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TheFlorentinebanking family of the Gondi were prominent financial partners of theMedici. Unlike the Medici, they were of the old Florentine nobility, tracing their line traditionally from the legendary Philippi, said to have been ennobled byCharlemagne himself, in 805; from him theStrozzi and the Gualfreducci also claimed their descent.[1] With Orlando Bellicozzo, a member of the Great Council of Florence in 1197, the Gondi emerge into history, receiving their patronymic from Gondo Gondi, sitting on the Great Council in 1251, signatory to a treaty between Florence and Genoa in that year. In the fourteenth century several members of the family sat on the Great Council. Simon de Gondi renounced theGhibelline party for himself and his house, in 1351; he loaned the Republic 8000 golden florins in a time of extremity. He held extensive lands round Valcava, in the Mugello, where the church bore the Gondi arms inside and out. Of Simon's seven children, his grandson another Simon was the first of the Gondi to hold the position of GrandPrior of the Republic, on three occasions. His daughter Maddalena, who married Giovanni Salviati, by the marriage of her daughter Maria withGiovanni dalle Bande Nere, became the grandmother ofCosimo I de' Medici; thence were descended all the Catholic crowned heads of pre-Napoleonic Europe.[2] Carlo de Gondi was a staunch backer ofPiero de' Medici, and when the Medici came to be Grand Dukes, the Gondi received empty but honorary titles of Senators.
ThePalazzo Gondi in Piazza San Firenze, Florence, the central seat of the family, was built from 1489 to 1495 to designs ofGiuliano da Sangallo[3] forGiuliano Gondi; it later passed to the Orlandini[citation needed]. The cortile is enclosed by colonnaded loggias; the staircase is remarkable for its fine balustrade infilled with animals and foliage. At the head of the interior staircase, leading to the principal apartments, is the statue of the Roman senator, taken from the supposed Temple of Isis. The chimneypiece of thesalone is assumed to be the work of Giuliano da San Gallo.
Giuliano, who built the palazzo, had refused a pension offered him by theKing of Naples, because he did not consider that the citizen of a free republic could accept money from a foreign prince with honour. His son completed the structure and commissioned the Gondi chapel inSanta Maria Novella. His descendants, nevertheless, were frequently in the pay of France, and were created French generals, admirals, governors of provinces, and even archbishops andJean François Paul de Gondi, cardinal de Retz. Giovanni Battista Gondi was the Florentine resident in Paris in the 1620s.
The founder of the French Gondi was Alberto (Albert), who settled inLyon about 1505 as a member of an established Florentine community ornation, of merchants and bankers. In 1516 he marriedMarie-Catherine de Pierrevive (Pietraviva), daughter of atax-farmer of a long-established Lyonnais family of Piedmontese origin; she caught the attention ofCatherine de' Medici, whom she served asGoverness to the Children of France. In turn the young Gondis, Pietro, Carlo, and above all Alberto (Albert de Gondi), amarshal of France and createdduc de Retz, were repeatedly employed in state business by Catherine and by her sons,Charles IX of France andHenri III, as well as by the Bourbon kingHenri IV.
During the 1570s, the Queen offeredJérôme de Gondi[4] a dwelling at Saint-Cloud, theHôtel d'Aulnay, which became the nucleus of theChâteau de Saint-Cloud.Henri III installed himself in this house in order to conduct the siege of Paris during theWars of Religion, and here he was assassinated by the monkJacques Clément. After the death of Jérôme de Gondi in 1604, the château was sold in 1618 by his sonJean-Baptiste II de Gondi toJean de Bueil,comte de Sancerre, who died shortly afterwards. The château was bought back byJean-François de Gondi,archbishop of Paris. His embellishments notably included gardens byThomas Francine.
After the death of Jean-François de Gondi in 1654, the château was inherited in turn byPhilippe-Emmanuel de Gondi and then his nephewHenri de Gondi, duc de Retz. The duc de Retz sold the property in 1655.
The Hôtel de Gondi, Paris, became in the seventeenth century theHôtel de Condé.
As a consequence of their prominence, the Gondi archives are of outstanding importance to the historian of economics; they were described byRoberto Ridolfi,Gli archivi delle famiglie fiorentine (Florence: Olschki) 1943.Bound volumes of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century archives are at the University of Pennsylvania.[5] In December 2000, thieves ransacked the archive, stealing many documents.
In the mid-19th century members of the Gondi family owned a stake in the notableChâteauneuf-du-Pape wine estateChâteau Fortia.[6]