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Founding the Palazzo Vecchio in 1299: The Corso Donati Parado

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Marvin Trachtenberg
Marvin Trachtenberg*
Affiliation:
Institute of Fine Arts
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Abstract

The usual origin-story of the Palazzo Vecchio as a security measure for the city's executives taken in response to civic unrest does not hold up under a close analysis of the historical record and the architectural evidence. The original project of 1299, as distinguished from the building as modified 1306-1310, was not heavily fortified; and by contemporary standards the late 1290s was a comparatively peaceful interval. It is proposed that rather than fear, the immediate motivation for the decision to build was a crisis in civic honor. If so, the palace would have been initially an expression less of the core values of the mercantile class, officially at the helm of the republic, than of the excluded nobility, as represented by the arch-enemy of the regime, Corso Donati.

Type
Studies
Information
Renaissance Quarterly , Volume 52 , Issue 4 , Winter 1999 , pp. 966 - 993
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 1999

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