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The old man was at a momentary stand-still, looking up at the Riccardi Palace, and he received Colville with apparent forgetfulness of anything odd in his being still in Florence.
The windows on the ground floor, for instance, were added by Michelangelo and the Riccardi family, whose name it now bears, and who bought it in 1695 from Ferdinando II, enlarged it in 1715.
"No," the Captain shook his head, "we sleep in a lovely house that belongs to a friend of mine in Rome." Beppi tried to be polite but Captain Riccardi saw the disappointment in his eyes, and patted his small head. "Are you sorry?" he laughed. "Oh, no, he is not," Lucia contradicted hastily, "he will like sleeping in Rome, won't you, my pet?" Beppi hung his head.
It is, of course, the central idea of that fine poem, "The Statue and the Bust," which has given a great deal of distress to a great many people because of its supposed invasion of recognised morality. It deals, as every one knows, with a Duke Ferdinand and an elopement which he planned with the bride of one of the Riccardi.
It was several days after Lucia and the Captain had talked in the garden, and Lucia was beginning to grow accustomed to the wonderful idea. Her dreams were coming true at last, and she had to admit to herself that she always believed that they would. Captain Riccardi was truly a fairy godfather in her eyes, and she proved her gratitude for his kindness in a hundred little ways a day.
This ancestral palace of the Medici passed in 1659 to the Marchese Gabriele Riccardi, from the Duke Francesco II. Von Reumont, Lorenzo de' Medici, vol. ii. pp. 187-191, may be consulted for an interesting account of the building of this Casa Grande by Filippo Strozzi.
For an instant Lucia's eyes danced with happiness, but it was only for an instant, then her face fell. "Oh, I would like that Captain, so very much," she said, "but I could not leave Beppino and Nana." Captain Riccardi looked at her in silence for a moment, then he said slowly, "Of course, you couldn't. I forgot them for the moment. But of course I meant to include them in the invitation.
The fairy business of the story of the Three Kings takes even greater proportions in the delightful frescoes of Benozzo Gozzoli in the Riccardi Chapel. Here the Holy Family are suppressed, so to speak, altogether, tucked into the altar in a picture, and the act of adoration at Bethlehem becomes the mere excuse for the romantic adventures of three people of the highest quality.
And indeed, that group, part of the plunder that the people found in Palazzo Riccardi, in the time of Piero de' Medici, who sought to make himself tyrant, once stood beside the great gate of Palazzo Vecchio, whence it was removed at the command of Alessandro, who placed there instead Bandinelli's feeble Hercules and Cacus.
Up to the year 1814 the Della Cruscans assembled in the Palazzo Riccardi, the ancient palace of the Medici; but that stately building being required for Government purposes, the members have since been accommodated in San Marco, where they have sunk into obscurity, many of the inhabitants of Florence being altogether ignorant of the existence of such an institution in their city.
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