Palazzo Davanzati

Palazzo Davanzati is a fourteenth-century palace on the Via di Porta Rossa in Florence, Italy, that houses the Museo della Casa Fiorentina Antica (Museum of the Old Florentine House). It is widely regarded as the best-preserved medieval residence in Florence and serves as a rare surviving example of a wealthy merchant's home from the Trecento. The building was opened as a public museum in 1956 after state acquisition, though its history as a museum dates back to 1910 when it functioned as a private institution. Its importance lies in its architectural integrity and its value for understanding domestic life, commerce, and defensive architecture in medieval Florence.

The palace was erected in the second half of the fourteenth century by the Davizzi family, prosperous wool merchants. In 1516 it passed to the Bartolini family, and in 1578 it was acquired by the Davanzati family, also wealthy merchants, who retained it until 1838. Following the suicide of Carlo Davanzati, the building was subdivided into multiple units and altered. It narrowly escaped the large-scale demolitions of nineteenth-century Florence. In 1904 the antiquarian Elia Volpi purchased the palace and undertook extensive restoration, aiming to recover its fourteenth-century character. In 1910 he opened it as a private museum, the Museo Privato della Casa Fiorentina Antica. The contents fluctuated as Volpi sold furnishings at auction, notably in a major 1916 New York sale that helped disseminate neo-Renaissance taste in the United States. In the 1920s Egyptian antique dealers Vitale and Leopoldo Bengujat acquired the building and its contents. The Italian state purchased the palace in 1951, and the museum opened to the public in 1956. Structural problems forced closure in 1995; the ground and first floors reopened in 2005, and by 2012 all floors were again accessible.

The museum's collection is representative of Florentine Renaissance and late-medieval domestic culture. Although the rooms retain their original wall decorations, the furnishings are not original to the palace but rather are installed to evoke the ambiance of an old Florentine house. The holdings include fourteenth- through sixteenth-century furniture, textiles, household objects, ceramics, and paintings. Notable categories are maiolica from Montelupo, cassoni (decorated bridal chests), devotional and secular paintings, and a range of kitchen and domestic implements. The collection also includes a significant desco da parto (birth tray) and fresco cycles that illustrate the decorative programs favored by wealthy Florentine families.

Among the most significant works is a desco da parto painted by Scheggia, brother of Masaccio, displayed in the second-floor bedroom known as the Camera della Castellana di Vergy. This room takes its name from frescoes inspired by the medieval romance La Châtelaine de Vergy. The Sala dei Pappagalli (Room of the Parrots) features wall paintings simulating patchwork tapestries with parrot motifs, originally lined with miniver, though these frescoes have been heavily restored. The Sala dei Pavoni contains frescoes showing false geometrical tapestries and allied family coats of arms. The Great Hall on the first floor contains sixteenth-century objects and retains three square holes with wooden covers that align with the atrium below, used for observing or defending against visitors at the entrance. The studiolo displays a forziere, cassone, small sculptures, and paintings. The upper-floor kitchen contains Renaissance and later tools including a fireplace with bellows, two turnspits, a wooden bread-kneading machine, and a metal butter churn.

The palace façade unifies a cluster of earlier medieval tower houses and is constructed of sandstone. It presents three large portals at street level and three stories of mullioned windows; the top floor features a loggia added in the sixteenth century, supported by four columns and two pilasters, replacing earlier battlements. The façade bears the Davanzati coat of arms. The interior courtyard, which extends vertically to serve as a compluvium for rainwater collection, is surrounded by stone staircases for the first two floors and wooden stairs above, the latter designed to be destroyed in case of attack. A well with a pulley system supplied water to all floors, and square-section conduits in the walls allowed bucket passage. The ground-floor atrium and courtyard communicate with all rooms. The two lower floors have strictly identical room plans. Bedrooms at the rear include ensuite bathrooms, and windows on the courtyard side were originally closed with interior shutters rather than glass. The kitchen occupies the top floor to isolate heat and limit fire damage.

Palazzo Davanzati is located at 9 Via di Porta Rossa in central Florence, near the former Mercato Vecchio (now Piazza della Repubblica). It is owned by the Italian state and managed through the Polo museale della Toscana. The museum is open to the public with access to the ground floor, first floor, and second floor; as of the most recent reports, the uppermost loggia floor remains restricted to staff. The official website is http://www.polomuseale.firenze.it. Visitors can tour the atrium, courtyard, great hall, Sala dei Pappagalli, studiolo, bedrooms, and kitchen, experiencing one of the most complete surviving examples of a medieval Florentine merchant's residence.