_Via de’ Benci. No. 2._
Varchi tells us that the palaces of the Alberti were built on the site
of those of the ancient family of Quona, near the town gate called
after Messer Ruggieri da Quona. The picturesque little Café delle
Colonnine, which in the XVth century was the workshop of Niccolò
Grossi, marks where their loggia once stood, and the palaces of various
members of the family extended from Piazza Sta. Croce to the river, in
what was then the Via degl’Alberti. On the façade of the palace where
Leon Battista Alberti lived, which was entirely modernized in 1838 by
the architect V. Bellini, who then built the colonnade which divides
the garden from the Lung’Arno, are two engraved marble slabs with plans
of what it once was and what it is now.
The great family of the Alberti originally came from Catenaia in the
Casentino, where they owned castles and lands. It is probable that
their arms, four silver chains (catene), joined in the middle by a
silver ring, are derived from the name of their castle. Five different
families of Alberti, with different arms, are mentioned in the annals
of Florence; but the Alberti whose palaces stood near the Ponte alle
Grazie, from whom sprang that many-sided genius Leon Battista, bore
the surname of Giudici from an Alberto who held the office of judge
in Florence in the early days of the XIIIth century, and came, as has
already been said, from Catenaia. The Alberti were always Guelphs,
they went into exile after the battle of Montaperti and their houses
were destroyed. Alberto, son of Messer Jacopo, was a Prior when the
first stone of the Palazzo de’ Signori was laid in 1294 (the first
of forty-nine of his house), while the number of Alberti who were
prelates, ambassadors, gallant captains and knights of the Golden Spur,
is innumerable. The death of Messer Niccolò degl’ Alberti in 1377,
then one of the most illustrious and one of the richest citizens of
Florence, was a public disaster. He had acquired the name of Father of
the Poor and his funeral was attended by hundreds of families dressed
in black, who mourned their benefactor. Near to his house in Via
degl’Alfani (where a corner is still called Canto alla Catena from his
coat of arms) he built, after the design of Agnolo Gaddi, a hospital
called Orbetello for poor old women and fallen girls.
When in 1380 Giorgio Scali and Tommaso Strozzi attacked the Palazzo del
Podestà and set Giovanni di Cambio free, the Signori thought it was
time, as Machiavelli writes, “to liberate the city from the insolence
of Messer Giorgio and of the mob. But they deemed it necessary to
get the consent of Messer Benedetto Alberti (son of Niccolò). He was
an exceeding rich man, humane, stern, a lover of the liberty of his
country and averse to all tyrannical proceedings; it was therefore
not difficult to obtain his consent to the ruin of Messer Giorgio....
Having ascertained that Messer Benedetto and the heads of the Guilds
would side with them the Signori armed, and Messer Giorgio was taken
while Messer Tommaso fled. The following day Messer Giorgio, to the
terror of his party was beheaded.... Seeing Messer Benedetto Alberti
among the armed men, he said: ‘And thou, Messer Benedetto, allowest
that such an injury be done to me, which I, were I in thy place, would
never have permitted to be done to thee? But I tell thee that to-day is
the end of my woes and the beginning of thine own.’”
The Guelphs now ruled supreme. Executions and sentences of exile
against the _nobili popolani_ and the leaders of the people were of
daily occurrence, to the great chagrin of Benedetto who made no secret
of his displeasure. “Therefore the heads of the State,” continues
Machiavelli, “feared him, esteeming him one of the friends of the
people, and thinking he had acquiesced in the death of Messer Giorgio
Scali, not because he disapproved of his conduct, but in order to be
the sole leader.” The pomp and magnificence displayed by the Alberti
a few years later, when crowned with gold, clad in white brocade and
mounted on magnificent horses caparisoned with the same stuff, they
rode through the streets of Florence and held jousts in honour of the
acquisition of Arezzo, caused intense envy. When the name of Magalotti
Benedetto’s son-in-law, was drawn from the _borse_ as Gonfalonier of
Justice he was set aside, and Bardo Mancini, an avowed enemy of the
Alberti, was named in his stead. Not many days afterwards Benedetto
was exiled, and with him Cipriano, “a most prudent citizen.” The
former died at Rhodes in 1388, “and his bones,” says Machiavelli,
“were brought to Florence and buried with the greatest honour by those
who had pursued him with calumny and evil during his life.” When the
Albizzi became all-powerful the _popolani_ were persecuted. Benedetto’s
sons were despoiled of their possessions and two were sentenced to be
beheaded if they fell into the hands of the Podestà. Antonio Alberti
was tortured, but escaped with his life and, “in order that the Alberti
should not create disorders every day in the city,” he, his brothers
and his sons were made _grandi_, which excluded them from holding any
office. Lorenzo, another son of Benedetto, and seven of the family
were exiled to 180 miles from Florence and all males above sixteen to
100 miles, under threat of severe punishment if they approached nearer
to the city, or pledged or sold any of their property. Of course they
conspired, and in 1412 every male, down to the smallest child, was
exiled. Any Florentine who dared to harbour an Alberti was fined,
while any who killed one of the hated family above eighteen years of
age within the Florentine territory, received a recompense and the
permission to carry arms. Any citizen marrying an Alberti or allowing
his daughter to do so, was to be fined 1,000 florins; none were to
trade with them, their loggia was destroyed and an inventory made
of their property, which was seized as a guarantee that the exiles
would behave properly. After the taxes had been paid and the dowers
of the girls deducted, the income that remained was doled out to the
respective owners.
Leon Battista tells us that his ancestors met their evil fate
courageously; “meeting often and consulting together with fraternal
affection, full of charity and good offices.... Their number, their
intelligence, their assiduity in making friends by kindliness and
giving help to many men, caused them to be much liked. They despised,”
he continues, “the habit common to so many of saying that it is
enough to know how to sign one’s name and to sum up what is owing....
It became a proverbial saying in Italy when a man was courteous and
well-bred, such a one is as though born and brought up among the
Alberti.... They were merchants, trafficking in noble and honest
merchandize, and no pedlars; dealing in France and England in cloth
and wool, as do the highest and the worthiest men of the city, an
occupation that is good and honourable and he that engages in it
is well-considered and respected in the land.”[3] The Alberti had
houses of business at Bruges, Ghent, Brussels and in various French
and English towns, as well as in Greece, Syria, Spain and all the
Mediterranean ports. By their rigid integrity and their refusal to
enter into speculative loans as the Bardi, Peruzzi and others, had
done, they augmented their riches even whilst in exile. When Pope John
XXII. called upon them to pay within eight days 80,000 golden florins
deposited in their London bank, Ricciardo Alberti handed the sum to
him in Bologna on the fifth day, it having been sent from Venice by
his brother Lorenzo. Their condition however was a sad one. Fugitives,
scattered over the face of the earth and far from home and friends,
their joy must have been great, when Cosimo de’ Medici on his return
to power in 1434 recalled them to Florence. By his influence Alberto
Alberti was created a cardinal, and their name appears constantly in
the magistrature under the Medici.
Lorenzo Alberti, son of Benedetto, seems to have established himself
for a time at Genoa where Leon Battista was born, probably in 1404
(some give 1398 as the date of his birth and others 1414). He was
educated at Bologna and had a hard struggle after his father’s death
in 1421, as the relations in whose charge he and his brother were
left cheated them out of their patrimony. Brought up for the church,
he was ordained a priest and at twenty became a Canon of the cathedral
of Florence. But intense study brought on a disorder of the nerves
which caused loss of memory, and he applied himself to mathematics and
the physical sciences, and adopted architecture as his profession. He
invented several mechanical instruments, the _Reticola de’ dipintori_,
the _Bolide Albertiana_ and the _Camera optica_, a precursor of the
Camera obscura.[4] His principal prose work is the _Trattato della
Famiglia_, three books of which are said by the anonymous writer of his
life to have been composed in Rome in ninety days. “Taken in its whole
extent,” remarks J. A. Symonds, “this treatise is the most valuable
document which remains to us from the times of the oligarchy.... From
its pages a tolerably complete history of a great commercial family
might be extracted; and this study would form a valuable commentary on
the public annals of the commonwealth during the earlier portion of the
XVth century.”
Much discussion was aroused, and still continues, about the fourth
book of the Trattato, published by D. M. Manni in 1734 as the work
of Agnolo Pandolfini under the title of _Trattato del Governo della
Famiglia_. Pandolfini has champions like Signor Virginio Cortesi,
who in his _Studio Critico_ ably pleads his cause. But the _Governo
della Famiglia_ is now generally acknowledged to be by Alberti, in
whose _Trattato_ it figures as the third book, under the name of the
_Economico_, or the _Padre della Famiglia_. Professors Alessandro
d’Ancona and Orazio Bacci, in their admirable manual of Italian
literature[5] write: “It may be considered as definitely proved that
the _Governo della Famiglia_” (as it is usually called) “is nothing
more than a travestied and altered copy, often not to its advantage, of
the third book of the _Famiglia_ written about 1460.”[6] Alberti was
a strenuous advocate for writing in Italian; “I admit willingly,” he
says, “that the ancient Latin tongue is very copious and of a beauty
polished to perfection. Yet I do not see what our Tuscan contains
so hateful, that worthy matter, when conveyed therein, should be
displeasing to us.” In the dedication of his essay on painting to
Filippo Brunelleschi the same note is struck with regard to the arts.
After sorrowing over the loss of many arts and sciences and fearing
that Nature is weary and worn out, he exclaims: “But when I returned
from the long exile, in which we of the Alberti have grown old, to
this our mother city which exceeds all others in the beauty of her
monuments, I perceived that many living men, but first of all you,
Filippo, and our dearest friend Lorenzo Ghiberti, and Luca della Robbia
and Masaccio, were not of less account for genius and noble work than
any ancient artist of great fame.” Leon Battista Alberti died in
Rome in 1472, and no stone marks the spot where one of the greatest
Florentines lies, though one of his descendants put up a monument to
him in Florence.
“He indeed might serve,” writes Symonds, “as the very type of those
many-sided, precocious and comprehensive men of genius who only existed
in the Renaissance. Physical strength and dexterity were given to him
at birth in measure equal to his mental faculties. It is recorded that
he could jump standing over an upright man, pierce the strongest armour
with his arrows, and so deftly fling a coin that it touched the highest
point of a church or palace roof. The wildest horses are said to have
trembled under him, as though brutes felt, like men, the magnetism
of his personality. His insight into every branch of art was innate.
At the age of twenty he composed the comedy of “Philodoxius” which
passed for an antique, and was published by the Aldi in 1588 as the
work of Lepidus Comicus. Of music, though he had not made it a special
study he was a thorough master, composing melodies that gave delight
to scientific judges. He painted pictures, and wrote three books on
painting; practised architecture and compiled ten books on building. Of
his books nothing remains; but the church of S. Andrea at Mantua, the
Palazzo Rucellai at Florence, and the remodelled Church of S. Francesco
at Rimini attest his greatness as an architect.”[7]
The palaces of the Alberti were numerous, and they built or decorated
chapels in the churches of Sta. Croce, the Carmine, S. Miniato al
Monte, degl’Angeli and others. Their villas were superb, especially
the Paradiso degl’Alberti, described in one of Giovanni da Prato’s
tales.[8] Under the dynasty of Lorraine eight of the family attained
the dignity of Senator, and in 1758 Giovan-Vincenzio Alberti was
created a Count Palatine by the Emperor Francis. His son, named Leon
Battista after his illustrious ancestor, died in 1836 the last of his
race, leaving his name and his property to Cav. Mario Moriubaldini.