The PalazzoorCasa Martelli was a residential palace, and since 2009, a civic museum displaying in situ the remains of the original family's valuable art collection, as well as its frescoed rooms. The palace is located on Via Ferdinando Zannetti 8 near the corner with Via Cerretani in central Florence, region of Tuscany, Italy.
In the place where the palace there were the old houses of the Martelli family, since the twenties of the sixteenth century. In 1627, the area of this palace was aggregated after the marriage of Senator Marco Martelli and his cousin. Marco also acquired further buildings. Some frescoes on the main floor date to this era. The Cardinal Francesco Martelli (1633–1717) was a member of this family.
At the end of the eighteenth century Marco, son of Niccolo, commissioned further frescoes depicting mythological and historic episodes of the family from teams led by Tommaso Gherardini, while Luigi Sabatelli decorated the vault of the staircase, where they displayed once two works attributed to Donatello, a statue of David and the coat of arms of the family. The marble David statue is now displayed in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, and it is now felt to be a copy of the marble David by Donatello in the Bargello in Florence.[1]
Large parts of the house's artworks were sold over the past two centuries. In 1986, the last Martelli resident, Francesca Martelli, willed the house to the Curia of Florence. In 1998, the Curia sold the complex to the Italian state as part of a larger deal. This allowed the collections to be opened as a museum in 2006.
Ceiling fresco (1822): Domenico Martelli (1414–1476), Gonfaloniere of Justice and diplomat, in 1454 granted by the Duke of Calabria (of the Anjou family), the privilege of including the fleurs-de-lis of France in the family coat of arms, painted by Antonio Marini
Half-Bust Portraits of Philosophers Democritus and Heraclitus (1612–1613) by Orazio Borgianni
Krater Vase depicting Martelli Villas at Soffiano and Gricigliano (early 19th-century) by Ginori Factory in the shape of Medici Vase
Room of Love Ruling the World
Ceiling fresco (1847): Nuptial allegory, Love ruling the World with Temperance (bridle) and Legal Union (bundle)byNicola Cianfanelli painted for the wedding of Alessandro Martelli (1812–1904) with Marianna Velluti Zati of the Dukes of San Clemente.
Alessandra Civai, La quadreria Martelli di Firenze. L'allestimento tardosettecentesco alla luce di un inventario figurato, in "Studi di Storia dell'Arte", marzo, 1991, pp. 285–299
Marcello Vannucci, Splendidi palazzi di Firenze, Le Lettere, Firenze 1995 ISBN88-7166-230-X
Alessandra Civai, IlGabinetto di Belle Arti di Palazzo Martelli a Firenze, in Proporzioni, I, 2000, pp. 217–240
^The organization and much of the content in this edit is translated from the existing Italian Wikipedia article at it:Palazzo Martelli; see its history for attribution.
^Two of the works in the fresco are no longer in this collection: Coat of Arms of the Family, now at Bargello, and the Bust of the Young St. John the Baptist, now at the National Gallery in Washington DC.
