Luogo - Museum

Museo di Palazzo Davanzati - Museo dell'Antica Casa Fiorentina

Where Via Porta Rossa, 13, Firenze

The Museum of Palazzo Davanzati – also known as the Museo dell’Antica Casa Fiorentina – was opened as a State museum in 1956. The impressive facade of the Palazzo, the ancient fourteenth-century residence of the Davizzi family, wealthy merchants and bankers, overlooks the namesake piazza once

populated by ancient tower-houses.

The Palazzo was in fact built, around the mid-fourteenth century, through the incorporation of a number of tower-houses and other properties belonging to the Davizzi. However it owes its name to another family, the Davanzati, who purchased it in 1578 and embellished the facade with a large coat of arms representing the crest of the dynasty. The Davanzati lived here up to 1838, the year of the tragic death of the last heir Carlo.

In 1904 the Palazzo was purchased by the great antiquarian Elia Volpi, who then opened it as the Museo dell’antica casa fiorentina, a stunning example of the exquisitely “Florentine” taste much sought-after by both Italians and foreigners. During the first half of the last century the Palazzo lived through a series of sales, purchases and bankruptcies of antique dealers, until it was bought by the State and opened as a public museum, endowing it with the same character of a reconstruction of a mediaeval house, although the present furnishings consist of works originating from the repositories of the Florentine galleries.

 

The Museum houses a varied and interesting range of collections: sculptures, paintings, furnishings, majolica, lace etc. 
The extensive entrance loggia leads into the picturesque courtyard giving access to the upper floors. On each floor the rooms are laid out on an identical plan: the Sala Madornale, occupying the entire length of the facade, the drawing room, the study and the bedroom with open-beamed ceilings and fake upholstery decorations. The domestic quarters – the “agiamenti” (toilets), present on all floors, and the kitchen on the third floor – illustrate the comforts of the noble family that lived in Palazzo Davanzati, a magnificent and singular example of a mediaeval Florentine house.

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