Salviati Period

12 SALVIATI PERIOD

After the Portinari, one of the most prominent families in Florentine history, the Salviati family, came into ownership of the Palazzo, ushering it into its golden age with the Salviati’s wealth and power in society. The Salviati family played an important role not only in Tuscany, but also in Italian and European history, both for their commercial and banking activities and for the political positions they held in the Florentine state. In 1386, the family entered Arte della Lana (the Florentine wool guild), marking the beginning of the Salviati’s flourishing fabric trade. They also established several banks in Florence and Pisa, later expanding to other European cities such as London and Bruges. The Salviati’s commercial activities paved the way for their political standings in Florence as well. Over the course of three centuries, the Salviati family provided a total of 63 priors, 21 gonfalonieri di giustizia (the prestigious Gonfaloniere of Justice), and many ambassadorships for the Florence Republic.

The preeminence of the Salviati family was not based solely on economic and political perspectives but also its solid relations with the most prominent Tuscan families. Foremost of these relationships was with the Medicis, with whom the Salviatis shared extensive networks of trading companies, financial services and artists. The ties between the two families were reinforced by strategic marriages celebrated from the 14th to the 16th centuries.

The most famous of these marriages was the union between

PORTRAIT OF COUNT ALAMANNO SALVIATI

16th century, oil on panel

Lucrezia Maria Romola de’ Medici (1470-1553), eldest daughter of Lorenzo the Magnificent, and Jacopo Salviati (1462-1533). This marriage brought close ties with the Medici popes Leo X and Clement VII, helping to extend Jacopo’s economic activities to the Papal State. Jacopo and Lucrezia had ten children together. A portrait of their eldest son, Giovanni Salviati (1490-1553), can be found in room #301. Jacopo and Lucrezia’s daughter, Maria Salviati (1499–1543) also married a member of a cadet branch of the Medici, Giovanni de’ Medici, better known as Giovanni dalle Bande Nere. The two were the parents of the famous Cosimo I - the first Grand Duke of Tuscany. Lastly, Jacopo and Lucrezia’s youngest son, Alamanno (1510-1571), was likely to have been the first Salviati owner of Palazzo Portinari Salviati and his portrait can be seen in the Cosimo I Court.

In 1546, the Palazzo became the property of Alamanno’s son, Jacopo Salviati (1537-1586), who was named after his grandfather. Between 1572 and 1582, Jacopo renovated and decorated the Palazzo extensively. He enlarged the compound and incorporated nearby houses located in via dello Studio. He constructed the beautiful internal courtyard with loggia, a grotto, a garden and a private chapel, filling these spaces with antique sculptures from Rome. Other works of art by famous artists, such as Donatello, Verrocchio, Cellini, Baccio Bandinelli, Andrea del Sarto, Bronzino, Alessandro Allori, and Francesco Salviati were also added to the Palazzo. On top of the grandeur, Jacopo completed a series of portraits of his ancestors to glorify and commemorate the family.

Le bellezze della città di Firenze (“The Beauties of the City of Florence’’) published in 1591 by Francesco Bocchi (1548 -1613 or 1618), offered illustrative accounts of the Palazzo. Bocchi’s work takes readers on a walk through the Salviati palazzo in its golden age with an emphasis on its art collection. The Palazzo was truly a treasure house, filled with works of art that are currently located in renowned museums worldwide, including Donatello’s Christ Giving the Keys to St. Peter in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and Andrea del Sarto’s The Holy Family in the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica (Palazzo Barberini) in Rome. Finally, Bocchi’s text also mentioned the finely painted wall paintings by Mannerist master Alessandro Allori, that have been conserved and can be seen in the Palazzo today. Through Allori’s beautiful works and the descriptions in historic documents one can imagine the glory and splendor of the Palazzo during the Salviati period.

THE SALVIATI FAMILY TREE

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ODYSSEUS ARCHERY CHALLENGE

by Alessandro Allori. Odysseus has to prove himself by shooting an arrow thrugh the holes of twelve axes

16 ALESSANDRO ALLORI (1535 - 1607)

Alessandro Allori, a master of the late Florentine Mannerist school and a painter for the Medici Grand Duke Francesco I, was one artist whose magnificent work has remained in Palazzo Portinari Salviati to this day. When Jacopo Salviati (15371586) began to enlarge and restructure Palazzo Salviati which he’d inherited from his father Alamanno, he commissioned Allori and his workshop to decorate the walls and ceilings of the new spaces in the Palazzo in Via del Corso, in 1573. The works carried out were described in detail in valuable records, including Raffaello Borghini’s famous 1584 Il Riposo, Francesco Bocchi’s 1591 guide. Le bellezze della città di Firenze (“The Beauties of the City of Florence”), as well as in the documents conserved in the Salviati Archives.

Alessandro Allori was born in Florence in 1535 to Cristofano di Lorenzo, better known as Tofano spadaio (a swordsman). Allori lost his father at age 5 and was adopted by his father’s friend, Agnolo Bronzino, a leading painter of 16th century Florence and court artist to Cosimo I de’ Medici. Bronzino took in Alessandro not only as a pupil but also as his own son, “and they have lived and still live together with the same love, one for another, that there is between a good father and his son,” according to Renaissance art historian Giorgio Vasari. Young Alessandro learned the fundamentals of painting from Bronzino, to whom he was so grateful for the fatherly care and tutelage that in his signatures he used to add the master’s name to his own–”Bronzino’s pupil” or “Alessandro del Bronzino,” and after Bronzino’s death, “Alessandro Bronzino-Allori.”

GRAND DUKE COSIMO I DE’ MEDICI IN ARMOR

by Angelo Bronzino (1503 - 1572) Uffizi Gallery, Florence

Allori went on to occupy an important place in the Florentine artistic milieu of the second half of the 16th century, demonstrated by the affirmations from his contemporaries and his versatility in various aspects of artistic practices, including painting, theater costume design, architectural projects and teaching painting to the gentlemen and ladies of the court.

Allori’s first association with the Salviati family was his commission by Jacopo’s father, Alamanno, to paint three large paintings for the main room of the Salviati’s Villa del Ponte alla Badia in the northern hill of Florence. Years later, Jacopo Salviati commissioned Allori and his workshop for more elaborate works on the walls and ceilings for Palazzo Salviati. While a considerable amount of paintings was believed to have been done by Allori and his associates, what has been successfully preserved and restored for the Palazzo Portinari Salviati today are those in the Hall of Hercules, the Emperor’s Court, and the Chapel.