Palazzo Guadagni Strozzi Sacrati

Edificio storico monumentale affacciato su Piazza del Duomo a Firenze

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Palazzo storico monumentale affacciato su piazza del Duomo, fu costruito agli esordi del XVII secolo sulle case medievali della famiglia Bischeri e progressivamente ampliato dai marchesi Guadagni; assunse la fisionomia attuale nell'800 con Anna Strozzi. La struttura si sviluppa su oltre 3.400 mq, articolandosi in più blocchi.

Nel corso dei secoli i proprietari hanno modificato più volte la struttura del palazzo, arricchendolo di particolari e decorazioni: nel ‘700 vennero aggiunti uno scalone monumentale, una sala da ballo (costruita in occasione delle nozze di Giovan Battista Guadagni con Teresa Torrigiani), decorazioni pittoriche ad opera di Antonio Vannetti e A. Domenico Giarré.
Agli inizi del 1800 vennero aggiunti un giardino con voliera, numerosi affreschi a soggetto mitologico al pian terreno del primo piano, la nuova facciata su via dell'Oriuolo, i decori dei piani superiori (dove spicca la sala con al centro del soffitto la scena dell'incontro fra Bianca Cappello e Francesco I° de' Medici, dipinta da Annibale Gatti).

Nel 1871 il palazzo andò a Massimiliano Strozzi del ramo di Mantova, erede dei Sacrati di Ferrara, che fece ulteriori lavori per alzare di un piano la struttura e le scuderie.
Gli ultimi intreventi furono fatti nel 1918 dalla vedova di Massimiliano, Guendalina Steward e dal figlio Ubert, che installarono nel 1918 l'ascensore antistante lo scalone monumentale, aggiunsero nuovi volumi sul lato est e realizzarono l'allestimento neo-rococò della stanza dell'alcova al primo piano.
Il palazzo è stato acquistato dalla Regione Toscana ed ospita dal 2008 la sede della Presidenza.

Consulta  la guida alla visita >>>

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Palazzo Guadagni Strozzi Sacrati is an important historical building in Florence acquired in 1988 by the Tuscany Region; it has been, restored and is periodically visited by the public.
The skilled and careful restoration returned the grand staircase, the ballroom, and the painted decorations on the ground floor and first floor to their former glory.
Some of the furnishings and paintings of the Strozzi Sacrati legacy have also been restored and put back inside the palace.
Since the building was first opened to the public in the spring of 2008, the Presidents of the Tuscany Region have been striving to open it periodically, so that such a valuable testimony of taste and culture may be discovered and appreciated.

Historic events

Building began in the early XVII century on the Bischeri family's medieval homes and was gradually extended by the Marquis Guadagni up until the legal sale of the property (1795), the Palazzo took on its current appearance during the nineteenth century once the work had been completed by the new owner Anna Strozzi and her descendants.

The building amounts to 31,500 cubic metres and lies over an area of more than 3,400 square metres. More buildings have been added and are connected to the "Casa Grande" erected by Alessandro and Vincenzo Guadagni and extended up to the corner of Via Buia after the inclusion of the Arrigucci dwellings (1633-1642).

Between 1730 and 1770, the main residence was enhanced by the grand staircase and the ballroom on the main floor – the latter in preparation for the wedding of Giovan Battista Guadagni and Teresa Torrigiani (1757) – as well as by the paintings by Antonio Vannetti and A. Domenico Giarré, which appear in two rooms on the ground floor next to the covered courtyard. The "modernization" undertaken by Anna Strozzi in 1812, who also wanted to give the Palazzo a garden with an adjoining aviary, produced the murals of the other ground floor rooms and of part of the main floor bearing mythological scenes and landscapes, the work of a team of artists (Angelo Angelini, Luigi Catani, Antonio Fedi, Gasparo Martellini and Niccolò Contestabile) who were very popular with the Grand Duchy of Tuscany and the Florentine nobility.

Among the works carried out by Anna's son, Carlo Riccardi Strozzi – who also transfered the stables to the wing bordering the S. Maria Nuova Hospital and the extended the building on Via Buia – the new facade on Via dell'Oriuolo is also worth mentioning, which followed the opening of the road (1860-62), and took its design from the Piazza del Duomo; engineer Felice Francolini had to make radical internal changes, that involved cutting a side of the building.

The upper floors were also renovated; there, a room stands out whose ceiling has at its centre the scene of the meeting between Bianca Cappello and Francesco I de' Medici, painted by Annibale Gatti.

Following the death of Marquis Carlo (1871), the building came into the possession of Massimiliano Strozzi from the Mantua branch, heir to the Sacrati of Ferrara, who raised up higher the wing that had already been worked on by Francolini, adding a floor also to the stables to obtain extra service rooms, and installed the adjoining staircase next to the driveway on Via dell'Oriuolo.

To free up the upper quarters, a long corridor was created overlooking the internal square, which reduced the size of the rooms, which originally used to take up the entire depth of the building. Among the changes made by the widow of Massimiliano, Guendalina Steward, and their son Uberto, the 1918 installation of the lift in front of the monumental staircase and the addition of new buildings on the eastern side as well as the neo-rococo furnishings of the alcove room on the first floor, probably designed by the English architect Cecil Pinsent, who was a guest at the Palazzo during that time period. With the building being progressively split up into several units rented out for different uses led to the break up from these, by reorganising the access systems and the internal connections. In the forties, the courtyard hemmed in by the premises leased by Monte dei Paschi di Siena and used as a branch of the Bank was covered with concrete and glass.

The design and implementation of the restoration work

After the first phase of the works – designed and managed by the engineer Mario Focacci – the site was subjected to a systematic process of upgrades and restoration work. This first phase consisted in draining the roofs and basements and redoing the plasters on Piazza Duomo. The second phase of the works started in late 1997 and was also under. Focacci's authority, but only consisted of construction and installation works to adapt the property to new uses, deferring to a later phase works of artistic restoration.

When studio SPIRA of Florence took over in 2002, other surveys and inspections were carried out to update the original project in compliance with changing legal provisions and the orders of authorities and other bodies (VV. FF., ASL, ecc.), as well as with functional changes requested by the Customers. This has enabled the introduction of technical solutions aimed at better reconciling, minimizing invasiveness, the need to protect the asset with mandatory performance and safety requirements. As for projects planned ex novo, the suspension with tie rods of the bearing wall that weighed on the vault underneath the Main Hall and the static redevelopment of the area bordering between Piazza del Duomo and Via dell'Oriuolo, which remedied the tearing up resulting from the "cut" of the side on Via Buia.

In order to transfer into the Palazzo a nucleus of offices along with the redelivery of the rooms from the second phase, necessary completion works were performed, anticipating by means of separate contracts, operations already planned in the following phase aimed at conserving the monumental environments.

These works covered the arrangement of the square and the garden (including the archaeological excavations for laying the underground utilities), the restoration of interior views, and the inclusion of a large skylight with stained glass for the canopy of the internal courtyard, which has been set aside to stage each year the "Premio Pegaso" award ceremony.
The fine tuning of the works on the decorated surfaces of the rooms, with their tapestry, ironmongery, fireplaces, and period chandeliers was preceded by a systematic campaign of non-destructive diagnostic inquiries headed by the engineer Maurizio Seracini.
With the completion of the third phase, regarding the restoration of the remaining areas of the first and second floors (including the main staircase and ceremony room), it was possible for the regional government to finally settle in and to put furnishings and ornaments of the Palace back into its rooms, there by making it a "museum of itself".