In 1516 Messer Lorenzo Bartolini, Apostolic Pro-notary, and his brother Giovanni, bought five-eighths of a shop from Girolamo Deti, and a year later several more shops from heirs of other members of the same family. Two years afterwards garrulous old Giovanni Cambi notes in his Diary, “at this time Giovanni Bartolini began a small palace at the corner of Porta Rossa and the Terma, on the Piazza di Sta. Trinita, where was the tavern of the Camel, and painters, shoemakers and a baker. It will be a great ornament to the city, as it is in a good position. Some of the shops belonged to the Soldanieri, who have been for long away from the Florentine dominion, and now will have more reason than ever to remain abroad, as the sale was made without their consent.”

The Bartolini took possession of the property, and their pulchrum edifitium as the notary termed it, was already far advanced when the Venerable Maestro Berdardino d’Oderigo Soldanieri, a Dominican, arrived in Florence after a long absence. He lost no time in attacking Bartolini for having taken unlawful possession of three-eighths of the shop which belonged to his family, and was appeased with difficulty. However finally all was arranged and Lorenzo Bartolini took up his abode in the palace in 1521. Baccio d’Agnolo (Baglioni) was the architect, and Vasari tells us, “this was the first edifice built with square windows having frontispieces, and of which the columns of the door support the architrave, the frieze, and the cornice; therefore the Florentines derided these novelties with jibes and with sonnets, and they hung it about with garlands of boughs as is done in churches for the festivals, saying that it was more like the façade of a church than of a palace; so that Baccio was nigh losing his reason: however knowing that he had followed good examples and that the building was beautiful, he took heart.” I may add that he revenged himself by inscribing over the door, CARPERE PROMPTUS QUAM IMITARI, as a lesson to the people of Florence.

Vasari again mentions this palace in his life of Cronaca, blaming Baccio for having, “in order to imitate Cronaca, placed a huge antique cornice, in fact the frontispiece of Montecavallo, on the top of a small and elegant façade, so that nothing could be worse, and all for lack of knowledge; it looks like a large hat on a small head.” However he admits that “nevertheless the building has always been much praised.” It has also been imitated, for the palace of the Duc de Retz, in the Rue Montmartre in Paris, is copied from it. The origin of the remarkably pretty friezes which surround the house under the first and the second floor windows, of three poppies tied together, and the motto per non dormire, which forms an architectural ornament, is said to have been a trick attempted on Messer Bernuccio di Giovanni Salimbeni of Siena, whose descendants came to Florence and took the name of Bartolini. He was a great silk merchant, and with other friends passed through Florence every year to go to the fair of Sinalunga with his Florentine acquaintances. They determined to steal a march on Messer Bernuccio, and one year mixed poppy juice with the wine served at the banquet, intending to start at daylight and thus obtain the pick of the market. But old Salimbeni was warned, and managed to change the flasks, thus turning the tables on the Florentines to the great advantage of the Sienese. He then invented the device and the motto, with which his descendants ornamented their palace.

In 1868 the palace was sold to Prince Ercole Pio di Savoia; whose daughters still own it, and many readers will doubtless remember it as the old Hôtel du Nord. Inside is a very pretty loggia and the rooms are well-proportioned. It is sad to see one of the most exquisite buildings in Florence falling to ruin.

Opposite the palace, on the Piazza di Sta. Trinita, stands the column described by Evelyn in his Diary as being “of ophite, upon which is a statue of Justice, with her balance and sword, out of porphyry, and the more remarkable for being the first which had been carved out of that hard material, and brought to perfection, after the art had been utterly lost; they say this was done by hardening the tools in the juice of certain herbs. This statue was erected on that spot, because there Cosimo was first saluted with the news of Siena being taken.... Looking at the Justice, in copper, we are told that the Duke, asking a gentleman how he liked the piece, he answered, that he liked it very well, but that it stood too high for poor men to come at.”