From Rodolfo, son of a certain Diotifece who lived at Poppiano in the Val di Pesa in the XIIIth century, descend the three families of Ridolfi whose name occurs so frequently in the annals of Florence. The Ridolfi del Ponte, whose old tower still stands grey and grim opposite to that of the Mannelli in the Via de’ Bardi; the Ridolfi di Piazza, whose houses were clustered round the church of S. Felice (Borgo di Piazza was one of the three borghi, or parishes, of the Oltrarno); and the Ridolfi di Borgo, who had their houses in the Borgo S. Jacopo. In 1378 the Ridolfi, being Ghibellines, were expelled the city, and their houses were sacked and burnt; but three years later they returned to Florence and made a large fortune as wool merchants. Lorenzo Ridolfi, born in 1362, was a remarkable man. A great jurist, he expounded canon law at the Studio Fiorentino, attended to business in his shop in the Via Maggio, was Pro-consul of the Guild of Wool, four times Gonfalonier of Justice, and was sent (whenever a knotty question arose) as ambassador of the Republic to popes and foreign sovereigns. He had four sons, Bernardo, Luigi, Antonio and Giovanni, from the second of whom descend the present representatives of the family. They were all Gonfaloniers of Justice, and friends of the Medici; indeed, so devoted was Antonio, that when Lorenzo the Magnificent was stabbed in the cathedral on the occasion of the conspiracy of the Pazzi he sucked the wound, fearing the dagger might have been poisoned. One of Lorenzo Ridolfi’s grandsons, Giovan Battista, was a gallant soldier, who fought against Bentivoglio and took him prisoner at Faenza. He was elected Gonfalonier of Justice for life after Piero Soderini, and opposed the return of the exiled Piero de’ Medici, whilst another, Niccolò, lost his head in 1497 for conspiring with Bernardo del Nero for his recall. Niccolò bought the palace in the Via Maggio, which still belongs to the Ridolfi, from the powerful family of the Corbinelli. The architect is unknown, but it is evidently of the XIVth century, with its large windows and fine doorway. The _graffite_ on the façade are of course of a later date. All Niccolò’s possessions were confiscated when he was beheaded. But on the return of the Medici to power the estates were given back to his son Piero, husband of Contessina, daughter of Lorenzo the Magnificent, whilst the youngest, Niccolò, was made a Cardinal at twelve years of age, and became Archbishop of Florence at nineteen. He lived chiefly at Orvieto, where he kept up a princely establishment, and being intensely hostile to the Duke Alessandro de’ Medici, his house was the refuge of all the Florentine exiles. During the conclave of 1550 he died; poisoned, it was said, by the orders of Cosimo I., who feared he might be elected Pope.