Palazzo Pitti

“ Every day brought some entertainment more magnificent than that of the day before, and the Palazzo Pitti resounded with music and gaiety. In October arrived the Cardinal Aldobrandini, sent by the Pope to perform the marriage ceremony. Don Antonio de’ Medici met him some miles outside the city at the head of five hundred cavalry, and at the town gate he was received by the Grand Duke under a velvet baldaquin, who escorted him, walking on his left, to the palace. ”

“ The stately form of the Palazzo Pitti was near at hand, and in the distance lay the city, with the stupendous dome of the cathedral, and the lofty form of the beautiful Campanile.
"Stella," he said, in deeply musical tones—"Stella, you know all my love and the desires of my soul. All are fixed upon you. Fame and glory I only wish for as the means of obtaining you. But O, hard is the task and difficult is it for an unknown artist to gain the hand of the proud Count Borelloni's daughter. ”

“ John Evelyn, who was in Florence in 1644, evidently thought the lengthening of the Palazzo Pitti an improvement, as he writes in his diary that it had been “of late greatly beautified by Cosimo with huge stones of the Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian orders, with a terrace at each side197 having rustic uncut balustrades, with a fountain that ends in a cascade seen from the great gate, and so forming a vista to the gardens. Nothing is more admirable than the vacant staircase, marbles, statues, urns, pictures, court, grotto, and waterworks. ”

“ In order to gauge the talent with which Brunelleschi turned to signal advantage what in other hands would have been a cause of failure, one need only imagine any one of the Florentine palaces, with the exception of the Palazzo Vecchio, in the place of the Pitti palace, to realize what a miserably meagre impression they would make as the crowning edifice on the summit of the steep hill. ”

“ But the greatest work Vasari did for this387 marriage was the corridor connecting the Palazzo Vecchio with the Palazzo Pitti. On the 12th March, 1565, Messer Tommaso de’ Medici signed a contract, in the Duke’s name, with the master-mason Bernardo d’Antonio, in which the latter promises to finish a corridor between the two palaces by September. He obliges himself “to build two arches, one above the street where is the Dogana to the wall of the church of S. Piero Scheraggio, the second above the said church ”

“ Jacopo, incites the people to revolt, 171; is executed, 172; Giovanni, founds the Società Colombaia, 397. Peruzzi, account of the, 175; Arco de’, frescoed by Paolo Ucello, 176; Baldassare, architect and painter, 180; houses of the, assigned to distinguished guests, 179; Ridolfo, banished, 179; ruin of the, 176; Ubaldino, 180. Pisani, Andrea, enlarges the Palazzo Vecchio, 359. 408Pitti, Buonaccorso, chronicle of, 182; Luca, begins the Palazzo Pitti, 185; conspires against Piero de’ Medici, 186; Eleonora di Toledo buys the Palazzo Pitti, 187; marriages of Cosimo I.’s daughters in, 188–189 ”

“ Arnolfo di Lapo, first architect of the Palazzo del Podestà, 208; architect of the Palazzo Spini, 308. Baccio d’Agnolo (Baglioni) , the Palazzo Antinori attributed to, 36; architect of the Palazzo Bartolini Salimbeni, 43–44; the Palazzo Cocchi attributed to, 76; 221; smaller Torrigiani palace begun by, 346; Domenico di, architect of the Palazzo Bouturlin, 53; Giuliano di, the Palazzo Griffoni attributed to, 123. Badia, Iodico Del, quoted, 60, 76, 137, 167, 329, 331, 350. Baldinucci, Filippo, 69, 128, 149, 159; entertainment in the courtyard of the Palazzo Pitti described by, 192–193 ”

“ Not far from the Piazza della Signoria is what is called the National Museum, contained in the old Palazzo del Podesta, rich, but severely rich, in its architecture. The ground floor is occupied with ancient and modern armour and arms. Above there is a gallery of statues, some of them by Michael Angelo, a room full of majolica, another of ivory carvings, two of bronzes, two of tapestry, and two of sculpture; but the collection, though interesting, looks small after experiencing the extent of the Uffizi and Pitti Galleries, and seems hardly deserving to be dignified with the name of National. ”

“ His portrait is in the Pitti Palace—a grave man with an abbreviated nose, not unlike Mr. Thomas Adolphus Trollope.
One fine day near the end of our stay we made an expedition to Siena—that fine old town built on an abrupt height overlooking a wide, wide plain. We drove about a couple of hours or more, and saw well the exterior of the place—the peculiar piazza or campo in the shape of a scallop-shell, with its large old Palazzo publico, the Porta Ovile and Porta Romana, the archbishop's palace, and the cemetery. Of the churches we saw only the cathedral, the Chapel of St. ”

“ The Pitti Palace is of course a collection of masterpieces; they jostle each other in their splendour, they perhaps even, in their merciless multitude, rather fatigue our admiration. The Uffizi is almost as fine a show, and together with that long serpentine artery which crosses the Arno and connects them, making you ask yourself, whichever way you take it, what goal can be grand enough to crown such a journey, they form the great central treasure-chamber of the town. ”

“ The Pitti palace was commenced by Pitti a merchant in 1440, but as he was unable to finish it, he sold it to the wife of Cosmo and it thenceforward became the palace of the Medici of Florence. It is a massive building of rough hewn stone, more strong and massive than elegant in its external appearance, but the great halls inside are paved and decorated with the finest stones and richest marbles that money could buy or art could arrange. The hall of flowers and other rooms are superb in their beauty. ”

“ The Pitti walls are so congested and so many of the pictures so difficult to see, that I propose to refer only to those which, after a series of visits, seem to me the absolute best. Let me hasten to say that to visit the Pitti gallery on any but a really bright day is folly. The great windows (which were to be larger than Cosimo de' Medici's doors) are excellent to look out of, but the rooms are so crowded with paintings on walls and ceilings, and the curtains are so absorbent of light, that unless there is sunshine one gropes in gloom. ”

“ Buontalenti, that most ingenious of men, painter, sculptor and architect, transformed the great courtyard of the Pitti palace into an amphitheatre covered in with scarlet cloth, and erected a castle on the side next the garden, while in the middle stood a stockade containing fireworks. On the firing of a cannon a triumphal car appeared, in which sat a magician who performed tricks of sleight of hand, and told fortunes to those who desired. ”

“ This morning we went to the Pitti Palace. The air was very sultry, and the pavements, already heated with the sun, made the space between the buildings seem like a close room. The earth, I think, is too much stoned out of the streets of an Italian city,—paved, like those of Florence, quite across, with broad flagstones, to the line where the stones of the houses on each side are piled up. Thunder rumbled over our heads, however, and the clouds were so dark that we scarcely hoped to reach the palace without feeling the first drops of the shower. ”

“ PITTI PALACE. A celebrated Florentine palace of the Early Renaissance, now used as a royal residence. It is the largest palace except the Vatican in Italy, and one of the most imposing in the world. A typical Florentine palace of the fifteenth century, part fortress, part residence, it became a model for such structures. ”

“ He was more distinguished in architecture than in sculpture. He designed many buildings in Rome, Lucca and Florence, an addition to the Pitti Palace in the last-named city being one of his most celebrated works. ”

“ The royal seat of San Ildefonso can gain from the general public no higher name than La Granja, the Farm. The great palace of Catharine de Medici, the home of three dynasties, is simply the Tuileries, the Tile-fields. You cannot make people call the White House the Executive Mansion. A merchant named Pitti built a palace in Florence, and though kings and grand dukes have inhabited it since, it is still the Pitti. There is nothing so democratic as language. You may alter a name by trick when force is unavailing. ”

“ As always in Italian towns, it must be visited early in the day if it is to be seen to advantage. In the morning it is crowded with fruit and vegetable dealers, sitting under bright-coloured umbrellas; in the afternoon it is triste and deserted, save by the cabmen, who pursue the stranger with their importunities. One side of this piazza is occupied by the Palazzo Publico—a large pile of building altogether Gothic in its inclosing walls, I fancy, but they have been so much altered from time to time that not much detail remains. ”

“ The two most important variations executed by the master, or under his immediate direction, are the full-lengths of the Pitti Palace and the Naples Museum, in both of which sumptuous court-dress replaces the gala military costume. They are practically identical, both in the design and the working out, save that in the Florence example Philip stands on a grass plot in front of a colonnade, while in that of Naples the background is featureless. ”

“ Within the Pitti Palace are things that astonish the world, and have a right to do so, as have all the original results of art. The paintings are all—so to speak—set on doors that open into new avenues of thought and speculation for mankind. The ideal world, of which the real is but a poor assertion, has, in these glimpses, its truest portraiture. Their use and dignity have also limits which the luxury and enthusiasm of mankind transgress. ”

“ The splendid Pitti Palace contains a better collection of paintings, as a whole, than the Uffizi Gallery. They are also well arranged; and O, boon to sight-seers! chairs and sofas are placed in various places, where one may rest the tired limbs and aching vertebræ.
Besides vestibules, corridors, &c., there are fifteen grand halls, named from the heathen deities, and each elegantly decorated in great frescoes on the ceiling, illustrative of the deity for which it is named. Thus the Hall of Mars has its ceiling decorated with battle scenes, and allegorical figures of War, Peace, and Victory. ”

“ There was a head of the latter, copied from a portrait painted by himself, and preserved in the Pitti Palace. With the slightest shade of hectic on the cheek, and the large unfathomable eyes looking into the great beyond, it was truly angelic in its loveliness. No wonder the man for whom nature had done so much, and who delighted in portraying the loftiest ideal beauty, no wonder he was called “divine!” ”

“ In his Virgins, we can trace nothing elevated, poetical or heavenly: they have not the ideality of Raffaelle's, nor the tender sweetness of Correggio's; nor the glowing loveliness of Titian's; but they have an individual reality about them, which gives them the air of portraits. That chef-d'œuvre, in the Pitti Palace, for instance, call it a beautiful peasant girl and her baby, and it is faultless: but when I am told it is the "Vergine gloriosa, del Re Eterno Madre, Figliuola, e Sposa," I look instantly for something far beyond what I see expressed. ”

“ The Pitti Palace, by Brunelleschi (1435) , embodies the same ideas on a more colossal scale, but lacks the grace of an adequate cornice. A lighter and more ornate style appeared in 1460 in the P. Rucellai, by Alberti, in which for the first time classical pilasters in superposed stages were applied to a street façade. To avoid the dilemma of either insufficiently crowning the edifice or making the cornice too heavy for the upper range of pilasters, Alberti made use of brackets, occupying the width of the upper frieze, and converting the whole upper entablature into a cornice. ”

“ One grows to feel the collection of pictures at the Pitti Palace splendid rather than interesting. After walking through it once or twice you catch the key in which it is pitched--you know what you are likely not to find on closer examination; none of the works of the uncompromising period, nothing from the half-groping geniuses of the early time, those whose colouring was sometimes harsh and their outlines sometimes angular. Vague to me the principle on which the pictures were originally gathered and of the aesthetic creed of the princes who chiefly selected them. ”

“ Lucas Pitti ruined himself in building his palace. His talents were judged to bear no proportion to his ambition: the friends of liberty, as well as those of Medici, equally detested him; and he remained deprived of all power in a city which he had so largely contributed to enslave. Italy became filled with Florentine emigrants: every revolution, even every convocation of parliament, was followed by the exile of many citizens. ... At Florence, the citizens who escaped proscription trembled to see despotism established in their republic ”

“ The home for the most part of the poor, though by no means without the towers and palaces of the nobles, it seems always to have lent itself readily enough to the hatching of any plot against the Government of the day. Here in 1343 the nobles made their last stand, here the signal was given for the Ciompi rising, and here Luca Pitti built his palace to outdo the Medici. If you cross Arno by the beautiful bridge of S. Trinità, the first street to your left will be Borgo S. Jacopo, the first palace that of the Frescobaldi, whom the Duke of Athens brought into Florence after their exile. ”