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‘Più superba de quella de Lorenzo’: Courtly and Family Interest in the Building of Filippo Strozzi's Palace

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

F. W. Kent
F. W. Kent*
Affiliation:
Monash University, Australia
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Extract

Filippo Strozzi's motives for building his great Florentine palace were described by his son Lorenzo in a well-known passage. Greedier for fame than possessions, interested in and well informed about building and not knowing a better means ‘of preserving his memory,’ Filippo resolved to construct ‘in the midst of his other Strozzi [relatives]’ a building ‘which should bring renown to himself and all his [kinsmen] in Italy and abroad.’ That Filippo's building activities caused an agreeable stir in Florence is common knowledge, but it is pleasant now to learn from the copious correspondence of the Strozzi family that the project did quickly bring him a wider renown—at the Estensi court in Ferrara, where the joys and advantages of monumental building were as well understood as anywhere in Renaissance Italy.

Type
Research Article
Information
Renaissance Quarterly , Volume 30 , Issue 3 , Autumn 1977 , pp. 311 - 323
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 1977

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References

1 ‘… non avendo altro maggiore nè più securo modo a lasciare di sé memoria … si messe in animo di fare uno edifizio, che a sè e a tutti suoi in Italia e fuori desse name’: Vita di Filippo Strozzi il Vecchio scritta da Lorenzo suofiglio, ed. G. Bini and P. Bigazzi (Florence, 1851), pp. 22-23. See p. 26 for the phrase ‘nel mezzo degli altri suoi Strozzi… .’ Cf. Vasari's comment that Filippo ‘per le sue ricchezze desiderava lassare di sè alia patria ed a’ figliuoli, tra le altre, memoria di un bel palazzo': Le opere di Giorgio Vasari, ed. G. Milanesi (Florence, 1906; reprint edn. 1973), IV, 443. I am grateful to Dale Kent, Heather Gregory, and Caroline Elam for their helpful comments on the first draft of this note. Dr. Gino Corti very kindly checked several manuscript passages which were not clear on microfilm.

2 Friedman, D., ‘The Burial Chapel of Filippo Strozzi in Santa Maria Novella in Florence,’ L'Arte, 9 (1970), 116 Google Scholar.

3 ‘The Building of the Strozzi Palace: The Construction Industry in Renaissance Florence,’ Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History, 10 (1973), 115. On the palace see too Pampaloni, G., Palazzo Strozzi (Rome, 1963)Google Scholar; Ginori Lisci, L., I Palazzi di Firenze nella storia e nell'arte (Florence, 1972), 1, 195–205 Google Scholar. For another important aspect of Filippo's patronage, see Borsook, E., ‘Documenti relativi alle cappelle di Lecceto e delle Selve di Filippo Strozzi,’ Antichità Viva, 9 (1970), 3–20 Google Scholar.

4 The main subject of Bardo di Lorenzo Strozzi's letter to Filippo (see n. 34 below) is the palace, though he did enclose several other letters, one to Giovanni di Messer Marcello Strozzi, to be forwarded by the banker.

5 Some of the letters which passed from Ferrara to Florence are quoted or published in Catalano, M., Vita di Ludovico Ariosto, 2 vols. (Geneva, 1930)Google Scholar. Apart from the huge Strozzi correspondence, much of it in effect still uncatalogued, in the Carte Strozziane in the Archivio di Stato, Florence, there is also a notable collection in Ferrara. See Clough, C. H., ‘The Archivio Bentivoglio in Ferrara,’ Renaissance News, 18 (1965), 12–19 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 negli Strozzi, Alessandra Macinghi, Lettere di una gentildonna fiorentina del secolo XV ai figliuoli esuli, ed. C. Guasti (Florence, 1877)Google Scholar. I am most indebted to Heather Gregory for the information, taken from her unpublished honors thesis on these letters, that Alessandra and her sons refer ‘to no less than forty-one male members of the Strozzi lineage—these are adult or adolescent, all old enough to be accounted independent actors. These range, as regards kinship ties, from the first cousins once removed of Alessandra's sons, to their seventh cousins.’

7 For Filippo's career, see above all Goldthwaite, R. A., Private Wealth in Renaissance Florence: A Study of Four Families (Princeton, 1968), pp. 52–73 Google Scholar, and his ‘The Building of the Strozzi Palace,’ pp. 100-115.

8 ‘Avete facto e fate l'offitio del perfecto parente e buono amico, e chome fautore e benefactore di tutta la casa degli Strozzi chome buon padre delta famiglia.’ ‘… abbiamo noi altri Strozzi da preghare Iddio vi conservi lungho tempo e dievi felicità e stato perchè lo stato vostro è la gloria di tutti li Strozzi': Archivio di Stato, Florence, Carte Strozziane (henceforth CS), ser. 3, 133, fol. 73. Cf. fol. 71 (letter of November 27 from Michele to Filippo). All dates are given in modern style. In a letter from his brother Giovanni written in February 1483, ibid., 139, fol. 7V, Michele's Florentine address is ‘con Filippo Strozzi,’ as it is in most later letters to him. On Michele's position with Filippo, see too Goldthwaite, Private Wealth, p. 70, and E. Borsook, ‘Documents for Filippo Strozzi's Chapel in Santa Maria Novella and Other Related Papers - II: The Documents,’ The Burlington Magazine, 112 (1970), 802. Michele's opinion of Filippo's dominant role in the wider family is very similar to that of Lorenzo di Filippo, many years later: Vita di Filippo Strozzi, pp. 15-16, 28. Goldthwaite plays down this aspect of Filippo's character and activities—Private Wealth, pp. 70ff.—but the scores of published and unpublished letters to and from Filippo in the Carte Strozziane suggest that he was a very practical friend to his wider family. The same writer's conclusion that the fifteenth-century Florentine palace ‘is the expression of Renaissance individualism'—'The Florentine Palace as Domestic Architecture,’ American Historical Review, 77 (1972), 1011—may need nuancing in the light of evidence such as this article presents.

9 ‘I[n]texi de Filipo tuti questi Strozzi e mi[?] co’ loro ne è gra’ piazere rispeto alia caxa di Strozzi': CS, ser. 3, fol. 9. I am not sure how one should punctuate this cryptic comment. Preparatory work for the palace began soon after July 4, 1489, and the dedication ceremonies were held on August 6: see Goldthwaite, ‘The Building of the Strozzi Palace,’ p. 113.

10 Le vite degli uomini illustri delta casa Strozzi, ed. P. Stromboli (Florence, 1892), p. 44.

11 This genealogical information is from Litta, P., ‘Strozzi di Firenze,’ Lefamiglie celebri italiane(Milan, 1839)Google Scholar, 4, fascicolo xliv, tavole iii and v. For the branch's role in Ferrarese society, see the numerous references in Catalano, Vita di Ludovko Ariosto, passim.

12 Litta, tavola ix; on Bardo di Lorenzo di Messer Palla's Florentine patriotism, see n. 33 below. These two Ferrarese branches of the Strozzi were also related by marriage, as Giovanni Rucellai carefully explained in his commonplace book; Messer Palla's wife, Marietta, was herself a Strozzi, and from her brother Messer Nanni ‘sono discesi 4 figluoli tutti chavalieri che abitano a Ferara, cioè Messer Nicholò, il chonte Lorenzo, Messer Ruberto e Messer Tito’ (Archivio Rucellai, Florence, ‘Zibaldone Quaresimale,’ fol. 224).

13 On Giovanni's relationship with the ‘elder’ branch of the Ferrarese Strozzi, see Litta, tavola iv. Giovanni himself appears to have been attached to the Estensi court (see n. 17 below). His brother Michele was in Ferrara in October 1477; CS, ser. 3, 133, fols. 71, 73. For the brothers’ relationship with Filippo, see Goldthwaite, , Private Wealth, p. 70 Google Scholar.

14 ‘Intendo Filippo a chominciato la niuraglia et ne sono tutto chontenfto] che pure lascerà qualche memoria di sè. Avisa come sarà bella e quello potrà costare': CS, ser. 3, 139, fol. 11.

15 ‘The Building of the Strozzi Palace,’ pp. 135ff.

16 ‘E qui è nuova per Fiorentini che l'è cominciato la fabricha de Filippo, e ch'è gra’ cosa e che hogni sabato li va fiorini 100 in manovali de hogni sorte, la[s]ciando stare le robe da parte, è che per dui ani sarà questa spexa, sarìa gra’ cosa. El Signore dize sarà più superba de quella de Lorenzo, e me domanda se li va quelle prete vive e se li va lavori de marmori da Carrara. Sichè damene aviso': CS, ser. 3, 139, fol. 10v.

17 However, the evidence for this suggestion must remain circumstantial. For example, on October l, 1492, Giovanni wrote to Michele from Ferrara that ‘… subito ne fui collo IIImo ducha mio padrone …': see ibid., fol. 17V. Giovanni was still in Ferrara in 1514: see Catalano, , Vita di Ludovico Ariosto, 1, 406–407 Google Scholar. It is perhaps not farfetched to observe that ‘el Signore's’ reported interest in marble (see too Giovanni's letter of December 20) suggests that the former was indeed Ercole, who, according to one contemporary, ‘found a Ferrara of painted bricks, and … left it … carved in adamantine marble’: quoted in Gundersheimer, W. L., Ferrara: The Style of a Renaissance Despotism (Princeton, 1973), p. 265 Google Scholar. See too n. 27 below, which provides further circumstantial evidence for this tentative identification.

18 Zevi, B., Biagio Rossetti architetto ferrarese: il primo urbanista moderno europeo (Turin, 1960)Google Scholar. For recent summaries of Ercole's career and patronage, see Gundersheimer, Ferrara, chs. VI and VII, and the same author's ‘The Patronage of Ercole I d'Este,’ Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 6 (1976), 1-19.

19 Quoted in Hatfield, R., ‘Some Unknown Descriptions of the Medici Palace in 1459,’ The Art Bulletin, 52 (1970), 233 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

20 Cf. J. Onians’ point concerning Alberti's use of superbus in a passage of the Ten Books on Architecture: ‘The use of the word superbus and not altusshows that the greater height [of the podium of a private house] would be tantamount to an arrogant claim to greater status': ‘Alberti and Filarete: A Study in Their Sources,’ Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 34 (1971), 100. Machiavelli perhaps used superbi in this sense when he described Luca Pitti's new Florentine palace, and his villa at Rusciano, as ‘tutti superbi e regj': Istorie fiorentine, in Opere complete, ed. E. Oliva (Milano, 1850), 1, 189. See too Vocabolario degli Accademici della Crusca (Florence, 1735), IV, 814-815.

21 Gombrich, E. H., ‘The Early Medici as Patrons of Art: A Survey of Primary Sources,’ Italian Renaissance Studies, ed. E. F. Jacob (London, 1960), p. 308 Google Scholar.

22 The story is told in Lorenzo's life of his father, Vita di Filippo Strozzi, pp. 23-25.

23 For example, Pampaloni, Palazzo Strozzi, pp. 64ff.

24 ‘Avisami se nela Via de’ Feravechi ho nella Via Largha Filippo farà boteche': CS, ser. 3, 139, fol. 15.

25 There remains the possibility, kindly suggested to me by Caroline Elam, that Giovanni Strozzi was accustomed to the Roman tradition of palace-building, in which shops were incorporated into important residences long after the Florentines had abandoned the practice; see too Forster, K. W., ‘The Palazzo Rucellai and Questions of Typology in the Development of Renaissance Buildings,’ The Art Bulletin, 58 (1976), 109 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

26 ‘Apresso el Signore a i[n]teso dela fabricha fa Filippo e me adimanda quanto è groso el muro fori deli fondamenti, et in quanti solari el va, e la magiore sala quant'è per hogni verso, el cortile e l'orto se li viene e de che gra[n]deza, e se li va marmori bianchi da Carara ad alquno lavorio. E se li va logi, di che grandeza. Avisani coxì de groso. Sua Signoria molto se deleta de fabricare e fare disegni': CS, ser. 3, 139, fol. 15.

27 See now the new and very interesting evidence on Ercole's passionate and personal concern for, and participation in, his artistic projects offered by Gundersheimer in his ‘The Patronage of Ercole I d'Este,’ which I did not see before completing this article. For Ercole's desire to read Alberti's book on architecture, see p. 16, n. 32 of Gundersheimer's article, and Gombrich, ‘The Early Medici,’ p. 307; cf. Gardner, E. G., Dukes and Poets in Ferrara (London, 1904), pp. 274–275 Google Scholar. I have not come across any reference in the secondary literature to Ercole's having made architectural disegni. On the now familiar theme of princely participation in the conception of architectural projects, see Gombrich; Hatfield, ‘Some Unknown Descriptions’; Heydenreich, L. H. and Lotz, W., Architecture in Italy 1400-1600 (London, 1974), pp. 71ff.Google Scholar; Martelli, M., ‘I Pensieri Architettonici del Magnifico,’ Commentari, 17 (1966), 107–111 Google Scholar. Cf. the more cautious remarks of Hersey, G. L., Alfonso II and the Artistic Renewal of Naples 1485-1495 (New Haven and London, 1969), p. 60, n. 12Google Scholar.

28 ‘… ho intexo delo Apparechio grande haveti facto per attendere alia fabrica de quella magnifica casa; di che ne ho recevuto summo piacere, sì per sentire del stato vostro buono come per attendere ad quelle cose che sono de honore et gloria vostra: Et in spetie di tutta la famiglia.’: CS, ser. 3, 133, fol. 155.

29 ‘Sicome intesi del principio dela fabrica principiata, anche ho intexo come s'è proseguita gagliardamente. Dio ce ni factia vedere presto il fine, per consolatione et honore vostro et de tutti li vostri': ibid., fol. 150.

30 ‘Cosimo de’ Medici's Patronage of Architecture and the Theory of Magnificence,’ Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 33 (1970), 162-170.

31 Quoted by Fraser Jenkins, p. 167.

32 Art and Life at the Court of Ercole I d'Este: The ‘De triumphis religionis’ of Giovanni Sabadino degli Arienti (Geneva, 1972), p. 50; see too pp. 15, 26. The treatise was probably written towards the end of 1497 (p. 14).

33 ‘… di tornare ed abitare e vivere in quella fra i parenti e amici… .’ This letter, written in February 1496 and addressed to Savonarola, was published by Biagi, G., ‘Spigolature savonaroliane,’ Rivista delle biblioteche e degli archivi, 9 (1898), 83 Google Scholar. For Bardo's activities in Ferrara, see Catalano, Vita di Ludovico Ariosto, 1, 59, 149; II, 32, 403. It is evident from Messer Palla's last will of 1462 that his grandson Bardo must have spentsome of his early days in Florence: Archivio di Stato, Perrara, Archivio Bentivoglio, vi, 34, fols. 10, 15, and passim.

34 ‘… i'ò inteso di vostro benestare e della grande e magnificha fabricha che voi fate honore e gloria [sic] della patria ed esaltazione della chasa, che Iddio v[i] prosperi e in bono fine e gholdimento ve la lasci presto finire’: CS, ser. 3, 133, fol. 156.

35 Ringraziovi della hoferta della chasa vostra; noi andreno pure allogare in lla chasa anticha di Messer Palla, dove sempre sono abitati tutti e nostri, e questo ci pare che sia la dirittura e'l dovere': ibid., fol. 164.

36 On this theme, and others concerning the history and structure of Florentine families which are relevant to the present article, see Kent, F. W., Household and Lineage in Renaissance Florence: The Family Life of the Capponi, Ginori, and Rucellai (Princeton, 1977)Google Scholar.

37 ‘ … ho inteso V.M. haver principiato parechii dì fa uno bello edificio lì in Firenze, d'il che ne ho preso consolatione assai, sì per rispeto vostro sì etiamdio per honor dela cassa; per il che vi prego a mia satisfatione ve piaza mandarmelo in desegnio, che mi sarà oltramodo grato’: CS, ser. 3, fol. 151. On Messer Tito's role in Ferrarese social and intellectual life, see Gundersheimer, Ferrara, pp. 98, 103, 119, 139, 223, 238, 247.

38 Zevi, , Biagio Rossetti, pp. 192–193 Google Scholar.

39 Diario Fiorentino dal 1450 al 1516, ed. I. del Badia (Florence, 1883), p. 62.

40 Gaye, G., Carteggio inedito d'artisti dei secoli XIV, XV, XVI (Florence, 1839; reprint edn. 1968), 1, 361ffGoogle Scholar.

41 As did another of his correspondents, a friar, who wrote on October 20, 1490, that he hoped that God would concede Filippo ‘lunga vita e salute dell'anima, acciochè possiate con salute godere el luogo [i.e., Lecceto] e anche el palazzo': CS, ser. 3,133, fol. 154.

42 ‘The Building of the Strozzi Palace,’ pp. 122, 127. Cf. M. Salmi's introduction to Pampaloni, Palazzo Strozzi, pp. 25-26.

43 On this phenomenon, cf. Goldthwaite, ‘The Building of the Strozzi Palace,’ pp. 134-135, and the articles by Gombrich and Hatfield cited in n. 27 above. See too Clough, C. H., ‘Federigo da Montefeltro's Patronage of the Arts, 1468-82,’ Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 36 (1973), 129–143 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. I should add, however, that another letter in the Carte Strozziane—apparently dated March 8, 1488, and written by Duke Alfonso of Naples to one Giovanni Strozzi in Florence—was carried there from Naples by Giuliano da Sangallo, which may suggest an early and perhaps significant connection between that architect and the Strozzi. However, this date may be incorrect. Caroline Elam has been good enough to point out to me that since March 1489 would admirably fit Giuliano's known movements (cf. G. Marchini, Giuliano da Sangallo [Florence, 1942], pp. 106-111), the Neapolitan date may be in the traditional style—its manner of registration in Florence, ‘ + 1488 da Napoli E a dì 19 Aprile de dì viii di marzo’ (fol. 147V), is ambiguous on this point. The passage reads: ‘… et retornandosene Juliano de Sangallo ne è parso per ipso farve la presente …’ (CS, ser. 3, 133, fol. 147). According to the seventeenth-century index at fol. 1br, the letter is addressed to Filippo Strozzi himself, but fol. 147V seems to read ‘Joho Strozi.’ For a very well informed account of Giuliano's probable part in the Strozzi project, see Goldthwaite, ‘The Building of the Strozzi Palace,’ pp. 115-135, 187-188. Later letters in this Strozzi series also give interesting details of the progress of construction: CS, ser. 3, 139, fol. 28r-v (November 23, 1493); 180, fol. 90 (April 17, 1497).

44 Filarete's Treatise on Architecture, ed. and trans. J. R. Spencer (New Haven and London, 1965), 1, 15-16. Of course Filarete himself stresses the architect's indispensable part in the formulation ‘of this conception that he has made with the patron… .’

45 ‘… tanto mirabile e sontuoso, che un gran principe, e non privata persona dimostra esserne stato fondatore …’: Vita di Filippo Strozzi, pp. 26-27. Cf. Niccolò Valori's comment, in his life of Lorenzo de’ Medici, that Filippo's house was superior ‘non solum privatas domos, sed principales et regias': quoted by Roscoe, W., The Life of Lorenzo de’ Medici (London, 1806; 5th edn.), 11, 295 Google Scholar.

46 ‘… non il signore per la casa, ma la casa pel signore si vuole e debbe onorare …': ed. F. Battaglia (Bologna, 1944), p. 164.

47 ‘Perchè io intendo et voglio che decta mia casa sia per ogni futuro tempo in perpetuo habitata da dicti Strozzi [his descendants], et rimanga nella famiglia degli Strozzi e t c ‘ (Gaye, Carteggio, 1, 364). His descendants could allocate the palace for brief periods and on strict terms ‘a persone di casa gli Strozzi, et non a altro in alcun modo’ (p. 365).