PALAZZO SALVIATI
(NOW A SCHOOL OF THE SCOLOPI FRIARS)
Via del Corso. No. 4.
Jacopo Salviati bought the house of Folco de’ Portinari, where Beatrice was born, together with several others, and where they stood he built a large palace. This great and powerful family descended from a doctor, Messer Salvi, whose son Cambio was the first of sixty-three Priors and of twenty-one Gonfaloniers of Justice of his house. Lotto, another son, was a great jurist, and his descendant Jacopo Salviati played an important part in Florence in the XVth century. After subduing the Counts Guidi and the Ubertini in 1404 he was solemnly knighted by the Signoria, became Commissary of the Pisan war, and his name appears in every embassy of that time. Bernardo, his son, was father of Francesco the Archbishop of Pisa who joined in the Pazzi conspiracy against Lorenzo and Giuliano de’ Medici, and was hung from a window of the Palazzo Vecchio (see p. 373). His grandson Jacopo, husband of Lucrezia de’ Medici, daughter of Lorenzo the Magnificent, was the only man who dared raise his voice at the court of Clement VII. against creating the bastard Alessandro de’ Medici Lord of Florence, and against building the fortress of S. Giovanni. It was then that he uttered the prophetic words, “God grant that Filippo [Strozzi] in advocating the building of this fortress is not digging his own grave.” A cousin of his married Laudomia de’ Medici, and their son Giuliano, after insulting the name of his mother’s family and helping the mob to destroy their arms in 1527, became the intimate associate of the Duke Alessandro, and is famous, or rather infamous, for his behaviour to Luisa Strozzi (see p. 335).
Maria Salviati, a daughter of Jacopo, married Giovanni de’ Medici delle Bande Nere, and their son Cosimo, afterwards Duke of Florence, was born in her father’s palace. There is a tradition that Giovanni ordered the child to be thrown from a first floor window into the courtyard, where he caught him in his arms, and foretold that the boy would become a great man because he showed no fear. Maria’s brother Alamanno left a very large fortune, and his descendant Jacopo was created Duke of Giuliano by Urban VIII., and for his sins married Veronica Cybo, daughter of the Duke of Massa and Carrara. “Donna Veronica was endowed with but small beauty,” writes a contemporary, “but per contra with a most violent and imperious temper and a jealous disposition. Her husband, poor man, had small joy with her.” Duke Jacopo, handsome, gay, an elegant poet and a gallant soldier, met the beautiful Caterina Canacci, surnamed “the fair Cherubim” on account of her golden hair and wonderful colouring, and fell desperately in love with her (see p. 62). The Duchess’ vengeance was a terrible one, and only her high birth saved her from condign punishment. The Salviati family is extinct, and their title is borne by a younger member of the princely family of the Borghese of Rome, one of whom married Anna Maria, only daughter of Duke Averardo Salviati, about 1790. The palace was bought by the Da Cepperello family, and now belongs to the Scolopi friars, who have their school there.