_Via Proconsolo. No. 12._
“In 1592,” writes Baldinucci in his life of Matteo Nigetti, “Alessandro
Strozzi bought a house from Camillo de’ Pazzi, that same Camillo who
was father to S. Maria Maddalena, and a small one adjoining with a
shop, at Canto del Papa, so-called in olden times from a family who
lived there, but afterwards called the Canto de’ Pazzi; near to where
the first wall of Florence ended towards the east with the Porta S.
Pietro.” They were bought with the intention of building the fine,
but unfinished, palace we now see, and Alessandro charged Bernardo
Buontalenti not only to make the design but to superintend the work.
Nigetti worked under him for seven years, until the façade as far as
the sills of the first floor windows on the side towards the Duomo was
finished. “The kneeling windows and the door in Borgo degl’Albizzi
show how great was the talent of Buontalenti,” says Vasari; “he only
built the first floor of the palace, as a difference arose with the
owner about a certain staircase proposed by Santi di Tito, who did
what little he knew and no more, and the building was then entrusted
to other hands.” Scamozzi the Roman architect was at that time in
Florence and continued the work for Ruberto Strozzi. When he left,
Caccini became the architect and sculptured the fine coat of arms at
the corner, shown in the drawing. After his death Nigetti was once
more called in to superintend, and Cigoli designed the courtyard. The
Guasti family bought the palace in the XVIIth century, and the entrance
court, which till then had been open, was roofed over. With so many
architects it seems strange that the palace should have remained in
such a condition as to have merited the special name of Nonfinito
(the Unfinished) in a city where but few of the great buildings are
completed. It is possible that some dispute arose between the Strozzi
and the Salviati, whose palace was opposite, about the height; in which
the latter, connected with the Medici by the marriage of Maria Salviati
with Giovanni delle Bande Nere, would have gained the day.
In 1814 the palace was bought by the Grand Ducal government, and
Fossombroni, the enlightened minister of Fernando III., inhabited it
for some time. It then became the office of the head of the police, and
now is the central telegraph office of Florence.