A bit of history

The Benci family had their palace built at the end of the 1400s on the old houses of the Gori family, where many Florentine "dyers" had lived and had their workshops, famous throughout Europe for their wool and silk manufacturing, including the legend It is said that the family of the great Giotto was also there, who was born and raised here, learning all the secrets about the use of colours.

In the mid-16th century, the Benci family, whose most famous member Giovanni, father of Ginevra portrayed by Leonardo, was the trusted man of the Medici, first in Geneva and Basel, then in Rome and finally in Florence, much who entrusted him with the general management and the "secret books" of their Bank, to show their power in the city and show off their enormous wealth, they had their palace enlarged and entrusted its decoration to the great pupil's favorite Buontalenti, Bernardino Poccetti who, in addition to enriching the interior with sculptures and stuccos, frescoed the façade so admirably that, when it was discovered to the public together with those of four other palaces during the patronal feasts of San Giovanni Battista in 1575, it was judged the most beautiful of all, as Lapini reports in his “Diary”.

Of those five, today that of Palazzo Benci is the only colored frescoed façade still visible in all of Florence, saved from the damage of bad weather thanks to an expensive protective restoration work, which however faded the colors a bit, before much more vivid.