Davanzati Palace

Palazzo Davanzati is also known as the "Museum of the Historic Florentine House" and is located in the square bearing the same name. It represents an interesting testimony of the passage from medieval tower houses to Renaissance houses.

The Palace is the ancient 14th century residence of the Davizzi family, a rich family of merchants and bankers. It is very likely that the family built their residence by merging some tower houses belonging to them and to other families. The Davizzi family was so powerful that they could afford a private well inside their home, which was considered a real luxury at the time, and which is still visible today.

The Davanzati purchased the property in 1578 and embellished the facade with a large coat of arms of their family: a lion rampant. The Palazzo was inhabited by the Davanzati family for a long time, until 1838, when the last heir of the family, Carlo, died tragically.

In 1904 the building was purchased by the antiquarian Elia Volpi who restored it and furnished it in a neo-Gothic style and a few years later it was opened to the public and inaugurated as a Museum of the Historic Florentine House, arousing immediate appreciation by Italian and foreign collectors.

The museum was dismantled several times, a lot of the original furniture was sold through time, until 1951 when the Italian State purchased it, refurbished the rooms with original pieces, recreating what can be considered a typical Florentine home of the fourteenth century.

The rooms of the Palace are richly decorated with furniture from other Florentine museums, mainly of local manufacture, and with important frescoes, among which those of the Sala dei Pappagalli and Sala dei Pavoni stand out.

Inside there are two masterpieces by two great masters: a "Madonna and Child", a sculptural work recently attributed to a young Filippo Brunelleschi and the "Virgin of Mercy" from the Della Robbia workshop.