The Florentine Palace as Domestic Architecture Author(s): Richard A. Goldthwaite Source: The American Historical Review, Vol. 77, No. 4 (Oct., 1972), pp. 977-1012 Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Historical Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1859505 Accessed: 27-08-2015 21:01 UTC Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/ info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Oxford University Press and American Historical Association are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The American Historical Review. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 209.140.194.128 on Thu, 27 Aug 2015 21:01:26 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions The FlorentinePalace as DomesticArchitecture RICHARD A. GOLDTHWAITE RENAISSANCE FLORENCE experienced a building boom probably more spectacular than that undergone by any other city in Europe throughout the Middle Ages. From the second half of the fourteenth century to the beginning of the sixteenth century construction was a general phenome- non throughout the city in all spheres of life-ecclesiastical, public, and private. Besides the completion of the cathedral, one of the largest churches in Christendom, with its great dome by Brunelleschi, the churches and monastic buildings of most of the dozen or so major orders in the city were largely, if not completely, remade. Almost a dozen new charitable institutions (ospedali) and many more, smaller convents were founded; and almost all the city's churches underwent some kind of architectural modification. At the same time a number of guilds erected new halls; and then, above all, there were the palazzi, the large private town houses of rich patricians, and their villas outside the city gates. All this building would be remarkable in any circumstance, but it is especially so in the case of Florence, inasmuch as the city, far from expanding, had experienced in the course of the fourteenthcentury such a drop in its population that by the beginning of the fifteenthcentury it was less than half the size it had been at the time of Dante-and it showed no signs of very dynamic growth throughout the period of the Renais- sance. What is most remarkable is that this veritable building boom occurred during a period of stylistic innovation that marks one of the most glorious moments in the historyof architecture.' An earlier version of this article was delivered at a conferenceon the Renaissance at Wellesley College in February 1970. Additional research in Italy was made possible by a grant from the National Endowmentfor the Humanities. 1 The subject of the building of Renaissance Florence has hardly been touched by scholarship. A good general view is to be found in Gene Brucker, Renaissance Florence (New York, 1969), ch. 1. There is nothingcomparable to the treatmentsof the medieval Tuscan cityin W. Braunfels, Mittelalterliche Stadtbaukunst in der Toscana (2d ed.; Berlin, 1959) and in Enrico Guidoni, Arte e urbanistica in Toscana, IOOO-I3I5 (Rome, 1971); but for some provocative ideas, see P. Francastel, "Imagination et realite dans l'architecture civile de '400," Homage a Lucien Febvre-1Kvential de l'histoire vivrante,2 (Paris, 1953): 195-2o6. For the later sixteenth century, see Giorgio Spini, "Architettura e politica nel principato mediceo del Cinquecento," Rivista storica italiana, 33 (1971): 792-845. An impressivelist of buildings attributed to the Michelozzo 977 This content downloaded from 209.140.194.128 on Thu, 27 Aug 2015 21:01:26 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 978 Richard A. Goldthwaite Private construction was by far the major sector of this building boom; perhaps as many as a hundred palaces were built in the course of the fifteenthcentury. In the history of art they represent an important stage in the elevation of domestic architecture to the realm of the fine arts and the introduction of a palace style that was picked up by the rest of Italy as well as all of Europe and imitated for the next three centuries. In the historyof the city it is obvious that the total effectof the building of so many such vast works of art was the transformationof the physical appearance of the medieval city into the Florence we know today. Four- teenth-centurydescriptions of the city hardly mention private buildings; but for Benedetto Dei, writing about 1470, they were as important as public buildings in contributing to the glory of his "Fiorenza bella" ;2 and a half century later Varchi almost tripled Dei's list of thirtynotable palaces, adding that if one were to name merely those built after Dei wrote one "would have too much to do."3 For Florentines at the time all this palace building clearly had a dramatic effecton the appearance of their city. As much of an impression as the building of palaces made on contempo- raries and as prominent as the palaces are even today on the Florentine scene, they have not been big enough to impress scholars. Even as art objects, to take the most salient aspect of the palaces, they constitute what one of the best architectural historians of Florence has called a no-man's land.4 Almost all such structures are anonymous as works of art; they have not even been adequately cataloged. In these circum- stances it goes without saying that we know hardly anything about the evolution of palace style in the Renaissance.5 From an economic point circle alone is to be found in Howard Saalman, "The Palazzo Communale in Montepulciano: An Unknown Work by Michelozzo," Zeitschriftfiir Kunstgesclhichte,28 (1965): 44-46. The standard bibliographical guide to printed materials for churches and other ecclesiastical buildings is Walter and Elisabeth Paatz, Die Kirchen von Florenz (Frankfurt,1952-55); but the catalog of buildings in general by Walther Limburger,Die Geba'ude von Florenz (Leipzig, l910), is inade- quate and long outdated. It is to be hoped that the recent international effortto inventory surviving urban buildings of the Middle Ages and the early Renaissance will arouse some interestin the urban development of Florence. See Robert S. Lopez, "Enquete sur l'architecture domestique et civile," in Les constructionsciviles d'interet public dans les villes dEurope aut Moyen Age et sous l'Ancien Regime et leur financement(Pro Civitate, serie Histoire, no. 27 [1969]),annexe, 7-12. 2 Benedetto Dei, "Cronache," Archivio di Stato di Firenze (hereafterASF), MSS, no. 119, fol. 34v. 3 Benedetto Varchi, Storia fiorentina (Florence, i888), bk. 9, sec. 38. Other Florentines who mention specific palaces are Francesco Baldovinetti (C. von Fabriczy, "Aus dem Gedenkbuch Francesco Baldovinetti," Repertorium fur Kunstwissenschaft,28 [1905]: 539-44); Antonio Billi (ll libro di Antonio Billi, ed. Carl Frey [Berlin, 1892]; "Il libro di Antonio Billi," ed. C. von Fabriczy, Archivio storico italiano, 7 [1891]: 299-368); and Agostino Lapini (Diario fiorentino, ed. G. Odoardo Corazzini [Florence, 1goo]). 4 Howard Saalman, "The Authorship,of the Pazzi Palace," Art Bulletin, 46 (1964): 388. 5 The catalog of Limburger with all of its iniadequacies remains the most complete bibliog- raphy of printed materials; but Carocci's unpublished "Elenco degli edifizi monumentali" (1896) in the library of the Museo di Firenze com'era (shelf mark 25.D.27) is also useful. There is, however, a recent catalog of those palaces with decorated faSades in Gunther and Christel Thiem, Toskanische Fassaden-Dekoration in Sgraffito und Fresko, 14. bis 17. Jahrhundert (Munich, 1964). A new series of fascicles,Tutta Firenze ieri e oggi, which began publication in This content downloaded from 209.140.194.128 on Thu, 27 Aug 2015 21:01:26 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions The FlorentinePalace as DomesticArchitecture 979 A7~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~AA Fig. I. This detail of Bonsignori's aerial view of Florence in the late sixteenth centuryshows quite dearly how little built up some areas were, even those right in the center of the city. Photograph: Alinari. This content downloaded from 209.140.194.128 on Thu, 27 Aug 2015 21:01:26 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 980 Richard A. Goldthzvaite of view these palaces are an even bigger unknown. The construction of so many of them represented a significant shift in investment habits of the rich and at the same time provided a considerable stimulus to the internal economy of the city; yet none of this has ever been taken up by economic historians in their continuing and for the most part fruitless debates over the state of the Florentine economy.6 Finally, the palace remains as big an unknown as a social phenomenon with respect to its function as a home-and what was a palace after all if not a home? It is the social aspect of the palace that is the subject of this article, and I offer it as the prolegomenon to the study of the palace not as an art object that marked a new era in taste but as a home that performed a new function in society. IN THE COMMUNAL ERA the distinguishing feature of a great family's presence in the city was the concentration of the households of its various members in the same vicinity so that the family as a whole had a geo- graphic identity in the city.7The great monuments of private architecture were in fact those structures that represented the families' collective public status and expressed their outward involvement in communal affairs.These structures were principally the great towers, where families defended themselves in their violent feuds with one another, and the open loggias on the streets, where residents assembled for public cere- monies in more tranquil times.