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If Arnolfo di Cambio is the architect not only of the Duomo but of the Palazzo Vecchio, and if Orcagna conceived the delicate beauty of the Loggia de' Lanzi, it is, if we may believe Vasari, partly to Arnolfo and partly to Agnolo Gaddi that we owe Bargello, that palace so like a fortress, at the corner of Via del Proconsolo and Via Ghibellina. Begun in the middle of the thirteenth century for the Capitano del Popolo, it later became the Palace of the Podest
It was covered with a napkin, and on the napkin was pinned a piece of paper, inscribed with an address. This address caught my glance there was a name on it I knew. It was very legibly written evidently by a scribe who had made up in zeal what was lacking in skill. Contessa Salvi-Scarabelli, Via Ghibellina so ran the superscription; I looked at it for some moments; it caused me a sudden emotion.
"I was speaking of the daughter," I said, understanding his smile. "But I was thinking of the mother." "Of the mother?" "Of a person I knew twenty-seven years ago the most charming woman I have ever known. She was the Countess Salvi she lived in a wonderful old house in Via Ghibellina." "A wonderful old house!" my young Englishman repeated.
This bas-relief, now in the Casa Buonarroti, was presented to Cosimo dè Medici, first Grand Duke of Tuscany, by Michael Angelo’s nephew Leonardo, as a work by his uncle, but we do not know that Leonardo was a good judge of his uncle’s works, and this bas-relief was supposed to have been executed more than fifty years before its presentation; afterwards it came back into the possession of the Buonarroti family, and was presented by them to the city of Florence along with the house in Via Ghibellina.
The Bargello is at the corner of the Via Ghibellina in the narrow Via del Proconsolo so narrow that if you take one step off the pavement a tram may easily sweep you into eternity; so narrow also that the real dignity of the Bargello is never to be properly seen, and one thinks of it rather for its inner court and staircase and its strong tower than for its massive façades. Its history is soaked in blood. It was built in the middle of the thirteenth century as the residence of the chief magistrate of the city, the Capitano del popolo, or Podest
Since we are considering the life of Michelangelo, I might perhaps say here a few words about his house, which is only a few minutes' distant at No. 64 Via Ghibellina where certain early works and personal relics are preserved.
I saw that my question had attracted the attention of the young Englishman, who looked at me with a good deal of earnestness. He was apparently satisfied with what he saw, for he presently decided to speak. "The Count Scarabelli is dead," he said, very gravely. I looked at him a moment; he was a pleasing young fellow. "And his widow lives," I observed, "in Via Ghibellina?"
Maso, when he heard the shatter of hoofs and the wild roar from thousands of throats down below him in the Campo, cursed old Zoppa with a grey face, and went muttering round the blinding sides of the Duomo to find his daughter. And when he did find her she was eating chestnuts at the open door of her aunt's shop in the Via Ghibellina!
The matter became urgent, for Lionardo wished to marry, and could not marry until he was provided with a residence. Eventually, after rejecting many plans and proffers of houses, they decided to enlarge and improve the original Buonarroti mansion in Via Ghibellina. This house continued to be their town-mansion until the year 1852, when it passed by testamentary devise to the city of Florence.
We set out yesterday morning to visit the Palazzo Buonarotti, Michael Angelo's ancestral home. . . . . It is in the Via Ghibellina, an ordinary-looking, three-story house, with broad-brimmed eaves, a stuccoed front, and two or three windows painted in fresco, besides the real ones. Adown the street, there is a glimpse of the hills outside of Florence.
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