The family of the Rondinelli made a large fortune in trade, and owned several palaces in the old Via de’ Rondinelli (now Via della Forca), and their coat-of-arms, with six swallows, is still to be seen there on the façade of a house. They afterwards lived in what is now the Via de’ Rondinelli, and a palace in the Piazza S. Lorenzo, which was incorporated in the convent of S. Giovannino, also belonged to them.

The origin of the family is given differently by two old writers. Verino says:

while Gamurini declares they had nothing to do with Fiesole, but came from a castle near Arezzo called Rondine (Swallow). In 1192 a Rondinello di Ulivieri is mentioned in the records of the Opera del Duomo, and his son, Spinabello, commonly called Bello di Rondinello, was one of the Elders of the city who signed the league with Arezzo in Sta. Reparata in 1258. Vieri, Bello’s son, was the first of thirty-six Priors his family gave to Florence, and a few years later the first of twelve Gonfaloniers of Justice. The Rondinelli were Guelphs, and always in the van of every popular movement, and Michele, who was deputed to buy Lucca of the Scaliger in 1341, became extraordinarily beloved owing to his liberality and kindly manners, and was one of the leaders of the people when they rose against the Grandi. Rinaldo, his nephew, was twice sent as ambassador to the Republic of Lucca to watch the Pisan exiles who were plotting against Florence. He joined with Giovanni and Cosimo de’ Medici in building S. Lorenzo, but died before the church was half finished, and left strict orders in his will that his sons were to continue the work.

Antonio Rondinelli, whose name is linked for ever with that of the beautiful Ginevra degl’Amieri must, if he and Ginevra are not mere creations of the popular phantasy, have been a brother of Michele. The Amieri, one of the proudest and oldest families of Florence, whose magnificent palaces and towers stood near S. Andrea in the old market place, were strongly Ghibelline. Scorning an alliance with a Rondinelli, a Popolano and a Guelph, they forced Ginevra to marry Francesco degl’Agolanti, whose family was on a par with her own. In vain she tried to forget the handsome, gentle Antonio. She sickened, and one day fell into a deep swoon, as dead; her death was attributed to the plague which was then raging in Florence, and she was hastily buried in the vault of the Amieri adjoining the Duomo.79 In that terrible year (1400) people were often buried with their jewellery, and thieves, braving the infection, went at night to rob the corpses. Two of these fellows lifted the stone of the vault. The fresh air revived Ginevra, who sat up, whereupon the men, thinking she was a ghost, fled. Ginevra called her women, but to her horror saw she was surrounded by skeletons, and understood what had happened. Slipping off the linen bands which tied her hands, she was able to set her feet free. The moon was full as she climbed the steps out of the vault, and wrapping her shroud around her she crossed the Piazza, and went down the small street which has, they say, ever since borne the name of Via della Morte, to her husband’s house.80 Francesco opened the window when she knocked, but thought that the spirit of his dead wife was asking for suffrages, and promising to have masses said for the repose of her soul, shut the window. Ginevra then went on to her father’s house, where her mother sat weeping by the fireside, and in the old popular ballad in ottava rima by Agotino Velletti, we read:

Rejected by husband and mother, she turned her steps to the house of her uncle, who had always loved her, and implored his help, but:

Shuddering with cold and misery, in utter despair she thought of Antonio Rondinelli. After praying under the portico of S. Bartolomeo she hurried to his door, and crying for aid, fell exhausted to the ground. “Then,” writes J. A. Symonds, “comes the finest touch in the poem. Antonio knows Ginevra’s voice; and loving her so tenderly, he hurries with delight to greet her risen from the grave. He alone has no fear, and no misgiving; for love in him is stronger than death. At the street door, when he reaches it, he finds no ghost, but his own dear lady yet alive. She is half frozen and unconscious, yet her heart still beats. How he calls the women of his household to attend her, prepares a bed, and feeds her with warm soups and wine, and how she revives, and how Antonio claims her to be his wife, and wins his cause against her former bridegroom in the bishop’s court, may be read at length in the concluding portion of the tale.”82

The Gonfalonier Tommaso di Vieri de’ Rondinelli was so beloved that on his death, in 1430, the people insisted on giving him a public funeral. The name of one of his descendants, Giovanni, is known as a poet of some note. When in 1790 the old family of the Vitelli died out, the Rondinelli inherited their estates and their name, and I believe the palace in Via della Stufa, where the last of the Rondinelli died, and which now belongs to his daughter, was a Palazzo Vitelli.