Palazzo Rucellai & the Rucellai Loggia
Why is it significant?
On Via della Vigna Nuova, stop in front of a façade unlike the rough stone fortresses you have seen: smooth, flat, divided into a neat grid by pilasters, three storeys, three orders. Now look at its right-hand edge. The stones there end ragged, as if someone had cut the building off with a knife.
Key Facts
| Place | Palazzo Rucellai & the Rucellai Loggia |
|---|---|
| Address | Via della Vigna Nuova 18, 50123 Firenze FI, Italy |
| Geo Coordinates | 43.77130, 11.24960 |
| Part of Walk | The Medici Quarter of Florence: Palaces, Tombs and Rivals from San Lorenzo to Santa Maria Novella |
| Generated | Generated |
On Via della Vigna Nuova, stop in front of a façade unlike the rough stone fortresses you have seen: smooth, flat, divided into a neat grid by pilasters, three storeys, three orders. Now look at its right-hand edge. The stones there end ragged, as if someone had cut the building off with a knife.
The palace was built around 1450 for Giovanni Rucellai, one of the richest men in Florence, to a design by Leon Battista Alberti, the same mind behind the façade of Santa Maria Novella. It was the first palace in Florence to wear the classical orders the way the Colosseum does, one above the other. Alberti was a theorist as much as a builder, the author of famous treatises on painting and architecture, and the actual construction is generally credited to Bernardo Rossellino. And that ragged edge? The façade was never completed, most likely because the next house could not be bought.
Giovanni had a problem. He was married to a daughter of Palla Strozzi, the great rival of the Medici, exiled in 1434 when Cosimo returned to power. In Medici Florence, that was a dangerous father-in-law to have, and for years Giovanni was kept away from office.
The solution was a wedding. In 1466 his son Bernardo married Nannina de' Medici, Lorenzo the Magnificent's sister, and the celebrations spilled into the triangle of open space opposite, where the family built its loggia for exactly such occasions. Look up at the frieze: the Medici ring with feathers and the Rucellai sail sit side by side, a marriage contract in carved stone.
In his private notebook Giovanni reflected that he had found more satisfaction in spending money well than in earning it... and around the corner he paid Alberti for a small marble copy of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, in the family chapel of San Pancrazio. Now take the narrow streets north-east to Via de' Tornabuoni, the street named after Lorenzo's mother's family.