Palazzo Pazzi, also known as "della Congiura" or Palazzo Pazzi-Quaratesi, is a historic building in the center of Florence, located in via del Proconsolo 10, at the corner with Borgo Albizzi 31. It is one of the best examples of civil architecture in the city of the Renaissance, for which it appears in the list drawn up in 1901 by the Directorate General of Antiquities and Fine Arts, as a monumental building to be considered a national artistic heritage.
It was Jacopo de' Pazzi who wanted a large family palace on the site
of some houses belonging to it, also to be able to compete with the
other very rich families of the city such as the Medici and the Albizzi.
The name of the architect who was entrusted with this new project is not
known, but today we tend to consider it more probable that of Giuliano
da Maiano, who would have worked on it between 1458 and 1469 and who
created Villa La Loggia for the same family , instead of those of
Filippo Brunelleschi, author of the Pazzi chapel, or Michelozzo. It is
however possible that Brunelleschi provided some ideas and projects
developed and then implemented by Giuliano da Maiano, just as da Maiano
supervised the completion of the chapel in Santa Croce. Beyond the
question of attribution, the building is still to be considered, both
for the period of construction, for the elegance of the forms, and for
the dimensions, among the most important in the city, a model for many
other residences of the ruling classes of Florence late fifteenth
century.
The palace is in fact also called "della Congiura"
because the very branch of the family that resided there was responsible
for the conspiracy against the Medici, which led to the killing of
Giuliano and the wounding of Lorenzo, but then becoming fatal for the
Pazzi family who severely punished with the killing of some of its
members (including Jacopo himself), the banishment of its members from
the city and the confiscation of all their assets, including this
building.
The palace was then granted to Cardinal Guillaume
d'Estouteville, a longtime friend of Lorenzo, until his death in 1483.
It was brought as a dowry by Lorenzo's daughter Maddalena on the
occasion of her wedding with Franceschetto Cybo, which took place on
February 25, 1487 in the Vatican. Their son Lorenzo Cybo then married
Ricciarda Malaspina, Marchioness of Massa and Carrara, originating the
Cybo Malaspina family, which owned the building throughout the sixteenth
century. The name of the building as Palazzo delle Marchesane di Massa
dates back to this period, and it was known throughout the city for the
social life that the owners of the building used to lead. For example,
in 1534 they were the first in the city to use carriages (called
"cocchi"), which initially caused a stir due to the noise that the
wheels made on the pavement.
In 1593 it passed to the Strozzi,
who kept it until 1796 when it became the property of the Quaratesi. In
1843 it changed hands again, being bought by Ferdinando de Rast, a rich
German baron, who, after visiting Florence on a trip, chose it as his
permanent residence. After his death he arranged for the palace to be
handed over to a religious institute in Coburg, which however sold it
shortly afterwards. In 1850 this was the seat of the Tribunal of the
Supreme Court of Cassation and in the period of Florence Capital
(1865-1871) it housed the Masonic lodge of the Grand Orient of Italy and
also, in other environments, it was rented to the Prussian Embassy of
Italy , and partly intended for accommodation of the diplomat Karl
George Ludwig von Usedow.
In 1913 it was purchased by the Banca
di Firenze, which had it restored by the architects Ezio Cerpi and
Adolfo Coppedè (1913-1915). Among other things, the latter closed the
fifteenth-century courtyard at the level of the first floor with an iron
and cast iron cover, in order to make it usable for services to users.
The monumental entrance to the lift and various paintings and stained
glass windows by Galileo and Chino Chini date back to this same
intervention.
The passage to the current owner, the National
Institute of Social Security which has its Florentine headquarters here,
dates back to 1931. It was restored in 1960, this time on a philological
basis and under the direction of the superintendents Ugo Procacci and
Guido Morozzi. As part of the works, among other things, the
fifteenth-century courtyard was freed from the superstructure and the
stone members (chiseled during the previous construction site)
reintegrated. "For the integration of the missing parts of the capitals,
the method of reproducing them in imitation stone casts and applying
them with special metal supports to the damaged walls was followed; and
this in order not to generate uncertainty between the authentic parts
and reassembled ones".
A further restoration was completed in
2010. Given the importance of the building, the creation of an
"ecological island" right on the side of its main facade, approved by
the City Council in 2012 and built in the same year, appears highly
questionable.
The Marquis Leonardo Ginori Lisci in one of his famous studies enumerated the "seven most beautiful palaces in Florence" (fishing above all in Renaissance architecture) such as the Medici-Riccardi, Rucellai, Pitti, Strozzi, Antinori, Gondi and Pazzi palaces.
The palace responds perfectly to the canons imposed by Leon Battista
Alberti's De re aedificatoria, which recommended facades "delicately and
gracefully decorated rather than superbly". Access to the building takes
place from two gates, on Borgo Albizi and on via del Proconsolo, which
are equipped with large "brachettoni" which increase their grandeur.
The facade is dominated by the contrast between the rustic ashlar of
the ground floor and the white plaster of the two upper floors,
embellished by elegant mullioned windows underlined by serrated string
courses. The choice of plastering was very original in the fifteenth
century, when compared to contemporary buildings, and it lightened the
austerity of the facade, but it cannot be excluded that the plaster was
originally painted with graffiti or with a fake ashlar. The upper
windows have refined decorative elements such as vines and plant
elements in the frame, Corinthian columns and the family business of the
three crescents, which recalled the Fiesole origins of the family, and
of the boat with sails inflated by the wind, which alluded to the
maritime trade of the mercantile activity. The highest band is decorated
with oculi below the protruding eaves. The windows on the ground floor,
with frames made up of prism-oriented ashlars, can instead be traced
back to the seventeenth century, replacing other decidedly smaller
openings.
On the corner the large shield with the Pazzi coat of
arms (in blue, with two leaping gold dolphins set against each other,
placed between five flowered crosses), attributed to Donatello, copy of
the original preserved in the entrance hall and restored in 2000.
However, the original location of the shield was at the entrance to the
Pazzi garden on the other side of the road, where the Banca d'Italia
building is located today.
On the corner is an aedicule
containing a marble bas-relief with a profile of the Virgin, perhaps
from the end of the sixteenth century. On via del Proconsolo there is
also a wine hole.
The courtyard has a portico with three arches on three sides and is
among the finest in Florence, similar to those of Palazzo Medici or
Palazzo Strozzi, but with a lighter pace. The capitals of the columns,
which support the nine round arches in pietraforte, are decorated with
dolphins (like those of the coat of arms) and small vases containing the
"sacred fire" which springs from the flints legendarily brought from the
Holy Land by Pazzino de' Pazzi after the first crusade, which are still
used to start the traditional explosion of the cart. The internal view
of the building is decorated with mullioned windows similar to those of
the façade and, on the top floor, with a loggia, now closed by glass but
originally open.
From the courtyard comes a finely sculpted
marble basin with the insignia of Jacopo de' Pazzi, attributed to
Giuliano da Maiano and his brothers, and now kept in the Metropolitan
Museum in New York.
The staircase to the upper floors is accessed from the entrance hall,
but originally one passed through the courtyard. On the first floor
there is a monumental compass referable to the works of Coppedé.
The room that overlooks the garden has a remarkable coffered ceiling and
a detached fresco with Pazzino de' Pazzi along the walls of Jerusalem
hangs along the wall; there are also two canvases with religious
subjects here: the Last Supper and the Washing of the Feet.
A
small room on this floor, perhaps the old chapel, has a barrel vault
covered with frescoes in the style of Bernardino Poccetti and a floor
with geometric marble inlays. It is very probable that the Pazzi Madonna
by Donatello, today in the Bode Museum in Berlin, comes from this
chapel. In a nearby room the ceiling is decorated with a fresco with the
Allegory of the four seasons.
The second floor has an interesting
room called The Pompeian, due to the grotesques that decorate the
ceiling. From here you can access the roof terrace, which offers a
suggestive panorama of Florence.