Description
Palazzo Davanzati is a 14th-century palace in the center of Florence, today the museum of the ancient Florentine home. It is not a gallery of masterpieces, but something rarer: the house of rich merchants, with its courtyard, its stairs, its frescoed rooms and its furniture, showing how people lived in the Middle Ages.
The courtyard is the center of the palace. Stairs, balconies and passageways look onto it from above, and in one corner there is a private well, with pulleys to bring water to every floor: a luxury, for the time. The rainwater, moreover, ended up in a cistern that fed it.
The bathroom next to the bedrooms, the kitchen at the top so that smoke and vapors would not permeate the house: in 14th-century Florence, this was comfort. Each floor has a similar layout, with the great hall, the bedroom, the studiolo and the service rooms.
The most famous room is the Sala dei Pappagalli (Parrot Room), covered in late 14th-century frescoes imitating drapes and tapestries, with parrots as the motif. Farther on is the Sala dei Pavoni (Peacock Room), the bridal chamber, painted with fake hangings and coats of arms among peacocks.
Don't miss the room with the stories of the Castellana di Vergy, a medieval legend of love, adventure and death. On the third floor the collections of lace and embroidery have been re-arranged, with the samplers, the imaginative pieces on which the art was learned.
The palace was built, around the middle of the 14th century, by the Davizzi, rich merchants. The name, however, is that of the Davanzati, who bought it in 1578 and kept it until the last of them, Carlo, took his own life in 1838. Then the decline began.
Divided into apartments, the palace fell into ruin. Giovanni Papini, who founded a magazine here, remembered it as “all filthy and dark”, full of “stinking corners”. It was saved in 1904 by the antiques dealer Elia Volpi, who restored it and opened it as a museum.
In 1916 Volpi sold all the furniture at auction in New York, launching the Neo-Renaissance fashion in the United States. In 1951 the State bought it.
The courtyard is the center of the palace. Stairs, balconies and passageways look onto it from above, and in one corner there is a private well, with pulleys to bring water to every floor: a luxury, for the time. The rainwater, moreover, ended up in a cistern that fed it.
The bathroom next to the bedrooms, the kitchen at the top so that smoke and vapors would not permeate the house: in 14th-century Florence, this was comfort. Each floor has a similar layout, with the great hall, the bedroom, the studiolo and the service rooms.
The most famous room is the Sala dei Pappagalli (Parrot Room), covered in late 14th-century frescoes imitating drapes and tapestries, with parrots as the motif. Farther on is the Sala dei Pavoni (Peacock Room), the bridal chamber, painted with fake hangings and coats of arms among peacocks.
Don't miss the room with the stories of the Castellana di Vergy, a medieval legend of love, adventure and death. On the third floor the collections of lace and embroidery have been re-arranged, with the samplers, the imaginative pieces on which the art was learned.
The palace was built, around the middle of the 14th century, by the Davizzi, rich merchants. The name, however, is that of the Davanzati, who bought it in 1578 and kept it until the last of them, Carlo, took his own life in 1838. Then the decline began.
Divided into apartments, the palace fell into ruin. Giovanni Papini, who founded a magazine here, remembered it as “all filthy and dark”, full of “stinking corners”. It was saved in 1904 by the antiques dealer Elia Volpi, who restored it and opened it as a museum.
In 1916 Volpi sold all the furniture at auction in New York, launching the Neo-Renaissance fashion in the United States. In 1951 the State bought it.