_Borgo Pinti. No. 93._
The historian Bartolommeo Scala, son of a miller of Colle in the Val
d’Elsa, built this palace. Cosimo de’ Medici, and his son Piero after
him, paid for his education, and he became Chancellor of the Republic
of Florence and was Gonfalonier of Justice in 1486. His learning was
undeniable, but Lorenzo the Magnificent evidently was not satisfied
with his Latin style, as he privately made Poliziano correct the
despatches and letters written by Scala in the name of the Republic.
At length the Chancellor suspected who was the real author of the
corrections and a deadly hatred ensued between the two men. The
hatred was embittered by the refusal of Scala’s beautiful and clever
daughter Alessandra to listen to Poliziano, and by her marriage with
Michael Tarcagnota, an inferior poet, but a better-tempered and a
better-looking man than the famous Agnolo Poliziano.
Guido Scala, Bartolommeo’s grandson, died childless in 1581 and left
the palace to Alessandro de’ Medici, Archbishop of Florence, afterwards
Pope Leo XI. It then became the property of the Counts Gheradesca who
laid out a beautiful garden and now it belongs to the Meridionale
Railway Company.