Premium Featured Accommodation

Florentine Architecture in the 19th Century and the Influence of the French - Part I

Giuseppe Cacialli (1770-1828), the architect of the Regie Fabbriche did some of the interior decorating in Palazzo Pitti and completed the wing of the Meridiana that had been started by Gasparo Paoletti, his teacher. Cacialli also completed the construction of the Villa del Poggio Imperiale (1807-28) that was begun by Pasquale Poccianti during the French domination. Some of Cacialli's most important works developed interesting solutions for interiors (the bath in Palazzo Pitti, the chapel and loggia on the Villa del Poggio Imperiale, the palace of the Gherardesca counts, his patrons).

In Florentine neoclassical architecture, the reference to antiquity was almost always filtered through the local Renaissance tradition. Cacialli and Poccianti were among the few architects of the period who did not go to Rome to study ancient monuments.

In 1821, the palazzo on Via Ghibellina (fig. 26) was built in a very short time for Prince Camillo Aldobrandini, of the Roman branch of the Borghese family. The pre-existing structures, the result of subsequent work - from the joining of very old buildings, ordered by the Salviati family in the latter half of the XV century to Gherardo Silvani's early XVII century transformations - were complemented by parts Baccani added to the new building. The building's considerable bulk - it takes up an entire city block - was conceived with a symmetrical arrangement of the parts that resolves the particular visual conditions in the context of the narrow Via Ghibellina through the skillful distinction, in the general design of the long façade, of smaller parts that are clearly defined in and of themselves.

After having studied architecture in Rome, upon his return "home" the still young Florentine Giuseppe Manetti (1761 - 1817), received a commission from the prince to build the Opera del Duomo and other public buildings. He also taught at the Florentine Accademia. He was later engineer in the office of bridges and roads under the French government, and first architect of the Reali Fabbriche after the Restoration. Later, among other things, he designed the transformation of the Ponte Vecchio into a covered gallery on the model of the Parisian passages.

Leopold II made every effort to pick up the work begun by Pietro Leopoldo to make Tuscany a modern state through an intensive program of reforms. The first urban projects, that were mostly justified by the need for easier and faster communications, were however, related to the taste for regularity and the rationalization of the structures and their modernization that had already been developed at the end of the preceding century, and found new impetus as the neoclassical style took root.

In 1824 the tower and arch ("arco dei Pizzicotti") of Palazzo Spini-Feroni overlooking Lungarno Acciaioli were demolished (fig. 4, n.1). It was justified because of traffic, but it eliminated one of the terminals that defined the section of the river between the Ponte Vecchio and Santa Trinita as a "closed lake". In 1838 the palazzo was transformed into a hotel (Albergo d'Europa), and from 1846 to 1871 it was the Florentine city hall.

The extension of Via Larga (1826-1830) into Via San Leopoldo (now Via Cavour) up to the walls created an alternative to the old Via San Gallo running north, with a new, wider and straight road (fig. 4 n. 2). The opening of the cross-streets, Via Salvestrina and Via Santa Apollonia (later Via XXVII Aprile), were connected with this work, as was the development of the area around Piazza Maria Antonia (later Piazza dell'Indipendenza) in relation to the goods traffic crossing the axis of Via della Ruote.

During the same period, Baccani, commissioned by the secular deputation of the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore, designed the southern side of Piazza del Duomo, straightening the twists and uneven pattern and creating a unitary structure, characterized by a controlled neoclassical rigor (fig. 4 n. 3). The same architect designed the railing around the cathedral to "eliminate indecencies and abuses". Similar barriers were placed around S. Giovanni and Orsanmichele.

These were not the sole examples of the period's renewed interest in problems of "urban furnishing", as revealed in the taste for the modernization of buildings according to principles of decorum and regularity. For example, in 1838 a gate was built along the riverbank in what is now Piazza d'Ognissanti; it was taken down in 1858 with the opening of the Lungarno Nuovo.

Articles