_Via de’ Renai: No. 2._
Of the old Serristori palace but little remains as it was incorporated
in the large new building in 1873. It was chiefly interesting because
the arch-traitor Malatesta Baglioni, who sold Florence to Charles V.
and Clement VII., had his head-quarters there during the siege of 1530.
A certain Ser Ristoro came from Figline in 1384 and became notary to
the Signoria, and from him descend the family of Serristori who gave
ten Gonfaloniers and twenty-seven Priors to Florence. They were staunch
adherents of the Medici until the time of Alessandro, when Francesco
and his sons Gugliemo and Niccolò were exiled as rebels. Niccolò joined
Filippo Strozzi against Cosimo I., was taken prisoner at Montemurlo and
imprisoned for life at Volterra.
The Senator Serristori was Minister for Foreign Affairs under the
Grand Duke Ferdinando III. His son Luigi served for a time in the
Russian army, and afterwards became Governor of Siena, and of Pisa in
1845, when the last Grand Duke of Tuscany revived in his favour the
title of Count Palatine, bestowed on an ancestor of his in 1439 by the
Emperor Paleologus. His son Alfredo went to Constantinople and acted as
adjutant to Omer Pasha during the Crimean war. In 1858 he filled the
same post to General Cialdini and assisted at the campaigns fought for
the Unity of Italy. He died unmarried and was succeeded by the son of
his sister, who took the name of Serristori.