The Gianfigliazzi descend from a Giovanni son of Azzo (Gianni figlio d’Azzo), who signed a convention with Siena in 1201. Two of the family sat in the Council of Elders in 1278 and 1279; a few years later they were excluded from office as nobles and their name only appears again among the magistrates of the city after the departure of the tyrant Duke of Athens. Geri de’ Gianfigliazzi was a poet and a friend of Petrarch; Rinaldo, sent as Commissary of War against Visconti, was created a Count of the Holy Roman Empire by the Emperor Robert in 1402; and Bongianni, another gallant soldier, was publicly knighted by the Signoria in 1467 and died at the head of his troops under the walls of Pietrasanta. His son Jacopo was one of the twelve citizens named by Clement VII. to “reform” the State and elect Alessandro de’ Medici absolute ruler of Florence. Several of the family were Senators under the Medici, until the family became extinct in 1764. PALAZZO GINORI _Via de’ Ginori. No. 2._ The Ginori palace once belonged to Bacio Bandinelli who died there in 1559. There is a fine courtyard and the large saloon on the first floor is handsome; the building has been restored but not much spoiled. The Ginori descend from a notary who came to Florence from Calenzano, in the Val di Marino, in 1304, and lived close to the present palace of his descendants. His son Gino was the first of twenty-six Priors of the family and from him they took their name. Piero his grandson, the first Gonfalonier of five of his house in 1423, was an important person in the city and a friend of Giovanni de’ Medici, with whom he contributed towards the building of S. Lorenzo.