Palazzo Grifoni

Palazzo Grifoni was begun in the mid-sixteenth century for Monsignor Ugolino Grifoni. Giorgio Vasari attributed the design to Giuliano di Baccio d’Agnolo and described the finished palace as “cosa magnifica.” The brick-and-pietra-serena building is now the headquarters of the Fondazione CRSM.

Why it matters

The palace records how a Florentine grandee expressed his status in his home city. Its construction helped shape the surrounding piazza and its group of noble residences. Today it houses the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di San Miniato, whose council and assembly rooms are named for Cosimo Ridolfi and Torello Pierazzi.

What to notice

The façade combines exposed brick with rusticated pietra serena. Above the entrance is the Grifoni coat of arms, flanked by two “finestre inginocchiate.” Round-arched windows light the piano nobile, and a loggia of Tuscan-order columns crowns the top floor. An inscription reading “L’altopascio” has prompted a hypothesis that Michelangelo supplied drawings for the palace; this remains uncertain. Scholars have also compared the courtyard wall’s design with the vestibule of Michelangelo’s Laurentian Library.

Context and history

Palazzo Grifoni was built over two fourteenth-century houses and part of the walls of the fortilizio Ser Ridolfo. Work began around the middle of the sixteenth century; the palace was partly finished by 1554 but remained incomplete in 1560. In 1573 the captains of the Parte Guelfa authorised the use of material from the old Rocca for the unfinished sections. Giuliano di Baccio d’Agnolo died in 1555 and did not see the work completed. The surrounding piazza later grew around the palace, alongside the residences of the Buonaparte, Sanminiati Pazzi and Roffia families. The Fondazione CRSM now occupies the building and continues the legacy of the savings bank established in 1830.