Palazzo Davanzati

Palazzo Davanzati is a fourteenth-century Florentine merchant’s house, now furnished as a museum of the old Florentine home. Painted bedchambers, a top-floor kitchen with loom and spinning reel, and the Guicciardini coverlet with scenes from Tristan’s story evoke domestic life across several centuries.

Why it matters

Surviving domestic architecture from medieval Florence is rare. Built for the Davizzi family of merchants and bankers, Palazzo Davanzati preserves a vertical arrangement of loggia, courtyard, great hall, bedrooms, dining rooms and latrines. After it was saved from demolition, Elia Volpi bought the building in 1904, restored and furnished it, and opened the Museum of the Ancient Florentine House. The Italian state acquired the palazzo in 1951; later donations added maiolica, furnishings, lace and embroidery.

What to notice

Medieval murals of birds framed by trompe-l’oeil hangings decorate the Sala dei Pappagalli and the Chamber of Peacocks. The Chamber of the Chatelaine of Vergy draws on a thirteenth-century French romance. Other notable works include the late-fourteenth-century Guicciardini coverlet embroidered with scenes from Tristan and Isolde, panels by Lo Scheggia and the Master of Serumido, and a Sienese armoire painted with grotesques. The Lace Room and Firearms Cupboard reflect different aspects of the household, while the third-floor kitchen retains a loom, warp and spinning reel alongside cooking equipment. A sixteenth-century roof terrace replaced the original battlements.

Context and history

The palace’s façade, with its three large ground-floor arches, recalls the tower-houses of communal Florence while anticipating the more open Renaissance palace. The Davanzati family acquired the building in 1578 and owned it until 1838. Volpi’s early-twentieth-century arrangement became an influential interpretation of the Florentine home; the state museum that followed anchored the rooms with historical objects. Palazzo Davanzati is therefore both a medieval house and a record of how Florence later chose to represent domestic life.