_Borgo degl’Albizzi. No. 12._
The name of Albizzi appears for the first time in the annals of
Florence in 1251, when Benincasa di Albizzo was an Elder. In 1282
Ser Compagno was the first of the long list of ninety-eight Priors
of the house of Albizzi who sat in the Palazzo de’ Signori. Piero,
the son of Filippo, the first Gonfalonier of Justice of thirteen the
family gave to Florence, became immensely rich and by his prudence and
sagacity obtained such preponderance in the affairs of the city that
he was the recognized head of the _nobili popolani_. Acute rivalry
between the Ghibelline Albizzi and the Ricci, who were Guelphs, had
always existed; and Uguccione de’ Ricci, thinking to crush his rivals,
advocated the revival of the magistrature of the Captains of the Guelph
party, proposing at the same time that all who professed themselves
Ghibellines should be admonished, _i. e._ excluded from all offices
of state. Piero di Albizzo, to hide his Ghibelline tendencies, not
only made no opposition, but took a foremost part in the doings of the
tribunal, which became odious to the Florentines under his presidency.
The Ciompi revolt was the direct consequence of the tyranny of the
Captains of the Guelph party, Piero was beheaded and the other members
of the Albizzi family were banished, only to return more powerful
when the old system of government was revived in 1381. According to
Passerini it was to the wise administration of Maso, Piero’s nephew,
that the prosperity and the greatness of Florence, feared and respected
by the other Italian Republics, were due. “He formed political
relations apt to preserve the prosperity of the Republic, built great
public edifices, protected nascent studies and arts and promoted the
foundation of the Florentine University, the basis of the literary
glory afterwards culled by the Medici family. The wars against the
Visconti were prosecuted with constancy and without losses; indeed
the state was enlarged, a thing which could not have happened amid
such conflicting opinions as then reigned in Florence, if the man at
the head of affairs had not been a politician of the first order.”[9]
Maso degl’Albizzi died in 1417 and his son Rinaldo inherited part of
his father’s vast wealth and his ambition, but not his caution. The
oligarchy of the _nobili popolani_ became odious under his leadership,
and the strong party led, but not ostensibly, by Cosmo de’ Medici,
divided the city into two hostile factions. The death of that wise old
citizen Niccolò da Uzzano, who had kept Rinaldo in check was, writes
Machiavelli, “a misfortune for Florence, as Messer Rinaldo, thinking
now to be head of the party, never ceased entreating and worrying
all the citizens he thought might become Gonfaloniers, to rise and
liberate the country from the man destined, through the malignity of
some and the ignorance of the many, to enslave it.” Albizzi’s friend,
Bernardo Guadagni, whose debts he paid in order to enable him to
become Gonfalonier of Justice in September, 1433, confined Cosimo de’
Medici in the Palazzo de’ Signori and then exiled him for ten years.
“Meanwhile,” writes Machiavelli, “in Florence, widowed of a citizen so
great and so universally beloved, everyone was confounded. Conquerors
as well as conquered were afeard;” and Rinaldo and his friends were
beginning to realize “that great men should not be assailed, but so be
they are assailed they should be done away with.” They attempted to
retrieve their mistake by proscribing many of Cosimo’s party, and the
government, occupied with private quarrels and enmities, became futile
and uncertain. In September the following year, a Signoria devoted
to the Medici was elected, and Rinaldo degl’Albizzi urged his party
to take up arms. Whereupon the Gonfalonier summoned him and others
of the _Grandi_ to appear before him. Instead of obeying the order
they collected their followers and with a strong armed force invaded
the Piazza. The old palace of the Signori was at once closed and
barricaded, and civil war seemed imminent.
It was averted only by the intervention of Eugenius IV. then living
as a refugee in Florence. He sent Giovanni Vitelleschi, Bishop of
Recanati, to beg Rinaldo degl’Albizzi to come to him and assured him
there was no question of recalling Cosimo de’ Medici, and that if he
went quietly home all would be well. Rinaldo was kept so long that his
followers got tired and dispersed, leaving the Signoria masters of the
situation. Sentences of banishment against Albizzi, his son Ormanno,
Ridolfo Peruzzi, Palla Strozzi and many others of the _Grandi_ were
passed, and before they left the city Eugenius sent once more for
Rinaldo and “told him,” writes Machiavelli, “that he blamed himself for
the evil that had befallen him through trusting his word; exhorting him
to have patience and to hope for a change of fortune. To which Messer
Rinaldo replied, the small confidence shewn by those who ought to have
trusted me, and the too great faith I put in you, have been the ruin of
myself, of my party. But above all do I blame myself for believing that
you, who were driven out of your own country, could keep me in mine. I
have had ample experience of the tricks of Fortune; prosperity I never
trusted much, so adversity does not affect me. I know that when Fortune
pleases she will be kinder, but should she continue unkind, I care not
to live in a city where men are above the law. For a country in which
riches and friends can be enjoyed in security, is preferable to one in
which you can easily be deprived of the former, and where your friends,
for fear of losing their all, abandon you in your direst need. It
was ever less hard for discreet and good men to hear tell of their
countries’ woes, than to see them, and an honourable rebel is more
esteemed than an enslaved citizen. So, full of ire, he left the Pope,
thinking how fruitless his counsels had been and how cold his friends,
and went into exile.” He died at Ancona in 1452.
His brother Luca, on the contrary, was an ardent adherent of the Medici
and his descendants filled important posts under the Republic. The
stern, grey palace, now divided into many houses, at the eastern end of
Borgo degl’Albizzi, under which passes a small street was, I believe,
built by him for one of his sons. The Albizzi arms, two golden rings
one inside the other under a cross of the Teutonic order, are still to
be seen on the façade. The Marquess Vittorio degl’Albizzi, to whose
memory there is an inscription on the great family palace, was the last
of his race.