_Via de’ Bardi. No. 40._
The Mannelli lay claim to be descendants of the great Roman family
of the Manlii. They certainly are among the most ancient families of
Florence, and in old times were known as the Pontigiani, probably
because having built the first wooden Ponte Vecchio they had the right
to demand toll, and were the custodians of the bridge. They also bore
the names of Piazzegiani and of Capo di Ponte, from living close to the
Piazza of Sta. Felicita and on account of the position of their palace,
and of their tower which abuts on the bridge and was built about the
XIIth century.
Already a powerful family in 1173 when Mannello di Bellondino was
created a knight of the Golden Spur for services rendered to his native
city, they became yet stronger when his two sons Abate and Rinuccio
attained the position of Elders of the Republic. They were Ghibellines,
and intermarried with the great family of the Uberti. But several of
Abate’s sons went over to the opposite faction, and to the valour of
Messer Coppo was attributed the victory of the Guelphs at the battle of
S. Jacopo in the Val di Serchio in 1256. He and his brother Mannelino
fought against their cousins, sons of Rinuccio, at Montaperti, and had
to fly from Florence with the other Guelph nobles. Six years later the
Ghibellines were beaten, and when the “Peace of the Cardinal Latino”
was proclaimed in 1280, members of the Mannelli family were found in
both camps. Among the signatories of the peace was Lapo, son of Messer
Coppo, who had fought gallantly at Campaldino and was knighted in
1292. He had many sons, all distinguished soldiers whose names figure
in the long list of battles fought during the first half of the XIVth
century. His grandson, Amaretto, was deputed to guard the Val d’Elsa
against the Pisans. Amaretto declared himself a _popolano_ in 1361, and
assumed the name of Pontegiani; sixteen years later he was one of the
Buonomini, but being “admonished” by the Captains of the Guelph party
he joined in the Ciompi riots and was knighted by the mob in 1380. When
the nobles returned to power he was exiled, and to while away time
wrote a history of the world. By his wife, Maria Strozzi, he left two
sons, Francesco and Raimondo; the elder, to whom the world owes a large
debt of gratitude, was probably an ecclesiastic. An intimate friend
of Boccaccio, he made a copy of the _Decameron_ which would otherwise
have been lost. Boccaccio left his own manuscript by will to Fra
Martino of Signa for his life, and then to the monastery of S. Spirito
in Florence. It is supposed to have perished either in the fire which
destroyed the church in 1471, or more probably in Savonarola’s bonfire
of “obscenities and vanities” in which so much that was beautiful and
precious went into smoke and ashes. Boccaccio must often have been a
guest in the Mannelli palace, and one regrets that his friend Francesco
was not endowed with the pen of a Boswell, to have preserved for us
the personality of Giovanni Boccaccio. Francesco Mannelli only
finished his copy nine years after the death of his friend; it came
into the possession of the Medici, but disappeared, and was fortunately
discovered and bought by Messer Baccio Baldini, doctor to the Grand
Duke Cosimo I. and librarian of the Laurentian library, where it now
is. At the end of the manuscript is written: _Qui finisce la decima
e ultima Giornata del libro chiamato Decameron cognominato Principe
Galeotto, Scripto per me Francesco d’Amaretto Mannelli di 13 d’Agosto
1384. Deo sit laus et gloria, in ecternum ad honorem egregi Simacu
Spinis et beneplacitum, et mandatum._
[Illustration: TOWER OF THE MANNELLI.]
Raimondo, his brother, was a sailor, and distinguished himself in an
engagement against Spinola, admiral of the fleet of Filippo Visconti,
who then held Genoa. The allied fleets of Venice and Florence met
the enemy off Rapallo on the 27th August, 1431, but the wind was
unfavourable and many of their ships found great difficulty in getting
out of Porto Fino. Raimondo, seeing his friends hard pressed, urged on
his crew with threats, ran down Spinola’s galley and took him and sixty
of his men prisoners. He was shabbily treated by the Venetian admiral
in command, who took, not only the honour and glory, but the prisoners
and consequently their ransom, from him. Mannelli’s portrait is painted
among other seafaring worthies on one of the ceilings in the Pitti
palace. Messer Coppo’s posterity died out in the XVIIth century, and
the present branch of the family descend from his brother Nerlo, whose
son Chele was surnamed Gorget, from his uncomfortable habit of wearing
that part of his armour by day and by night. He was a good soldier, and
at San Casciano killed with his own hand the leader of a strong body
of French troops sent by Henry VII. to raid the Florentine territory.
Jacopo Mannelli took a prominent part in the revolt against the Duke of
Athens, and was named custodian of the bridge of Sta. Trinita, but one
of his descendants, Filippo, a canon of the cathedral, disgraced the
name of Mannelli by revealing the deliberations of the Council of the
Republic to the enemy. He died by the hand of another priest in 1536.
The old palace and the tower ran great risk of destruction, or at the
least of alteration when Vasari made the corridor between the Pitti
palace and the Uffizi. “In order to make the corridor straight,” writes
Mellini, “it was necessary to pass through the house of the Mannelli
by the Ponte Vecchio, at the end of the Via de’ Bardi; so he [Cosimo
I.] sent for the owners of the said house and asked if they were
courteously inclined to permit him to make the passage. On the plea
that it would spoil their house they refused, and he then placed it as
we now see on stone brackets, passing by a sharp turn round the outside
of the house. But he bore them no rancour, saying that every one was
master of his own.”[46] Two of the family, Jacopo and his son Ottavio,
were made Senators in the XVIIIth century, and the family still own
and inhabit the palace and the stern old tower which guards the Ponte
Vecchio.