_Via della Forca._
The family of the Rondinelli made a large fortune in trade, and owned
several palaces in the old Via de’ Rondinelli (now Via della Forca),
and their coat-of-arms, with six swallows, is still to be seen there
on the façade of a house. They afterwards lived in what is now the
Via de’ Rondinelli, and a palace in the Piazza S. Lorenzo, which was
incorporated in the convent of S. Giovannino, also belonged to them.
The origin of the family is given differently by two old writers.
Verino says:
“Unde sit ignoro, tribuit cui nomen Hirundo:
Est antiqua tamen, carnit nec honore propago.
Ili Fesulis genitam soboles eeu nobilis omnis
Ist Flaminie dicunt ex arcibus ortam,”
while Gamurini declares they had nothing to do with Fiesole, but
came from a castle near Arezzo called Rondine (Swallow). In 1192 a
Rondinello di Ulivieri is mentioned in the records of the Opera del
Duomo, and his son, Spinabello, commonly called Bello di Rondinello,
was one of the Elders of the city who signed the league with Arezzo in
Sta. Reparata in 1258. Vieri, Bello’s son, was the first of thirty-six
Priors his family gave to Florence, and a few years later the first of
twelve Gonfaloniers of Justice. The Rondinelli were Guelphs, and always
in the van of every popular movement, and Michele, who was deputed to
buy Lucca of the Scaliger in 1341, became extraordinarily beloved owing
to his liberality and kindly manners, and was one of the leaders of the
people when they rose against the _Grandi_. Rinaldo, his nephew, was
twice sent as ambassador to the Republic of Lucca to watch the Pisan
exiles who were plotting against Florence. He joined with Giovanni and
Cosimo de’ Medici in building S. Lorenzo, but died before the church
was half finished, and left strict orders in his will that his sons
were to continue the work.
Antonio Rondinelli, whose name is linked for ever with that of the
beautiful Ginevra degl’Amieri must, if he and Ginevra are not mere
creations of the popular phantasy, have been a brother of Michele.
The Amieri, one of the proudest and oldest families of Florence,
whose magnificent palaces and towers stood near S. Andrea in the old
market place, were strongly Ghibelline. Scorning an alliance with a
Rondinelli, a _Popolano_ and a Guelph, they forced Ginevra to marry
Francesco degl’Agolanti, whose family was on a par with her own. In
vain she tried to forget the handsome, gentle Antonio. She sickened,
and one day fell into a deep swoon, as dead; her death was attributed
to the plague which was then raging in Florence, and she was hastily
buried in the vault of the Amieri adjoining the Duomo.[79] In that
terrible year (1400) people were often buried with their jewellery, and
thieves, braving the infection, went at night to rob the corpses. Two
of these fellows lifted the stone of the vault. The fresh air revived
Ginevra, who sat up, whereupon the men, thinking she was a ghost, fled.
Ginevra called her women, but to her horror saw she was surrounded by
skeletons, and understood what had happened. Slipping off the linen
bands which tied her hands, she was able to set her feet free. The
moon was full as she climbed the steps out of the vault, and wrapping
her shroud around her she crossed the Piazza, and went down the small
street which has, they say, ever since borne the name of Via della
Morte, to her husband’s house.[80] Francesco opened the window when
she knocked, but thought that the spirit of his dead wife was asking
for suffrages, and promising to have masses said for the repose of her
soul, shut the window. Ginevra then went on to her father’s house,
where her mother sat weeping by the fireside, and in the old popular
ballad in _ottava rima_ by Agotino Velletti, we read:
“E spaventata e piena di paura
Disse: va in pace, anima benedetta,
Bella figliuola mia, onesta e pura;
E riserro la finestra con fretta.”
Rejected by husband and mother, she turned her steps to the house of
her uncle, who had always loved her, and implored his help, but:
“Fugli risposto: anima benedetta,
Va, che Dio ti conservi in santa pace.”[81]
Shuddering with cold and misery, in utter despair she thought of
Antonio Rondinelli. After praying under the portico of S. Bartolomeo
she hurried to his door, and crying for aid, fell exhausted to the
ground. “Then,” writes J. A. Symonds, “comes the finest touch in the
poem. Antonio knows Ginevra’s voice; and loving her so tenderly, he
hurries with delight to greet her risen from the grave. He alone has no
fear, and no misgiving; for love in him is stronger than death. At the
street door, when he reaches it, he finds no ghost, but his own dear
lady yet alive. She is half frozen and unconscious, yet her heart still
beats. How he calls the women of his household to attend her, prepares
a bed, and feeds her with warm soups and wine, and how she revives, and
how Antonio claims her to be his wife, and wins his cause against her
former bridegroom in the bishop’s court, may be read at length in the
concluding portion of the tale.”[82]
The Gonfalonier Tommaso di Vieri de’ Rondinelli was so beloved that on
his death, in 1430, the people insisted on giving him a public funeral.
The name of one of his descendants, Giovanni, is known as a poet of
some note. When in 1790 the old family of the Vitelli died out, the
Rondinelli inherited their estates and their name, and I believe the
palace in Via della Stufa, where the last of the Rondinelli died, and
which now belongs to his daughter, was a Palazzo Vitelli.