The Pazzi, who claim a Roman descent, came originally from Fiesole, and were always Guelphs. Excluded by Giano della Bella, in 1292, from all participation in the government of the city, it was only after Cosimo de’ Medici’s return from exile that Andrea de’ Pazzi became a Prior in 1439; when Cosimo gave his granddaughter Bianca in marriage to Gugliemo, Andrea’s grandson. The houses of the various members of the Pazzi family, who all made large fortunes in trade, once extended for some distance along both sides of Borgo degl’Albizzi. But when, towards the middle of the XVth century, the Florentine nobles began to erect palaces in lieu of their old fortified houses, Messer Andrea de’ Pazzi commissioned Filippo Brunelleschi, who designed the beautiful chapel for him in the cloister of Sta. Croce, to build a palace. Poliziano’s statement that Jacopo, Andrea de’ Pazzi’s son, destroyed his father’s house to build this palace, is controverted by documents found by Signor Iodico Del Badia in the archives of the old _catasti_, which show that Jacopo only incorporated an adjoining house he had bought with the one inherited from his father. The splendid palace cannot, however, have been completed when Andrea died in 1445, as his son employed Giuliano da Majano and his brothers to finish it. Another reason for attributing the building to Messer Andrea de’ Pazzi, and not to his son Jacopo, is that the sail, an emblem always used for indicating that the proprietor had made his fortune in trade, is among the ornaments in the centre of the arches of the windows. On the capitals in the courtyard are the dolphins, the arms of the Pazzi, and the vase containing the Holy Fire. This, according to ancient custom, was lit by means of certain stones, brought from the Holy Sepulchre by Pazzino de’ Pazzi, said to have been the first to scale the walls of Jerusalem in one of the crusades.