_Via Tornabuoni. No. 19._
[Illustration: DOORWAY OF PALAZZO LARDEREL.]
The Giacomini were among the illustrious families in olden days in
Florence, and their coat of arms is still to be seen on an angle of
this beautiful little palace. Messer Gherardo Tebalducci, a prominent
citizen in 1280, had several sons, one of whom, for some unknown
reason, dropped the family name and adopted his own Christian name
Giacomino as a surname, which often occurs in the lists of the Priors.
Antonio Giacomini was a brave soldier who in 1498 saved Poppi from
falling into the hands of Alviano, four years later he acted as
Commissary-General of the forces in the war with Pisa and the following
year he was sent with 500 men into the Romagna against the Venetians.
In 1504 he again fought the Pisans, seized Ripafratta and other strong
castles, and then marched against his old antagonist Alviano, who was
advancing to the help of Pisa, and routed him at Campiglia. Jacopo
Nardi tells us that notwithstanding such great services the Republic of
Florence let her old servant die in extreme poverty.
The Giacomini were zealous upholders of freedom. Francesco, one of the
_Dieci di Guerra_ in 1529, was so violent in his hatred of the Medici,
that he denounced Carlo Cocchi for saying that it would be better not
to expose the city to the horrors of a siege and to capitulate at once,
because after all she belonged to the Medici. This ill-considered
speech cost Cocchi his life. Another of the Giacomini, taken prisoner
at Montemurlo with Filippo Strozzi, was beheaded in the Bargello.
A branch of the family must however have been fortunate in trade,
as Settimanni notes in his Diary, “on the 10th October, 1580, the
beautiful house of the Giacomini at S. Michele degl’Antinori was
begun.” It is curious that neither he nor any other contemporary writer
gives the name of the architect of the “Palagetto degl’ Giacomini,”
as the Florentines lovingly called the building they admired so much,
but it is most probably the work of Giovanni Battista Dosio of San
Gemignano. It remained in the possession of the family until the
death of Lorenzo, last of the Giacomini, in 1764, who left it to his
widow for life and then to the Michelozzi Boni. After passing through
various hands the palace was bought in 1839 by Count F. de Larderel,
a Frenchman who made a large fortune in borax at Volterra, and whose
daughter Countess Mirafiore now owns it.