The Girolami whose tower adjoins that of the Gherardini claimed S. Zenobius, Bishop of Florence in the VIth century, as belonging to their family, and on the 25th May his statue in a niche in the tower used to be decorated with garlands of flowers, with great ceremony and much blowing of trumpets. The family possessed the ring of the saint, held in such estimation as a wonder-working relic that Lorenzo the Magnificent sent it in 1482 to Paris to Louis XI. The king was cured of a severe illness after touching it, and sent it back in a jewelled box of great value which the Gherardini sold, and founded a rich canonry in Sta. Maria del Fiore with the proceeds. In 1523 Raffaello de’ Girolami was Gonfalonier of Justice, and five years later Commissary of War. Condemned to death after the capitulation of Florence, the sentence was commuted at the request of Don Ferrante Gonzaga to imprisonment for life in the fortress of Pisa, where he was poisoned by order of Pope Clement VII., as soon as the Imperialists left Tuscany. One of his sons fought as a lad against Cosimo I. at Siena under Strozzi, and was sentenced to lose his head, but escaped to France. Another obtained permission to return to Florence after long years of exile, and as all his estates had been confiscated, left nothing to his son save the family hatred of the Medici. He joined Orazio Pucci and Girolamo Bartolommei in conspiring against the Grand Duke, and was condemned to death _in contumaciam_. Raffaello de’ Girolami founded the Academy of the Sapienza in Rome, and became a Cardinal in 1743, and the last of the family died about forty years later, appointing the sons of his sister, married to Count Covoni, his heirs. PALAZZO BORGHESE _Via Ghibellina. No. 110._ This palace is chiefly interesting because part of it (corner of Via de’ Giraldi and Via de’ Pandolfini) was built where once stood the house of Giovanni and Matteo Villani. The Salviati bought it with some others, and Silvani erected for them a large palace, which afterwards became the property of Prince Camillo Borghese. He purchased many adjoining houses, and enlarged it in 1823, when he must have spent a fortune on the magnificent internal decorations. It now belongs to the Borghese Club.