PALAZZO CAPPONI (DELLE ROVINATE)
Via de’ Bardi. No. 28.
In former times the Arno flowed at the foot of this palace, but a large part of it was cut off to make the Lung’Arno Torrigiani in 1866. It was built for that wise and honest citizen Niccolò Da Uzzano by Lorenzo de’ Bicci, and some traces of the ancient architecture can be traced here and there in the interior. The Da Uzzano were men of note in the time of the Emperor Henry VII., and for the part they took in the defence of Florence were placed under the ban of the Empire. Niccolò Da Uzzano, born about 1359, was thrice Gonfalonier of Justice; as an ardent lover of liberty he opposed, but without success, the election of Giovanni de’ Medici to this office and while he lived held the balance of power between Rinaldo degl’Albizzi and Giovanni’s son, Cosimo the Elder. His famous speech to Niccolò Barbadori, given by Machiavelli in his Storia di Firenze, is that of a far-seeing statesman, and shows that the Florentines were right in saying that his death was a public calamity. His only daughter married a Capponi and the palace belongs to their descendant Count Luigi Capponi. The surname of “delle Rovinate,” or the ruined, by which this branch of the family is known, arose from the landslip nearly opposite the palace (see p. 68). The church of Sta. Lucia close by bears the same appellation.