Palazzo Minerbetti is located on the corner between via dei Tornabuoni and via del Parione, with an edge towards piazza Santa Trinita in Florence.
The original building dates back to the end of the thirteenth century
or the beginning of the fourteenth century, built by the Bombeni family
and purchased in the second half of the fifteenth century by the
Minerbettis, an ancient family apparently of English origin, a secondary
branch of the Beckets, fleeing their country after the 'killing of the
Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas A. Becket, who already owned other
buildings in the area.
In the thirties of the eighteenth century
the staircase was rebuilt and the terrace in the corner with via del
Parione was restructured; in 1761 an alcove and a private chapel were
built by the architect Pier Giovanni Fabbroni, with fresco decoration by
Diacinto Fabbroni, who also painted a panel for the altar with the
Martyrdom of St. Thomas Beckett.
On 2 July 1767 the palace had
the honor of hosting the Grand Dukes to attend the Palio of San Giovanni
Gualberto: on the occasion the small terrace was rearranged by removing
a pergola and arranging drapes of precious white and red fabrics lined
with yellow gold.
In 1771 the family died out and the palace
passed to the Santinis and subsequently to the Buonvisi Montecatinis of
Lucca. In 1886 the windows on the first floor were regularized and in
1906 those on the second, where the window sill frame, deteriorated over
time, was also rebuilt, lowering it by about 40 cm to eliminate the two
steps that were used to look out the windows.
In the 19th century
it was used as a hotel (hotel del Pellicano and locanda d'Europa), a
function it still retains today on the top floors, and was later
purchased by the Compagnia Fondiaria.
Today the building is mainly in a late medieval style, with a
rusticated ashlar sloping along the entire facade, which gives a solid
appearance to the building. There are eight arched windows on each
floor, but a 19th-century print shows six. The top floor is a covered
roof terrace. Among the seven portals on the ground floor, the first on
the left gives access to the building, while the third is exceptionally
high, up to the entire mezzanine: this is due to the fact that an alley
once passed through there, below that which was called the vault of the
Minerbetti and which connected via Tornabuoni with the narrow via del
Purgatorio, visible for example in the map by Buonsignori of 1584.
The ground floor has openings with irregular axes, which demonstrate
the unification of three original buildings: a building with four
windows including the alley and two houses with two arches and two
portals, one of which was purchased in 1518 by the Delle Bombardis. The
homogenization of the elevations dates back to the 19th century
intervention.
On the corner there is a body that looks like a
different building, but it is the same building, which here has a large
terrace at the level of the main floor, decorated with a wrought iron
railing. It was made smaller in the 19th century, when the two upper
floors communicating with the rest of the building were raised. The
Minerbetti coat of arms is also found on this corner.