_Via Cavour. No. 7._
From the Riccardi palace to Via Guelfa nearly all the houses once
belonged to various members of the Medici family, who migrated from
their original dwellings in the centre of Florence to settle near S.
Lorenzo, and in this palace, often mentioned as “la casa vecchia”
(the old house), Cosimo the Elder was born. In those days the upper
storeys of most of the buildings projected over the street, supported
on brackets of stone or of wood, until in 1536 peremptory orders were
given to demolish all the over-hanging façades in Via Larga and to
rebuild them straight up from the ground floor, for the entrance into
the city of Margarita of Austria, the bride of Duke Alessandro de’
Medici. The house was sold by Ferdinando II. to the Ughi, and after
changing hands several times was bought by Giovacchino Rossini, to
whose memory an inscription was placed on the front of the house. It
now belongs to Prince Ginori Conti.
The often repeated story that Lorenzino de’ Medici’s house was
destroyed and a street, called the Chiasso del Traditore, made where
it stood, is entirely opposed to all documentary evidence. In 1537
Lorenzino was condemned as a traitor and according to old custom
the front of his house, or rather of the room in which he murdered
his cousin Alessandro, was torn down. In 1568, 1604 and 1611, when
the “old house” and that of Lorenzino passed from one member of the
Medici family to another, the latter is always mentioned as “partly
destroyed.” When the two houses were sold to Alamanno Ughi in 1646 the
description runs: “a large house in Via Larga, with the destroyed part
adjoining the said house and the rooms which are in the said destroyed
part.” The new proprietor let the ground floor “under the ruined part
of the small house” as a shop in 1648, but fifty years later the
shop was turned into stables. It was only in 1736, as we learn from
the _Diario_ of Settimanni, that “Ughi finished restoring his house
in Via Larga adjoining the palace of the Marchese Cosimo Riccardi.
This was the house which belonged to Lorenzo di Pier Francesco di
Lorenzo de’ Medici, who exactly two hundred years ago murdered the
Duke Alessandro.... Until this restoration the hole, over sixteen
braccie wide, which had been made in the front of the house was to
be seen.” There is no mention of any street, nor of any prohibition
as to building on the site of the house in which the murder had been
committed. Signor Corrazzini however states that Ughi, having heard a
rumour that some such prohibition existed, petitioned the Grand Duke
to affirm that he and his heirs were at liberty to build on the site
as they pleased, and this Ferdinando did.[37] The house is No. 5. Via
Cavour, with three windows, wedged in between the Palazzo Riccardi and
the palace of Prince Ginori Conti.