Palazzo Medici on Via Larga, Florence
Although Paolo Giordano only spent a certain period of each year in Florence, in 1563 he and Isabella began to maintain their own residence in the city, apart from the rest of her family. The building of the new Uffizi had rendered vacant a prime piece of real estate – the Palazzo Medici on the Via Larga, which had been housing several of the bureaucratic offices now moving to the new address. Despite his irregular presence in Florence, Paolo was keen for himself and Isabella to take over the Palazzo Medici, for the occupancy of a separate ‘Orsini’ residence would make him appear less dependent upon the Medici family than might actually be the case. He campaigned quite hard for the privilege. Real estate was always at a premium in Florence’s small city centre. Even the illustrious might share rooms, and there were plenty of ambassadors, foreign officials and dignitaries willing to pay dearly, in more ways than the purely financial, to be the old Medici palace’s tenants. Paolo petitioned Cosimo, who took his time making up his mind. Frustrated, Paolo turned to Giovanni prior to his death, who proved to be no more helpful. The cardinal wrote to Gianozzo Cepparello, the agent Cosimo had appointed to act on Paolo’s behalf in Florence: ‘We have spoken to the Duke our father about the old house on the Via Larga, whose rooms Signor Paolo would desire for his own person. His Excellency has replied that it depends, and so we cannot say otherwise, as we need to do whatever His Excellency orders.’1 Giovanni, it seems, was not particularly anxious to see his father allow his brother-in-law a headquarters in their town, one which his sister would be expected to occupy and so be apart from him.
Eventually, Cosimo acquiesced to Paolo’s demand and allowed his old family palace to be set aside for the use of his daughter and son-in-law. Furthermore, in the aftermath of Giovanni’s death, Isabella became much more interested in maintaining a home of her own, whereas previously she was content to reside wherever her brother was. She might be close to her father, but now she wanted a residence of her own. The Palazzo Medici became associated specifically with Isabella, especially during Paolo’s long absences from Florence. Moreover, Isabella had become increasingly interested in her Medici heritage, and so to reside in the original family palace allowed her a special and privileged connection with her family’s past.
Isabella’s new home had been designed in the fifteenth century in such a way as to assure Florence that Medici ambition was not overreaching and that the family would never think of competing with the official seat of government, the Palazzo Vecchio. When Cosimo the Elder had initially commissioned the Medici palace in 1444, he had turned to Brunelleschi to produce the design. The architect presented his model to Cosimo at a gathering of the Florentine elite. Cosimo the Elder complimented Brunelleschi on his work, and then added: ‘But it’s too magnificent and sumptuous for me.’2 Cosimo’s Florentine compatriots were relieved to see that his ambition did, apparently, have its limitations. They therefore uttered no protest at the hardly diminutive, barely modest, rusticated palace, emblazoned with Medici palle and resembling a banking house, that the architect Michelozzo went on to produce as the Palazzo Medici. Comparatively speaking, it seemed like a lesser building to the one Brunelleschi had proposed.
The Medici patriarch proceeded to create an environment which dazzled its visitors, who would gasp at the ‘studies, little chapels, living rooms, bedchambers and gardens, all of which are constructed and decorated with admirable skill, embellished with gold and fine marbles, carvings and sculptures in relief, pictures and inlays done in perspective by the most accomplished and perfect of masters, down to the benches and all the floors of the house … then a garden all created of the most beautiful polished marbles with various plants, which seems a thing not natural but painted’.3 Cosimo the Elder’s grandson Lorenzo the Magnificent continued his grandfather’s work, notably turning the courtyard into a sculpture garden in which the young Michelangelo studied. The Palazzo Medici certainly stood as a symbol of Medici power, and was a target for the Florentines when they ran the family out of town in 1494. They stripped it of many of its magnificent decorations: Donatello’s statues of a stunningly sexual bronze David and a militant Judith, whom the republicans moved to the Palazzo Vecchio to stand as a triumph against tyranny.
In the subsequent decades after the return of the Medici, the family decided for reasons of security to wall up the open loggia originally created on the ground floor of the palace facing out onto the Via Larga. They used a design by Michelangelo, produced by the artist around 1517, to fill in the open space with windows of ‘extraordinary beauty’. Inflated hyperbolic volutes employed under the window sills suggested they were carrying an especially heavy load, a symbol of the gravitas of the Medici family. As such, the windows, anthropomorphically kneeling, became known as finestre inginocchiate, ‘kneeling windows’, and came to be used in designs all over Florence to signify loyalty to the Medici.
Not long after Isabella moved into her family’s old palace, Michelangelo’s windows came to be endowed with even greater value and prestige. On 18 February 1564, their architect, in his eighty-ninth year and in failing health, died in Rome, irritating Isabella’s father for having concealed his plans for the facade of the church of San Lorenzo, unfinished to this day. Nonetheless, the duke authorized a magnificent funeral procession for the artist, who had wished to be buried in Florence, that was attended, it seemed, by the entire city, ‘who appreciate him much more now than they did when he was alive’.4 When the coffin was opened at its final destination, the church of Santa Croce, those present marvelled that the body had not decomposed. ‘It is a divine sign’, some said, ‘that the body was not decayed.’5 Michelangelo had indeed become the Il Divino he had believed himself to be. And what Isabella now saw as ‘her’ windows, a rare piece of secular architecture from their creator’s hand, became increasingly sacred.
Paolo and Isabella took on not only Isabella’s ancestral residence. Close to the Palazzo Medici was the Palazzo Antinori, whose owners, the Antinori family, were loyal supporters of the Medici and had modelled their own home on their neighbours’ palace. They rented a considerable part of it to Paolo Giordano to accommodate the substantial retinue he always brought with him to Florence. Needless to say, this expense, as well as those associated with the Palazzo Medici, all came out of Paolo’s own pocket, all year round, even when he was absent from the city.
The expenses for Paolo and Isabella’s life at the Palazzo Medici were recorded in Libri di entrate e uscite – the double-entry book-keeping system the Medici bankers had helped pioneer over a century ago. This task was the responsibility of their accountant, Gian Battista Capponi, whose family were loyal supporters of Isabella. It covered a myriad of expenditures, beginning with improving the fabric of the palace itself, described as the ‘amigliorando [improvement] del Palazzo Medici’, which included tasks such as the repointing and whitewashing of Isabella’s personal suite of rooms adjoining the palace’s cortile and garden.6 Also under the heading ‘amigliorando’ was payment to ‘Alberto Fiorentino, natapharo’, a diver called in ‘to clean out the kitchen well, where a cat had fallen in’. Other aquatic expenses included the barrels of water regularly brought from the River Arno ‘for the Signora’s bath’. In addition, ‘Francesco della Camilla scultore’ was hired to revive the courtyard’s fountain.
When Paolo and Isabella moved into the Palazzo Medici, they required new furnishings, mostly chosen by Isabella, such as canopied beds. Under ‘the expense of seats’ came ‘benches for la signora’ and four low chairs upholstered in turquoise velvet. Dining sets for thirty-two people were also purchased, giving a sense of the number of guests who would come to dinner. At the same time, costs were incurred from moving belongings in and out of the palace, as when Isabella travelled to spend periods at one of the family villas, she took with her her own bed linen, folding chairs and wall hangings. Another category of expenses was the ‘spesa d’arme’ – weapons to protect the establishment, such as crossbows, harquebus, lances and swords. The Palazzo Medici had been built to resemble a strongbox, but it was only as secure as those protecting it were armed, as a former resident, Alessandro de’ Medici, had learned to his cost.
The ‘spesa di vestire’ – clothing expenses – listed such items as yellow silk purchased to clothe ‘His Illustrious Lordship’, red silk shoes or a hat ‘made with peacock feathers and silver tassels, lined in taffeta, from Andrea Cortesi, known as the rich merchant’. Paolo liked extravagant hats, as Camilla the prostitute had recounted in her trial. His shirts were bought from the Dominican nuns at the convent up the street, Santa Caterina da Siena. The Orsini account also paid for the servants’ clothing – a livery for the footmen, for example – and no expense was spared on the quality of these fabrics. Lengths of red and yellow silk and velvet and red taffeta shot with yellow were purchased to dress the household. The palace’s ever-growing number of pageboys were dressed in costly blue velvet. These were the teenage sons of Florentine nobles, and there was a great deal of competition among the families to have them placed in the household of one of the Medici, as it was an invaluable means of entrance into, and advancement at, court. For Isabella and her family, it was a means of securing the loyalty of this younger generation. Nor was it cheap to feed and clothe this army of teenagers, not to mention the washing of their clothes. The washerwoman, Caterina lavanderia, was kept busy at this task. But while the expenses incurred by pages, these boys from good families, regularly feature across the account books, there was another army of servants who are quite invisible. These were the slaves, some from eastern Europe, others African blacks like the mother of the late Alessandro de’ Medici, who lived high up in the Palazzo Medici’s attic. Even with such indentured labour, another listed expense was that of staordimani – extra pairs of hands – to supplement workers in the kitchen or dining room when needed.
Although the Palazzo Medici had been stripped of many of its original objects, others had come to take their place. A gilded Mercury adorned the fountain in the small cortile, while a bronze horse’s head was displayed in the larger courtyard. There were small tables of mother of pearl or alabaster, and silver candelabra. Isabella kept precious objects in the studiolo, small study, which she now claimed as hers, such as pieces of ebony or the the skin, complete with head and tail, of an animal only identified as a ‘great golden cat’, perhaps a puma or a jaguar, ‘from the Indias’.7 Other items would include nautilus cups, elaborately embossed vessels made from the vast sea shells of the same name found in the Pacific and Indian oceans and a fan made from red parrot feathers. There were ancient cameos, figures carved from two-tone onyx, or pieces of agate or coral, all items the Medici family collected avidly. Isabella commissioned some pictures too, including a ‘Noli me Tangere’, the dramatic scene where Christ first reveals himself to Mary Magdalene after his resurrection.
Isabella also used Orsini funds for the ‘spese di limosine’ – alms giving. These were never vast sums, but they were donated to a variety of institutions and individuals, including ‘the poor company of orphans’, ‘Anna, the poor widow’, and nuns from the convent of the Murate. Isabella also paid for the novitiate meal when one Caterina Zoppetta entered the convent of Santa Chiara. ‘Le spese di limosine’ also encompassed the cost of the wine ‘ordered by the Signora to give to Captain Saldano, who came before the Illustrious Signora on Good Friday to beg for charity’, as well as ‘two bottles of wine’ for her confessor. Isabella also ordered that the troubled Carlo Fortunati, the son of her maidservant and a murderer once banned from Florence, be given money as ‘alms’ as well.
A large proportion of funds were directed towards ‘the expense of hunting’, ‘the expense of the stable’ and ‘the expense of the coach’. Hunting required the purchase of dogs and hawks and payment of the salaries of those who looked after them, such as ‘Moretta da Melia, who governs the dogs’ – the chief kennel man. Both canines and birds of prey were heavy consumers of meat, and the birds needed hoods, made from beautifully tooled leather, the hounds collars and leashes. The sport also necessitated the procurement of further weapons, not to mention the horses. These animals were like a court unto themselves, with their own litany of servants, groomsmen and stable boys to take care of them. A stable boy was described as a famiglio, a familiar of the stable, and there were around fifteen of them in number, several of them from further north, such as Cesare da Modena and Geronimo Piacentino (from Piacenza). Paolo and Isabella still stabled mules, primarily for the use of Isabella’s ladies-in-waiting, but whereas mules might have once outnumbered horses in a stable, it was now the other way around. All the animals required tack: bits, bridles, velvet trappings. Pisicotto the saddler was paid the substantial sum of 126 scudi to make saddles for the mounts of Isabella and her ladies.
The kings of this stable were two stallions: an Arabian, described as ‘il cavallo turcho’, and a black one, ‘il morello’, whom Paolo liked to use for his travels between Rome and Florence. Copious correspondence passed between Paolo and his stable manager as they looked for appropriate additions to his equipe. One had ‘good form, but is a little bit capricious’, another had ‘a beautiful face, and is a sincere horse, but is coldly melancholic’. Such descriptions give a good sense of Paolo Giordano and his associates’ understanding of, and obsession with, the relationship between equine personality and performance. There was also a hunter and a chinea, a hacking horse, in the stable specifically for Isabella’s use, but her real pride and joy were the four white coach horses she had secured, who were perfectly matched. She had tried and failed to get her brother Francesco to part with a chestnut horse who would match one she already had in her stables. She became equally jealous of her white ponies, which she hated to loan out. ‘Tell your coachman he had better be careful with my little white horses,’ she warned her husband when he persuaded her to let him borrow them.8
Sourcing identical equines was a by-product of what had become only quite recently the latest, most luxurious and expensive status symbol in Italy: the coach, or cocchio or carrozza. Up until the mid sixteenth century, the Italian carriage had changed little since the times of ancient Rome. Not much more than a covered wagon, it had little to protect a passenger from the jostles and jolts of the road. It was a slow and unglamorous form of transportation, not one the fashionconscious Italian elite would willingly seek out. However, in the early sixteenth century the Hungarians devised a spring suspension system for carriages. This new invention provided a much faster and smoother ride in coaches described by the Italians as carrozza all’ongaresca. And as roads further improved, the coach became an ever-greater object of desire.
As fashionable young nobles, Paolo and Isabella were first in line for a coach, wanting at least one for themselves at the Palazzo Medici. The cost of the vehicle was such that Cosimo actually advanced Paolo 105 scudi to pay for its red leather upholstery alone. More money was spent on painting the frame in red and gilt.
Riding the streets of Florence in a coach painted red and gold and drawn by four white horses would certainly have created a dashing sight. The Florentine writer Lionardo Salviati boasted of the time Isabella actually sent her grand coach to bring him to her house. She also procured a more stately but no less eye-catching means of transportation: a lettica, or litter, which she had outfitted in peacock-blue velvet and brocade. Litters had traditionally been employed by pregnant women or by the sick, as being carried through the streets was certainly more comfortable and less bumpy than riding a horse or going by coach. Isabella was always prone to exaggerate her ailments and to discuss them in detail – descriptions of an ear infection she suffered featured regularly in court dispatches – but her illnesses never prevented her from attending hunts and parties. Consequently, one might suppose that what Isabella, in her early twenties, found appealing about a litter was appearing in public raised up on such an opulent platform, as if this Medici princess was the Queen of Sheba, first lady of Florence, if not, in her mind, the entire world.
Notes – 2 At Home with Paolo and Isabella
1 Catena, 292.
2 Vasari, II, 433.
3 Rab Hatfield, ‘Some Unknown Descriptions of the Medici Palace in 1459’, Art Bulletin, 52, September 1970, 246.
4 Rudolf and Margaret Wittkower, The Divine Michelangelo; The Florentine Academy’s Homage on His Death in 1564, London, 1964, 16.
5 Ibid., 16.
6 ASF, MDP 6375, 6376.
7 ASF, Guardaroba, 79.
8 ASC, AO, I, 157, 263.