Palazzos

This museum is also known as the Museum of the traditional Florentine house. The Palazzo was erected in the 14th century by the Davizzi family, who were wealthy members of a wool guild. In 1516 it was sold to the Bartolini family, and, later that century, to the Davanzati family, who held it until 1838. After the suicide of Carlo Davanzati, it was split into different quarters and modified. After escaping the numerous demolitions of 19th century Florence, it was bought by Elia Volpi, an antiquarian, who restored to its original state.

In 1910, Volpi opened the building as a private museum. The contents of this museum kept changing as Volpi sold the furniture at auctions, including in a major sale of 1916 in New York. In the 1920s, Egyptian antique dealers Vitale and Leopoldo Bengujat acquired the building and its contents. It was acquired by the Italian State in 1951.

The Palazzo is entirely furnished with paintings, furniture and objects partly derived from other Florentine museums and partly from donations and acquisitions. Apart from the furnishings, which faithfully reflect those of a Florentine home from the medieval to the renaissance periods, the museum also has an important collection of lace from Italy and elsewhere.

Museum of Palazzo Davanzati
Via di Porta Rossa 13
Florence, Italy 50122
+39 055 2388610
www.polomuseale.firenze.it/english/davanzati

Current scholarship agrees that the Palazzo Rucellai was designed by the famous artist, architect, and humanist Leon Battista Alberti, but built by Bernardo Rossellino in the mid-fiftheenth century. It is notable for being one of the first palazzos to express humanism in Renaissance residential architecture. This new style is evidenced by an elegant design that sets the building apart from the more fortress-like structures that had been built before in Florence, including the Palazzo Medici with its more heavily rusticated ground floor.

The Palazzo is currently home to the Institute at Palazzo Rucellai, a school that offers diverse study abroad possibilities to international students, especially in the field of liberal arts. A tour of the facilities offers a great opportunity to view Renaissance art, and in particular beautiful vaulted ceilings decorated with mythological figures and motifs.

The Rucellai family still occupy the top floor of the Palazzo.

Palazzo Rucellai
Via della Vigna Nuova, 18
Florence, Italy 50123
+39 055-2645910 (The number is for the Institute - visits can be arranged by appointment.)

Located near the San Lorenzo Market, the Palazzo Medici is one of the finest and most famous palazzos of Florence. It was built in the fifteenth century on the commission of the Medici family by Michelozzo di Bartolomeo Michelozzi, a disciple of Ghiberti and collaborator of Donatello. The palazzo is a prototype of Renaissance civil architecture and effectively represents the power and influence of the Medici family. The building exerts influence on new architectural projects to this day, and has many features, like the rusticated stones on the lower level and the finer cuts stone at the top that have been copied for centuries.

The Palazzo Medici contains a museum with regular exhibitions dedicated to major figures in modern and contemporary art (like this exhibit by Yang Maoyuan). The palazzo has a beautiful seventeenth-century staircase that leads to the Chapel of the Magi, containing imaginative frescoes by Benozzo Gozzoli that are considered to be some of his finest work. There is also a fine statue of Orpheus by Baccio Bandinelli in the ornate courtyard.

Palazzo Medici Riccardi
Via Camillo Cavour n.1
50129 Firenze
Telephone +39 055 2760 340

Palazzo Strozzi was begun in 1489 by Benedetto da Maiano for Filippo Strozzi, a rival of the Medici who desired to have the most magnificent palace in the city. Filippo Strozzi was left in ruins by the cost of the project and died in 1491. The palazzo was eventually finished in 1538 by Il Cronaca (Simone del Pollaiuolo).

Today the Strozzi houses 2 separate exhibition spaces (the main space, and the Strozzina in the basement) with rotating exhibits (3 a year), a brand new café, administrative offices, and a library.

Palazzo Strozzi
Piazza Strozzi, 50123 Firenze
Telephone +39 055 27 76 461/06
info@fondazionepalazzostrozzi.it

One of the swankest new places to stay in Florence:

"Scheduled to open in early 2008, Palazzo Tornabuoni (866-753-6667), a stunning renovated 15th-century Florentine palace being divided into apartments, is offering fractional shares from around $230,000."