_Via de’ Servi. No. 10._
[Illustration: WINDOW OF PALAZZO NERLI.]
This quaintly shaped palace with a fine courtyard, and ending in a
sharp angle at Via de’ Castellaccio, belonged to the ancient family of
the Nerli, praised by Dante as still living soberly according to the
good old fashion.
“... The sons I saw
Of Nerli, and of Vecchio, well content
With unrobed jerkins; and their good dames handling
The spindle and the flax. Oh happy they.”
In the XIth century they had houses and a tower in the centre of old
Florence and took their name from one Nerlo, son of Signorello di
Ridolfo d’Ildebrando di Leone, who lived in 1079. Another Messer Nerlo
was Consul of the city of Florence in 1196 and again in 1202. The
Nerli joined the sect of the Paterines, and when Fra Piero da Verona
preached a crusade against the heretics they fled and took refuge in
France. Not being able to burn the living, the Friar desecrated the
family tombs and burnt the corpses and the bones of their ancestors.
The Nerli remained in France for a hundred and fifty years and must
have abjured their heretic faith, as Cosimo the Elder recalled
Francesco de Nerlo to Florence, and caused him to be made a _Popolano_
and a Prior, the first of his house. His son Tanay became a man of
great consequence in the city, and was one of the chief adversaries of
Savonarola. It was at his instigation that the bell of S. Marco, with
which the friars had summoned the people to their aid when Fra Girolamo
was arrested, was taken to S. Miniato. Tradition says it was never
tolled there but once, and that was for the funeral of Tanay Nerli.
One of his sons was a good Greek scholar to whom we owe the first
edition of Homer. Another son was father to the historian Filippo Nerli
(1485–1536), whose Commentary is a model of pure and elegant Italian,
but marred by too great a partiality to the Medici, to whom he was
related through his wife Caterina Salviati, aunt of Duke Cosimo I. The
descendant of another son was Archbishop of Florence and a Cardinal in
1669. About the same time his brother, Senator Nerli, bought the estate
of Rassina from the Altieri with the title of Marquess, and one of his
sons succeeded his uncle as Archbishop and as Cardinal. The palace now
belongs to Signor Fiaschi Cuccoli.
[Illustration: CORNER OF PALAZZO NONFINITO, WITH COAT OF ARMS OF THE
STROZZI.]