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| © Web Gallery of Art, created by Emil Krén and Daniel Marx |
While prominent in communal government and wealthy as cloth manufacturers from the late 13th century, the Rucellai did not play a part of real importance in Florentine politics, preferring, especially in the 15th century, to devote increasing time to study and the cultivated pleasures of private life. Giovanni (1403-81) built the Rucellai Palace from 1446. This was from a design by Alberti, as was another of Giovanni's commissions, the marble façade of S. Maria Novella. He was also a more perceptive patron of artists than either Cosimo or Lorenzo de' Medici. His Zibaldone (commonplace book) gives valuable insight into the reading and manner of life of the lettered merchants of the Quattrocento.
His son Bernardo (1448-1514), a trusted supporter of Lorenzo the Magnificent, wrote a history of Charles VIII's invasion of 1494-95, De bello italico, which makes precocious use of the term 'balance of power', and his grandson Giovanni (1475-1525), who entered the Church, has some reputation as a literary pioneer; he wrote free imitations of classical poems in the vernacular and one of the earliest classicizing tragedies, Rosamunda. It was Bernardo who laid out the gardens off the Via della Scala which became known as the Orti Oricellari (Rucellai Gardens). After his death his grandson Cosimo acted as host to discussions held there on philosophical, literary and political topics. Machiavelli took part in these and his Discourses were dedicated to Cosimo and to another habitué of the Orti, Zanobi Buondelmonti. Machiavelli set his dialogues in 'The art of war' there, with Cosimo as one of the protagonists.
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| © Web Gallery of Art, created by Emil Krén and Daniel Marx |