Florentine Palaces and Their Stories
9781465681102
213 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
In 1109 Guigliarello Acciaiuoli came from Brescia, where his family had made a fortune by working in steel (acciaio)—hence their name. He bought many houses in Borgo S.S. Apostoli and a domain in the Val di Pesa, where he built a tower which was still standing in 1588 when Giovambattista Ubaldini wrote theOrigine della Famiglia Acciaiuoli. True to the Guelph traditions the family brought with them from Brescia, Leone Acciaiuoli was forced to fly from Florence after the Ghibelline victory at Montaperti in 1260 and his palace was destroyed. On the return to power of the White, or Guelph, party, Dardano Acciaiuoli became Gonfalonier of Justice, and was afterwards sent with full powers from the Signoria of Florence, “considering his great prudence and legal knowledge,” as Captain of the People to rule Pistoja. When in 1282 the government of Florence was changed and the Priors were instituted, Riccomanni degl’Acciaiuoli, doctor of law, was elected Prior of his Sesto of the city. He founded a great bank, or commercial company, with branches in many parts of Italy, in France, England, Greece, Africa and Asia, and sent Acciaiuolo Acciaiuoli to manage the branch at Naples. There he became the trusted friend and counsellor of King Robert, who made him a Baron, gave him great estates in Apulia and the lordship of Prato in Tuscany with the title of royal Vicario. His far more famous son Niccola, was born in 1310 at Monte Guffoni in the Val di Pesa, and married before he was eighteen. Three years later he took his father’s place at Naples, and being remarkable for personal beauty, dignified in manner and gifted with a brilliant intelligence, he soon attained such favour at court that when the Prince of Taranto died in 1332, his widow appointed him, by the advice of her brother-in-law King Robert, guardian of her three young sons and of the principality. Evil tongues whispered that his good looks had much to do with this nomination. Six years later Niccola went to Greece, taking Louis, the eldest of Catherine’s sons, with him and succeeded in making him the real, instead of only the titular, Prince of Acchaia. On the death of King Robert, leaving the Kingdom to his niece Joan, married to the coarse and illiterate Andrew of Hungary, Niccola and Prince Louis returned to Naples. Joan fell in love with her young cousin, and one morning Andrew was found strangled in his bed. Acciaiuoli, who was supposed to have aided in the murder, became all-powerful when the Queen married Louis of Taranto, and was created Grand Seneschal of the Kingdom, Count of Melfi, etc. He acquired very large possessions in Apulia, Sicily and Greece, and was made Count of Malta and Gozzo, a title he ceded to his son Angiolo during his lifetime. On the occasion of his going to Avignon as ambassador, Pope Innocent VI. gave him the Golden Rose (the first time a private person had been thus honoured), created him a Senator of Rome, Count of the Campagna and Rector of the ecclesiastical patrimony. He next sent him as envoy to Bernabo Visconti at Milan to claim the restitution of Bologna. Finding Bernabo obdurate, Acciaiuoli led the Papal troops against Bologna and installed the Legate there in triumph. He did not forget his own country, for it is to him that we owe the magnificent convent of the Certosa near Florence, where his eldest son, Lorenzo, as handsome and as gifted as his father, was buried in great state in 1354. He also built the villa of Monte Guffone, of which only the shell remains showing how beautiful it once was,1 and the great Acciaiuoli palace on the Lung’Arno of the same name, adjoining those of other members of the family. As Orcagna was the architect employed at the Certosa he may also have designed Niccola’s fine town house.
