_Via de’ Servi. No. 57._
[Illustration: DOORWAY OF PALAZZO GRIFFONI.]
About 1250 the Servites bought so much more land than was necessary
for their church, convent and orchard, that a large space was left in
front of the church. In winter the mud was knee deep, and in summer
the faithful were enveloped in clouds of dust when they went to mass.
So the friars petitioned the Captains of the Guelph party to make a
paved road from the Via de’ Servi to the S.S. Annunziata. In 1464 the
Prior of the Order decided to sell some of the waste land near the
Via de’ Servi, and the first buyer was Puccio Pucci. He did not carry
out the covenants of the sale, and the land was sold to Roberto de’
Ricci in 1515; some thirty years later his sons ceded their rights to
the brothers Griffoni. Ugolino Griffoni, secretary to Ramazzotto, the
confidential adviser of Cosimo I., held, among other rich benefices,
that of Maestro dell’ Altopascio and had the title of Monsignore as
an Apostolic Pronotary. He, like many of the Duke’s courtiers, called
in Bartolomeo Ammannati as his architect, and the contract between
them of 4th September 1563 still exists in the State archives.[40] Ten
years later the marble coat-of-arms, which is now on the façade in
the Piazza, was placed above the central window in Via de’ Servi. The
balcony was one of the first works by Gian Bologna, but the palace was
only entirely finished in 1772 by Pietro Griffoni.
Cinelli writes in the _Bellezze della Città di Firenze_, “This
beautifully proportioned and ornate palace, with a fine frieze under
windows of the Doric order, was built by Bernardo Buontalenti;” but
he cannot have seen the above-mentioned contract, nor can Vasari have
known of it, as he states that the architect was Giuliano di Baccio
d’Agnolo. This is impossible, as Giuliano died two years before Ugolino
Griffoni demolished the shops belonging to the first owner of the
land. Additional proof that Ammannati was the architect of the fine
palace, one of the few instances in Florence of an unplastered red
brick building, exists in the Riccardiana library, in a book treating
of arithmetic, geometry, etc., in which Ammannati made architectural
sketches. Among them are a sketch of chimney-piece, the plan of a
loggia, and some drawings of doors, all marked “for I’Altopasso.”
In 1800 Gaetano Griffoni sold his family palace to the Marquess
Ferdinando Riccardi at whose death it went to his heir the Marquess
Mannelli (who took the name of Riccardi). He sold it to the Antinori
family in 1847. When, about forty years later, the palace was bought
by Cav. Gattai and his son-in-law Signor Budini, but little remained
of the beautiful friezes; the stone-work of the windows was crumbling
away, and the cornice had not been completed. The palace has been
admirably restored by the architect Boccini, who among other things did
away with the shutters, which disfigured the façade and were destroying
the fine ornamentation of the windows.