Florentine palaces & their stories

This palace, built by Ammannati for the great family of the Pazzi, whose dolphins are still above the doorway, is one of the literary landmarks of Florence. In the beginning of the XVIIIth century it was the fashion for the beaux esprits of the town to meet together at a chemist’s or a bookseller’s shop, or now and then at each other’s houses. Giovanni Pazzi, a studious, cultured man, was generally to be found in his library at the very top of his palace, in what remained of one of the ancient towers of his family. Here his friends would meet in the evening and they jokingly called his abode la Colombaia (the dovecot) from its height, and himself il Torraiolo (the tower pigeon). A society was formed in May, 1735, and each member chose a nickname which had some reference to a pigeon; their emblem was a tower with the motto from Dante, Quanto veder si puo, and their seal an old intaglio representing two doves feeding each other, to which was added the words, Mutius Officiis. S. C. The Società Colombaia still meets and reads learned papers in Via de’ Bardi.