29 September 2016
Palazzo Gondi | Florence

‘Paradise’
by Videoinsight® Foundation
Videoworks from Videoinsight® Collection

Palazzo Gondi , one of the most elegant patrician palaces of the 15th century, stands on the corner of Via dei Gondi and Piazza San Firenze. The sober stone facade rises majestically, gradually passing from the projecting rustication in finely worked stone on the ground floor to the checkerboard stonework in lower relief on the first floor, to the smooth ashlars of the top floor. In its gradual transition from projecting to smooth stonework, the facade recalls that of Palazzo Medici Riccardi, built almost fifty years earlier. In its ground-floor revetment of finely worked rounded blocks instead of the rough-hewn ashlars of Palazzo Medici Riccardi, it resembles instead the contemporary Palazzo Strozzi, situated nearby. Work on Giuliano Gondi’s Palace began in 1489, to the design of Giuliano da Sangallo, and inaugurated in June of 1495 by the Duke of Urbino, during a visit to Florence. In 1600, the beautiful fountain in the courtyard was added. In the 18th and early 19th century, various restoration and embellishment projects were implemented to adapt some of the rooms to the taste of the time. In the 1870s the City of Florence decided to widen the street that passed between Palazzo Gondi and Palazzo Vecchio, and the architect Poggi was chosen to direct the work. Poggi demolished an old palace also owned by the Gondi family, which was contiguous with the one designed by Sangallo, and widened the building,completing the facade overlooking Via dei Gondi as well.