A new perspective on the Santo Spirito quartiere - By Maartje Visser

“La prossima fermata; Piazza Frescobaldi”, I always heard this announcement for the next bus stop when I travelled from the Dutch University Institute for Art History to the Santa Maria Novella train station in Florence, not knowing the Frescobaldi family would be the topic of my research internship some time later. This summer, I spent three months in the beautiful city of Florence to research the Frescobaldi family as part of the Patrician Patronage Project. This internship not only gave me the opportunity to gain insight into the history of the Frescobaldi family, but it also provided me with a deeper knowledge of the history of Florence in general, especially about the area that belonged to the Frescobaldi for centuries, the Santo Spirito quartiere.

The Frescobaldi coat-of-arms

Some Interesting Recent History of a Rinuccini Castle - by Tessel Luitjens

Fig. 1 Villa Torre a Cona

This spring I have been a research intern at the Dutch Institute for Art History in Florence for the Patrician Patronage Project. The project aims to research the artistic activities undertaken by Florentine patrician families between 1530 and 1670. Allocated to me were the Rinuccini, a family I had never heard of before, but of whom I now speak as “my family”. The Rinuccini came from Cona, a small village in the heart of the Chianti, just ten kilometres south of Florence. Their Villa Torre a Cona is surrounded by a breath-taking scenery of vineyards and olive groves (fig. 1). Today, it houses a wine estate, where we can experience all the good of the Rinuccini in liquid form (although it is no longer in their possession; the last male Rinuccini died in 1848). 

A warm welcome at an old palace – By Ellen Bakker

It was a beautiful spring day when I walked down the Via di San Leonardo to the city centre of Florence. On my way I enjoyed the blooming wisteria and the sounds of birds, and I imagined that people could have enjoyed this same route centuries ago. Nowadays, the presence of rushing cars and scooters passing by every now and then clearly makes a difference. Even though you might think the cityscape of Florence has remained the same for the past centuries, in fact some of it has changed.  The same is true for the place that I was headed to that day, namely the Villa Gualfonda.

Rear side of Villa Gualfonda, Florence
(Photo: author)

My PPP-internship - By Charley Ladee

Gondi coat of arms
(source: http://www.gondi.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/ storia_00.jpg)

From January until March 2016, I stayed at the Dutch Institute in Florence to conduct research for the Patrician Patronage Project (PPP). Allocated to me were the Gondi: as it turned out a rather significant Florentine family that gendered several important patrons for the arts in the sixteenth century. After indicating and registering the works of art they owned and commissioned, I decided to investigate how this family’s commissions and collections evidenced their position within the contemporary political and cultural climate. An elaboration can be found in the form of a paper, posted on this website.

A hidden pearl of Niccolini patronage – By Lara Fernández Piqueras

In the Via dei Servi, leading from Brunelleschi’s Duomo to the more modest but equally impressive Piazza Santissima Annunziata, appears the monumental edifice that once belonged to the prosperous Niccolini family. Palazzo Niccolini housed the sumptuous art collection of one of the family’s foremost art patrons: Giovanni Niccolini (1544-1611). He was the son of Agnolo Niccolini (1502-1567), a successful ambassador of Cosimo I de’ Medici. In the last years of his life, Agnolo even reached the status of cardinal. Giovanni followed in his father’s footsteps as loyal servant of the Medici court. In 1570, Niccolini became part of grand duke Cosimo’s entourage when the latter received the Grand Ducal crown and from 1578 until 1610, Giovanni resided in Rome as Florentine ambassador to the Papal court. His Roman sojourn influenced Niccolini’s art patronage, since he acquired many antiquities to adorn his Florentine palace. Over time, this splendorous collection became dispersed and it is now lost without any trace. Fortunately, the Cappella Niccolini remains intact and gives an idea of Niccolini’s rich art patronage. Giovanantonio Dosio (1533-1610) designed the family chapel in the Franciscan church of Santa Croce and decorated the walls with many coloured marble slabs of archaeological provenance, acquired on the Roman art market. 

Villa Salviati at Ponte alla Badia - by Klazina Botke

Villa Salviati near Ponte alla Badia

If we wonder off north, into the hills of Florence, and follow the Via Bolognese, the world around us slowly changes. The red and yellow colours of the Florentine palazzi, and the busy noisy streets, are slowly being replaced by small roads with walls surrounding lush gardens, tall trees peeking over enclosures, and soft rolling hills. After a little while, the high roof of a large building shows up on our left-hand side. Walking through the gate, a villa comes into full view. Built in the fourteenth century as a small castle, and made into a countryside villa by the patrician Alamanno Salviati in 1445, the building now houses the Historical Archives of the European Union. It was recently renovated, and beautifully restored to its former sixteenth-century glory.

Palazzo Torrigiani già del Nero Part 2 - by Prof Dr Henk Th. Van Veen

After Agostino del Nero had bought Roberto Nasi’s unfinished new palazzo in 1552, he hired Domenico di Baccio d’Agnolo, Baccio’s most talented son, to finish the job. In the second edition of his Le Vite de’ più eccellenti pittori, scultori ed architettori (1568), Giorgio Vasari wrote that for Agostino, Domenico had made on the Piazza de’Mozzi ‘the corner parts and a beautiful terrace to those houses of the Nasi that his father Baccio had already started to build’ (‘[…] in sulla piazza de’ Mozzi le cantonate, ed un bellissimo terrazzo a quelle case de’ Nasi già cominciate da Baccio suo Padre’). However, Domenico cannot have accomplished much, because he already died a year after Agostino had hired him. In documents on Palazzo del Nero, Valentina Catalucci recently found that Agostino had Davide Fortini, an architect who did important engineering projects for the Medici, work on the palazzo.* I gather that Fortini succeeded Domenico as architect of the palazzo and that what Vasari described was all his doing. Leonardo Ginori Lisci, author of the standard work on Florentine palazzi**, recognized the building as described by Vasari, in a print with the Del Nero genealogical tree from 1590. (fig. 1)

The little evidence of the Soderini in Florence - By Sinja Aardema

In the spring of 2016 I did an internship at the Patrician Patronage Project in Florence. It was a wonderful time in which I researched the patronage of the Soderini family of the period 1530-1670. Nowadays, the Soderini family is not one of the most famous patrician families of Florence.  Some descendants, however, made their way into the history books. Well-known, for example, are Piero Soderini (1450-1522), who was the gonfaloniere a vita of the Florentine Republic from 1503 until the Medici returned in 1512, and his brother Cardinal Francesco Soderini (1453-1524). There is not much known about the Soderini in the sixteenth and seventeenth century and not much is left of their patronage. Therefore, it was really exciting when I did encounter the little physical ‘evidence’ still visible in Florence.

Giambologna's bust of Jupiter, ca. 1560, Boboli Gardens, Florence
(Photo: author)

In Florence, on the Arno, near the bridge - By Henk Th. van Veen

On the south bank of the Arno, right next to the Ponte alle Grazie and facing the Piazza dei Mozzi, stands palazzo Torrigiani già Del Nero.

Palazzo Torrigiani già Del Nero

The building offers only a feeble reflexion of its erstwhile grandeur. Here the Del Nero resided. In those days the palazzo rose straight from the river-bed and formed one massif whole – a veritable bridgehead – with the  Ponte à Rubaconte, the longest bridge of Florence, also known as Ponte alle Grazie, because of the characteristic chapels that were built on it.  

From pillar to post - By Lotte van ter Toolen

After my failed attempt to visit San Gaggio, I decided it was time to turn to the church of Santo Spirito for my research on the Corsini family. In 1804 the tomb monuments, busts and cenotaphs of the Corsini had been moved from San Gaggio to this church, where the family had owned a chapel as well.

              In 1300 the Corsini Chapel (La Cappella dei Principi Corsini) was founded on the east-side of the second cloister of Santo Spirito, the so-called chiostro grande dell’Ammannati. As of 2007 this cloister has lost its religious function and it now belongs to a military institute. But although this cloister now holds a branch of the Esercito Italiano (the Italian army), the Corsini Chapel itself has not been turned into a military office and, luckily, is still intact. Therefore, I left the Dutch University Institute of Art History in good spirits on the day of my second excursion, confident and eager to finally see some Corsini monuments. Seeing as I had spent the last days studying in the library, bent over books and barely moving, I decided to walk all the way down the hill to the church.