The Corsi are said to have come from Dicomano and one of the family
fought under the Ghibelline standard at Montaperti and was exiled in
1268. Their name first appears in the magistrature of Florence in
1354, when Bardo Corsi was the first of nine Gonfaloniers of Justice
and two years later the first of twenty-eight Priors of the family.
Giovanni, his descendant, was entrusted by Clement VII. with the care
of Alessandro de’ Medici, and with him, Ippolito and the Cardinal
Passerini, he left Florence in 1527. After the capitulation of the
city he was elected Gonfalonier of Justice and showed great cruelty
in sentencing his fellow-citizens who were anti-Medicean. His brother
Bardo made an enormous fortune in trade at Naples, and in 1617 bought
the feudal estate of Cajazzo, when Philip of Spain created him a
Marquess with remainder to his nephews, the sons of Jacopo, who
purchased the old Tornabuoni palace. His granddaughter Laura married
the Marquess Salviati and the palace then took the name of Corsi
Salviati. When in 1864 it was decided to widen Via Tornabuoni the
façade was thrown back many feet and the pretty little loggia, built
by Cigoli, was moved from the southern corner of the palace opposite
Palazzo Strozzi to the northern. It now belongs to the Marchioness
Visconti Arconati.
PALAZZO CORSINI
_Via Parione, No. 7; and Lung’Arno Corsini, No. 10._
The great palace of the Corsini family was built in the XVIIth century
by Ciro Ferri and Pierfrancesco Silvani for the Marquess Filippo
Corsini, where once stood the houses of the Compagni, the Segni and the
Ardinghelli; the last had become the property of the Cardinal Giovan
Carlo de’ Medici, and was sold after his death to pay his debts. The
façade and chief entrance of the palace is in the Via Parione, but in
the last century the terrace joining the two wings was erected in the
Lung’Arno Corsini, with a large gateway into the courtyard, thus the
palace now has two façades.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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