_Via de’ Serragli. No. 6._
A peasant named Balducci, from Vinci, was the ancestor of the Feroni
family. One of his descendants, of the name of Ferone, established
himself at Empoli as a dyer, and had dealings with Holland, where
his grandson Francesco Feroni made a large fortune. Prince Cosimo de’
Medici made his acquaintance during his travels, and when he became
Grand Duke summoned him to Florence, made him a citizen and a Senator,
and in 1681 Marquess of Bellavista. He left an enormous fortune to his
descendants, one of whom bought several houses in Via de’ Serragli, and
built this large palace, which the Marquess Ubaldo Feroni enlarged in
1778. It was afterwards again considerably augmented by the addition
of the suppressed church and monastery of S. Giuseppe, when another
entrance into the spacious courtyard was made from Via S. Frediano. In
the same year his brother the Marquess Alessandro bought the larger
half of the ancient Palazzo Spini, which is sometimes called Feroni. In
another palace in the Via Faenza they had a gallery of pictures, which
the last of the family bequeathed to the city of Florence in 1850.