_Piazza S. Lorenzo. No. 5._
The architect of the sombre Della Stufa palace is unknown, and the
loggia on the top has been walled up, which spoils its appearance.
Tradition says that a Lottario, or Lotteringo, came from Lorraine with
the Emperor Otho III. about 998, and gave the name of Lotteringhi to
his descendants, afterwards called Della Stufa because their house was
built on the site of the ancient Roman baths (stufe). Lotteringo Della
Stufa was one of the seven founders of the Servite Order, of which he
became the General after the death of Filippo Benizzi in 1285. Ten
years later the Commune, at his request, opened the Porta di Servi near
the S.S. Annunziata, so that the peasants outside the walls could more
easily come and pray at the Virgin’s shrine. He was beatified, as was
Girolamo, a Franciscan monk of exemplary piety a century later. Ugo,
knight of the Golden Spur and a learned jurist, after being many times
an ambassador to popes, princes, and other republics, put himself at
the head of the People when they rose against the nobles in 1343, and
three years later was sent by the Republic to Avignon to remonstrate
with Clement VI. about the arrogance of the Inquisitor. His son,
Giovenco, was one of the Ten of War in 1399, another, Ugo, after being
Captain of Arezzo and Vicario of the Val d’Arno, was sent in 1408 as
Captain to Pisa, where he made himself so popular that when he left the
Pisans gave him a splendid banner with the arms of the town, and begged
that he might be sent the following year as their Podestà. He founded
and endowed the church of Monte Asinario (commonly called Senario)
near Florence. His nephew, Angelo, must have had a fluent tongue, as
his name perpetually occurs as ambassador of the Republic. At Milan in
1476 the Duke made him a knight of the Golden Spur, and when he died
four years later in Florence, his funeral, at the public expense, was
attended by the Gonfalonier and the Priors. The Della Stufa were always
adherents of the Medici, and Lorenzo sent Ugo’s son, Luigi, to thank
the Soldan of Babylon for various gifts and animals. The latter are
mentioned by Tribaldo de’ Rossi in his _Ricordanzi_.[100] “I record
how in 1488 was presented to Lorenzo de’ Medici from the Soldan of
Babylon a giraffe; brought by an ambassador, a man of high position
and a great lord of that country; and with the giraffe were goats and
sheep.... The giraffe was seven braccie high, with feet like an ox;
it was a gentle beast and one of those Turcomans led it about; it was
shown in the country round and in many convents. Lorenzo put it in the
Pope’s stables in Via della Scala, and in winter it had a deep bed
of straw and a fire was often kindled near, as it dreaded the cold.
It ate of everything, and when it could would put its head into the
baskets of the peasants; it took apples from the hand of a child, so
tame was it. The ambassador stayed some months and the Commune gave him
many presents. The giraffe died in January, and its skin was preserved;
every one was sorry because it was a beautiful beast.” In a grotto in
the garden of the Villa di Castello its effigy in coloured marbles
still exists.
On Luigi Della Stufa’s return from the East he was made Commissary of
War at Castrocara, and in 1513 he was sent to Rome to congratulate Leo
X. on his accession to the Papal throne, and was knighted with great
honour. But when Leo came to Florence in 1433 “he was much displeased
and annoyed,” writes Varchi, “with Messer Luigi, an intimate friend of
the family, who on going to salute him in the name of the city with
other ambassadors, showed him, as is reported, a loaf of white bread
such as is sold by the bakers for four quattrini, assuring him that it
only cost two. What is certain is that when this was known in Florence
the boys, as is their custom, made a song about him, and none could
stop their singing these words, put into rhyme by themselves, in all
the streets:
“Messer Luigi Della Stufa
Ha fitto il capo in una buca,
Il qual non ne puo uscire,
Se il gran non val tre lire.”
(Messer Luigi Della Stufa
Has put his head into a hole,
Out of which it can’t be drawn,
Until wheat costs three lire.)
His son, Prinzivallo, was the man who fired off an arquebuse at Clarice
degl’Strozzi when she went to protest against the bad government of
the Cardinal Passerini, and advised him and the two young Medici to
leave Florence. He was imprisoned during the siege, but when the
city capitulated was one of the five citizens named to examine the
fortifications, and afterwards became a Senator. The Grand Duke
Ferdinando II. made Pandolfo Della Stufa Marquess of Calcione in 1632,
an estate purchased by one of his ancestors from the Republic of Siena.
The old palace belongs to the present Marquess Della Stufa.