Palazzo Lanfranchi-Toscanelli

The Palazzo Lanfranchi-Toscanelli, presently the local State Archives, is a Renaissance-style palace located on Lungarno Mediceo #30, in the city of Pisa, region of Tuscany, Italy. Since 1913 the building has housed the Archivio di Stato di Pisa.

Facade of Palace

History

Initially commissioned in the first half of the 16th century by Bartolomeo Lanfranchi. Some authors state that the architect was Michelangelo.[1] A later Palazzo Lanfranchi commissioned by Alessandro stands across the Arno. In 1576, the palace was refurbished using designs by Francesco Mosca.

The recently enriched mercantile Toscanelli family acquired the palace in 1827; and restored it using the architect Alessandro Gherardesca. Giovan Battista Toscanelli and his wife Angiola Cipriani lived in the palace, and garnered a large and prominent art collection.[2] Among the artists in the painting gallery were Cornelis Bloemaert, Agnolo Bronzino, Pietro Ciafferi, Jacques Courtois, Carlo Dolci, Francesco Fidanza, Károly Markó the Younger, Cornelis van Poelenburgh, and Piero Zuccheri.[3] Among the artists employed in decoration of the rooms of the palace in the 1830s were Giuseppe Bacchini, Luigi Venturini, and Benvenuto Brazzini.[4] The palace, once had a peculiar Mannerist marble sculpture, part of a fountain, that displayed a chimeric female figure extruding bare breasts, but possessing wings, fins for feet, and a long tail. She sits atop a frog. The statue has been attributed to either Michelangelo or one of his followers, Silvio Cosini or Niccolo Tribolo.[5] The statue is now in Palazzo Blu in town.

They had the ceilings frescoed (1860s) by Nicola Cianfanelli, Gaspero Martellini, and Annibale Gatti with depictions of secular hagiography showing:

References
  1. Le dimore di Pisa: l'arte di abitare i palazzi di una antica repubblica, Article title: Il Palazzo Toscanelli di Pisa nel XIX Secolo:Note e Documenti Inediti sugli Arredi e sulla Quadreria, by Barbara Bertelli, Universita di Udine, edited by Emilia Daniele, page 227.
  2. Tourism office of Pisa, itineraries, text curated by A. Sobrero and M. Zampetti of the Pisan Historic Society (last revision 18/06/2013).
  3. Michelangelo is rumored to have been the architect of the palace. see B Bertelli, page 228-232.
  4. See B Bertelli, page 233.
  5. The Medici, Michelangelo, & the Art of Late Renaissance Florence, by Cristina Acidini Luchinat, Palazzo Strozzi, Art Institute of Chicago, Detroit Institute of Arts, page 228.
  6. Byron is said to have been a guest in the palace. see B Bertelli, page 227.

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