A large number of iron elements, known as hooks or arpioni,
were to be found on the facades of palaces and houses. They
varied in form, size and function and were set on the various
levels. On the ground floor the horse hooks were ring shaped or
in the shape of an overturned Gothic M. In the palaces they
tended to be purely decorative and were set on the base of the
building at regular intervals. Actually, before the sixteenth
century practically no one in Florence, even of the higher
classes, kept horses or mules in the city itself. If the palace
had stables, they were set at the back, often in a small building
used for this purpose (B. Preyer).
On the upper palace floors, in the spaces between the windows,
about half way up, the rod hooks were to be found. They were in
the shape of a horizontal arm driven into the wall, terminating
in a semicircle facing upwards and reinforced by a rod-like prop
on which a ring was supended. Horizontally moving wooden rods
passed through the rings in front of the windows, upon which
clothes or curtains were hung, or animals or bird cages might be
attached. Below and along the string-courses were the parade
hooks to which hangings and tapestries might be hung during
festivals. The banner hooks consisted of two cylindrical elements
welded to an arm. In the fifteenth century they continued to
appear at the corners of the palaces but they also spread to the
facades, incorporating on the ground floor the rings of the horse
hooks and on the upper floors replacing the rod hooks. Lastly the
facade ornamentation was completed by lanterns and torch holders
in wrought iron, at first very simple and gradually more complex.
The lantern was lighted by setting fire to the panello, tangled
oiled rags stuck on the central spike.
In the fourteenth century stone plaques carved with the family
coat of arms were often placed at the two extremities of the base
of the facade. In the fifteenth century the coat of arms was
generally set at the corner of the palace. In
Palazzo Medici the coats of arms
occur in the shield on the corner of the first floor and in the
spandrels of the mullioned windows.
The medieval galleries and platforms in wood were eliminated, as
disturbing the order of the facade, and the crowning loggia was
adopted instead, first used in the courtyards (Pal. Medici,
Pazzi, Strozzi, etc.) and not on the facade (Pal. Dei-Guadagni)
until the turn of the century. The loggia on the first floor
flush with the facade, proposed by Brunelleschi in
Palazzo Pitti, remained an
isolated case (except for the suburban villa of the Medicis in
Poggio a Caiano, by Giuliano da Sangallo) until it was taken up
later by Ammannati and Buontalenti. The uncovered or covered roof
terrace used for hanging laundry, set back from the facade, was
often present even in the more modest houses.
Most of the palaces adopted a crowning cornice in classical style
to conclude the facade (Pal. Medici, Rucellai, Strozzi, Gondi);
in common palaces the ovolo molding at the juncture of the eaves
with the facade became widespread. Crenellation, at this point no
longer of any use, gave way, in most houses, to the eaves, a
typically Florentine solution, whereby the rain water was
deviated to the middle of the road and both the facade and the
passersby were protected. In ordinary houses the solution was
often the fourteenth-century one of caves supported by oblique
struts. The roofs were covered with alternating courses of flat
and curved tiles or by rows of curved tiles set alternately up
and down. Chimneys resembled small towers, and were rarely
square, the preference being round or polygonal, terminating in a
cone (A. Schiaparelli).
