IACOPI DISCENDENZE E STORIA

      IACOPI or IACOBI of PISTOIA

IACOPI of SANTA CROCE

(of BLACK LION of the OX and of the WHEELSE)

and

IACOPI of S. GIOVANNI

(of the KEY and the GOLDEN LION)  

         (associated with the Consorteria De' Veneri

 

Descendant families: 

• IACOPI del Lion Nero
• IACOPI del Bue
• IACOPI del Lion D'oro
• Veneri
• Del Verre
• Della SCROFA o Della SCROFFA
  

 

IACOPI o IACOBI del Lion Nero o IACOPI di Santa Croce

  IACOBI / IACOPI of Pistoia and IACOBI / IACOPI of the Black Lion, district of Santa Croce as well as VENERI, DEL VERRE or DELLA SCROFFA or DELLA SCROFFA

 

       

 

       IACOPI del Bue (of Santa Croce)

 

 

       

      IACOPI delle Chiavi, S. Giovanni District

 

 

 

 

According to CIABANI, the IACOPI or JACOBI were part of the Consorteria dei VENERI (in turn derived from a certain VENIERO di CINO di COLTO). In reality, on the basis of documents recently found in the State Archives of Pistoia, the  Florentine IACOPI would seem to come, instead, from the mountain area of Prato-Pistoia near Vernio and derive from the JACOBI/IACOPI of PISTOIA. After their initial consolidation in the city of PISTOIA, they moved to FLORENCE at the beginning of the 1300s and enjoyed considerable prestige in the city of the Lily, both for the positions received and the positions held, and for the prosperous economic situation they reached.

Research conducted on the family of the VENERI, artisans and prestigious goldsmiths, who lived in  the Quarter of S. GIOVANNI and who had their family tomb in the Church of S.Marco (fig. 23 e 23a), have rather led us to think that the Venuses, which give their name to the Consorteria (which raises the same coat of arms with the rampant pig), could even derive from the IACOPI, since their development, according to the documents found, appears to have occurred temporally, contemporary and not earlier, to that of the IACOPI and for this reason it does not seem totally correct, if not for the commonality of the coat of arms, to refer to this Consorteria, to which the DELLA SCROFFA and DEL VERRE also belonged. In Annex E1 data obtained from the Tratte per i Tre Maggiore and genealogical synthesis of the VENERI di Firenze derived from them.

Taking into consideration the elements deducible from the papers of MAZZEI, a Pistoian Primorist of the seventeenth century, as well as from the papers of the Priorists Alberto CHIAPPELLI and Guido MACCIO', the IACOPI/JACOBI, from the mountains of Pistoia, have preliminarily moved to the city of PISTOIA, where they had consolidated, becoming part of the Council of Elders and holding the office of Camerlengo several times (10) and already in 1292, they had managed to obtain the highest office of Gonfaloniere di Giustizia, with MASINO or TOMMASINO di VEZZOSO. From this locality some of the IACOPI/JACOBI of PISTOIA, due to the prestige acquired there, have therefore naturally moved to FLORENCE, the center of economic and political attraction of the time, starting from the end of the 1200s, beginning of the 1300s, where they obtained a definitive consecration in the 1310s.

It should be emphasized, however, that in 1319 FLORENCE subdued the city of PISTOIA, simplifying and favoring the exodus to the city of Giglio of the major families of Pistoia.

This hypothesis on the possible derivation of the IACOPI of FLORENCE from those of PISTOIA, starts from the examination of the documents found in the State Archives of PISTOIA. In fact, from the aforementioned papers it follows from the fact that the JACOBI/IACOPI of PISTOIA raised, among other things, the same coat of arms or at least a decidedly similar coat of arms (a pig or pig of black rampant belted silver on a gold field) (fig. 23b) from  the Priorist FRANCHI and from the observation that, only after 1310, the Florentine IACOPI managed to obtain positions of a certain importance in the city of Giglio, an event that occurred, about 25 years after those obtained in PISTOIA and in conjunction with the definitive submission of the city to FLORENCE, which took place in 1319.

In this regard, it should be noted that already in 1307 a PUSCIUS or (Filip) PUCCIUS JACOPI was already a Florentine citizen and inhabitant of the Popolo di Santa Felicita di Piazza. For this personage, a document of 1307, reported at no. 691, p. 305 of the Regesto del Liber Censuum Comunis Pistorii di Quinto Santoli of 1915. In fact, in the document drawn up at the Arte dei Calimala, in the Popolo di Sant'Andrea, fra Ardingo di Bonaggiunta de' MEDICI who transfers, in the presence of numerous witnesses and sureties, to Rainerio FIERAVANTI of Pistoia, representative of the Municipality of PISTOIA, the sum of one thousand florins, the witness PUSCIUS JACOBI, aforesaid, is characterized as an inhabitant  of Populo Santa Felicitatis in Piazza (who like all the other witnesses result) ... omnibus de Florentia. In this case the presence of Puscius as a witness is evident as a descendant of a wealthy and illustrious family of the city of PISTOIA. And it was precisely the PUGIUS or PUCCIUS JACOBI who in 1323 assumed the highest Florentine office of Gonfaloniere di Giustizia.

It is very important to underline, in this case, that the JACOBI of PISTOIA already possessed, since the end of the 1200s, a coat of arms and a consolidated surname.

Specifically, the IACOPI/JACOBI of FLORENCE, probably associated with the Consorteria de' VENERI were also better known as IACOPI of Santa CROCE (the district in which the majority of the branches lived), are particularly deserving in the city of Giglio for their commercial activities and for their subsidies and for their patronage. As previously pointed out, they raised as a coat of arms the same as that of the IACOPI of PISTOIA and that of the Consorteria dei VENERI (a wild boar - formerly a piglet or rather an Apennine wild boar with a white band) rampant, armed or defended with red, belted or banded with silver on a gold field) (fig. 23c, 23d and 23e). In fact, it should be added that this animal was particularly popular in Florence, so much so that it had the honor of a sculpture (the famous piglet) right in the Piazza del Mercato Nuovo, near Ponte Vecchio (fig. 24).

 

Fig. 24: il porcellino di firenze

 

As highlighted above, the family, due to its local and regional prestige, was already known by its surname in FLORENCE as early as the early 1300s and, in particular, after the transfer of several members of the JACOBI of PISTOIA to the city. But already in 1314 we note a GUGLIELMO JACOBI, Prior of the city of Florence (of whom, however, we do not have much information) and the appointment of PUCIUS (Filippuccio) JACOBI/JACOPI, mentioned above, as Gonfaloniere Giustizia in 1323, indicates the integration of the JACOBI of Pistoia into the city of Giglio. Again, in 1372, GIOVANNI JACOBI  was elected Prior and in 1390 his son LEONARDO also obtained the position of Prior. In any case, the Florentine Land Registry of 1427 proves the economic importance achieved by the family which, in the meantime, is also referred to by the surname IACOPI alone. From that Land Registry, in particular, three branches are highlighted which, although bearing the same surname and presumably deriving from the same lineage or family stock, no longer all lived in the same district/district and did not actually raise the same coat of arms in common. It is NOFRI di NOFRI di GIOVANNI (?) IACOBI and TOMMASO di GIOVANNI IACOBI, progenitor of the IACOPI delle CHIAVI, living in the District of S. Giovanni (Gonfalons of the Lion d'Oro and of the Keys, respectively), while GIOVANNI di LEONARDO di GIOVANNI IACOBI, woollen worker, progenitor of the IACOPI del LION NERO, lives, in fact, in the District of S. Croce, under the insignia of the Banner of the Black Lion (Fig. 24a, Quarters and Banners in Florence vds. also Note 8).

It is worth adding, for the sake of completeness of information, that the Banner of the KEYS bordered the District of S. CROCE and more precisely with the Banner of the WHEEL. This geographical aspect confirms that the IACOPI mentioned all derived from a common stock.

Furthermore, at the beginning of the 1400s GIOVANNI di LEONARDO IACOPI, aforesaid, obtained authorization to build a tomb in the floor of the Church of Santa Croce (near the statue of Dante), whose tombstone shows, in addition to the traditional coat of arms of the family (the rampant pig), the inscription: IOANNES IACOBI LEONARDI FILIO (or the historical surname of the family).

An examination under the aspect of the coats of arms, used by the various branches, provides us with further useful elements of evaluation. In fact, apart from the above-mentioned branch of NOFRI, for which no coat of arms is known, the examination of the documents of CERAMELLI PAPIANI, preserved in the State Archives of Florence, shows us the coats of arms used by the families of Florence.

the case of the IACOPI, the historian, in addition to the coat of arms of the IACOPI de' TORNAQUINCI (already previously examined), enumerates, in particular, that of the IACOPI di SANTA CROCE or the LION NERO, who raised, as seen above, a "Wild boar - ex porco - rampant in black and silver strap on a gold field" (the animal reminds us of the ancient Apennine wild boar with the white belt and its famous domesticated descendant, the Cinta Senese pig) (fig. 24b and 24c) and that of the IACOPI of S. GIOVANNI or delle CHIAVI, which showed "a massacre of a golden deer on a blue background" (fig. 24d)

(a coat of arms very similar to that of the UBALDINI of Florence). Both coats of arms indicate a common belonging and a common origin, that of hunters (Venuses) and that their discrepancy derives, in all probability, essentially from internal divergences within the family or purely from the simple need to distinguish themselves from the other branches of the family stock. This logic, just highlighted, is also amply confirmed by the fact that not all the branches of the IACOPI of SANTA CROCE will use the same family coat of arms. In fact, while the Priorist MARIANI, in his notes, indicates as the coat of arms of the family "a pig of black rampant belted with silver" (ancient IACOPI), the branch of ZANOBI or ZENOBIO di GIOVANNI di LEONARDO IACOPI, Captain in CAMPIGLIA MARITTIMA (LI) in 1471 for the Medici, he left on the façade of the public palace of Campiglia a slightly different coat of arms "Golden to the pig (wild boar) in the natural rampant" (without strap) (fig. 24e and 24f) and this coat of arms will later be reported in the eighteenth-century coat of arms, which belonged to the Electors of Bavaria, now available in the Library of MUNICH in BAVARIA, relating to the Florentine patrician families, but with a further variant: "Gold to the wild boar in the natural rampant, defended in black" (Fig. 24g). For the sake of completeness, it should also be remembered that in the district of Santa Croce lived other branches of the IACOPI and in particular that of ZACCARIA IACOBI ..., perhaps son or brother of Prior GIOVANNI, who lived under the Gonfalone del BUE (IACOPI del BUE) and that of PIERO di Nicolò IACOPI, perhaps a notary, who lived under the insignia of the Gonfalone delle RUOTE (IACOPI delle RUOTE; Archive of the Tithes of 1427, Poligrafo GARGANI), while from the Archive of the Tithes of 1433 we note that a certain PIERO di TOMMASO di GIOVANNI IACOPI worked as a kiln maker and lived in the district of Santo Spirito, under the insignia of the Gonfalone del DRAGO.

In any case, the IACOPI, dedicated to trade, had enriched themselves with their trade, making a rapid social ascent and being admitted to the most important city magistracies. In fact, all the Iacopi were "imbursed" and enrolled 165 times in the city's representative "Tratte"  (Annex F: three Major Councils) and, overall, 248 times, also considering the institutional positions of Consul of the Arts and of the College of the Mercanzia (11). The complete list of characters of the IACOPI  family interested in these activities are documented in detail in Annex F1. The bourgeois and popular condition, in fact, allowed many members of the family to hold the position of Prior of the Florentine municipality numerous times and more precisely as far as derives from the research carried out 18   times over the years:

•  1314 (GUGLIELMO di Iacopo);
• 1323 (Filip-PUCCIO or, PUGIUS IACOBI (Gonfaloniere di Giustizia, also from the List of Priors of Raveggi);
• 1324 (Filip-PUCCIO or PUGIUS JACOBI) (for PUGIUS, alias PUSCIUS, alias PUCCIUS JACOBI);
• 1372 or 1374 (GIOVANNI JACOBI di PUGIUS ?, tavoliere, tabularius); 1390 (LEONARDO (di GIOVANNI) JACOBI);
• 1420 (GIOVANNI di LEONARDO di GIOVANNI JACOBI) (in documents cited as the grandson of the 1st Giovanni; Priorista CALAMAI, pag. 222);
• 1436 (GIOVANNI di Leonardo di Giovanni); under the Medici Republic 1450 (GIULIANO di Giovanni di Zaccaria); under the Medici Republic 1455 (ZANOBI di Giovanni di Leonardo); under the Medici Republic 1473 (BERNARDO di Giovanni di Leonardo); under the Medici Republic 1489 (GIOVANNI di Bernardo di Giovanni); under the Medici
• 1498 (GIOVANNI di Bernardo di Giovanni); under the Republic 1503 (GIOVANNI di Bernardo di Giovanni); under the Republic 1513 (GIOVANNI di Bernardo di Giovanni); under the Medici
• 1516 (LORENZO di Bernardo di Giovanni); under the Medici
• 1518 (LUCANTONIO di Piero di Tommaso, of the Branch of S. Giovanni; under the Medici 1522 (LORENZO di Bernardo di Giovanni), under the Medici and finally in the
• 1688 (ALESSANDRO di LORENZO) under the Medici.

But to these dates could be added that of:

• 1425-28 (IACOPO di Guerriante JACOBI). For this character, who is not proven to belong for certain to the Iacopi family, others report the date of 1417),

all taken from the Tratte and which would bring to 19 the total number of Priors/Gonfalonieri with the same family surname. Furthermore, from the 2nd volume of the book "Famiglie di Firenze di Roberto Ciabani, Beatrix Elliker ed Enrico Nistri, editore Bonechi, 1992, a BERNARDO di Iacopo di Matteo Iacopi appears to have been elected, in 1437, to the office of Gonfaloniere di Giustizia, but, in reality, the character mentioned by Ciabani does not belong to the Iacopi  family but to that of the CIACCHI !!

It should also be emphasized that, regarding the aforementioned dates, there are discrepancies and those initially reported were taken from page 340 of the work "Genealogical History of the Nobility and Citizenship of Florence" of MECATTI of 1754. Furthermore, before the subdivision of the city into Quarters (1343), it appears that an IACOPI was elected Prior for the Sestiere of S. Pancrazio, which as we have seen is in all probability the  aforementioned PUGIUS (Annex F2). (Fig. 25, 25a and 25b, quarters, districts and districts of FI)..

In conclusion, all the elements obtained from the documents of the Tratte tell us, in fact, that this branch of the IACOPI/JACOBI of FLORENCE necessarily derives from the JACOBI of PISTOIA (for commonality of coat of arms and surname), perhaps associated with the Consorteria dei VENERI and that the aforementioned PUGIUS JACOBI is present and citizen of Florence since the early 1300s. The family, with the positions held, appears to have acquired, starting from this period, a certain weight in the social fabric of the city. We note, in fact, that the various branches of the family lived, at the beginning of the 1300s, in the Sestieri of S. Giovanni and S. Pancrazio (Brancazio) (until 1343 the city had been divided into Sestieri and only from that date will it be divided into Quarters and Gonfalons) and that the 1st of the family to hold public offices is precisely, in 1314, GUGLIELMO JACOBI, born before 1280, who, in the year, was elected Prior for the Sestiere of S. Pancrazio. Finally, in 1323, our PUGIO or PUGIUS or PUGGIUS JACOBI, of the Sestiere of S. Pancrazio, obtained the office of Gonfaloniere di Giustizia, the highest Florentine political office (the character must have been around 50-60 years old, as to be elected Gonfaloniere di Giustizia, the highest Florentine institutional office, it was necessary to be at least 40 years of age, while for the other offices, Prior, etc., only 30 were enough!). However, it should be emphasized that these characters are not reported by the Prioristi in the list of priors of the IACOPI family, even if concrete elements have now been identified to link them to this family.

But as is generally said: no one is perfect, especially in this field !!

According to the elements deducible from  the Tratte, 1314 seems, however, to be the precise year of the definitive consecration of this family when, in addition to the aforementioned GUGLIELMO, who was elected Prior, a Ser GIOVANNI JACOBI, ascribed, of course, to the Guild of Judges and Notaries (the title of Ser was attributed to this category), he was appointed Notary of the Signoria (i.e. Notary of the Florentine government), while, in 1324, the above-mentioned PUGIO or PUGGIUS JACOBI, enrolled in the Guild of Ferratori, was also elected among the Priors for the Sestiere of S. Pancrazio, that is, the one where the aforesaid GUGLIELMO (probably his relative) lived and also the TORNAQUINCI family.

From the foregoing it is decidedly possible and highly probable, for all the above considerations, that the most important branch of the family  was derived from the descendants of PUGIO JACOBI, of the Sestiere of S. Pancrazio, or from those of GUGLIELMO or Ser GIOVANNI JACOBI, of the same district, precisely  the IACOPI of S.  CROCE, also known as the BLACK LION, (fig. 26 Gonfaloni di S. Croce), so called for the fact that, after the mid-1300s, the majority of its members took up permanent residence in the Sestiere of S. Piero Scheraggio, then in  the Santa Croce district, under the insignia of the Gonfalone del Lion Nero, while a branch, descending ZACCARIA (see below), lived in the same neighborhood under the insignia of the Gonfalone del Bue (IACOPI del BUE), in the finitimo district (vds. fig. 24a).

In essence, starting from the document of 1307, recently discovered, for PUGIUS JACOBI, which demonstrates his affinity with the JACOBI of PISTOIA, it can be legitimately inferred, without however being able to have at the moment further supporting documents, that, starting from the end of the 1200s, the IACOPI family, after consolidating itself in the city of PISTOIA ( 10), was brought with one or more branches to the city of Giglio (especially after 1319), perhaps connecting with the Consorteria dei Veneri (hunters) - which united different categories of work, such as those related to the meat processing chain, (hunters, butchers, dried meat traders, pizzicagnoli, etc.). But another important and decisive element is represented by the fact that already at the end of the 1200s the family was known in PISTOIA with the sole name of JACOBI and that both the JACOBI of Pistoia and the JACOBI of Florence raised practically the same coat of arms, also confirmed by the documents found in PISTOIA, in particular by the FRANCHI Priorists ,  CHIAPPELLI and MACCIO' (the last two most recent). Specifically, in the FRANCHI papers  we read for the blazoning of the coat of arms of 1292 of the Gonfaloniere of PISTOIA, (Tom) MASINO di VEZZOSO Jacobi the following: "On an all-yellow field, he has a pig, with a white stripe in the body". vds. fig. 26a, 26b, 26c. 26d e 26e; (vds.Images taken respectively from CHIAPPELLI and MACCIO'). Finally, another element that strengthens the thesis of the move of the Jacobi of Pistoia to Florence is also provided by the fact that from the mid-1400s there are no more documents attesting to elements and facts of the family in Pistoia, which had probably passed arms to luggage in the city of the Lily.

 

A closer examination of Quinto Santoli's Liber Censuum Communis Pistoiais and the 13th-century Pistoia Statutes confirm the progressive importance the Jacobi family acquired in the city of Pistoia during the 13th century. In fact, starting in 1219, family members were chosen as witnesses to important events in city life and charged with representing the city as Procurators in lawsuits or disputes with other nearby cities (Prato, Florence, Lucca, Bologna). ( BONACOSA , 10 January 1219;  JACOPUS , 4 September 1222; JACOBO , November 1226; BERTELLUS , October 1258. Among these figures, a particular mention must be made of ANDREAS Jacobi of Pistoia , who, having been elected Podestà of Florence , on 21 December 1228 was also nominated Arbiter et arbitrator of Florence in the peace negotiations between Florence and Lucca .

But, starting from the mid-13th century, the Jacopi family began to fully consolidate itself in the fabric of the city and, in particular, in the years towards the middle of the century it managed to obtain the very important position of Camerlengo of the Municipality of PISTOIA , that is, the Administrator of the Municipality. ( ALBERIGUS , 30 October 1237, who during his mandate had 12 thousand Pisan pounds minted for the needs of the Municipality of Pistoia;  RAINERO domini Jacobi , May 1272; BETTO , 1273). With Rainero, mentioned above, they also began to be transcribed in official documents with the qualification and title of Dominus (Lord). Finally, starting from 1250 the JACOBI were elected with a certain stability to the Council of Elders (in Florence of the Priors) of the city, a clear sign of the importance of their influence in the affairs of the city, among these we can remember:  MINIATUS , 5 October 1258; DRUDUS , 1282, CECCHO and ANDREA di BONAGUIDA , 1284; I OHANNES Dominus Iacobi, November 1286,  IACOBUS Dominus Jacobi, laycus, sapiens, electus in Consilium ; Dominus IOHANNES domini Iacobi and then arrive at the famous MASINO di VEZZOSO, Gonfaloniere of Justice in 1292. (For the sake of accuracy, Santoli's Liber Censuum gives us the last piece of news relating to the Iacobi of Pistoia dating back to 2 September 1310, when the Pistoian SALVI Jacobi was elected among the Elders of the Municipality of Pistoia). Ultimately, at the end of the 13th century, the Jacobi of Pistoia were by now a fully consolidated family in the city, where they were regularly classified as Domini (Lords, Nobles).

From the collection of deeds of the 2nd Register of the notary Domenico di Ser Matteo di Biliotto (1300-1314) we also find some important elements regarding the activities of our PUGIUS (Filippuccio) IACOBI . In fact, the abbreviation no. 24 of 19 December 1300 of the same collection tells us that Lippo di Dino del PECORA (a Florentine family, which would be important in Montepulciano in the 1500s), agent of the sister nun of the Convent of Santa Croce alla via, declares having received 32 lire and 12 soldi of small florins due to him from PUGIO IACOBI, stipulator for Martino GUARDI and his Florentine apothecary partners. The document in question tells us that PUGIUS was an apothecary and that he represented a company of apothecaries. Two subsequent abbreviations dated January 26, 1302 provide further details: Lippo di Dino del PECORA, mentioned above, withdraws from the company founded for the spice trade, together with Martino GUARDI, of the people of Santa Lucia de' Magnoli, the apothecary Pugio IACOBI, and Cione Falconis of the people of San Nicola, and Dino di Guido of the people of San Salvatore. The same document also adds that Pugio IACOBI, together with Donato GUARDI, own a company based in CALIMALA in a shop and pharmacy (Apoteca) owned by the CAPONSACCHI family, of which they retain the materials, trademark, and merchandise. Lippo di Dino del PECORA obtains a settlement of 66 florins, 6 soldi, and 8 denari (for capital and profit ). For this entitlement, Lippo di Dino obtains a release from any future obligations towards the Pugio Company . In conclusion PUGIUS IACOBI, Florentine was an apothecary (apoticarius) and a spice merchant.

Regarding the Del PECORA family , whose name derives from the founder's nickname, I was able to learn that in the early 1300s they were living in the city of MONTEPULCIANO and that  in 1352 they became Lords of MONTEPULCIANO. In 1358, ennobled and knighted by PERUGIA for their decisive contribution in the victory of TORRITA against the Sienese, they decided to change their surname to De' CAVALIERI. During the same year, the Del PECORA family also became Lords of VALIANO, near Lake Trasimeno.

At the beginning of the 1300s, having achieved a certain well-being, the Iacopi managed to make a qualitative leap in the Florentine social fabric, where they began to include, in addition to real artisans, also entrepreneurs and men of law, thus marking its consolidation in the context of Florentine society. And it is precisely during the 1300s that the family, after having begun to diversify its activities and tending to enter the Arts, so to speak more "noble", will participate fully, precisely because of its popular and bourgeois condition of departure, in the political life of the city, while some branches of the same family will move from FLORENCE or,  more likely, by PISTOIA itself, during the same century and under the pressure of commercial activities, in the commercial and financial district of the city of LUCCA and in that of BOLOGNA. In fact, at the beginning of the 1300s a parchment reports a report of appraisal made by merchants from Pistoia residing in BOLOGNA, in the parish of San Michele del Mercato di Mezzo. The author is a certain Franchino di Boldo Franchini, who writes on behalf of himself, his brother Sinibaldo Franchini and SINIBALDO Iacopi, a former partner of his father. They ask to be placed at the appraisal of Porta Piera and no longer at that of Porta Ravennate, to which Boldo Franchini, still alive, and Sinibaldo Iacopi were ascribed ... (page 157 of "Pistoia texts of the end of 1200 and early 1300" with linguistic introduction, glossary and onomastic indexes of Paola MANNI, Accademia della Crusca, 1990).

As far as the city of Lucca is concerned, in addition to the IACOPI, which could be established for commercial reasons, it seems appropriate to remember that in 1304 a Pietro IACOPI da Montepulciano was Major Mayor of the City of Lucca. From pag. 234 of "Collection of unpublished or rare works of Lucca" State Archives of Lucca and that one IACOPO di Piero or Pietro IACOPI, at the beginning of the fifteenth century was Captain of the Citadel of Lucca, in the service of Paolo GUINIGI (his descendants will give rise to the branch of the IACOPI of LUCCA which, in its main branch,  it will then take the surname of CITTADELLA and before the extinction of the main branch they will give rise to the CITTADELLA CASTRUCCI of Lucca). (Fig. 27 and 27a), In a document by Ser Ciomeo Pieri dated 16 August 1430 there is a copy of the chapters of delivery of the Citadel of Lucca, after the fall of the Signoria del Guinigi, to FRANCESCO di Iacopo di Pietro ? IACOPI, authenticated by the Major Chancellor of the Council: Tolomeo dal Portico. (Excerpt from page 42 of the journal "Archivi d'Italia e rassegna internazionale degli archivi", Eugenio Casanova, Bibliotheque des "Annales institutorum"). This document proves that the aforementioned IACOPO, at the time of Guinigi's fall from grace, grasped, with much common sense, the new direction in which the wind was blowing and agreed with the rebels and handed over the fortress to the newly reconstituted Republic, in exchange, of course, for honors and privileges and, of course, confirmation in the office of Captain of the Citadel and that this office was,  in fact, passed to his son Francesco in August 1430. On April 21, 1461, Francesco's son, NICCOLO' IACOPI di Cittadella, forwarded a petition to the General Council of Lucca, obtaining a response on the same day. Ultimately, the IACOPI, who had remained in the position of captain of the Citadel of Lucca, began, from then on, to be called IACOPI di CITTADELLA and later only CITTADELLA.

The IACOPI di CITTADELLA lived, in fact, in Lucca in  the Palazzo ex Orsetti, on the current "Piazza Cittadella", the old "Piazza di Poggio", (therefore "Piazza del Grano"), a name derived from a family that once had its houses here. But the current name of the square derives precisely from the Iacopi who, during the 1400s, took the surname of CITTADELLA. In fact, some time later, perhaps also in memory of the event, the family changed its surname to CITTADELLA, fully integrating into the life of the Republic of Lucca. Since then, the CITTADELLA family were a prominent family, owners of vast land holdings in the area of Ciciana, whose members held important positions: Elders, Ambassadors and Gonfalonieri. Around 1700 the marriage of a CITTADELLA with Luisa CASTRUCCI was celebrated: which sanctioned the alliance of two important families from Lucca which guaranteed continuity of power and offices to the CITTADELLA family. Its members, prominent figures even at the time of the BACIOCCHI, are also mentioned twice in the "Golden Book" of Carlo Ludovico in the class of the Patricians. Charles Ludwig himself conferred on them in 1837 the title and dignity of Marquis. The main branch of the family became extinct on 12 April 1896 with the death of the last member, ENRICO CITTADELLA.

Returning to the Iacopi of Santa Croce, the examination of the roles of the Matriculation of the Collegio della Mercanzia (11 the Confindustria of Florence) or of  the Major and Minor  Arts (Annex F3), as well as the book "Orsammichele" by Diane Finello Zervas, Institute of Renaissance Studies, 1996, allow us to obtain numerous interesting elements. We see, in this context, that:

• in 1373, GIOVANNI JACOBI di Pugio ?, living in the district of S. Croce, appears to have worked  as a boarder (tabularius), while at the end of the century he was enrolled in the roles of the Wool Guild, in fact he was a woollen worker. It should be emphasized that being enrolled in an Guild did not necessarily mean exercising this activity, but being enrolled in any of the Guilds, regardless of the profession exercised, was the sine qua non for being able to access the political life of the city.
  
• in 1386, GIOVANNI di Giovanni JACOBI, appears to have worked as a "gunsmith";
• in 1408, GUERRANTE or GUERRIANTE JACOBI, an inhabitant of the District of S. Maria Novella, held the position of Consul of the Silk Guild, better known as the Guild of Por Santa Maria
• in 1412, IACOPO di MICHELE IACOPI appears to exercise the office of Consul in the Guild of Chiavaioli,
• in 1420, ZACCARIA or ZACARIA JACOBI or IACOPI, probably brother of the aforesaid GIOVANNI, living in the District of S. Croce, under the insignia of the Ox banner, registered in the rolls of the Wool Guild, appears, in 1420, as one of the 5 main shareholders, together with Giunta Gherardi and Iacopo Foresi, of the Compagnia De' BONI of Pistoia (page 164 of Medieval and Renaissance Pistoia. The social history of an italian town 1200-1430 by David Herlihy of Yale University; (another provision of the ties left with Pistoia)
• In 1425 and 1430, IACOPO di GUERRIANTE was part of the Council of Good Men;
• in 1428, the same IACOPO di GUERRIANTE was elected among the Priors for the Quarter of S. Maria Novella;
• in 1431, Ser IACOPO di Antonio IACOPI (also mentioned in a deed of a document of 1448) was elected to the office of Notary of the Signoria ;
• in 1434 Ser PAOLO di Cino IACOPI, cousin of the previous one and enrolled in the Guild of Judges and Notaries, was also elected to the office of Notary of the Signoria;
• in 1438 June, LEONARDO di GIORGIO di MICHELE IACOPI, appears to have exercised the activity of "biadaiolo". (page 225 of "Orsammichele" by Diane Finello Zervas);
• in 1436, 1439, 1441 and 42, PIERO di TOMMASO di GIOVANNI IACOPI held the position of Consul in the Blacksmiths' Guild; (an art consistent with that exercised by Pugio di Iacopo ferratore, aforesaid)
• in 1467, TOMMASO di PIERO di GIOVANNI IACOPI, son of the previous, also held the position of Consul in the Blacksmiths' Guild;
• in 1471, IACOPO di GIOVANNI di PIEROZZO IACOPI was elected Consul of the Blacksmiths' Guild, activities undoubtedly similar to that of their ancestor.
• In 1473 a GIROLAMO IACOPI declares bankruptcy in his activity (from Diaries of Ser Giusto d'ANGHIARI).
• in 1484, ZANOBI di GIOVANNI di LEONARDO IACOPI held the very important position of Consul of the Collegio della Mercanzia (the Confindustria of Florence)
• in 1485 and 1487, BERNARDO di GIOVANNI  di BERNARDO (or LEONARDO)
• IACOPI also held, twice, the very important position of Consul of the Collegio della Mercanzia .

In particular, the figure of GIOVANNI JACOBI di Pugio ? mentioned above, stands out above all the others of the family because in 1373, due to his prestige, he will be elected Prior for the District of S. Croce (a fact that proves that his family has already moved their residence to the aforementioned district) and that at the time of the Priory, despite being a woollen merchant, he was enrolled in the Arte dei Tavolieri. (only later will it become a full member of theArt of Wool). This personage, who died before the end of the 1300s, was the first real entrepreneur of the family, organizing - with his son LEONARDO, (who died in 1401 and was married to Francesca, alias Checca di Nicola del fu Riccardo ZAGNI in Marucelliana, Codice A - 145) and enrolled in the Rolls of the Wool Guild - the first sketch of a proto-industrial activity in the field of wool processing (there is no certain data on whether or not he directly managed a fulling mill, which, as is known, assembled the trades of "ciompo" or "cardassiere" or carder/carder, spinner, loom weaver, washer, purgator, purgator).- who frees wool from oil, of shearer - who pulls the hair from wool, of dyer, of shooter, as well as of embroiderer). All this it will become a concrete reality with his grandson of the same name GIOVANNI di LEONARDO di GIOVANNI.

In any case, the aforementioned GIOVANNI JACOBI, Prior of Florence in 1373, directly involved in the struggles against the claims of the wool workers, sided with the intransigent and on the side of the Captains of the Guelph side and, in a certain sense, also with his action, marked by great rigidity, contributed to the outbreak of the Ciompi Riot (June 24, 1378), unleashed precisely by the claims of a "ciompo" or comber of the wool, Michele di Lando. Overwhelmed by events, GIOVANNI, who had become an influential figure in the city, was excluded with his family from municipal power and only after the normalization of power, which took place in 1382, the family was able to return to take up public offices in the city. GIOVANNI, continuing in his commercial activity, in July 1385 and 1392, appears to be the representative of the commercial company "Francesco di Marco DATINI e compagni di PRATO" in the fondaco of AVIGNONE, at the papal court and in November of the same year we find him representing the same company in BARCELLONA (from "Inventory from the archive of Francesco di Marco Datini, of Prato, fondaco di Avignon", by Elena ... 2004). He died before the end of the century.

It is precisely from TOMMASO and GIOVANNI that the branches of the IACOPI of S. GIOVANNI and SANTA CROCE derive with certainty, respectively. From TOMMASO di Giovanni JACOBI, mentioned in the land registry of 1427 as an inhabitant of the District of S. Giovanni and enrolled in the Guild of Blacksmiths, derive, on the other hand, the IACOPI of the KEYS (S. GIOVANNI), while from LEONARDO di GIOVANNI IACOBI, and from ZACCARIA JACOBI, from the district of S. Croce, come, in fact, the IACOPI of LION NERO and BUE (called of SANTA CROCE). 

The beginning of the 1400s and the whole of the following century marked the definitive consolidation of the IACOPI of LION NERO or Santa CROCE in the city of Florence. In 1401, LEONARDO, son of the aforesaid GIOVANNI, already Prior in 1390 and enrolled in the Wool Guild, was re-elected among the Priors for the District of S. Croce, but he was unable to enter into his functions as he died before taking office. His son GIOVANNI di Leonardo, born in 1387 and married in 1410 to Angela de' CEFFINI, appears to have been a "woollen worker" (p. 225 di Orsammichele di Diane Finello Zervas, Institute of Renaissance Studies, 1996) and was elected among the Priors for the same district in 1420 and 1436. The same character is also mentioned, together with his son ZANOBI, on pages. 135 and 344 of the "Priorista, 1407-59" of Pagolo di Matteo Petriboni and Matteo di Borgo Rinaldi and would appear to have held the position of Prior for S. Croce again in 1434.

Finally, from 1424, the IACOPI had become part, for the 1^ time with the aforementioned GIOVANNI di LEONARDO, also of the Council of Good Men (4) - a position that would subsequently be held with some frequency by other members of the family until 1531, date of the second and definitive Medici restoration - and during the course of the century they will also reach the prestigious position of Consul of the Collegio della Mercanzia in Orsammichele (11). It was GIOVANNI di LEONARDO, due to the increased prestige gained by the family, who obtained the privilege of a tomb in the Church of S. Croce, built in the floor of the right nave of the church, almost in front of the monument dedicated to Vittorio Alfieri and not far from the statue of Dante.

The high prestige achieved by the House is also demonstrated by the numerous important relationships acquired with the major families of the city, among which it is worth mentioning that with the Adimari, the Alberti, the Ambrosi, the Attavanti, the Bini, the Benvenuti, the Borghigiani, the Ceffini, the da Filicaja, the Da Gagliano, the Da Uzzano, Da Diacceto, the Da Quarata or Quaratesi, Del Pellicciajo, the Della Tosa or Tosinghi, the Filippi, the Franceschi, the Gianfigliazzi, the Guicciardini, the Lapaccini, the Lanfredini i Lottieri, the Martelli, the Medici, the Michelozzi, the Nerli, the Nucci, the Rondinelli, the Serragli, the Silvestri, the Serristori, the Vettori, the Zagni, the Zati, etc. (Fig. 28 Coats of arms related families)

 

 

By way of example, some excerpts from documents are reported to justify what has been stated so far:

• Silvestro CEFFINI, married to Piera d'Uberto dei RIDOLI, had as a daughter ANGELA who married GIOVANNI di Leonardo IACOPI in 1410. At least twelve sons were born from this marriage, including: LIPPO, GIOVANNI, MATTEO, LUDOVICO, BERNARDO, GIROLAMO, CEFFINO, SILVESTRO, GIULIANO, MAURO and TOBIA IACOPI (Gamurrini: Istoria Genealogica delle famiglie toscane ed umbre, p. 269, although there are doubts about the attribution of the 12 children to the Iacopi rather than to the Ceffini). In fact, the list given by Gamurrini does not show the name of ZANOBI, mentioned above in the "Priorista of 1407-59" and which Bartolomeo Cederni often mentions in his correspondence with the CEFFINI. In fact, on pages 15, 16 and 121 of "Bartolommeo Cederni and his Friends: letters to an obscure fiorentine", by Kent Francis William, Corti Gino, Olschki, 1991, it is said that, during 1457, Cederni, asking for news of the Ceffini house, writes: "greet our Salvestro di Zanobi and Lionardo, Bernardo and Zanobi (di Giovanni) IACOPI and these other patricians of ours; not only does he greet me those first, but he recommends me to them, especially to my Salvestro, doctrinated by our good old man, spechio and light of religion and Christian faith." Note 54 follows to the text which reports: "It must be said that these IACOPI, whose family comes from the district of the Black Lion of the district of S. Croce, was not prominent in the correspondence, even if Zanobi or Zenobio Iacopi wrote very intimately several times during 1457 with Cederni";
• In 1420, Lorenzo di Domenico ATTAVANTI married PIERA di Ser Iacopo d'Antonio Iacopi and had Bartolomeo, Domenico and Attavante Attavanti by her (Gamurrini: Idem, p. 269);
• In 1432, MARIOTTO di Luca Iacopi married Bartolomea di Salvatore Da UZZANO;
• In 1442, BERNARDO di Giovanni di Leonardo IACOPI was married to Giovanna di Giovanni di Iacopo BINI;
• In 1451, Ser IACOPO di Ser Antonio di Iacopo IACOPI had married Lisa di Andrea di Bartolomeo de' SERRAGLI;
• In 1459, BARTOLOMEO di Lorenzo IACOPI appears to be married to Ludovica di Alberto del dominus Alberto Aldrovando degli ALBERTI;
• In 1468, NICOLO' di Piero Iacopi was married to Nicolosa di Lorenzo di Bartolo;
• In the 1469, TOMMASO di Iacopo IACOPI is married to Costanza di Ugone di Giovanni Del PELLICCIAJO;
• Around 1470, LORENZO di Bernardo di GIOVANNI Iacopi, a money changer, or banker, who was married to Maria or Marietta (+ 1546) di Francesco di Roberto di Nicolò di Ugolino MARTELLI, suffered a sudden financial collapse around 1474, according to the "Ricordanze dal 1433 al 1483: la memoria famiglia" by Ugolino di Nicolò MARTELLI, so much so that he declared his company bankrupt; LORENZO appears in the number of the Council of the Thirteenth Century in Florence in 1531 for the Rione di Santa Croce (from Storia di Messer Benedetto Varchi dell'abate Silvano Razzi, vol. 2°, p. 457).
• the same LORENZO di Bernardo di Giovanni marries Maria From pag. 432 of "Mariage Alliance" vol. 114 by Molho Anthony.
• In 1475, FRANCESCO di Ser Iacopo di Ser Antonio IACOPI was married to Brigida di Cristofano di Francesco di Bono di Giovanni da GAGLIANO;
• In 1476, MADDALENA di Iacopo di Giovanni di Zaccaria, living in the district of S. Maria Novella, married Lazzaro di Tommaso di Francesco (+ 1372) de' MEDICI;
• In 1488, Simone da FILICAJA, Prior in 1493, married CAMMILLA di Bernardo Iacopi, with whom he had Giovanni da FILICAJA;
• In 1494, FRANCESCO di Girolamo di Giovanni IACOPI was married to Sandra di Zanobi LANFREDINI;
• In 1500, PIERO di Giovanni di Antonio IACOPI was married to Apollonia di Lorenzo di Piero;
• In 1501 Giovanni Battista, brother of Mauro di Silvestro di Ludovico di Lippo CEFFINI, married secondly "Donna ALESSANDRA di Francesco Iacopi, with whom he had Francesco and Girolamo Ceffini, the latter in 1545. (Gamurrini: ditto, p. 311);
• In 1503, GIOVANNI di Bernardo di Giovanni Iacopi appears to be married to Costanza (Tancia) (1488 - 1523) di Averardo di Antonio di Silvestro di Ser Ristoro (SERRISTORI) and died in Pistoia on 29 August 1521, while exercising the office of Commissioner of the Florentine Government for the city;
• In 1509, DIAMANTE di Tommaso di Iacopo IACOPI married Agostino di Biagio di Cervagnio CANTINI da DIACCETO;
• In 1524 Pier Filippo GIANFIGLIAZZI, married COSTANZA di Lorenzo di Bernardo IACOPI, with whom he had the Senator and Knight Giovan Battista.
• In 1526 CATERINA di Lorenzo Iacopi, married to Niccolò GUICCIARDINI, had a daughter, Margherita, who married Giovanni VETTORI in 1558 (page 283 of "History of Florence" by Iacopo Nardi);
• In 1529, GIROLAMO di Francesco di Girolamo IACOPI appears to be married to Lina di Giovanni di Lorenzo FILIPPI;
• In 1529, GIOVANNI MARIA di Lucantonio di Piero di Tommaso IACOPI appears to be married to Costanza di Ferrando di Francesco NUCCI or NACCI;
• In 1539, BERNARDO di Lorenzo IACOPI was married to Argentina di Corso di Piero ADIMARI (buried on 18 March 1589); (Bernardo had died in Arezzo in 1574; a clear sign of its banking and commercial activities in this city);
• In 1549, BARTOLOMEO di Tommaso di Piero IACOPI was married to Elisabetta di Gioacchino di Antonio del BORGO (BORGHIGIANI) who was buried on 22 March 1583 in the church of the Carmine;
• In 1500, the first half, CLEMENZA di Lorenzo IACOPI was married to Domenico di Niccolò LOTTIERI;
• in 1500, second half, by Verino: CATERINA di Bernardo di Lorenzo Iacopi wife of Ludovico di Prospero CAVALCANTI; MARIETTA di Bernardo di Lorenzo di Bernardo Iacopi wife of Filippo di Piero Gaesai or GAETAI;
• In 1565, GIOVANNI di Bernardo di Lorenzo IACOPI was married to Margherita (buried on 20 June 1614) of Antonio di Girolamo MICHELOZZI;
• In 1567, GISMONDO di ... by Tommaso IACOPI is married to Faustina di ... Francesco AMBROSI;

• LORENZO di Bernardo Iacopi, grandson of the previous, had married Elisabetta LAPACCINI, daughter of Iacopo di M. Alessio, who, in 1530, pronounced the official oration for the conferral of the Captaincy General of the Republic of Florence to Malatesta Baglioni of Perugia. His son was NERI FRANCESCO Iacopi who, in 1616, had been elected among the Florentine Canons and who died in 1645 (Manni: seal VII, p. 89; seal XIV, p. 137 and "List of Florentine Canons");

• In 1650, on 29 May, ALESSANDRO Iacopi (died in 1688), among the Priors in 1668, was married around 1670 to Maddalena di Tommaso ZATI (buried on 2 January 1697 in S. Maria Maddalena de' Pazzi).

As far as he has gathered from the family's census, the IACOPI of SANTA CROCE appeared to have their houses in Via dei Fossi (today Via Verdi)  (fig. 29), in front of the gloomy building of the "Stinche", which overlooked Via Ghibellina (today the site of the Teatro Verdi, near the Tabernacle of the Stinche) (Fig. 29a,  29b  e 29c)

The Stinche Prison, built in 1299, took its name because it housed the prisoners of the Stinche Castle near Greve in Chianti. It was intended in Florence for political prisoners and later for bankrupts. It was alienated and destroyed in 1833  (fig. 29d)

The heirs of GIOVANNI di Ser Giovanni Iacopi had houses in S. Giovanni. During the 1400s, the Iacopi di S. CROCE managed to acquire from the LEONI family a stately palace in Via del Fosso (today Via Verdi), to which they added a garden, at the corner of Via del Fosso with Via Ghibellina. In fact, from the book "Florence the District of S. Spirito from the Gonfaloni to the Districts" by Valeria Orgera, we read that "On the corner between Via Ghibellina and Via Verdi, the Lioni family had a small building, which later passed to the Iacopi, who planted a garden there, from which the Canto degli Aranci took its name". (Fig. 30, 30a e 30b) In reality, the area of the family's home, in 1640, was also known as the Canto delli Iacopi (see note 51 p. 949 of vol. 3°-10° of the "Vocabolario degli Accademici della Crusca", Le Monnier, 1923, Florence, where it is mentioned: "all the side roads that, starting from the Canto delli Iacopi up to the said Via Ghibellina,  going up to hand is missing .... "), but in the popular collective imagination it also came to be called "Canto degli Aranci", precisely because of the unusual presence of an orange grove in the city, which the Iacopi family had planted, next to the palace, in the garden overlooking the Via Ghibellina (vds. Casini: the Songs of Florence). The building together with the garden, then passed, towards the end of the 1600s, to the FABBRINI (by inheritance at the death of ALESSANDRO, the last of this branch of the family), then to the BARSANTI and, then, purchased in 1835 by the DALLA RIPA, who had it restored and enlarged on a project by the architect Nicola MATAS. This Palace, which had inside some rooms decorated with wall paintings, depicting scenes from the Divine Comedy, was demolished in 1960, after a long judicial diatribe with the Superintendence of Florence and the complex was supplanted, in 1964, by an anonymous 5-storey building, plus an attic  (fig. 30c), designed by the architect Rolando PAGNINI,  with the collaboration of Giorgio Giuseppe GORI.

The Florentine Land Registry of 1427 also provides us with significant elements of economic evaluation of the family. In it (Annex F4) we find three "fires" of the IACOPIs, with a total income estimated at just under 7 thousand florins (NOFRI di NOFRI di GIOVANNI ? and TOMMASO di GIOVANNI, progenitor of the IACOPI di S. Giovanni - Gonfaloni del Lion d'Oro e delle Chiavi and GIOVANNI di Leonardo di Giovanni, who lives in the S. Croce district under the insignia of the Gonfalone del Lion Nero). In particular: NOFRI di Nofri and TOMMASO di Giovanni IACOPI, who live, in fact, in the district of S. Giovanni, are respectively with a tax of 324 and 257 florins out of a total of 492 and 507 florins of total income reported to the land registry. TOMMASO di Giovanni, a 48-year-old blacksmith, pays less taxes to the Florentine tax authorities than NOFRI, as he turns out to have a family load of nine mouths, i.e. wife and seven children and live in rent. For his part, NOFRI is 29 years old and appears, from the documents, to be unmarried; The situation of GIOVANNI di LEONARDO, a 40-year-old woollen merchant, appears, on the other hand, decidedly more comfortable and, with a total tax of just under 4 thousand florins, he has a medium-high economic position in the Florentine context. As pointed out above, he appears to live in his own house in the district of S. Croce and, against a total taxable income of 6,377 florins, pays a much higher tax, equal to 3,953 florins (a deduction of 2474 florins), although he too has a family load of nine mouths (wife plus seven children) (see also note on page 31 of "Tornabuoni: a Florentine family at the end of the Middle Ages" by Eleonora Plebani, 2002).

It is worth noting that, in the land registry of 1427, only 1.4% of Florentine families had an income of more than 10,000 florins (just 137 out of a total of 9821). In the 1427 individuals registered in the Florentine land registry were a total  of 37,246) (Annex F5 - Annex F6).

From the mid-1400s and the beginning of the 1500s, the IACOPI achieved their maximum political and economic splendor, entering the banking and financial activities and having palaces in the city, commercial activities at home and abroad and numerous properties, including land and certainly, a villa in the countryside on the hills on the left bank of the Arno. The first villa owned dates back to the 1500s and refers to the Villa ai Fossi, located on the floors that go from Soffiano to Scandicci in the locality  of Lastrico (area near the Arcipressi stop of the tramway to Scandicci). At the beginning of the 1600s the Iacopi family sold the previous building and with ALESSANDRO di LORENZO di BERNARDO, they acquired another property, in the locality  of Balatro Rosso, with a spacious villa located in nearby Picille (Fig. 31 and 31a), in a dominant position, in the hilly area, just south of the Antella, on the left bank of the Arno (page 201 of "The Villas beyond the Arno" by Lensi Orlandi Cardini Giulio Cesare and page 351 of "The Surroundings of Florence: On the left of the Arno" by Carocci Guido, Galletti and Cocci, 1907) (fig. 32, 32a, 32b and 32c).Carocci's book also shows that, at the end of the 1600s, on the death of the aforementioned ALESSANDRO, the last of his branch, he left the property of the Red Tree and his villa in Picille to the Congregation of the Good Men of S. Martino in Florence (a Florentine charitable association, intended to help nobles in economic difficulty).

In fact, towards the middle of the 1400s, the Iacopi  family entered into city politics: ZANOBI or ZENOBIO di Giovanni di Leonardo held the position of Prior for the District of S. Croce twice in 1450 and 1455 and towards the end of the century a GIOVANNI di Bernardo di Giovanni di Bernardo he enjoyed such prestige that he was elected among the Priors of the District of S. Croce 4 times, in 1489, 1498, 1503 and 1513 (in 1462 he had already been elected, but not installed, because he was too young), while others of the family, such as GIROLAMO di Giovanni di Leonardo, in 1444; GIULIANO di Giovanni di Zaccaria in 1444, 1447 and 1450; IACOPO di Giovanni di Zaccaria in 1452; ZACCARIA di Giovanni di Zaccaria di IACOPO, in 1453; BUONACCORSO di Giovanni di Zaccaria in 1454; FRANCESCO and CARLO di Giovanni di Zaccaria in 1455; MANETTO di Girolamo di Giovanni, in 1466; GIROLAMO di Francesco di Girolamo in 1518 and GIROLAMO di Leonardo di Girolamo in 1522, although drawn from the scholarships, could not be elected as Prior, because they were under 30 years of age, without, however, counting the other numerous members of the family who would become part of the Gonfalonieri di Compagnia and the Council of the Buonomini or the 200.

With wealth and power also came prestige and the family began to be considered as "noble", a fact testified, certainly from 1400, by their privilege of burial in the church. In fact, already around 1450 ZANOBI di Giovanni di Leonardo di Giovanni, indicated above, is mentioned in documents as "Nobilis Vir". In fact, on p. 110 of the book  by G. Giacomelli and Enzo Settesoldi on "The Organs of S. Maria dei Fiore in Florence, seven centuries of history from 1300 to '900", published in Florence by Olschki in 1993, a document from the mid-1400s is cited, where Jacopo di Guccio di Raniero di Geri Ghiberti and Zanobius Johannis Leonardi Iacopi, aforesaid, who were part of a commission for the works of the Cathedral, are qualified as Nobiles Viri. In the same period, the descendants of GIOVANNI di LEONARDO obtained the privilege of a tomb in the main church of their neighborhood, Santa Croce (fig. 33).

In summary, from the end of the 1300s to the beginning of the 1500s, the family, moved to the city of Giglio from the mountains of Pistoia, managed to hold all the official offices of Florentine power and through its members, enrolled  (Annex F3) in 3 of the 7 Major Guilds (Judges and Notaries, Silk and Wool) and 2 of the Minor Guilds (Chiavaioli and Fabbri), reached a prominent position, both in the political and economic fields, while its definitive consecration took place in the mid-1400s when part of its members were also ascribed to the Major Art of Exchange (bankers and money changers). In fact, it is precisely from the proto-industrial activities of the branch of LEONARDO di Giovanni JACOBI di Pugio ?, that accumulation of capital will take place, which will subsequently allow the family to be able to undertake financial activities. Here, therefore, GIROLAMO di Giovanni di Leonardo became the 1st member of the family in the Arte del Cambio of which, in 1468, he even became the Consul and his example was followed by his numerous direct descendants, especially FRANCESCO and MANETTO. One of Giovanni's nephews, LORENZO di Bernardo di Giovanni, whose father had continued in the wool business, also undertook the activity of money changer and banker, while his brother GIOVANNI di Bernardo di Giovanni was enrolled in the Arte di Por Santa Maria (from "Mercato della seta del 1400" in Florence by Sergio Tognetti). In the second half of the 1400s the IACOPI became part of the Collegio della Mercanzia, what was, for Renaissance Florence, the current Confindustria for Italy. In essence, the family economic snapshot, fixed in the Florentine land registry of 1427, photographs exactly the moment of growth and capital accumulation of the branch of GIOVANNI di Leonardo, just a few years before it began to manage financial activities on its own.

Despite the fact that in 1473-74 the family's fortune suffered a first financial setback (in fact, during the year, according to the "Ricordanze dal 1433 al 1483: la memoria famiglia" by Ugolino di Nicolò MARTELLI, it appears that a branch of the IACOPI), which owned a company, the GIROLAMO IACOPI mentioned above, declared bankruptcy), at the beginning of the 1500s the IACOPI family in any case, he lived the period of greatest splendor, illustrating himself in works of charity and patronage and moving, during  1503, with GIOVANNI di Bernardo di Giovanni di Leonardo, the family tomb (fig. 34) to a chapel acquired in the church of the nearby ancient Cistercian Convent of Cestello (later Convent and Church of S. Maria Maddalena de' Pazzi), in via Borgo Pinti 58 (fig. 35 and 35a), which benefited several times from the Iacopi family and, in particular, in 1628-29. In fact, around this date a singular event occurred: the Carmelite Nuns of the Monastery of S. Maria degli Angeli d'Oltrarno, exchanged their convent and church with  the Cistercian monks of the Cestello di Borgo Pinti, where they also transferred the body of St. Mary Magdalene de' Pazzi, who died in 1607 and was canonized in 1622. . The Carmelite nuns will call the new monastery, initially S. Maria degli Angeli and, shortly after, they will name it after S. Maria Maddalena de' Pazzi. The Iacopi, like the other major families of the district, contributed greatly to the new arrangement of the aforementioned nuns. The Cistercian monks, for their part, in moving beyond the Arno, will bring with them the name of the Cestello, which today is linked to the church of S. Frediano d'Oltrarno.

It appears from the documents of the monk Brilli that this family chapel in S. Maria Maddalena de' Pazzi, the 3^ a manritta and entitled San Giuliano, had initially been built, starting from 28 March 1489 (50 ducats), for the family of Filippo di Francesco MASCALZONI, on the occasion of the renovation of the church and that this chapel had been consecrated by the bishop Vasoniense on 28 June 1491tag. On February 20, 1493, a work by Lorenzo di Credi was placed in the Chapel, a Madonna enthroned between Saints Julian and Nicholas (worth 100 scudi with the gold ornament of 40 ducats). At the beginning of 1503 the chapel "with everything contained in it and with all its belongings" was donated to Bernardo di Niccolò del BARGIGIA and, finally, on 12 August 1503 it was purchased, still unfinished and with everything contained in it (including the altarpiece by Di Credi), by GIOVANNI di Bernardo Iacopi aforesaid,  who adapted it, as a family tomb, for himself, his wife Tancia or Costanza (1488 - 1523) di Averardo di Antonio di Silvestro di Ser Ristoro di Figline Valdarno (the famous Florentine family of the SERRISTORI) and for his descendants and those of his brother LORENZO di Bernardo. To this end, Giovanni had a stained glass window built (fig. 36 and 36a) with the family coat of arms to be affixed to the window of the chapel and had the entrance columns embellished with the coat of arms of the IACOPI (the wild boar rampant in black banded with silver, on a gold field), on the left (fig. 37) and the coat of arms of the SERRISTORI (blue, to the gold band, between three stars of the same, placed 2 and 1 and accompanied on the head by the symbol of the Guelphs: a rake of 4 pendants of red, interspersed with three golden fleurs-de-lis) (fig. 38), on the right and had an additional coat of arms of the Iacopi family placed in the cross of the vault (fig. 39). Furthermore, according to the critic Luciano Berti, Giovanni di Bernardo himself  commissioned the famous Florentine painter, Andrea d'Agnolo VANNUCCHI known as del SARTO, to prepare the design for the creation of the tombstone in marble inlay (fig. 40). Finally, around 1550, the aforementioned GIOVANNI di Bernardo is the owner of a fabric retail company. (pages 14, 156, 158, 159 of "From Figline to Florence: economic and political rise of the Serristori family", by Sergio Tognetti, Opus Libri, 2003). Finally, for the sake of completeness, we know that the Iacopi Chapel in S. Maria Maddalena de' Pazzi was decorated, at the time, with an altarpiece by Lorenzo (d'Andrea d'Oderigo) di CREDI, (fig. 40a), commissioned and paid for by Filippo di Francesco MASCALZONI (purchased by the IACOPI in 1503, together with the chapel) and which represented a Madonna and Child between Saints Julian and Nicholas (fig. 40b). In this regard, Vasari makes the following observation: "the best work that Lorenzo ever did is the one in which he placed the greatest study and diligence to overcome himself was what is in the Cestello, to a chapel where in a panel is Our Lady, St. Julian and St. Nicholas, and who wants to know that clean oil work is necessary to want the works to be preserved ...". The work was stolen in Paris by Napoleonic troops in 1810-12 and is found today, like many other Italian works taken away by the French, and illegally preserved in the LOUVRE. Di Credi's panel was replaced by an altarpiece  by Matteo ROSSELLI, representing the Coronation of the Virgin by the Trinity. (fig. 40f). In any case, it seems certain that, at the time of the extinction of the main branch  of the IACOPI family, towards the end of the 1600s, the tomb passed, with all its belongings, to the Florentine PUCCI family.

 

Fig 40b: Madonna col Bambino fra i Santi Giuliano e Niccolò.

 

As for the Convent of Santa Maria Maddalena, benefited by the family, it is certainly to be identified with the one, still existing, of Santa Maria Maddalena de' Pazzi in Borgo Pinti.  (fig. 41)

In reality, in Florence, there was another convent with the same name, which was located in Via S. Gallo and was better known by the name of S. Pietro in Morrone, because it was held by the Celestine fathers (from Pope Celestine V. to the world Pietro da Morrone, L'uomo del "gran rifiuto" dantesco)  (12).

Two facts confirm that the Convent in question must be that of Borgo Pinti: one because of its relative proximity to the Rione di Santa Croce and second because Ademollo, in his work, makes specific mention of it on page 1015 of his third volume. Be that as it may, the origin of the name of this convent has to do, as for that of Via S. Gallo, with "women of the world". Its foundation dates back to 1257 and was dedicated to "St. Mary Magdalene of the Converts". It was, in fact, a Convent rebuilt in the place where  there was already a shelter for women of ill repute "repentant, converted or repentant" who, having strayed far from the path of honesty and having been expelled from their families, had been collected there. They followed the rule of St. Benedict. Davidsohn tells us that "it was founded in 1240 by the Florentine faithful, outside Porta S. Piero, beyond the second circle of walls for the "ripentute" women of Pinti (it seems, even, that the name of the nearby city gate - Pinti - was derived from the corruption of Pentite) and was consecrated to the penitents of Santa Maria Maddalena" (Vol. II,  Pag. 628). It was, therefore, a convent of "locked up" nuns. Davidsohn himself (vol. VII, p. 84) tells us that in the Convent, in 1261, the prayers of the penitents resounded but, over time, this religious fervor gradually waned so much that the lack of desire for penance and even just "good morals" forced Bishop Antonio Degli Orsi or dell'Orso to take drastic measures. In 1319, in fact (Ademollo: vol. III, p. 1015), the Bishop of Florence submitted the small convent to the jurisdiction of the Vallombrosans of Santa Maria di Crispino but, "not liking the freedom taken by this Bishop to the Republic, Florence, in 1322, granted this monastery to the Cistercian monks of S. Salvatore di Badia a Settimo, who were very much in the opinion of the Commune, having taken away several Camerlenghi from the public, and given them the seal of the Republic in custody. These monks reserved only one Hospice, giving the rest of the Convent to the nuns of Santa Lucia a Montisoni which remained there until 1442. In that year Pope Eugene IV, desiring that the Cistercians occupy the structure, moved the Sisters to S. Donato a Torri" or S. Donato in Polverosa, in the area of Novoli (Convent, this, formerly of the Humiliati). This Hospice, or the "Spedale a Pinti" is mentioned both by Dante Alighieri, in the LXXVI Rima, in response to Forese Donati (A lo spedale a Pinti ha' riparare), and by Giovanni Villani, who recalls how in 1260 the oxen that pulled the Florentine banner to the battle of Montaperti came from here. Once the convent remained vacant, the Florentines, starting in 1481, began the renovation of the convent and from 1492 to 1530, they intervened, also in the adjacent church, with radical restoration works, designed by Giuliano da Sangallo, making it take on its current form, with the innovative four-sided portico in Ionic style, in front of the church. The interior was harmoniously furnished, in this period, by altarpieces by leading artists, such as Sandro Botticelli, Perugino, Domenico and Ridolfo del Ghirlandaio, Lorenzo di Credi and Raffaellino del Garbo, which were inexorably transferred elsewhere, and subsequently partly dispersed abroad, following the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century renovation(now scattered in the museums of Florence, Paris, Munich and St. Petersburg). These works were made possible - Ademollo  tells us - "thanks to the generous subsidies of Pucci, Del Tovaglia, Rucellai, Attavanti, Nerli, Gaetai, Giovanni IACOPI, Strozzi and Guiducci".

In the Chapter House of the Convent you can still admire a famous fresco by Perugino, commissioned in 1493 and completed on April 20, 1496, representing Christ on the cross with Mary Magdalene and the Saints. Again from Davidsohn (Vol. VII, p. 117) we read a curiosity about this convent: in the eighteenth century there were preserved for the veneration of the faithful n. 24 hairs of the Virgin, as well as a little hay from the manger of Bethlehem !!!!.

Finally, in 1628, our convent was sold in exchange to the nuns of S. Frediano. These, Carmelite nuns, the "Our White Sisters", had begun in 1450 by Innocenza Bartoli, Anna Davanzati, Sara Lapaccini and her daughter Maddalena. In 1479 they had begun to live in community in Santa Maria degli Angeli in Borgo S. Frediano and had acquired a reputation for great holiness, especially after the death of St. Mary Magdalene de' Pazzi, who lived among them and who gave her the definitive name. The purchase of the Convent in Borgo Pinti was due to the work of two nuns, nephews of Pope Urban VIII, who appealed to their uncle to exchange their old convent, which had become unhealthy due to the proximity of the Arno and cramped due to the number of nuns. In fact, their brother Cardinal Francesco Barberini  took an interest in it and on his return from the Spanish delegation, he negotiated with the monks of Santa Maria Maddalena an exchange of the convent on very advantageous terms for them. From then on, the Carmelite nuns remained in the Convent, except for the parenthesis of the Napoleonic suppression of the religious orders, who, as mentioned, then named the Convent after their sister Maria Maddalena de' Pazzi.

As regards, however, the meritorious works of patronage of the family, some that have left traces in the history of art and that are remembered should be remembered also by VASARI in his monumental work. First of all, the IACOPI family had a predilection for painting and counted, among its favorite painters, Andrea d'Agnolo VANNUCCHI, known as del SARTO (Florence, 16 July 1486 - 21 January 1531), Ludovico BUTI (1550/60 - 9 Aug. 1611), Cristofano di Alessandro ALLORI (Florence, 1577 - 1621), and Giovanni MANNOZZI known as Giovanni da S. Giovanni (Valdarno 1592-1636 Florence), as well as the painter Lorenzo di Andrea di Oderigo di CREDI (1459-12 January 1537).

In the 1520 about, the banker LORENZO di Bernardo, that in the 1498 had joined the Council of 200 in Florence (page 457 of vol. 2 of "Florentine History" by Benedetto Varchi), Had  Commissioned per famous painter Florentine Andrea  D'Agnolo VANNUCCHI saying of the TAILOR (because he is the son of a tailor), a Madonna, for their family palace and which today should have been in the Uffizi Museum in Florence. We read from the biography of BUTI that: "Having at that time those of the Iacopi family given to the Grand Duke the beautiful painting of the Madonna by the hand of Andrea del Sarto, which can be seen today in the rooms of the Royal Gallery, which is called Tribuna and having been stopped (sic), that in addition to the agreed price, the Iacopi should have a copy in the hand of a master at their pleasure In the stipulation of the contract it was agreed that the Iacopi could make a copy by the hand of a master at their leisure ...", which was later identified in the person of Ludovico BUTI (of the school of Santi di Tito (1536-1603), who had made his debut as an assistant to Alessandro ALLORI (1535-1607)). In fact, Buti made many other copies of the same work, which then went into the ownership of various citizens of Florence and one, in particular, to the de' TEMPI  family (from page 36 of Baldinucci Filippo "News of professors of drawing from Cimabue, enriched by notations etc." Book 1, volume 9, relating to the entry Ludovico Buti). Also cited in "Professors of drawing from Cimabue in qua", vol. 1 by Baldinotti Filippo and Francesco Saverio and Ranalli Ferdinando, 1974 edition). This Madonna, after 1537, was "pushedly" donated (other authors, few indeed, say "sold") by  the Iacopi  family to Grand Duke Cosimo 1° de' Medici, probably to ingratiate himself with him in those difficult moments and the latter, having particularly appreciated it, decided to place the painting among the works of his personal studio, which was located in the octagonal room of the "Uffizi" called the Tribuna del Buontalentitag. The Madonna, which became part of the Medici collections, later became a state heritage in the Galleria degli UFFIZI in Florence. In particular, the latter mentioned in the Uffizi inventory immediately after the National Unification disappeared after 1944 and no one is able to tell me whether it ended !!.

In 1523, the Iacopi family commissioned Andrea d'Agnolo del Sarto, who had become the family painter, to paint the famous Madonna della Scala (fig. 42), which is now in the Museo del PRADO in Madrid.  (Annex F7). We read from Vasari that Andrea del Sarto had made "a painting of Lorenzo Iacopi (Giovanni's brother) again, much larger than the usual, inside it a Our Lady seated with the putto in her arms, and so two other figures who accompany her, who sit on certain stairs which in design and color are similar to his other works". The work had been, in fact, commissioned by the banker LORENZO di BERNARDO Iacopi, an element that explains the presence in the sacred representation of St. Matthew, patron saint of his profession, precisely because the Apostle had been, before his call among the followers of Jesus Christ, a tax collector for the Roman Empire (Matthew 9:9). In 1605, as a result of economic difficulties encountered by the family, an unidentified widow Iacopi sold Del Sarto's painting for 10 gold scudi to Duke Vincenzo I GONZAGA of Mantua (fig. 42a), in whose collection it remained until shortly before the fall of the dynasty. In fact, the painting, which appears in a 1626  inventory of the works of art in the Celeste Galeria dei Gonzaga, was subsequently sold, around 1627 (together with many other paintings in his collection, Veronese, Raphael, etc.), by Duke Vincenzo II GONZAGA (fig 42b), to King Charles I STUART of England (king from 1625 to 1649; (fig. 42c) and in the following period, after the execution of the king by Sir Oliver CROMWELL (fig. 42d) the work was sold at public auction and purchased by the English colonel William WETTON for 230 pounds. Between 1650 and 1655 (the date of the return to Spain of the Spanish ambassador), the Madonna was purchased, for 300 pounds, by the Spanish ambassador to the court of St. James, Don Alonso de CARDENAS, by order of the 1st Spanish Minister (1643-61), Don Luis MENDES de HARO GUZMAN y SOTOMAYOR (Valladolid 1598 - 1661 Madrid, VI Marquis del Carpio, III Duke de Olivares and Grandee of Spain) (fig. 42e), to pay homage to King Philip IV of Habsburg (king 1621 to 1665; (fig. 42f), who, in turn, allocates it to his ESCORIAL residence. The work then passed to his legitimate successors and in 1819 the Madonna was finally transferred to the PRADO Museum in Madrid, coming from the Monastery of El Escorial.

 

 

Fig. 42: Madonna della Scala

 

Today the Madonna is exhibited in Room 49 on the ground floor of the Madrid Prado Museum, in the section of Italian painters from 1300 to 1600. For this Madonna, which is one of Andrea del Sarto'  s masterpieces, it is worth reporting some elements referring to the description and style of the work: "At the top of some steps, hence the traditional name of the work, Mary kneels and holds the Child, while with one hand she holds the veil swollen by the wind. At his feet are St. Matthew and an angel, while in the distance, in the background, you can see a woman from behind walking with a child (Elizabeth and John fleeing from the massacre of the Innocents) and a fortified city in the hills. The structure of the painting takes up the classic pyramidal shape, with numerous quotes from Raphael and Michelangelo. The Virgin with the veil, for example, recalls  Raphael's Madonna of Foligno, while the monumentality of St. Matthew recalls Michelangelo's figures in the lunettes of the Sistine Chapel; the quotations, however, are never slavish and appear expertly blended in the artist's balanced style."

As we have seen previously, a few years earlier, in 1503, the IACOPI, with GIOVANNI di BERNARDO, together with the family chapel, had also purchased an altarpiece, which the previous owners had commissioned from Lorenzo di Andrea di Oderigo di CREDI and placed in  the church of Cestello (today S. Maria Maddalena de' Pazzi).

In fact, the chapel, the 3^ on the right as you enter, had been founded, according to the monk BRILLI, by Filippo di Francesco MASCALZONI on March 28, 1489, during the renovation of the same church. Consecrated in 1491, the Chapel was dedicated to San Giuliano, a fact that explains the subject of Di Credi's panel. Di CREDI's work was placed on the altar of the Chapel on 20 February 1493 and had as its subject a Madonna and Child between Saints Julian and Nicholas (see fig. 40b). For the work it appears that Filippo MASCALZONI paid 100 scudi in addition to 40 ducats for the construction of the gilded frame. At the beginning of 1503 the Chapel was donated by MASCALZONI, with all its contents, to Bernardo di Niccolò del BARGIGIA, who, in turn, on 12 August of the same year, sold it, with all that it contained, to the dominus, nobilis vir, GIOVANNI di BERNARDO IACOPI. GIOVANNI, for his part, carried out various works to readapt the chapel, having: the coats of arms of the IACOPI and SERRISTORI (his wife's family) placed on the entrance columns; place the tombstone on the floor, designed by Andrea del SARTO, decorate the window with a stained glass window, containing the coat of arms of the Iacopi family and insert, in the keystone of the chapel, a coat of arms of the Iacopi family in painted stone. In addition, he had an altar predella made as a base for Di CREDI's altarpiece, decorated with religious subjects (Annunciation and Resurrection) and adorned with the coats of arms IACOPI on the left and SERRISTORI on the right, according to the custom of the time (still in the chapel today).

 

Di Credi's altarpiece from the Iacopi chapel, of which only the predella remains today, because it was plundered around 1810-12 by the Napoleonic troops of Baron DENON (Dominique VIVANT 1747-1825), Director of the Napoleon Museum (now the Louvre), who organized, with Napoleon's approval, several expeditions to imperial Europe to collect works of art to be transported to the Parisian museum. The altarpiece, in fact, is now preserved in the LOUVRE, with incomplete and deliberately inaccurate annotations about its provenance. In fact, the LOUVRE signpost refers only to  the MASCALZONI, but not to the IACOPI Chapel where the altarpiece has always been kept and from where it was stolen and, above all, draws a pitiful veil ("transported" to France) over the "criminal" events (systematic and organized theft in Italy under French rule), which led to the move of the work to Paris. Work never returned. It should also be added, for the sake of completeness, that after the fall of Napoleon in 1815, Di Credi's work, considered among his best artistic achievements, was part of the quota of works of art not returned by France to the Florentine government of the Habsburg-Lorraine with the reticent consent of Canova, who, in order to obtain the restitution of other works, judged that of Di Credi not to be easily transportable (transport evidently easy and possible at the time of the theft).

In addition, towards the end of the 1500s, the family of the IACOPI di S. CROCE commissioned the Florentine painter Cristofano ALLORI (son of the painter Alessandro and Dianora Sofferoni and pupil and pupil of Agnolo di Cosimo known as BRONZINO (1503-72)) a series of oil viewsfor the palace in Via dei Fossi, in addition to some drawings that should now be kept in the Uffizi Cabinet of Drawings and, in particular, the nobleman IACOPO di Giovanni di Pierozzo or IACOPO di Giovanni di Iacopo or IACOPO di Girolamo di Giovanni  had a portrait made, which was then sent to France.

In addition, a GIOVANNI di BERNARDO Iacopi appears to have contributed to the decoration of the Chapel of S. Bernardo at the Main Chapel of the town of Badia a Settimo.

Finally, in the period 1610-20, a IACOPO (di Girolamo ?) Iacopi, while holding a position in PISTOIA for the Grand Duke de' Medici, hosted in his house the painter Giovanni MANNOZZI da S. Giovanni Valdarno known as Giovanni da S.  Giovanni, to whom he had commissioned several works (from Vasari's "Lives").

Ultimately, it certainly seems not superfluous and justified to proudly underline how a family, certainly not among the wealthiest and most powerful in Florence, has been able to deliver to the History of Art, thanks to its sensitivity and patronage, three works, which today constitute part of the heritage of the PRADO, the LOUVRE and the  UFFIZI, but also of Humanity, available to be admired by all visitors around the world.

With the economic wealth and prestige acquired in the city and its surroundings, during the 1400s and in the following century, the family had the possibility of having positions of prestige and trust from the power within the territorial dominion of Florence. Thus many characters of the IACOPI were appointed Vicars of the Medici Government, Captains of the People, Captains of Justice, General Camerlenghi or City Administrators, Podestà, Depositaries or Trustees of the Government, Commendators, etc. Among these, it is worth mentioning:

• GIOVANNI di CECCO or FRANCESCO di IACOPO, ambassador in April 1370 to BOLOGNA and in 1372 Gonfaloniere di Giustizia;
• GIOVANNI di Ser GIOVANNI, ambassador in June 1389 to Giovanni Acuto;
• LORENZO di Bernardo di Giovanni, from November 1456 to May 1457, held the position of Vicar of S. MINIATO al Tedesco (today S. Miniato al Monte, Vicariate formed by the Podestas of S. Miniato, Vinci, Montabone, Fucecchio, S. Maria in Monte and Castel Fiorentino);
• GIROLAMO di Giovanni di Iacopo, is  the 1st Podestà of the year 1470 of the Podesta of the castle of Lari, in the Pisan area.
• ZACARIA or ZACCARIA di Giovanni di Zaccaria in 1470, he was appointed Camerlengo General of the City of AREZZO (Captaincy of Arezzo, composed of Arezzo and Contado e Podesteria di Civitella). This last assignment is particularly important above all for the relevant repercussions and possible and probable connections with the current Iacopi of Casentino and Umbria.
• ZANOBI or ZENOBIO by Giovanni di Leonardo Iacopi he held in the 1471, the position of Captain of the People and of Justice in Campiglia Marittima (Captaincy composed of the Podesterias of Campiglia and Bibbona) (fig. 43) and in theApril 1477 is appointed Captain of Justice of Castrocaro (Captaincy of Castrocaro, composed of the Wet Nurses of Castrocaro, Zuola, Montecchio, Converselli and Salutari) in the Tuscan-Romagna Province.
• FRANCESCO di Girolamo Iacopi From 1498 to 1502 holds the position of Camerlengo of Scarperia (Vicariate of Mugello composed of the League of Taglia Ferro, and the Podesterias of Scarperia, Borgo S. Lorenzo, Barberino, Vicchio, Dicomano, Carmignano, Campi, Fiesole and Sesto Fiorentino) (Pre-unification inventory of the Archives of the Municipality of Scarperia (sec. 15°-1865 vol. 11°, Vanna Arrighi, 1991 and Mario Parlanti, Pacini, 1999).
• GIOVANNI di Bernardo di Giovanni di Leonardo Iacopi, in December 1497 and in
• December 1504, he was appointed Vicar and Captain of Justice of the Upper Valdarno.
• GIOVANNI di Bernardo di Giovanni, in 1505 he was appointed Commissioner of Castrocaro (from Adriani: Istorie de' suoi tempi); in 1515 he also held the office of Podestà of Pistoia (Fig 43a). In 1498 he had also been elected Consul of the Silk Guild.
• LORENZO di Bernardo di Lorenzo Iacopi, has been 30 November 1546 to 19 May 1547, the task of Vicar of LARI (formed by the Podesterias of Lari, Palaia, Peccioli, Rosignano and Pontedera) and will leave the office to Francesco di Daniele CANIGIANI.
• LORENZO di Bernardo di Lorenzo It appears, from a letter of Cosimo 1st de' Medici of April 1, 1550, Captain of Justice of Montepulciano (Captaincy of Montepulciano);
• BERNARDO by Lorenzo IACOPI is sent by 31 July to 8 August 1552What Captain of Justice in Cortona (Captaincy composed of Cortona with its municipalities and the Val di Pierle and the Podesterie of Castelnuovo, Ripomarance, Monte Castelli, Sasso,Monteverdi and Querceto). From pag. 188, 199 and 438 of "Universal Correspondence of Cosimo I de Medici.              Inventory", Bellinazzi Anna, Giamblanco Concetta,  Lamioni                   Claudio, Toccafondi Diana, edited by the Regional Council of Tuscany, 1982, State Archives of Florence.
• BERNARDO di Lorenzo IACOPI, again in two letters of Cosimo I de' Medici of January-February 1555, appears  to be a commendatory of Castrocaro (also from page 523 of Adriani's "Histories of Florence");
• URBANO IACOPI appears, after 1560, in the position of Ambassador of Francesco I Sforza to the Pope in Rome. From p. 83, 116 and 117 of "Francesco 1° Sforza" by Ermolao Rubieri, Lemonnier 1879.
• IACOPO Iacopi, a Florentine nobleman, in 1610-1620, held the position of "Depositary" of the Most Serene Grand Duke of Tuscany in Pistoia and in that period he had relations with the painter Giovanni da S. Giovanni or Giovanni Mannozzi da S. Giovanni da Valdarno (1592-1636), to whom he commissioned several works (information taken from Vasari).  Iacopo is also remembered on pages 56 and 83 of the book "From Baroccio to Salvator Rosa" by Filippo Baldinucci, Guido Belletti and Franco Croce. 

In a document dated 25 February 1630: (p. 109 of the Strozziane Papers of the State Archives in Florence ASF. Inventario serie 1^, vol. 1°, (Sovrintendenza degli Archivi Toscani) ANTONIO Iacopi describes four districts of Florence: "Sesto di S. Croce, districts: n. 13, S. Stefano; 12, Health in Arno; 8, Piazza del Grano; 7, Corso de' Tintori. Description made of the above four districts on February 25, 1630 for me ... Antonio Iacopi.; and the following things were noted, that is, the number of houses and families, of the ...). He is mentioned again in a document dated 25 February 1639 (p. 109, Vol. 1 of the Carte Strozziane dell'ASF).

In reality, examining the positions received by the family in the period mentioned above and the dates relating to the positions held, one realizes that, although the Iacopi family, as a whole, still emanates a certain splendor towards the middle of the 1500s, some cracks begin to appear and I believe that the most important cause of all this must be linked to the Florentine political events of the late 1400s - early 1500s. With the expulsion of the Medici from Florence, following the Savonarola revolution, some of the branches of the Iacopi family, independently, took a more or less open position for or against the MEDICI and the chronicle of Florence (Ademollo) of 1504 reports to us, for example, that an unspecified ANTONIO Iacopi was killed by  the Vitelleschi factionwhich, notoriously, supported the Medici (as they were financed by them). The fact is that, with the restoration of 1530, first with Duke Alessandro, but above all with Grand Duke Cosimo, after 1537, entire branches of the family disappeared from the political panorama of the city and more precisely: that of GIOVANNI di Zaccaria di Iacopo, who was also related to a branch of the Medici (in fact in 1476 MADDALENA di IACOPO di GIOVANNI di Zaccaria had married Lazzaro di Tommaso di Francesco de' MEDICI) and under the Medici, during the 1400s, he had held many important positions; that of BERNARDO di GIOVANNI IACOPI, who had given in 1400 4 Priors and several Consuls of the Guilds and also disappears a good part of the branch of GIROLAMO di Giovanni di Leonardo, which had been the main branch of the family involved in financial activities.

Ultimately, it could be inferred that a good part of the Iacopi of the early 1500s may have made the "wrong choice", both in politics (perhaps approaching the Strozzi against the Medici) and, in all likelihood, financially, but often, as is well known, the two things in business life should never be separated !! It is therefore probable that in this period many branches of the family went to ruin, while others moved, with capital still available, to the nearby Republic of LUCCA and Lucca  or to the Papal States. After the 1530s, only a couple of branches of the sons of GIOVANNI di Leonardo di Giovanni and their sons (a mixture of merchants, merchants and bankers) survive in Florence, still in fair condition, but, despite the apparently still flourishing economic conditions, the downward parabola of the family has already begun. The surviving families, those of BERNARDO, Giovanni, Leonardo and GIROLAMO di Giovanni di Leonardo, still enjoyed a certain trust of the Grand Duke, to whom after 1537 the Iacopi had given a precious Madonna by Andrea del Sarto to ingratiate themselves with him and from whom they continued to receive important commissions for some time, but the air was no longer that of the period before the Florentine Republic.

In any case, the Grand Ducal Census of Tuscany of 1562 shows us, without a shadow of a doubt, that at that date the only Iacopi  families surveyed in Florence were those of the "fire" of BERNARDO di Lorenzo di Bernardo Iacopi, with wife, 3 sons and 4 daughters and the "fire" of IACOPO di Girolamo di Leonardo (or Francesco ?) of Girolamo Iacopi,  with wife, 2 sons and 5 daughters, both in the Quarter ofS. Croce, Popolo di S. Simone (Parish). For the sake of completeness, it must be said that the same Census also shows the "fire" of MAGDALENA di Lucantonio Iacopi, of the IACOPI delle CHIAVI (of S. Giovanni) who, probably a widow, lived in her house in the Quarter of S. Giovanni, together with two unmarried daughters and now represented a branch in extinction. The Florentine nobles, with the centralizing and despotic policy of Cosimo de' Medici, but also as a result of attempts at conspiracies, especially after the Peruzzi conspiracy, suffered a very strict control by the Medici regime and were now destined to become simple characters of the apparatus, completely deprived of power, to be used to magnify the power of the sovereign. In this regard, just read p. 106 of Giuliano de' Ricci's "Chronicle 1532-1606"  (Ricciardi, 1972) to realize what the function of the Florentine nobility was now reduced to ("The very rich canopy with 10 maces was carried by the "recommended" (sic !) and 50 young people, including Vicentio di Antonio Magalotti, Girolamo di Francesco Quaratesi, Nicolò di Carlo Paganelli, Lelio di messer Francesco Torelli, Federigo di Lorenzo Strozzi, LORENZO di Bernardo Iacopi ...". From an economic point of view, the European markets began to globalize and the Iacopi and the other great Florentine families, while Florence and the Grand Duchy progressively closed in on themselves, no longer possessed the economic and political resources to survive competition and external financial power. Even if the city offices with Cosimo I were emptied of all meaning and no longer had any value if not formal, the Iacopi were no longer able, for over a century, to have one of their members elected among the Priors, with the exception of ALESSANDRO (married around 1670 to Maddalena ZATI), in 1668, and even if, from an economic point of view, the family will acquire, at the end of the 1500s and according to the fashion of the time, a villa in the countryside, in the territories of Oltrarno, the decadence is now definitive and unstoppable. In fact, at the end of the 1600s there is no longer any mention of the Iacopi  family in Florence and in all probability either due to the extinction of the ALESSANDRO  branch or due to economic exhaustion. In any case, at the time of Ademollo (1845), it is no longer possible to have certain and documentable data of the presence of the family in Florence and even in the Golden Book of the City of Florence, after 1752, there are no more references to the Iacopi.

Ultimately, two concomitant events certainly determined the rapid economic and political decline of the Iacopi:

• the political misfortune with the Medici regime of a good part of the branches of the family that caused their dispersion, mostly in the territory of the free Republic of Lucca (for those who had been economically far-sighted!) or, to a lesser extent, in the mountainous territories of Arezzo and the finite State of the Church, where they could have enjoyed greater freedom and initiative, especially in the field of trade. For the latter area, a branch of the Iacopi family could probably count on help, probably descended from ZACCARIA di Giovanni di Zaccaria di Giovanni, and probably located in the Arezzo area towards the beginning of the 1500s or from BERNARDO di Lorenzo di Giovanni di Leonardo, who died in Arezzo in 1574;
• the economic and political crisis, determined by the growth of the economy of scale at the European level in the context of the Nations, where Tuscany was inevitably marginalized and where the "family" as a whole, having already lost part of its valuable pieces, no longer possessed the economic and political and perhaps mental and moral resources to continue to compete in the new European scenario.

In conclusion, even the IACOPI of Santa Croce, who enjoyed the title of Miles (Nobles of Florence) and were referred to as Nobiles Vires or Domini, disappeared from Florence in the main branch abruptly from the end of the 1600s, even if it was certain, still flourishing one of their branches in the city of PISTOIA, where they had managed to obtain the coveted recognition of the title of Nobles of Pistoia. (In annex G attempt at genealogical reconstruction starting from the data of the Florentine Tratte, while in annexes G1, G2, G3, G4, brief genealogy of the Iacopi of SANTA CROCE and S. GIOVANNI).

AVVERTENZA

L’esposizione sin qui condotta sull’evoluzione e la storia della Famiglia IACOPI di S. CROCE e S.Giovanni (appartenenti agli IACOPI di PISTOIA e forse alla Consorteria de’ VENERI), non ci esime, per onestà intellettuale, dall’effettuazione di un esame critico su quanto sopra riportato, per la permanenza di numerosi dubbi sulla genealogia e sulla omonimia di alcuni personaggi citati. Gli aspetti più critici collegati alle fonti sono sostanzialmente connessi con il tentativo di ricostruzione genealogica della famiglia del 1300 (vedasi Allegato G), dove non è ancora documentalmente dimostrato che gli IACOPI di S. Croce, che nel Catasto del 1427 avevano già un cognome ed uno stemma o che comunque risultavano essere registrati al Catasto, derivino con certezza da PUGIO di IACOPO (Jacobi), Gonfaloniere e Priore per S. Pancrazio o da GUGLIELMO di IACOPO (Jacobi), Priore per S. Pancrazio agli inizi del 1300. Non è peraltro escluso, a priori, per una somma di considerazioni sopra esposte, che gli stessi possano derivare proprio da uno dei due rami predetti, per il fatto che, in linea di massima, in una discendenza familiare il cognome veniva assunto proprio in funzione dell’importanza e del prestigio acquisito da un personaggio fra i loro antenati (nel caso specifico un personaggio noto che, come nel caso in esame, aveva rivestito la carica di Priore o di Gonfaloniere di Giustizia). Non risulta altresì provato che il ramo di IACOPO di GUERRIANTE di IACOPO, iscritto all’Arte dei Por Santa Maria e che abitava nel quartiere di S. Maria Novella, possa a sua volta, derivare da uno degli Jacobi predetti. Per contro, il ramo di ZACCARIA di IACOPO, che pure abitava a S. Croce, sotto un diverso gonfalone (quello del Bue), anche se non presente nel catasto del 1427, sembra proprio riconducibile al ramo degli Iacopi, in quanto ZACCARIA di GIOVANNI di ZACCARIA, Camerlengo di Arezzo nel 1470, come suo fratello GIOVANNI di GIROLAMO di ZACCARIA, Podestà di Lari nel 1470, vengono indicati nei documenti dell’epoca come facenti parte della famiglia Iacopi. Essi, tra l’altro, innalzavano come stemma una variante dello stemma familiare, il cinghiale rampante al naturale in campo d’oro. Infine il ramo di TOMMASO di GIOVANNI, indicato dal catasto fiorentino del 1427, pur abitando nel Quartiere di S. Giovanni ed innalzando uno stemma diverso da quello della famiglia, sembra appartenere allo stesso ceppo familiare (figlio del Priore GIOVANNI), proprio perché designato nel catasto con un cognome, estremamente raro a quel tempo.

In ogni caso, il personaggio centrale degli IACOPI di S. CROCE sembra indubbiamente essere proprio il GIOVANNI di IACOPO, Priore nel 1373, designato dal Priorista come “tavoliere”, forse falegname, ma che risulterebbe svolgere anche l’attività di “lanaiolo”. Egli risulta essere il vero progenitore della famiglia di S. Croce, elemento chiave della genealogia degli Iacopi del LION NERO, il cui ramo, anche se preso singolarmente, non solo non inficia quanto sin qui affermato, ma semmai conferma con ogni evidenza, tutte le considerazioni di carattere qualitativo e sociale sopra esposte nei riguardi del complesso della famiglia (suo nipote GIOVANNI, sulla pietra del sepolcro di famiglia in S. Croce farà scrivere “Giovanni Iacopi figlio di Leonardo” a riprova che, a quell’epoca - inizi del 1400 -, la famiglia aveva già un cognome ampiamente consolidato). 

SCATTERED NEWS

• 1348, TOMMASO di SILVESTRO di GIOVANNI IACOPI sent to Romania (sic, probably in the area of Lazio!) as treasurer of the Prenza. BUONAMICO or MICO di Giovanni , in the same period, was sent to Sicily (Sicily) on business. He was the son of Mona (Madonna) DUCCIA di Ser Buonamico VELLUTI (from Storia di Firenze by VELLUTI).
• 1365 January, Brother FRANCESCO IACOPI of Florence is a Franciscan friar in Monte Oliveto.
• 1379, PIERO di IACOPO, corrector;
• 1417, 6 July, Don BARTOLO IACOPI is the witness of a document, drawn up in the people of S. Maria degli Angeli in Florence. From pag. 170 of "Studi medievali" by Vincenzo Crescini, Filippo Ermini, Pietro Fedeli, Chiantore Editore 1981.
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• Domina ANGELA IACOPI appears to have made a cash payment to Prato (Delegation of Homeland History, Prato, 1973).
• a Ser FRANCESCO JACOPI was Podestà of Urbisaglia after 1446;
• 1500, GIOVANNI MARIA and FRANCESCO IACOPI  (known as the Handsome) live  in ASSISI. Francesco is also among the Councilors of the Municipality and both come from a family of notaries, originally from Florence.
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• 1611, MARGHERITA IACOPI makes a will (Spinelli Archive, Florence).
• A SERAFINO IACOPI is an Engineer for the Tuscan Grand Ducal Administration in 1700 (from "I disegni degli Ingegneri della Camera di Soprintendenza Comunicativa di Pisa", vol. 2°, 2001, edited by Costantino Caciagli and Roberto Castiglia);
• an ANTONIO Iacopi, in 1742, was bishop of the Holy Roman Church;
• an ANDREA LORENZO IACOPI in 1767 appears to be Parish Priest of the Parish of Doccia (FI);
• a JAMES IACOPI is registered in the city of Boston in the USA in 1840;
• a Franciscan Father Minor VINCENZO STEFANO JACOPI was in  the Convent of Cortona in 1912 and is mentioned by Jorgensen in the preface of his History of St. Francis;
• a LUIGI IACOPI, a flower merchant in Uruguay, is remembered in 1920 by Horacio ARAUJO VILLAGRAN.