The Rise and Fall of the House of Medici (57 page)

16.
   The
VILLA OF POGGIO IMPERIALS
had once belonged to the Baroncelli and then to the Salviati. It derives its present name from the Grand Duchess Maria Maddalena of Austria who bought it in 1619. It was afterwards the home of Napoleon’s sister, Elisa Baciocchi, and is now a girls’ school.

17.
   Three hundred volumes of Galileo’s papers are now housed in the
BIBLIOTEC AN A ZION ALE
in the Corso dei Tintori where collections of Poliziano’s, Michelangelo’s and Machiavelli’s papers are also kept. Many of the manuscripts and books are from the Grand Ducal Library, the Palatina, formed by Ferdinando II and his brothers, Gian Carlo and Leopoldo.

18.
   Galileo’s body was removed from the Novices’ Chapel in Santa Croce in 1737 and reburied on the north side of the west door.

  1.
   The
ORIFICIO DELLE PIETRB DUBE
was moved from the Uffizi in 1796 and is now in the Via degli Alfani (no. 78) where craftsmen still work and are trained.

  2.
   The work of
GIOVANNI DA SAN GIOVANNI
may be seen on the east wall of Room IV at the Pitti Palace. Assisted by Baldassare Franceschini, il Volterrano, he also painted the
Allegory of the Union of the Houses of Medici and Delia Rovere
in the vault.
Lorenzo and the Platonic Academy at Careggi
and the
Allegory of Lorenzo’s death
on the north wall are by Francesco Furini.
Lorenzo the Magnificent Receives Apollo
on the south wall is by Cecco Bravo.
Lorenzo surrounded by Artists
, between the windows, is by Ottavio Vannini.

  3.
   Among these latest acquisitions were numerous beautiful pieces of sculpture including the
Hermaphrodite
, the head of Cicero, and the
Idolino
. Ruben’s
Consequences of War
was bought by Ferdinando II. Veronese’s
Daniele Barbaro, Portrait of a Man
and
Holy Family with Santa Barbara
were in Cardinal Leopoldo’s collection. Raphael’s portrait of Pope Julius II, Titian’s
Recumbent Venus, Magdalena, La Bella
and
Portrait of a Grey-eyed Nobleman
, together withPiero della Francesca’s famous portrait of Federigo da Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino, and his wife Battista Sforza, were all acquired in 1634 on Ferdinando’s marriage to Vittoria della Rovere.

  4.
   Most of these turned-ivory ornaments were brought back to Florence by Prince Manias de’ Medici from the Castle of Coburg. They are in Room X.

  5.
   The
TEATRO DELLA PERGOLA
(Via della Pergola, 12) was built by Ferdinando Tacca in 1656. The present building, designed by Bartolommeo Silvestri, is early-nineteenth-century.

  6.
   The Via del Cocomero is now the Via Ricasoli.

  7.
   Gian Carlo’s garden in the Via della Scala, where the members of the Platonic Academy had sometimes held their debates, has now been built over.

  8.
   The enormous, forbidding
VILLA AMBSOGIANA
was originally built as a hunting lodge. The Grand Duke Cosimo III hung its walls with pictures of rare animals and flowers. It is now a mental hospital.

  1.
   The
VILLA
LAPFEGGI stood for longer than eighteen years, though after the Cardinal’s death the second storey had to be removed for fear that the walls supporting it would fall down into the garden. Its shaky structure was badly damaged by an earthquake in 1895 and will soon, by all appearances, collapse altogether.

  1.
   It was left to the despised Lorrainers and the ministers of the Grand Duke Francesco’s energetic son, Pietro Leopoldo, to reform the exhausted and oppressed State, the chaotic legislation and the exploited countryside of Florence which were the social and economic legacy of the later Medici. The splendour of their artistic and cultural legacy – the exuberance and elaborate craftsmanship of Florentine baroque art as triumphantly exemplified by such masters as Cosimo Ill’s sculptor, Giovanni Battista Foggini – has only recently been recognized. The exhibition held in Detroit and at the Pitti Palace in 1974, The Twilight of the Medici’ – which would have made scant appeal to Bernard Berenson – was the first of its kind.