The architect of the sombre Della Stufa palace is unknown, and the loggia on the top has been walled up, which spoils its appearance. Tradition says that a Lottario, or Lotteringo, came from Lorraine with the Emperor Otho III. about 998, and gave the name of Lotteringhi to his descendants, afterwards called Della Stufa because their house was built on the site of the ancient Roman baths (stufe). Lotteringo Della Stufa was one of the seven founders of the Servite Order, of which he became the General after the death of Filippo Benizzi in 1285. Ten years later the Commune, at his request, opened the Porta di Servi near the S.S. Annunziata, so that the peasants outside the walls could more easily come and pray at the Virgin’s shrine. He was beatified, as was Girolamo, a Franciscan monk of exemplary piety a century later. Ugo, knight of the Golden Spur and a learned jurist, after being many times an ambassador to popes, princes, and other republics, put himself at the head of the People when they rose against the nobles in 1343, and three years later was sent by the Republic to Avignon to remonstrate with Clement VI. about the arrogance of the Inquisitor. His son, Giovenco, was one of the Ten of War in 1399, another, Ugo, after being Captain of Arezzo and Vicario of the Val d’Arno, was sent in 1408 as Captain to Pisa, where he made himself so popular that when he left the Pisans gave him a splendid banner with the arms of the town, and begged that he might be sent the following year as their Podestà. He founded and endowed the church of Monte Asinario (commonly called Senario) near Florence. His nephew, Angelo, must have had a fluent tongue, as his name perpetually occurs as ambassador of the Republic. At Milan in 1476 the Duke made him a knight of the Golden Spur, and when he died four years later in Florence, his funeral, at the public expense, was attended by the Gonfalonier and the Priors. The Della Stufa were always adherents of the Medici, and Lorenzo sent Ugo’s son, Luigi, to thank the Soldan of Babylon for various gifts and animals. The latter are mentioned by Tribaldo de’ Rossi in his Ricordanzi.100 “I record how in 1488 was presented to Lorenzo de’ Medici from the Soldan of Babylon a giraffe; brought by an ambassador, a man of high position and a great lord of that country; and with the giraffe were goats and sheep.... The giraffe was seven braccie high, with feet like an ox; it was a gentle beast and one of those Turcomans led it about; it was shown in the country round and in many convents. Lorenzo put it in the Pope’s stables in Via della Scala, and in winter it had a deep bed of straw and a fire was often kindled near, as it dreaded the cold. It ate of everything, and when it could would put its head into the baskets of the peasants; it took apples from the hand of a child, so tame was it. The ambassador stayed some months and the Commune gave him many presents. The giraffe died in January, and its skin was preserved; every one was sorry because it was a beautiful beast.” In a grotto in the garden of the Villa di Castello its effigy in coloured marbles still exists.

On Luigi Della Stufa’s return from the East he was made Commissary of War at Castrocara, and in 1513 he was sent to Rome to congratulate Leo X. on his accession to the Papal throne, and was knighted with great honour. But when Leo came to Florence in 1433 “he was much displeased and annoyed,” writes Varchi, “with Messer Luigi, an intimate friend of the family, who on going to salute him in the name of the city with other ambassadors, showed him, as is reported, a loaf of white bread such as is sold by the bakers for four quattrini, assuring him that it only cost two. What is certain is that when this was known in Florence the boys, as is their custom, made a song about him, and none could stop their singing these words, put into rhyme by themselves, in all the streets:

His son, Prinzivallo, was the man who fired off an arquebuse at Clarice degl’Strozzi when she went to protest against the bad government of the Cardinal Passerini, and advised him and the two young Medici to leave Florence. He was imprisoned during the siege, but when the city capitulated was one of the five citizens named to examine the fortifications, and afterwards became a Senator. The Grand Duke Ferdinando II. made Pandolfo Della Stufa Marquess of Calcione in 1632, an estate purchased by one of his ancestors from the Republic of Siena. The old palace belongs to the present Marquess Della Stufa.