_Via Lambertesca. No. 11._
The old palace of the Lamberteschi, with which the tower of the ancient
family of the Gherardini had been incorporated, was bought in 1640 by
Anton Maria Bartolommei, and to it was added, according to an entry in
the catasto, “in 1824 a building, called the tower of the Girolami,
at the corner of Via Lambertesca and Via Por Santa Maria, bought by
the Marquess Girolamo Bartolommei from the heirs of Count Covoni,
whose wife was the last of the Girolami. According to tradition the
progenitor of the Bartolommei was Marcovaldo, who came into Italy with
the Emperor Frederick I., and was created Marquess of Ancona and Count
of Romagna. His descendant Sigismondo was Captain of War in Perugia
in 1358; beaten by the Pontifical troops, he fled to Florence, where
his son Bartolommeo obtained the citizenship and gave his name to the
family. His son Girolamo was implicated in the conspiracy against the
Medici with Orazio Pucci and Zanobi Girolami, and sentenced to death
_in contumaciam_; another son fled to Lyons, where he made a large
fortune in trade, which eventually came back to the family. Thus Anton
Maria was enabled to buy the palace and restore the adjoining church
of S. Stefano. Girolamo de’ Bartolommei, a poet of the XVIIth century,
was Consul of the Florentine Academy in 1648, and published two volumes
of tragedies, but his best known work is _America_, a poem written in
honour of Amerigo Vespucci. Mattia, created Marquess of Montegiove by
Fernando II., was ambassador at Paris under Cosimo III., and from his
son descended the late Marquess Ferdinando Bartolommei, last of the
family, who was one of the factors of United Italy.[20]
The Gherardini, whose old tower was incorporated in the Lamberteschi
palace, were Guelphs; many of them fought at Montaperti, while eight
signed the peace of the Cardinal Latino in 1280. Andrea Gherardini, one
of the leaders of the White Party, was exiled together with Dante, and
his brother Lotteringo was killed in a street skirmish by adherents
of Corso Donato. They were a fighting race; five of them fell at the
battle of Montecatini in 1315, and the two last scions of the family
died in battle, one in the Seven Years War in Germany, the other in
Flanders. Passerini affirms that a Gherardini went to Ireland in the
XIIIth century, and was the progenitor of the great family of the
Fitzgeralds.[21]
[Illustration: TOWERS OF THE GIROLAMI AND OF THE GHERARDINI.]
The Girolami whose tower adjoins that of the Gherardini claimed
S. Zenobius, Bishop of Florence in the VIth century, as belonging to
their family, and on the 25th May his statue in a niche in the tower
used to be decorated with garlands of flowers, with great ceremony and
much blowing of trumpets. The family possessed the ring of the saint,
held in such estimation as a wonder-working relic that Lorenzo the
Magnificent sent it in 1482 to Paris to Louis XI. The king was cured of
a severe illness after touching it, and sent it back in a jewelled box
of great value which the Gherardini sold, and founded a rich canonry in
Sta. Maria del Fiore with the proceeds. In 1523 Raffaello de’ Girolami
was Gonfalonier of Justice, and five years later Commissary of War.
Condemned to death after the capitulation of Florence, the sentence
was commuted at the request of Don Ferrante Gonzaga to imprisonment
for life in the fortress of Pisa, where he was poisoned by order of
Pope Clement VII., as soon as the Imperialists left Tuscany. One of his
sons fought as a lad against Cosimo I. at Siena under Strozzi, and was
sentenced to lose his head, but escaped to France. Another obtained
permission to return to Florence after long years of exile, and as
all his estates had been confiscated, left nothing to his son save
the family hatred of the Medici. He joined Orazio Pucci and Girolamo
Bartolommei in conspiring against the Grand Duke, and was condemned to
death _in contumaciam_. Raffaello de’ Girolami founded the Academy of
the Sapienza in Rome, and became a Cardinal in 1743, and the last of
the family died about forty years later, appointing the sons of his
sister, married to Count Covoni, his heirs.