_Piazza S. Biagio. No. 3._
The Canacci came originally from S. Stefano ad Ugnano, and took their
name from a certain Lapo surnamed Canaccio. That they were rich is
proved by their fine old palace, which has just been restored. Ser
Giovanni was notary to the Republic in 1422, but the name of Canacci
would have remained comparatively unknown if the Duke Jacopo Salviati
had not fallen in love with the beautiful wife of Giustino. I cannot do
better than tell the sad tale in the words of an anonymous writer of
the time, whose manuscript is in the Marucelliana library in Florence.
“There was in Florence a gentleman of the old and honourable family
of the Canacci, named Giustino, well known to me and to others still
alive. He was considered a man of but little sense, because having
several grown-up children by a former wife, and being near seventy
years of age, he took to himself a second wife, Caterina, inferior to
himself in rank, but endowed with marvellous beauty. Now Giustino was
the ugliest, most tiresome, and the dirtiest man in Florence, which
encouraged many to solicit the good graces of Caterina, who apparently
led a modest life until they say she listened to Lorenzo Serzelli
and Vincenzio Carlini. There were also two youths, friends of Jacopo
Salviati, Duke of Giuliano, the greatest personage for birth, enormous
wealth and other admirable qualities, in the city of Florence (always
excepting the princes of the ruling house), who a few years before had
taken to wife Donna Veronica, daughter to Don Carlo Cybo, Prince of
Massa and Carrara. This lady had not much beauty, but such pride and
conceit that the Duke was driven to seek for comfort elsewhere.... It
was rumoured that the Duchess entered S. Pier Maggiore one morning,
and as though by chance placed herself by the side of Caterina. In a
few words she bade her never again speak to her husband, and Caterina
replied, perchance with more arrogance and spirit than became her
condition, thus increasing the ire of the Duchess and ensuring her
own ruin. The Duke’s love grew every day, and the Duchess determined
to cut the thread. Rumour has it that she tried to poison Caterina,
but failed, and determined to take vengeance in another way. She sent
for the brothers Bartolomeo and Francesco Canacci, youths of about
twenty-four or so, who, though they did not inhabit, yet frequented
their father’s house. After representing to them that Caterina’s
licentious life brought ignominy on themselves and their posterity,
and that as persons of birth and consideration it behoved them to free
themselves of her presence, she promised to give them every help if
they would do this, and to protect them from any future peril.... The
Duchess hired four assassins from Massa, who entered the city one by
one to avoid suspicion, and were kept by her until the time was ripe
for effecting her abominable project. On the night of 31st December,
1638, Bartolomeo Canacci, accompanied by the aforesaid bandits, who
stood at the opposite side of the street in the shade, knocked at
his step-mother’s door. Her maid looked out of the window and asked
who was there, and on his answering _friends_, recognized his voice,
and drew the cord of the latch. Bartolomeo and the assassins rushed
upstairs with such fury that Serzelli and Carlini, who were sitting
with Caterina, suspected some evil thing and, springing to their
feet, fled by another staircase on to the roof, whence they got into
a neighbouring house. Caterina was then murdered by these infamous
executors of the barbarous cruelty of the Duchess, together with her
maid, probably to prevent her giving evidence. After this the bodies of
these two most unfortunate women were cut to pieces, and carried into
a carriage. Parts of the bodies were thrown into a well, others into
the Arno, where they were found the next day, but the head of Caterina
was taken to the Duchess.... On Sundays and holidays she used to send
to the Duke’s room a silver basin covered by a fair cloth, containing
collars, cuffs and such like things. But on this first of January the
present was of a different kind. Taking the head of poor Caterina,
which still preserved the beauty which had been the cause of her death,
Donna Veronica placed it in the basin, covered it with the usual cloth,
and sent it by her waiting-woman, who knew naught of the business, into
the Duke’s room. When he rose and lifted the cloth to take his clean
linen, let his horror be imagined at seeing so pitiful a sight. Knowing
full well that his wife had done this deed, he would have no more of
her, and they say he never was seen to smile again.” The account then
describes how Bartolomeo Canacci was beheaded, while the real assassin,
the Duchess, went unpunished, and ends with the reflection, “Whoso
foregathers with great people is the last at the table and the first at
the gallows.”
The last of the Canacci family died in 1777, and the palace now belongs
to the Commune of Florence.