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 6_Via Taddea
_ _ _ First Itinerary
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If we leave Via Ginori in Canto del Bisogno and turn right, instead of
going on towards Via Guelfa, we arrive in Via Taddea and can stop to
appreciate this street for a minute as stretches a few hundred meters
in front of us on its way to Via Panicale. A little farther on the
right a small Trecento palazzo draws out attention. It partially rests
on brackets and arches and has a wonderful loggia on the third floor
that is typically Florentine: a fascinating view that gives us an idea
of what the medieval city must have been like. Today the construction
houses a restaurant and hotel, it is in very good shape and from spring
to autumn it is not difficult to see the balcony of the loggia filled
with multicolored flowers. The street gets its name from the Taddei,
who owned a beautiful palazzo on Canto del Bisogno. They held positions
in city government as early as the fourteenth century, serving in many
capacities like Priors, Gonfaloniers and Ambassadors. However, they are
more famous for their generous hospitality to Raffaello Sanzio when he
was a young promising painter who arrived in Florence from Urbino in
1505. We have already discussed the plaque commemorating his stay (see
Via Ginori). In his "Lives" Giorgio Vasari also gave a long description
of this stay and the two masterpieces that Raphael painted for Taddeo
to thank him for his hospitality. According to Vasari they were
stylistically similar to the work of his first master Pietro Perugino
and they were still in the house of Taddeo's heirs at the end of the
sixteenth century. Art historians have identified these two paintings
as "The Madonna of Prato", now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum of
Vienna, and the "Sacred Family" in the National Gallery of London. It
is easy to understand the importance these two paintings had on the
development of Florentine painting.
In addition to Raphel, Taddeo knew Michelangelo who sculpted an
unfinished tondo for him. This masterpiece has been in the possession
of the Royal Academy of the Arts since 1823. Vasari says that Giovanni
Antonio Sogliani also made him a frescoed tabernacle depicting a
"Crucifixion with our Lady and Saint John at the base and several
angels in the air crying in an animated manner". This tabernacle still
exists today but it is on the other side of the street: the painting
was moved in the nineteenth century and was documented by Milanese in
his edition of Vasari's
Lives complete with comments (1878-85). At that time the picture was in
very poor condition having felt the effects of time and retouching but
in 1956, it was restored by painter Luigi Rossini. The reason it was
moved to the other side of the street is easily explained. In the
middle of the nineteenth century the building, after belonging to the
Giraldi for a long time, was bought by a wealthy Israelite named Levi
and he had it removed and placed across the street it for religious
reasons. This is how the misunderstanding about Raphael's address
arose. Because of the tabernacle many historians believed that he had
lived in the Taddei's other, more modest house, at number 17 just past
Canto del Bisogno and so the plaque commemorating Raphael's sojourn in
Florence was placed there.
The Giraldi are responsible for enlarging the street from their Palazzo
on the side of Via Taddei up until the corner of Via della Stufa. The
antique vegetable garden that once grew here was enclosed and later
transformed by paving for the coach house used to store carriages: you
can still see the entrance today.
Via della Stufa - Via Rosina
Let's continue on towards the small noble medieval palazzo that that we
noticed earlier. Via della Stufa begins here and goes back to Piazza San Lorenzo.
The very short street Via Rosina immediately ends in Piazza del Mercato
Centrale. The street takes its name from the antique stufa, the public
baths, where the ancient Romans washed in water and hot steam.
Normally, the Roman baths were located at the doors of the city (see
Via della Terme at Porta di Santa Maria) the medieval baths, however,
were scattered all over the city in modest locations and were privately
managed like the Stufa di San Michele Berteldi behind Piazza Antinori,
its nickname, the Obizzi, came from the name of the owners. Here we
find the Stufa of San Lorenzo. It dates back to at least 1319 and it
gave the street its name. The business was divided into two parts with
two separate owners: The men's bath was owned by Lorenzo d'Andrea
Lotteringhi and the women's bath by Giovanni di Lorenzo Lotteringhi. To
make a long story short the Lotteringhi came to be called Della Stufa.
They were more than a little embarrassed by it, partly because they
came from the German nobility (they came to Italy in 998 as part of the
Emperor Otto III's court) and in part because they were closely tied to
the Medici (Leo X gave them a title) and aspired to the highest political positions available in Florence during the reign of Cosimo I
who they had helped rise to power. In fact Vasari painted Pinzivalle
della Stufa's portrait next to Duke Cosimo in a tondo located in
Palazzo Vecchio. The low construction that you see on the corner of Via
Taddea and Via della Stufa even though it is a public bath today, it is
not the original. From number 123 to 25 you can see a large building
with a coat of arms on its door depicting six white stones against a
blue background: it belongs to the Marcucci di Bibbiena, who descended
from a certain Marco Tarlati da Pietramala who was made prisoner by the
Guelphs in 1360. The building has an enormous entranceway that runs
along the entire construction and ends in the little coach house in Via
Taddea
A quick look at the street immediately shows us that at number 15 there
is a small palazzo with a Medici coat of arms. The Ammannati house was
located at number 9, the artist died here after many years filled with
good deeds, and was buried in the nearby church of San Giovannino that
he had so carefully enlarged and decorated. At numbers 3, 5, and 7 you
can recognize the beautiful doors from the fifteen hundreds while the
entrance to the street from San Lorenzo shows us the lateral facade of
Palazzo Lotteringhi della Stufa, with a large arch and a wonderful
seventeenth century tabernacle that encloses a polychrome bas relief
depicting a ‘Madonna'. Inside the building among the remaining family
there are some beautiful stuccoed doors from the seventeen hundreds and
one of the most artistic alcoves surviving today. It was decorated in
grand style in the sixteen and seventeen hundreds with stuccoes and
upholstered walls.
Looking at the last section of the street, from Via Sant' Orsola to Via
Panicale. The entire right side of the block is taken up by the antique
Convent of Sant'Orsola. The building has been in very bad shape since
it housed the Tabacco Manufacturers' workers in the nineteenth century.
After that, it was a homeless shelter. There are various proposals to
recuperate the building, including transforming it into a residence or
a covered market for multiethnic products to meet the needs of the
foreign communities in this area. |
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The Medici entrance
