Palazzo de'Rossi. Una storia pistoiese

8. Palazzo de’ Rossi, salone, decorazione ‘all’antica’ con testa di guerriero raffigurante Grandonio entro cornice ovale, affresco
monocromo nel sovrapporta dell’accesso assiale al ballatoio. Luigi Ra fanelli, 1794.
6. Pistoia, Canto dei Rossi, scultura in serpentino del
tardo sec. XII, ritenuta il ritratto di Grando nio, antico eroe
cittadino ascritto alla famiglia dei Rossi.
7. Sistemazione tardo-settecentesca della “testa di Grandonio”, al Canto dei Rossi, affiancata da due stemmi in pietra
trecenteschi della famiglia dei Rossi.
La figura, vera e propria metafora visiva del riferirsi all’illustre personaggio del passato da parte
dei supposti suoi discendenti, era il punto focale della “prospettiva” che si apriva dall’ingresso
sulla strada, a portone aperto: quasi indicandone, significativamente, l’asse principale 16 (fig. 9).
Ma il canonico Tommaso volle anche, nel mentre si occupava della costruzione e della decorazione,
nel 1793-1794, del salone d’onore, enfatizzare la ‘presenza’ in quel luogo di quell’eroe
cittadino che dava lustro al suo casato, nel contemporaneo rifacimento, con aspetto più dignitoso,
delle due facciate della “casa vecchia” posta al “Canto de’ Rossi”.
Egli fece disporre proprio sull’angolo, entro un piccolo incasso, un importante reperto scultoreo
del tardo secolo XII, conservatosi fino ad allora sul fronte esterno di quel vetusto
casamento 17 (fig. 6).
9. Statua di Grandonio in terracotta dipinta, entro la nicchia
dell’esedra esistente sul retro del palaz zo, un tempo adibito a
giardino. Anonimo scultore locale, 1802.
But a different urban location was preferred for the construction of the new residence. It was
a site near the medieval Porta Sant’Andrea, where in the 13th century the Rossi possessed
some tower-houses, on the narrow street that led into the oldest part of the city and all
around the crossroads. The place had been the theater of important historical events and
was also linked to fabled memories of a distant past connected with Roman antiquity and the
origins of Pistoia (fig. 5). 9
The foundations of the Rossi family’s houses that faced onto that street lay in ground filled
with imposing remains of ancient keeps and fortifications, which were brought to light during
the construction of the palazzo, along with several anticaglie or “curiosities.” 10 Those houses had
seen the birth—it was believed—of Grandonio, the legendary and gigantic hero of the family
who had lived at the beginning of the 12th century and was considered a shining example of
the valor in war shown by the oldest members of the family and evidence of its importance for
the whole city. 11 To the point of his portrait being placed on display in the Palazzo Comunale,
or City Hall, as a special mark of honor (fig. 4). 12 At the time the powerful head carved out of
serpentine, with an intense, enigmatic expression, that can still be seen today at the crossroads
called the “Canto de’ Rossi” was commonly thought to be his portrait. 13
In an age in which quarterings of nobility depended on the antiquity and prestige of ancestors,
that location had for the members of the Rossi family, as its original residence and the place
where Grandonio was believed to have been born, sufficient attractions to outweigh the
undoubted disadvantages related to the “visibility” of the building to be constructed, as was
pointed out at the beginning. That this was the leitmotiv that would characterize the new
residence is demonstrated by the appearance of Grandonio’s image at some of the most
significant points of the building and its annexes.
It is present, in the form of a “heroic” head, among the ornaments painted by the Pistoian
artist Luigi Rafanelli in the main hall, completed by the canon primicerius Tommaso dei
Rossi between 1793 and 1794 (fig. 8). 14
A more than life-size painted terracotta statue of Grandonio, in the guise of an ancient Roman
warrior, still stands solemnly in the niche of an exedra faced with blocks of tuff that was the
principal ornament of the new garden, laid out at the rear of the building in 1802. 15 The figure, a
true visual metaphor of the reference to the illustrious personage of the past on the part of his
supposed descendants, was the focal point of the “perspective” that unfolded from the entrance
onto the street, with the door open: almost indicating, significantly, the main axis (fig. 9). 16
But Canon Tommaso, while engaged in the construction and decoration of the main hall in
1793-94, also wanted to emphasize the “presence” of the hero who brought prestige to his
stock in that place, in the contemporary reconstruction, with a more dignified appearance,
of the two façades of the “old house” located at the “Canto de’ Rossi.”
He had an important piece of sculpture from the 12th century, up until then located on the
outer front of that old building, placed on the corner, inside a small recess (fig. 6). 17
It is the finest and most expressive of the so-called “black heads” that can still be seen in
Pistoia: it was given a variety of identities by the local scholars of the 17th-18th century, but
considered a portrait of Grandonio by the memorialists of the Rossi family. 18 At the time a
14th-century stone coat of arms of the Rossi family, in the form of a shield, was placed on
each side of that head sculpted in serpentine, on the converging walls; on the main façade,
facing onto the street that is named after the Rossi, the emblem at the corner served to
complete, along with its counterpart located symmetrically on the right, another “display” in
which the shield of the House of Anjou was located at the center (fig. 7). 19
This medieval panoply served to convey immediately to the passerby and the “foreigner”
how ancient and illustrious was the family whose new residence stood alongside the old one
at the “Canto de’ Rossi.”
Raffaello Ulivi’s Design and the Beginning of the Construction
The credit for having gathered all the family memories, records and documents that served
to outline the history of the construction of the new building must go to Canon Tommaso dei
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