The descent of the Strozzi family is traced like one of those old Tuscan towns which claim Noah or Hercules as their founder by an old chronicler, Lotto Fiesolano, who in his History of Florence says: “We cannot pass over in silence what our ancestors have so well described and what is so worthy to be remembered; i. e. that before the Arno was ennobled by the wonderful walls of the Florentine city, the Strozzi already existed. They took their origin from a noble and illustrious cavalier who sprang from the antique race of Arcady, and bore as his emblem a half moon.89 When fighting, with his strong hand he throttled (strozzò) his enemy. The Etruscans in consequence renamed the family and from that famous father the Strozzi took their name. After Fluentia was built they were made citizens of the town, and aided by that house Fluentia enlarged her frontiers.”

The real progenitor of the house of Strozzi was however an Ubertino who lived early in the XIIth century. He had two sons, Strozza, and Geri who was killed in the battle of Montaperti. Amongst the descendants of the latter were Tito Vespasiano, and Lucia (the mother of Matteo Bojardo, author of Orlando Innamorato), they were born at Ferrara, where their father, an exile, had entered the service of the Duke. Tito was the favourite pupil of Guarino Veronese, and his name as an elegant Latin poet stood so high that Aldus Manutius collected and published his works. His son, Ercole, was also well known as a writer of Latin verse, and only became a convert to the use of the vulgar tongue owing to his friendship with Bembo. He was one of the wits and scholars who formed the brilliant court of Lucrezia Borgia after she became Duchess of Ferrara. But one June night the poet was found dead, pierced with twenty-two wounds, and as no judicial enquiry was made, rumour accused both the Duke and the Duchess of the deed. Alfonso, out of jealousy of his wife, whose praises Ercole sang in impassioned verses; Lucrezia, because her poet had recently married Barbara, widow of Ercole Bentivoglio. Ciriaco, one of Geri’s many descendants, travelled for some years in the East, and on his return to Florence took his degree as Doctor of Law and opened a school for the teaching of Greek and peripatetic philosophy. In 1535 he was invited to teach in the University of Bologna, and afterwards Cosimo I. summoned him to Pisa. His name, now forgotten, was once lauded to the skies for his attempt to complete the Politics of Aristotle by writing the two lost books. The work was published in Florence in 1563, and a translation appeared in Paris in 1600, as well as an introduction to Aristotle’s Ethics. The gentle fair-faced Maddalena Doni, painted by Raphael, was another descendant of Geri Strozzi, and Caterina, the nun who left the celebrated Strozzi library to the Grand Duke Pietro Leopoldo in 1786 was the last of this line.

Strozza, son of Ubertino, who fought at Montaperti in 1260, was among those who signed the peace between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines. One of his sons, Pagno, was the first Gonfalonier of Justice of sixteen of his house in 1297, when the foundations of the Palazzo Vecchio were laid, and no less than ninety-four of the family were Priors. Lapo, another son, Gonfalonier in 1309, was the father of Palla Strozzi, one of the twelve ambassadors sent by different potentates to Rome to assist at the coronation of Pope Boniface XIII. who, when he heard that they all came from Florence, remarked that the Florentines were the fifth element.90 Palla’s son, Francesco, distinguished himself by defeating the Pontifical Legate, Cardinal del Poggetto, at Ferrara and was received with high honour on his return to Florence. He filled various important posts under the Republic, and was the ninth Gonfalonier the Strozzi gave to Florence. From him descended the well-known Palla Strozzi, one of the great merchant princes of Florence. In the catasto of 1427 his property was valued at one-fifth more than that of Giovanni de’ Medici. Born in 1372, his name is included in every embassy between 1410 and 1434 and to him together with Coluccio de’ Salutati was due the establishment of a Greek chair in the University of Florence. Vespasiano tells us that he sent to Greece for countless volumes. The Lives of Plutarch, the works of Plato and the Cosmography of Ptolemy, he got from Constantinople, while the Politics of Aristotle were unknown in Italy until he obtained them. I cannot do better than quote J. A. Symonds’ words about this most pathetic and dignified figure in Florentine history. “Palla degl’ Strozzi devoted his leisure and his energies to the improvement of the Studio Pubblico at Florence, giving it that character of humane culture which it retained throughout the age of the Renaissance. To him, again, belongs the glory of having first collected books for the express purpose of founding a public library. This project had occupied the mind of Petrarch, and its utility had been recognized by Colluccio de’ Salutati, but no one had as yet arisen to accomplish it. Being passionately fond of literature, Messer Palla always kept copyists in his own house and outside it, of the best who were in Florence, both for Greek and Latin books; and all the books he could find he purchased, on all subjects, being minded to found a most noble library in Santa Trinita because it was in the centre of Florence, a site of great convenience to everybody (Vespasiano).”

During the struggle for supremacy between Rinaldo degl’Albizzi and Cosimo de’ Medici, Palla degl’ Strozzi, “who was,” writes Machiavelli, “a peaceful man, well-mannered and kindly, better fitted for a life of study than for keeping a party in check and averting civil discord,” tried to preserve a neutral attitude. But the presence of so enlightened and rich a citizen seemed dangerous to the Medicean party, and after the return of Cosimo de’ Medici from exile in 1434 he was banished to Padua, where he died, separated from his children, who shared the same fate in other parts of Italy. The wonderful bust of his daughter Marietta by “il bravo Desider si dolce e bello,” as Raphael’s father called Desiderio da Settignano, is one of the treasures of the Palazzo Strozzi. His cousin Matteo, married to Alessandra Macinghi, was exiled at the same time, and the Strozzi property having been confiscated, she was left in dire poverty with six small children. After her husband’s death at Pesaro, she sent her eldest boy, Filippo, to an old family friend who had a house of business in Palermo. She must have been a lovable, courageous, and sensible woman, judging by her letters.91 When the last boy left her she wrote to Filippo: “I have no treasure but you my three sons, and for your welfare I have sent you from me, one after the other, without a thought of my own happiness.” When Filippo set up on his own account at Naples she longed to join him, but thought it wiser to stay in Florence and work for the possible restoration of her children to their native city. Charming are her descriptions of the various girls she proposes to her son as suitable wives; they pass before one like a procession out of the frescoes of the XVth century.

Of Filippo’s life at Naples, where he made a large fortune and became a favourite with the King, who eventually obtained his recall from exile from Lorenzo de’ Medici, we have an account by his son, who writes: “He lived well, but not magnificently ... entertaining rarely, but when he did, splendidly and with great ceremony, being served by the youths in his house, who were nearly all Strozzi, as he preferred to benefit his own blood rather than strangers. Ofttimes there were eighteen at his table, and he cared for their honour and advancement as though they had been his sons. It can truthfully be said that all the riches of the house of Strozzi of that time are due to him.... Near to the city of Naples he had a Masseria, or farm ... and he took such delight in it that he often worked with his own hands, and gathered from it the rarest and finest fruits.... He enriched his native State with many noble plants, introducing the ‘gentile’ fig, and artichokes, which had never been brought to these parts [Florence] before.... In stature Filippo was above the common, good-looking, alert, lithe and well made, fearing neither cold nor heat, hunger nor thirst. So kind was he of heart that when any of his partners, relations, or friends fell out (a thing that often happened, as their number was considerable), they came to him as head of the family, and he always reconciled them, often giving, in addition to his time and trouble, whatever he saw was needful to facilitate peace. He visited friends or relations in adversity or sickness, comforting and aiding them with all necessaries, so that his presence was often of more use to such persons than any other comfort or medicine. In short, he seemed made by nature not less to dispense his riches usefully, than to accumulate them.”

In 1466 his sentence of exile was cancelled, and he once more beheld his native city, where he married the beautiful Fiametta degl’ Adimari, one of the girls described by his mother, by whom he had a son, Alfonso, and two daughters. After her death he married Selvaggia, daughter of Bartolomeo Gianfigliazzi, who bore him three daughters and two sons; Lorenzo, writer of the records of his father and of other members of his family, and Giovanbattista, who by his mother’s desire took his father’s name, Filippo, after his death.

In the Strozzi archives is the contract between Filippo Lippi and Filippo degl’ Strozzi for the painting of the chapel which Strozzi had bought from the decayed family of Boni in Sta. Maria Novella, showing the shrewd man of business, who was determined to have his money’s worth:

Lorenzo gives a graphic account of the building of the great palace in the Life of his father, already quoted. “Having amply provided for his successors, and being more desirous of fame than of riches, seeing no better or surer method for transmitting his memory to posterity, and being naturally inclined towards building, and of no small intelligence, Filippo determined to raise an edifice which should perpetuate his name and that of his family in Italy and abroad. But he was confronted by the great difficulty that he who governed [Lorenzo de’ Medici] might conceive that another’s glory would outshine his; so, fearing to do a thing that might arouse envy, he spread abroad the rumour that having so many children and so small a house, he was bound, having begotten them, to provide a dwelling for them, a thing better done during life than after death. Thus he began tentatively, discussing first with masons, then with architects, about the necessity of having a house. Sometimes he seemed inclined to begin it at once, then he would appear irresolute and alarmed lest he should spend in a short time what he had gained in long years with much toil and industry; astutely hiding from all his desire and his intention, in order the better to carry out his design; declaring always that he only wanted a comfortable burgher’s house, for use and not for show. But the masons and architects, according to their wont, enlarged and improved on every plan, which pleased Filippo, although he feigned anger, saying that they drove him into what he neither wished nor could accomplish. Add to this that the ruler desired that the city should be adorned with every sort of ornament, thinking that as good and ill depended alone on him, so every beautiful or ugly thing would also be attributed to him. Aware that so great and costly a work could not be regulated or calculated with exactness, he feared that it might not only destroy his credit, as often happens with merchants, but cause his ruin. For these reasons he began to interfere, and insisted on seeing the plans, to which, besides many other expenses, after due consideration, he added the ‘bozzi’ [dressed blocks of stone with bosses] on the outside. The more Filippo was encouraged, the more he affected to hold back; declaring nothing should induce him to add the ‘bozzi,’ being unsuited to his condition and too costly, as he was building for use and not for show, and intended to arrange many shops under the house as a source of income for his sons. This was strenuously opposed, the extreme ugliness being dwelt upon as well as the inconvenience to those who were to inhabit the palace. Filippo respectfully demurred, and would occasionally complain to his friends that he had entered upon an undertaking which he prayed God might end well, and that he had rather never have mentioned it than find himself in such a labyrinth. Thus the more he appeared intent on avoiding expense, in order to hide the greatness of his designs and the vastness of his riches, the more he was driven and encouraged to fulfil his secret desires. By such sagacity and astuteness he attained what would either have been denied to him, or have caused him great harm. Most men thought that such a building would be his ruin before its completion; but he had planned to finish it in every detail, year by year out of his income, without diminishing his capital, and would have done so if death, which often interrupts magnificent and great enterprises, had not prevented him.”

Part of the Palazzo Strozzi covers what once was the Piazza de’ Tornaquinci, belonging to various families who had their towers and loggie round it. Without the intervention of Lorenzo de’ Medici, Filippo would never have been able to obtain possession of the ground. On the 10th February, 1489, Giovanni Tornabuoni, Pietro and Bartolomeo Popoleschi, Girolamo and Giachinetto Giachinotti, Giovanni, Piero and Niccolò Tornaquinci ceded all their rights to the whole, or part, of the said Piazza, to Lorenzo de’ Medici to give, sell, or cede irrevocably to whomsoever he wished. On the 10th March following Filippo was authorized to straighten the line of the Piazza, and to occupy any portions of the streets and small alleys that might be necessary. He was also permitted to build “sedilia,” or stone benches, suitable to the building. All the rights that the Commune might have to the Piazza de’ Tornaquinci were ceded to him. This act was ratified by the Signori and Collegi of the Republic, and on the 10th April Lorenzo de’ Medici had the deed of gift drawn up by a notary, on condition that the building should be begun within a year and continued without intermission under pain of forfeiture.

On the 10th July the first cartloads of sand and small stones were thrown into the foundations, and Filippo writes: “On the 15th July at daylight I began to pull down the carpenter’s shop in the Via Larga de’ Tornaquinci, as a beginning to my work; this spot was pointed out to me as good by Benedetto Bigliotti, who also advised that the building should begin on Thursday, the 6th August when the sun rose above the mountain.” This opinion being ratified by Niccolò and Antonio Benivieni, by the Bishop Paganotti and by Marsilio Ficino, all learned in astrology, the first stone of the foundation was laid by Filippo in the middle of the arch of the large door in the Via Larga di Santa Trinita e Tornaquinci (now Via Tornabuoni), when he placed certain medals under the stone. Tribaldo de’ Rossi, who happened to pass by at that moment, notes in his Memoirs: “Filippo said to me, take up a stone and throw it in, and I did so, and then put my hand into my leathern satchel in his presence and took out a ‘quattrino vecchio gigliato’ to throw in; he demurred to this, but for luck I threw it and he was pleased. Then leaving, I went to my shop, opposite to Sta. Trinita, and bethought me that for the memory of the event I would send for Guarniero, my son, and for Francesca, my daughter. Tita, our maid, who had come to the shop to fetch the meat, it being Thursday morning, went for them, and Nannina, my wife, sent me the two children well dressed, and I took them to the said foundations. Raising Guarniero in my arms so that he could look down, I gave him a ‘quattrino gigliato’ and he threw it in, and a nosegay of damask roses he held in his hand I made him throw in also, and said to him: ‘now thou art to remember this,’ and he answered yes, together with our servant girl Tita who was there; Guarniero was exactly four years and two days old, and Nannina had but a few days before made him a new overcoat of silk, shot green and yellow, and thus may it ever be to the glory of God.”

In a few days the foundations of the palace on the side next to the Piazza were filled in and work had begun, to the great discomfort of the neighbours; particularly of the chemist, Luca Landucci, who notes in his diary: “The pulling down of houses by great numbers of master-masons and workmen continues, so that all the streets around are choked with mountains of stone and lime, and with mules and donkeys carrying away rubbish and bringing rough stone. The worst is for the shopkeepers, who are bothered with dust and the plague of people who stand and look on, and for those who cannot get past with their laden beasts.” On the 21st August building commenced, and on the 18th May, 1490, the wall below the “bozzi” was finished on the side next the Piazza; on the 2nd June a mast, and a crane for raising the stones, were set up, and six days afterwards the first of the large “bozzi” was put in its place. “Every day,” writes Rossi, “eight or ten of these were set,” and Landucci the chemist notes, “on the 20th July, the ring at the corner of Tornaquinci, the one with the serpent or dragon, was put into its place.”

On the 18th May, 1491, Filippo Strozzi died, and Rossi writes: “In all the land has arisen great respect for the beautiful building, and he [Filippo] is held to be the good man he was. He had begun to put in the irons of the windows, five were already set in the front and the others were ready.” The day before his death Filippo made his will, containing most minute directions for finishing pictures and buildings commenced by him, particularly with regard to the “big house, which not being finished inside and out according to plan and model, so that both houses can be inhabited, my heirs are to see that it is completed; therefore fifty men at the least, between master-masons, men, and stone-cutters, are to be kept continually at work, so that without loss of time it shall be finished at the latest in the year 1496.” Filippo deputes “Messer Andrea Buondelmonti to hasten matters and to command everybody, at a salary of 50 ‘fiorini larghi’ a year for so long as he gives his time to the building, but the salary is to cease in 1496.” If not then finished he begs “the magnificent Lorenzo de’ Medici, if then living, and willing to undertake the charge, to see that it be completed in two years from that date, and if he be not alive or is unwilling to accept such charge, then the Consuls of the Guild of Merchants of Calimala, with two governors of the hospital of Messer Bonifazio and two elders of the house of Strozzi, are to have authority to finish it.” The will is far too long to transcribe, but the following clause is too characteristic to omit. “In order that the said Lorenzo, or the said Consuls, etc., may see to the work, I direct that between 1496 and 1498, or for whatever less time may be needful to finish the said house, they be authorized to come once every fifteen days to dine in the said house, in whatever part thereof seems to them most honourable and convenient, at the expense of my heirs, but no dinner is to cost more than fifty lire piccioli.” Filippo also forbids his heirs to sell the house or even to let it, save to a Strozzi. The two houses mentioned in the will are in reality but the one palace which was built to serve for two separate families; a fact often forgotten when the internal arrangements are criticized. Filippo’s widow did her utmost to carry out his wishes. “She was most desirous,” writes her son Lorenzo, “to husband the family wealth for her sons, so that when they attained majority they might not find their paternal inheritance diminished or the house unfinished.” In the family archives the building may be followed week by week by payments to the various artisans until 1507 when, writes Giovanni Cambi, “Selvaggia, for account of her sons, finished her part in obedience to the will, but Alfonso” [Filippo’s son by his first wife] “took no heed of it and did not hasten to take up his abode in the house. He began by inhabiting the ground floor and then continued building little by little for his own need and use, so that the said building will remain imperfect and do dishonour to their father.” Lorenzo Strozzi confirms this when in mentioning the will he adds: “It is as though he had been prescient that some of them had in their minds not to carry out what he had ordered. Though on the palace, that grand and splendid work, he [Alfonso] spent something, yet he did it unwillingly, and the blame is his if it is still incomplete.”

Signor Iodici Del Badia, in his historical notes to Messer Mazzanti and Del Lungo’s fine work94 throws doubt on the accuracy of Vasari in attributing the original design of the Palazzo Strozzi to Benedetto da Majano. Vasari states that “Filippo Strozzi summoned Benedetto da Majano, who made a model, isolated on all sides, and then commenced the work, but not according to the plan, as shall be explained below,95 because several neighbours declined to sell their houses. So he began the palace as he best could, and nearly finished the shell thereof before the death of the said Filippo: the shell being of the rustic order and graduated as can be seen. The ‘bozzi’ from the first-floor windows downwards, as well as the doors, are huge rustic work, and from the first-floor windows up to the second-floor they are of lesser rustic work. Now it happened that at the very time that Benedetto left Florence, Cronaca returned from Rome, and being recommended to Filippo, made for him so admirable a design for the courtyard and for the cornice surrounding the palace outside that, perceiving the excellence of his talent, Filippo decided to leave all in his hands, and employed him ever after. So Cronaca added to the beautiful exterior of the Tuscan order a most magnificent Corinthian cornice round the top of the palace up to the roof, of which at present but the half is finished, of such exceeding beauty that it could not be improved or anything finer be desired. This cornice was drawn by Cronaca, who copied and took exact measurements of an ancient cornice at Spoglia Cristo, in Rome, acknowledged to be one of the most beautiful of the many existing in that city; it is true that Cronaca enlarged it in proportion to the palace, so that it might make a suitable finish, and with its projection a roof, to the said palace. Thus by his genius he understood how to use the works of others and made them almost his own, a thing few people can do; for the difficulty lies not alone in making copies and drawings of such beautiful things, but in knowing how to apply them according to necessity, with grace, proportion, and suitability.... Now Cronaca executed the said cornice with consummate art as far as the middle, all around the palace with label and egg, and on two sides he finished it, balancing the stones in such guise and so poising and tying them, that no better building can be seen or one finished with more care and perfection. Thus also all the other stones of this palace are so dressed and fitted that they appear to be of one piece, and not joined together. And in order that everything might be in unison, he caused beautiful iron-work to be made for the whole palace, and for the lanterns that are at the corners; all done by Niccolò Grosso Caparra, a Florentine smith, with extreme care. Marvellous in these lanterns are the cornices, the columns, the capitals, and the brackets, wrought in iron with perfect mastery. Never has any workman of recent times made objects in iron so large and so complex with such knowledge and skill.”

Other critics had already observed that the name of Benedetto da Majano, as an architect, appears in connection with no other building, and Signor Del Badia has found in the Strozzi archives that between Sept. 1489 and February of the following year, Giuliano da San Gallo received 115 lire (no small sum in those days) at three different dates, “for work, and in part for wood, used in making the working model for building the house;” in April 1490 “the carpenter Filippo d’Andrea received 9 lire for his trouble and his work on a model of the first floor of the house;” and in July a quantity of trunks of lime trees were bought to make “the new model” of 120 large and small columns. The iron cressets also do not appear to have been exclusively the work of the famous Caparra, for in the account-books of the family in 1491, 28 lire are mentioned as paid to Benedetto di Leonardo da Majano “for a wooden model of the cresset made by order of the chief,” and 13 soldi were reimbursed to Simon del Pollaiolo which he declares to have paid to Ippolito the turner for two wooden models of banderai [the iron rings between the windows].

In 1533 Filippo Strozzi the younger, irritated at seeing his father’s great work remain unfinished succeeded, together with his brother Lorenzo, in inducing their eldest half-brother Alfonso to finish his part, by offering to bear one-third of the expense. Two courses of “bozzi” were wanting, and the cornice. A contract was signed with stonecutters of Settignano for the cornice, and in October 1534 another with a master-mason for putting it up. But the rupture between Filippo and the Duke Alessandro stopped the work, and in August the following year the contract was dissolved by common consent.

Alfonso died without male heirs and the palace went to his half-brothers, Lorenzo, from whose Lives of the Strozzi these facts are quoted, and Filippo, who married Clarice, daughter of Piero de’ Medici and Alfonsina Orsini. This marriage created a great stir in Florence. The Strozzi and the Medici had always been rivals, and the Gonfalonier Piero Soderini denounced the “presumptuous licence and audacity” of young Filippo in daring to marry the scion of an exiled house. He was summoned before the Priors and though he defended himself with great ability was sentenced to a fine of 500 golden crowns and exiled for three years. His bride came to live in the palace in Florence, and by her modest and dignified manners won all hearts, so after some months her husband was permitted to return to his native city. A few years later the Medici were once again rulers of Florence; Giovanni ascended the papal chair as Leo X.; and astute Filippo Strozzi at twenty-two years of age became one of the most influential men in the city. But his brother lays stress on the fact that he was not elated by his position for, “if any Florentine saluted him by taking off his hood out of respect, or called him Messer Filippo, instead of as heretofore plain Filippo, he would be angry as though he had been abused; saying he was neither a doctor nor a knight to whom the title of Messere belonged, but plain Filippo, son of a citizen and merchant of Florence of the same name.”

When Lorenzo de’ Medici, Duke of Urbino, the nephew of Pope Leo X., went in 1518 to France to marry Madeleine de la Tour d’Auvergne, he insisted on his brother-in-law accompanying him, and Filippo left Palazzo Strozzi in great state clad in crimson velvet. He was also charged to represent the Pope as godfather to the son and heir of Francis I. M. de Fleuranges, who was at Amboise, describes the festivities as the most splendid that had ever been seen in France or in Christendom. They lasted for nearly six weeks and then the Duke and his bride returned to Florence. Six years later he died and his cousin, the Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici, ruled in Florence.

When Giulio de’ Medici, the illegitimate son of Giuliano, ascended the papal throne as Clement VII., Filippo Strozzi hastened to Rome to congratulate his wife’s kinsman, and to beg for a cardinal’s hat for his eldest son Piero. Not long afterwards the Pope was forced to take refuge in Castel Sant’Angelo, and had to sue for peace with Charles V. A hostage was demanded, and Filippo, sorely against his will, was chosen and went as a prisoner to Naples with Don Ugo di Moncada. Needless to say Clement kept none of his promises and Filippo was in some danger of losing his head. A shift in politics saved him just as his wife Clarice reached Rome, where she spoke some hard words to the Pope. Soon afterwards Clement for the second time sought refuge in Castel Sant’Angelo and Rome was sacked by the Constable de Bourbon. “Never,” writes old Varchi, “was chastisement so tremendous inflicted, nor was it ever more richly deserved.” Filippo and his wife left two days before the catastrophe for Civitavecchia and sailed for Pisa, where messengers met them from the Cardinal of Cortona, who was governing Florence for the Medici, and from Niccolò Capponi, brother-in-law of Filippo and head of the anti-Medicean party. Strozzi had need of all his prudence and astuteness at this juncture. Clarice urged him to proceed at once to Florence, where his influence would be supreme on whichever side he chose to use it. After much pondering he decided to send her to “try the difficult ford” as his brother Lorenzo puts it, and Clarice, who had always been he continues, “high-spirited even beyond what was prudent,” started for Florence at once. Her first interview was with Niccolò Capponi and others of the “Ottimati” or patrician party, to whom she promised her husband’s and her own help in expelling her kinsmen the Medici. She was then carried in her litter to the Palazzo Medici (now Palazzo Riccardi), where the Cardinal Ridolfi and young Ippolito de’ Medici met her on the staircase and conducted her into the room next the chapel where sat the Cardinal-Governor. He rose to salute her and, as Varchi writes, she said to him: “Ah Monsignore, Monsignore, whither have you led us. Does it seem to you that your past and present conduct is in any way similar to that practised by my ancestors?” After setting forth how they had always obeyed the will of the people, she turned to the two lads, Ippolito and Alessandro de’ Medici, and advised them to think of their own safety, for which she naturally felt more anxiety than the cardinal.

Two days later prudent Filippo Strozzi entered Florence; many of his relations and friends met him at the city gate and escorted him to his palace, which was crowded by anxious citizens eager to know what he would do. After long consultation he decided to go at once to the Palazzo Medici and advise the Cardinal to leave the city with Ippolito and Alessandro. On the 17th May, 1527, he and Niccolò Capponi rode with them, through a threatening crowd, down the Via Larga (now Via Cavour) to the city gate, and Filippo accompanied them ten miles further to their villa of Poggio a Cajano.

A year later he lost his wife and not liking the condition of things in Florence went to Lyons, where he had a large commerce in silk. One of his daughters had married Luigi Capponi and is described by Varchi as being “not less honest and virtuous than beautiful, noble and of most engaging manners.” She was invited to a masked ball given in honour of the marriage of Guglielmo Martelli to Marietta Nasi, where the Duke Alessandro and his courtiers were disguised as nuns. Among them was Giuliano Salviati, “a man,” writes Varchi, “of abominable life and ill fame. His wife bore an evil reputation and he, desiring that others should be like her, accosted Luisa at the ball and said some words, with actions worthy of himself but certes not of her; whereupon she, being virtuous and of high spirit, with haughty speech and scornful demeanour, repulsed him. But in the morning, when the entertainment which had lasted until daylight was over and Luisa wished to mount her horse,96 he, being impudent and shameless, pressed forward to aid her repeating the words and the actions of the night before; and with most angry scorn she replied to him as he deserved. The affair passed, and would perhaps have had no consequences, had Giuliano been satisfied with using discourtesy towards a gentlewoman such as she was, and not openly boasted of his behaviour....”

It was customary on every Friday in March for people to go up to S. Miniato to obtain pardon for their sins, and Luisa’s brother Leone Strozzi, Prior of Capua, Giuliano Salviati and other young nobles, stood watching the ladies come out of the church. As Luisa passed Giuliano made some insolent remarks, so the Prior said: “Giuliano, you perhaps do not know that she is my sister;” whereupon Giuliano repeated his insulting words. On the following night, as Salviati was returning on horseback from the Palazzo Medici, he was assaulted by three strangers and wounded in the face and on the leg, so that he was lame ever after. Duke Alessandro was furious, and gave orders that the assassins must be discovered. Suspicion, of course, fell on the Strozzi. Piero, Leone the Prior, and two of their friends were arrested, and there was a question of putting them to the torture; but Clement VII. interfered, and ordered that nothing more should be done. Piero Strozzi and his brothers, knowing their lives were in danger, took horse and went to Rome. Meanwhile Luisa, who had remained in Florence with her husband, supped joyously one night, as the old chronicler Segni reports, with her sister Maria, wife of Lorenzo Ridolfi. A few hours afterwards she died in excruciating agony, and her body turned black. Her relations insisted on a post mortem examination, and the doctors declared that she had died from the effect of some virulent poison. Varchi more than hints that her own family were the culprits, out of fear that the Duke, “by means of some treachery or fraud, purposed to stain the honour of their family in the person of Luisa.” But Segni and others agree that, having repulsed the Duke Alessandro, as she had done Salviati, his infamous wife poisoned her by the Duke’s orders. Not long after the death of the beautiful Luisa, her father and her brothers were declared rebels and outlaws by the Duke Alessandro. The sentence was confirmed by his successor Cosimo I. because Lorenzino de’ Medici, after he had murdered his cousin the Duke Alessandro, fled to Venice where Filippo Strozzi hailed him as a second Brutus.

The exiles invaded Tuscany, but were beaten; Strozzi was made prisoner at Montemurlo, together with Bacio Valori, and they were taken to Florence mounted on miserable peasants’ horses in August, 1537. Filippo was immured in the fortress of S. Giovan Battista (now Fortezza del Basso), for which but four years before he had advanced the funds to Clement VII. He was put on the rack, but no avowal of guilt was wrung from him; so his friend Giuliano Gondi was tortured, and his confession—or what purported to be his confession—was sent to the Emperor Charles V. and an order obtained from him to give up Filippo Strozzi to the Duke Cosimo. On the morning of the 18th December, 1538, he was found dead in his prison, but how he came by his death was never known. The anonymous writer who finished the biography begun by his brother Lorenzo, states as a fact that he killed himself with a sword left by chance by one of his guards, and gives a document which he says was found in the prison in his handwriting. Three contemporary chroniclers state that he was beheaded, and Segni adds: “His body was never seen; nor was it ever known where he was buried.” It was generally believed that he had killed himself when he knew that he was to be delivered into the hands of the executioner. Signor Bigazzi gives a facsimile of two epitaphs in Filippo’s handwriting, one to be used “In my own country, if in these times it shall be permitted,” consisting of these few proud words:

Philippo Strozzae.
Satis hoc; caetera norunt omnes;

the other, also in Latin, “for a cenotaph in some foreign city,” gives us his opinion of himself.

“To Filippo Strozzi, by far the most illustrious of all Tuscans in nobility, learning and wealth; who, when Rome was sacked by the Imperial forces, and Pope Clement was besieged therein, restored his country, then reduced to base slavery, to liberty. Ten years afterwards, when again opposing resuscitated despotism, he was taken prisoner at the castle of Montemurlo, and soon after cruelly put to death. His seven surviving sons placed this monument to his memory amid the tears of all good men. The tyrant did not blush to buy his blood at a vast price, for he could find no means of remaining in security while so powerful an enemy lived. But Liberty, knowing well that all her hopes fell with him, willed to be buried in the same tomb. Pour forth then, stranger, abundant tears if the Florentine Republic is aught to thee; for thou wilt never have cause to mourn the loss of a greater citizen. He lived forty-eight years, ... months, ... days. His last words were, ‘It is sweet to die by whatsoever death for one’s country.’”

Filippo’s supposed will was commonly reported to have been written by Pierfrancesco of Prato, who had been tutor to Duke Cosimo, and was devoted to his interests.

The anonymous writer before mentioned gives the following description of the great banker: “Filippo was tall of stature, and of a cheerful and pleasing countenance; sallow of complexion, agile, and made more for a life of action than for one of repose. No one was more agreeable in manner, in gesture, deed and word; he was extremely affable, almost always smiling when he first met people. His step was extraordinarily rapid, and when his friends remarked upon it he would say nothing was so irksome to him as loss of time, and that he did not see why, when he could go quickly from place to place, he should go slowly. When he could pass a day according to his fancy he was wont to divide it into three portions; one he gave to his studies, one to his private concerns, and one to his pleasures.... He was more inclined to pleasure than was perhaps fitting, not only from inclination, but to adapt himself to the wishes of his superiors and friends. When he was at any public or private assembly where there were ladies, he would lightly fall in love, for he was much inclined to the society of women; attaching himself rather to those remarkable for elegance and grace of manner than to those who were merely beautiful in feature. He was exceedingly fond of music, sang well and accurately, and was not ashamed to sing the penitential psalms at night in public together with his brother Lorenzo and others such on holidays. He took much pleasure also in composing in our own tongue both in prose and verse, as may be seen by the translations and madrigals of his which are sung at the present day. He was sumptuous in dress; as much so as any other man in the city. He delighted in travel, and in seeing new manners and people, but his many and various affairs did not permit him to indulge this desire. To sum up his character in one word, those who were acquainted with literature thought that he had never given his attention to other things; while those who had business relations with him, and knew in how masterly a fashion he conducted his affairs, could not easily be persuaded that he ever attended to other matters; whilst those who knew him as a man of pleasure could scarcely believe that he found time for aught else.”

Filippo’s son, Piero Strozzi, went to Barcelona to plead the cause of the exiles before Charles V., and after their disastrous defeat at Montemurlo and his father’s murder, entered the service of Francis I., who created him Lord of Belleville and a knight of S. Michael. When the Marquess Del Vasto was beaten by the Conte d’Enghien in 1544 at Ceresole, Piero Strozzi attempted to seize Milan. Failing in this, he crossed the Po at Piacenza, and fought his way down to Serravalle, but had to retire into Piedmont, where he besieged and took the town of Alba. He was recalled to France in 1545, when he fought against the English, and the following year he joined the Protestant army in Germany against Charles V. Later he took part with the Duc de Guise in defending Metz, when besieged by the Emperor. On the Sienese appealing to Francis I. for help against Duke Cosimo I. backed by Charles V., Strozzi rushed to their assistance armed with full powers from the King, who made him a Marshal of France. When Siena was forced to capitulate Piero, who knew that Duke Cosimo had offered a large reward for his head, fled in disguise, but returned to Italy in 1556, sent by Henry II. to the aid of Pope Paul IV. against the Emperor. After the battle of St. Quintin in the Netherlands, where the Spaniards gained a decisive victory, Strozzi was recalled to France, and assisted at the taking of Calais by the Duc de Guise. Two years later he was killed at the siege of Thionville.

His brother Leone, Prior of Capua, went to Malta, where he became a Knight of the Order and Captain of the galleys. He fought with distinction under Andrea Doria, and in 1541 entered the service of Francis I., whose rivalry with the Emperor Charles V., patron of the Medici, gave him hopes of revenging the murder of his father and of liberating Tuscany from the yoke of a family he hated. In 1547 Leone fought against England, and is said to have been the first European admiral to sail through the Straits of Gibraltar. Four years later after vainly trying to force Andrea Doria to fight, he drove his fleet from the coasts of France, and setting sail for Barcelona, captured several of the enemy’s ships within sight of shore. Discovering that the Connetable Anne de Montmorency was intriguing against him, Leone sent back his standard to the King and, breaking the chains which closed the port of Marseilles, sailed back to Malta, where he planned the fortifications of S. Elmo and S. Michael. When the Sienese rose against Cosimo I. he re-entered the service of France and, summoned by his brother Piero, preceded the fleet with three swift galleys and landed at Scarlino on the coast of Tuscany, where he was killed whilst reconnoitring.

The noble palace belongs to Prince Piero Strozzi, head of the family; as in 1568 Cosimo I. restored to the Cardinal Lorenzo Strozzi and his nephew Leone the half of the building confiscated by the State when Filippo Strozzi rebelled.97