Evening Republican, Volume 23, Number 179, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 July 1920 — MOST FAMOUS OF PALACES [ARTICLE]

MOST FAMOUS OF PALACES

Building Constructed by Brunelleschi for Count Pltti Is the Glory of Florence, Italy. No country la richer in beautiful palaces than , Italy. In most Instances these have now become the property of the nation, so that the taxpayer is indirectly responsible for the general good while preserving their dignity and safeguarding their treasures. Throughcrt Italy, from Turin to Palermo, these monuments to the genius of the Middle ages are to be found, but perhaps none Is so famous as the Pltti palace at Florence, built upon a hill above the Arno with the beautiful Boboli gardens stretching"behind it Count Pltti, chief magistrate of Florence in the fifteenth century, desiring to outrival Cosimo de’ Medici, set himself to build a palace which should be the wonder of Italy. He employed the architect Brunelleschi, whom Cosimo when building his own palace had passed over because of his magnificent disregard for expenditure, and Brunelleschi was given a free hand. however, fell into disgrace f° r plotting against the son of Cosimo and no workman could be found to continue his half-completed palace. Thus for a century it was to remain, until Eleanor of Toledo once more took it in hand and it became —oh, strange irony I —the home of the Medicean grand dukes. The Pitti was not actually finished until 1839. The sight-/ seer is aware as he wanders through this vast building today, and gazes at its walls lined with five hundred pictures, most of them masterpieces, that he is rather in a royal palace than a picture gallery, and he doubts ndt the truth of Macchiavelli’s verdict, that the Pltti palace “is greater and more splendid than the house of any other private citizen whatsoever.”