine de Medici with King Henry II of France.

PORTRAIT POPE LEO X

with Cardinals Luigi De Rossi and Giulio de’ Medici

by Raphael Sanzio, 1517-1518 Uffizi Gallery, Florence

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LEO XI (1535-1605) The good and pious pope of 27 days

The last Medici pope and great nephew of Leo X, Leo XI was born Alessandro Ottaviano de’ Medici, to father Ottaviano de’ Medici and mother Francesca Salviati, also of Medici descent.

Despite feeling the call from God at a young age, Alessandro was prevented from joining the church by his mother as he was the only male in the family. Alessandro only began his career as a priest after her death.

As a cardinal, Alessandro was humble and well-respected.

While serving as the papal legate to France, he helped to orchestrate the Peace Treaty of Vervins between France and Spain. He also restored the Catholic faith, which had been weakened by the Reformation, and forced France to allow the expelled Jesuits to return home and to sign an act of reconciliation with the Roman Church in 1596. As an avid art collector, Leo XI built an impressive collection of statues and commissioned many artworks for churches in Rome.

Alessandro was elected pope at age 70, after the death of Pope Clement VIII. He chose to be called Leo XI in honor of his great uncle Leo X. However, Leo XI caught a cold at his coronation, and died just 27 days later, making his papacy the shortest one in history. The floral carvings on his tomb served as an allusion to the brevity of his time in office.

These two Medici popes lived in a time when God was almighty and its representative, the pope, held immense political power. However, Leo X and Leo XI could not

have been more different in character. Pope Leo X was a refined prince of the Renaissance, whereas Leo XI was a conservative who defended the Catholic Church against the Reformation. Although Leo XI had great respect for Leo X, he rejected his great uncle’s path in church where corruption and nepotism prevailed. At his deathbed, Leo XI refused to appoint any Medici family members as cardinals. His modesty and principled approach were praised by posterity and his kindness and generosity were forever remembered through the monumental statue at St. Peter’s Basilica. An old print of Leo XI’s monument is currently hung in the room.

A DRAWING OF THE FUNERARY MONUMENT OF POPE LEO XI

sculpted by Alessandro Algardi, 1644-1680.

The drawing is likely to have been done by one of the Dutch artists living in Rome at the time

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LORENZO GHIBERTI (1378-1455) The ingenious hands behind the Gates of Paradise

Winning the competition of as the best craftsmen in Italy The Florence Baptistery, also known as the Battistero di San Giovanni, is renowned for its remarkable bronze doors. In 1401 a competition was organized for the design of the set of doors which would later be placed on the north side of the baptistery. Each participant was to be given four tables of brass and one year to create a panel with the subject of the “Sacrifice of Isaac.” The competition invited all the best craftsmen in Italy to Florence, including renowned masters Filippo Brunelleschi, Donatello, Jacopo della Quercia and Niccolò Aretino.

To everyone’s surprise, the young Lorenzo Ghiberti, in his early 20s, emerged as the final winner. Some scholars believe the Issac figure created by Ghiberti on the competition panel was “the first truly ideal Renaissance nude.” It successfully blended naturalism and classicism in one harmonious piece.

The young Ghiberti outshone the more experienced artists and his accomplishments on the bronze Baptistry doors earned him a place in history as one of the most important Italian artists.

Vasari once described Ghiberti in Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects as an artist whom even the “two distinguished craftsmen, the sculptor Donatello and the sculptor and architect Filippo Brunelleschi really took second place after…..he was far more expert in casting bronze.”

The goldsmith’s son Lorenzo Ghiberti came from a somewhat controversial background. At the time of his birth, Lorenzo’s mother was

THE CREATION OF ADAM & EVE

Bronze panel, replica made by the Frilli Gallery in 2022

82 married to Cione Paltami Ghiberti, a man of good standing.

The couple separated shortly after Lorenzo’s birth, and she moved in with the accomplished goldsmith Bartolo di Michele, also known as Bartoluccio. Lorenzo took his name and Bartoluccio not only raised him but also was his first teacher. It was from Bartoluccio that Lorenzo first learned the principles of design and studied the art of goldsmithing.

Only after Bartoluccio’s death and with the clarification of his legitimate parentage did he use the name Lorenzo di Cione di Ser Buonaccorso Ghiberti.

This is the more formal of many theories regarding Ghiberti’s parentage and one accepted by the Florentine authorities in the Signoria at the time. However, some scholars believe Lorenzo was actually the biological son of Bartolo di Michele, and that he only claimed to be Cione’s legitimate heir in order to gain the Cione estate. We may never know the truth, but in any case Lorenzo Ghiberti’s artistic accomplishments far outweigh the importance of his biological parentage.

After winning the competition in 1401, Bartoluccio assisted his “son” Lorenzo Ghiberti with refining and perfecting the designs for the doors, which would ultimately depict the life of Jesus Christ from the New Testament, the four evangelists and the Church Fathers. This commission eventually took Ghiberti 21 years to complete.

Upon the completion in 1424, Ghiberti was again commissioned to produce a second set of doors with scenes from the Old Testament, which would be placed on the East side of the same baptistery. This time he chose to break free from the traditional Gothic quatrefoil used in the previous doors and produced ten large gilded bronze rectangular panels in a completely different style.

The ambitious design of the second commission went on for 27 years with astounding results. Michelangelo was so impressed by the artistry of the gates that after a long gaze he said “O divinum opus: O Janua digna polo!” (“Oh work divine! Oh door worthy of heaven!”). The East gates of the Florence Baptistery later come to be known as “La Porta del Paradiso” (“The Gates

of Paradise’’), and Lorenzo Ghiberti will always be remembered as the genius behind the Gates of Paradise.

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DON GIOVANNI DE’ MEDICI (1567-1621) The designer of the Cappella dei Principi

documented and eloquent testimony of romance from the Renaissance period.

Don Giovanni de’ Medici was a military commander, diplomat and architect. Born the illegitimate son of Cosimo I de’ Medici, the Grand Duke of Tuscany, and Florentine noble Eleanora degli Albizzi, Don Giovanni was never in line for inheriting the dukeship or participating in Florentine politics. Rather like many of the illegitimate sons of nobles and the wealthy, he sought a career in the military.

Work in architecture Beyond his military and diplomatic ventures, Don Giovanni was probably best known as an architect. His most major achievement is the monumental Cappella dei Principi (Chapel of Princes) at the Basilica di San Lorenzo in Florence, the grand mausoleum containing the tombs of the Medici grand dukes.

The idea of a mausoleum was formulated by Don Giovanni’s father, Cosimo I, and implemented by his half-brother Ferdinando. Don Giovanni competed successfully against his own mentor Bernardo Buontalenti with a design that employed a more effective use of light and a more scenographic positioning of the tombs, so that the viewer could appreciate the whole dynasty at a glance. The design was combined with that of Matteo Nigetti, and its construction was overseen by Buontalenti. As well Don Giovanni played a role in organizing the delivery of construction materials from Flanders.

Career in military Don Giovanni began his military career in Spain, where he also became the Florentine ambassador to Madrid. His advancement in the Spanish court was impeded, when he turned down a generalship position due to its threatening implication to Spain’s rival, France, with which the Medici family had marriage ties through Maria de’ Medici, queen to France’s Henry IV. However his opportunities in the French court were also encumbered due to similar concerns for his professional ties with Spain. Back home, Giovanni’s possibility of a commission in Florence was blocked by his half-brother Ferdinand de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany. Eventually he accepted the post as the Commander-in-Chief of the Republic of Venice.

Don Giovanni received a humanist education at Cosimo I’s court, which prepared him for participation in the major cultural trends of the time. His aristocratic and formal writing style was evident in his exchange of some 80+ letters with his wife, Livia del Vernazza, over the course of their courtship and marriage. They accounted for some of the most well-

Patronage of art and theater Don Giovanni was a patron of the theater, especially in the genre of commedia dell’arte, and wrote many plays performed by the company that he supported financially. A refined connoisseur of art, he also collected and commissioned many works that can be found today in the Uffizi Gallery and the Medici villa in Artimino. Don Giovanni also had interests in alchemy, astrology and natural knowledge, to the point that he was called upon to judge Galileo’s falling bodies controversy.

The architect of the grand mausoleum of the Medici, Don Giovanni de Medici spent his final years in the Venetian Republic, on the island of Murano among its glassmakers.

Though born illegitimate and intentionally kept outside of Florence and its affairs, Don Giovanni eventually played a vital role in building the family’s eternal resting place.

PORTRAIT OF DON GIOVANNI DE’ MEDICI

oil on canvas, 17th century The painting is likely inspired by the larger portrait in Villa Medicea di Cerreto Guidi.

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LIONARDO SALVIATI (1539-1589) The bran sifter, a leading Italian philologist

Lionardo Salviati, son of Giovambattista di Lionardo Salviati, may not be a household name today among many Florentines, but his influence has extended to the modern age. He was a learned humanist, philologist, and also a master of oratory of the 16th century. At a young age, Lionardo was interested in philological and linguistic research, and produced a number of works, some of which were published during his lifetime while others survived only in manuscript forms. His most wellknown accomplishments include the publication of an updated edition of Boccaccio’s Decameron, and to have been one of the founding members of the Accademia della Crusca in Florence between 1582 and 1583.

The good editor of Decameron Decameron, sometimes referred to as l’Umana commedia (“The Human Comedy,” in contrast to Dante’s “Divine Comedy”), is a frame narrative written by Giovanni Boccaccio in the 14th century. The book contains a collection of 100 tales told by a group of seven women and three men. The storytellers tried to escape the Black Death by staying in a villa outside of Florence. Although the book was considered a masterpiece of classical early Italian prose and enjoyed great popularity, its anti-clerical stance caused conflict with the Catholic Church. It was one of the works burned in the “Bonfire of the Vanities” in 1497 in Florence, and was later placed on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum (“List of Prohibited Books”) instituted by Pope Paul IV in 1559. However, due to its literary importance, the book was later moved to a different list of titles which, after

88 proper edits, was more acceptable to the Roman Inquisition,

and therefore allowed to be published by the Catholic Church.

In 1580, the prestigious task of editing l’Umana Commedia was entrusted to Lionardo Salviati, who at the time was in the service of Giacomo Boncompagni, Duke of Sora.

Buoncompagni was the illegitimate son of Pope Gregory XIII (best known for commissioning the Gregorian calendar and whose stone plaque can still be seen today in the Allori Chapel in Palazzo Portinari Salviati). Francesco I de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, authorized Lionardo Salviati “with ample and free authority to correct and purge the book in question, with all those conditions and provisions that will be pleasing to his discreet judgment.” Lionardo Salviati’s editing amended the content of the work in question, and brought the text in line with Christian morality.

In addition, because Boccaccio’s original text of Decameron was in the vernacular Florentine language, there were significant linguistic differences from the current use of language. Instead of rewriting the text, in his new edition of Decameron published in 1582, Lionardo Salviati found a middle ground between the older writing and the modern speech. He not only modified its moral point of view to make it more acceptable for public circulation, but also refined its language and philology.

The academy “La Crusca” Accademia della Crusca, or “La Crusca” (literally, “Academy of the Bran”) is the oldest linguistic academy in the world and also one of the leading institutions in the field of Italian language research. It was established by five learned Florentine scholars, with Lionardo Salviati among them. Its members humorously referred to their meetings as “cruscate” (‘bran meetings’), which led to the name of the institution. As bran was the part of the wheat discarded from the grain, La Crusca was founded to “clean up” the unnecessary language and vocabulary. The institution also adopted a line by Francesco Petrarch, “il più bel fior ne coglie,” (it gathers the fairest flower) as their motto.

The symbology between grain, bran, and bread did not stop there. The objects and furniture in the institution are also related to grain, bran, and bread. Every member of the

institution had their own ceremonial spade (in the form of a wooden shovel) with personal symbolic images, nicknames and chosen mottos painted on them. For example, Lionardo Salviati’s name in La Crusca was “l’infarinato” (meaning “the one covered in flour”) and his ceremonial spade depicts a hedgehog covered in flour. Even after more than 400 years, Lionardo Salviati’s sense of humor is still appreciated.

Following Lionardo’s footsteps, subsequent members of the Salviati family also joined La Crusca, including Filippo Salviati (1583-1614), Vincenzio Salviati (1583-1654), and Alamanno Salviati (1669-1733). The Salviatis’ active participation in linguistic research has greatly contributed to the understanding and development of the Italian language. Accademia della Crusca survives to this day and is a respected member of the European Federation of National Linguistic Institutes.

VOCABULARY OF THE ACCADEMIA DELLA CRUSCA

The first dictionary of the Italian language.

This edition was printed in Florence in 1691.

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GALILEO GALILEI (1564-1642) The astronomer who discovered the language of the universe

Referred to as “the father of modern science” by Albert Einstein, Galileo Galilei is best known as the first scientist ever to use a telescope to observe the sky. But he was not only an astronomer; he was also a mathematician, a philosopher, and a physicist who invented new methods and instruments to make discoveries.

Born in Pisa in 1563, Galileo moved to Florence with his family when he was 8 years old. At his father’s urging, he went on to study medicine at the University of Pisa, but later convinced his father to let him study mathematics and natural philosophy instead. Although he left university in 1585 without earning a degree, he studied on his own. He invented a hydrostatic balance and published a small book, drawing the interest and attention of the scholarly world. Galileo was later hired back at the University of Pisa to teach mathematics, where he completed the famous free fall experiment from the top the Pisa tower. In 1592, to earn a higher pay, he moved to the Venetian Republic to teach geometry, mechanics and astronomy at the University of Padua.

Becoming “father of science” - the starry messenger In his 18 years in the university world, Galileo invented the air thermometer, the proportional compass, and improved the telescope in 1609 with 8x magnification. Later, he achieved 20x magnification of the telescope, which he then used to study the sky. He discovered that the moon was not a perfectly smooth and translucent sphere as previously believed, but instead had

GALILEO IN PRISON

1878 engraving, Carlo Piloty, 1826-1886

92 an uneven and rough terrain with craters and mountain-like

bulges. He also detected that the Milky Way was made up of a multitude of densely packed stars, and discovered three of Jupiter’s four orbiting stars. In 1610, he published these telescopic astronomical findings in Sidereus Nuncius (“Starry Messenger”). Galileo dedicated the book to his patron, Cosimo II de Medici, then Grand Duke of Florence, who built him a lab. Galileo left Padua, in the same year, and became Florence’s court mathematician and philosopher.

Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems The astronomical phenomenon documented in Sidereus Nuncius became important evidence that supported Copernicus’ heliocentric theory that the Earth and other planets revolved around the Sun. As a devout Catholic, Galileo knew very well that this theory was in conflict with the Aristotlelian geocentric model. Therefore he chose not to publicly defend the Copernican model. When his good friend and admirer Cardinal Maffeo Baberini became Pope Urban VIII in 1623, the pope permitted Galileo’s neutral discussion on the discrepancies between the theories of Copernicus and Aristotle.

In 1632, Galileo published “Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems,” featuring three characters: Filippo Salviati, Galileo’s friend and a Florentine noble, who argued for Copernicus; Giovanni Segredo, an intelligent mathematician who served as a neutrality; and Simplicio, who presented the traditional view and was supposedly named after Aristotlelian philosopher Simplicius of Cilicia but whose name also suggested the connotation of “simpleton.” Galileo wanted his work to reach a wider audience to convince them of the Copernican model. This lack of neutrality brought him trouble in the papal court for its seeming attack on geocentrism.

Galileo was eventually tried, forced to plead guilty and sentenced to house arrest for the rest of his life. “Dialogue” was banned, and Galileo was forbidden to publish any future works.

Death and legacy While under house arrest, Galileo completed one of his finest works, “Discourse concerning Two New Sciences,” featuring a summary of his works, which was sent for publication in Holland in 1636 to avoid the censor. Galileo went blind two

years later, and died in 1642. His student, the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Ferdinand II, wanted to bury Galileo in the main body of the Basilica of Holy Cross and erect a marble mausoleum in his honor. However, since Galileo’s scientific theories were condemned by the Catholic Church, the Grand Duke’s plans were eventually dropped.

In 1737, after heliocentrism was proven by Issac Newton, Galileo was reinterred in the Basilica. During the move, three of Galileo’s fingers, a rib and a tooth were removed, as was the practice of preserving saintly relics. One of the fingers is exhibited at Florence’s Institute and Museum of the History of Science (the only human remains on display in the science museum). The museum was renamed Museo Galileo in 2010.

All of Galileo’s works were eventually removed from the banned list in 1853, and the Copernican model that the Earth revolved around the Sun was commonly accepted as truth by the 20th century. Some have argued that Galileo’s argumentative and sarcastic nature made him many enemies, leading to his eventual lack of acceptance during his lifetime. However, his curiosity and steadfast pursuit of proven truths made many major advances in science possible. His inquisitive and dogged spirit serve as an inspiration not only for scientists but also for anyone promoting new and unpopular ideas within the established boundaries. Galileo showed us through ardent persistence that advancement can be achieved towards a better informed world.

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View from the Galileo suite: from left, Bargello museum tower, Badia fiorentina bell tower and Palazzo Vecchio

Palazzo Portinari Salviati dedicates the charming attic room to Galileo Galilei, for those curious minds wishing to explore Florence and observe the sky as Galileo once did so brilliantly. Standing on the private balcony, three historical Florence towers in different architectural styles can be seen at a glance.

On right: the famous tower of Palazzo Vecchio, also called Torre di Arnolfo, was once used as a prison cell. Middle: the tower of

Badia Fiorentina with a pointed gothic top, located right across from Dante’s birthplace, a mere 70 meters away from Palazzo Portinari Salviati. Left: the medieval style tower of the Bargello museum, a former barracks and prison, now containing one of the largest collections of gothic and Renaissance sculptures, including Donatello’s less famous but equally captivating version of “David.”

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REFERENCES

CREDITS

Accademia della Crusca: Il piu bel fior ne coglie 2015.

The Sala delle Pale.

This is a joyful collaboration between Julie Chang and Monica Shen

Allori, Alessandro, and I. B. Supino. 1908. I ricordi di Alessandro Allori. Firenze: Biblioteca della Rivista d’Arte.

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Botke, Klazina. 2017. La gloria della famiglia Salviati: Het kunstmecenaat van de Salviati in Florence tijdens de heerschappij van de Medici. Groningen: Rijksuniversiteit Groningen.

Contributors texts and editing: Elaine Chang, Nelson Chang, Sharon Lin, Teresa Orfanello and Tom Rosenfeld Art design Cristiana Rinaldi Photo sources Accademia della Crusca, Biblioteca Civica Queriniana di Brescia, Salviati-Centro Archivistico SNS, Damiano Chiesa and Uffizi Galleries Publication date July 2022, first edition Published by LDC Italian Hotels © All rights reserved, do not reprint

Dooley, Brendan. 2014. A Mattress Maker’s Daughter: The Renaissance Romance of Don Giovanni de’ Medici and Livia Vernazza. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

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MARY MAGDALENE WITH CHRIST THAT APPEARS AS A GARDENER

by Alessandro Allori, in the Palazzo’s Chapel

96 next pages

MARBLE STATUE OF COSIMO I DE’ MEDICI

Fragmentary Roman statue in lorica cuirass (a form of ancient Roman armour) to which the head of Grand Duke Cosimo I de’ Medici was added, executed by Giovanni Francesco Susini (Florence,1585). On the base of the sculpture: HAS INTER/MATERNAS AEDES/PUER REPTAVIT/ COSMUS/ QUAS NUNC STABILI/FULCIT PEDE/ IN DIADEMATIS MAIESTATE

Free translation: In this maternal rooms, Cosimo crawled as an infant. He, who now with firm stance radiates in the majesty of the diadem.

MADONNA AND CHILD WITH ST. ZENOBIUS, ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST

The center of the wall painting depicts the Madonna with the child Jesus, in which she is enthroned in majesty as the Queen of Heaven. On the proper right side stands St. John the Baptist, protector and patron saint of Florence, with his camel skin and astylar cross. On the proper left there is Saint Zenobius, who was the first bishop of Florence. His relics are currently preserved in a bronze shrine designed by Lorenzo Ghiberti located in the Santa Maria del Fiore.