BACCIO d'Agnolo

The Medici arms, supported by two cupids with cornucopia, decorated with two cherubs’ heads and surmounted by a ducal crown with three coloured feathers, are those of Duke Alessandro de’ Medici (1510-37), as indicated by the painted inscription “Dux Alexander Primus.”

The arms can most probably identified as those carved in 1534 by the famous wood sculptor Baccio d’Agnolo with the collaboration of Vasari for the Great Hall of the Palazzo della Mercanzia (Merchants’ Palace) in Florence.

Vasari stated that Baccio went to Rome to study, a trip now dated to 1510-11, and this seems to have been an important stylistic influence. Certainly his architecture after c. 1515 shows a greater, though still limited, awareness of antique and High Renaissance detail. From this date he adopted almost exclusively a particular form of Doric order, the capitals embellished with rosettes and egg-and-dart. Baccio later adopted a more elaborate type with a high neck and fluted collar, for example at the Palazzo Bartolini-Salimbeni (1520-23), designed for Giovanni Bartolini (1472-1544). This was Baccio’s most ambitious building, and here Baccio and his son Giuliano Baglione (1491-1555) also furnished much of the woodwork, including the fine ceiling in the Sala Grande.

The plan of the building is narrow and deep, the three-sided loggia of the courtyard occupying much of the ground-floor space. The layout, as in contemporary Roman palazzi, emphasizes such semi-public spaces, including in this case the ample vestibule on the first floor between the stairs and the Sala Grande, the latter occupying the whole width of the fa�ade. An airy inward-facing terrace runs around the top of the building at the level of the exterior frieze and cornice.

The fa�ade uses Roman motifs in a Florentine three-storey arrangement with rusticated quoin pilasters. The massive all’antica cornice, a literal copy of that of the Temple of Serapis in Rome, gives the impression, as Vasari observed, of an over-large hat. The fenestration derives partly from Raphael’s design, in Florence, for the Palazzo Pandolfini (c. 1514; with pedimented tabernacle windows on the top floor linked by sunken panels and continuous horizontal mouldings), while the piano nobile is enlivened by shell niches between the windows in a manner recalling Raphael’s Palazzo Branconio dell’Aquila (destroyed) in Rome. Peculiar to Baccio are the curious superimposed colonnettes attached to the window mullions on the front and the rusticated rectangular window-frames on the side fa�ade.

The photo shows the fa�ade.

View the ground plan of the building.

The Palazzo Bartolini-Salimbeni in Florence was Baccio’s most ambitious building. It is located on Via de Tornabuoni on Piazza Trinita in central Florence.

The photo shows a view of the Piazza Trinita with the Palazzo Bartolini-Salimbeni at right.

The Palazzo Bartolini-Salimbeni in Florence was Baccio’s most ambitious building, and here Baccio and his son Giuliano Baglione (1491-1555) also furnished much of the woodwork, including the fine ceiling in the Sala Grande.

The plan of the building is narrow and deep, the three-sided loggia of the courtyard occupying much of the ground-floor space.

The photo shows the courtyard.

View the ground plan of the building.

The Palazzo Bartolini-Salimbeni in Florence was Baccio’s most ambitious building, and here Baccio and his son Giuliano Baglione (1491-1555) also furnished much of the woodwork, including the fine ceiling in the Sala Grande.

The plan of the building is narrow and deep, the three-sided loggia of the courtyard occupying much of the ground-floor space.

The photo shows the courtyard.

View the ground plan of the building.