The Palazzo dell'Arte dei Beccai or Residenza dell'Arte dei Beccai is a fourteenth-century building in

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany Regions of Italy, region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilan ...

, Italy. It faces the

Orsanmichele Orsanmichele (; "Kitchen Garden of St. Michael", from the Tuscan contraction of the Italian word ''orto'') is a church in the Italian city of Florence. The building was constructed on the site of the kitchen garden of the monastery of San Mich ...

, once a

grain market The grain trade refers to the local and international trade in cereals and other food grains such as wheat, barley, maize, and rice. Grain is an important trade item because it is easily stored and transported with limited spoilage, unlike other ...

, later the church of the guilds of Florence. It has had many occupants, including the Arte dei Beccai or guild of butchers from which its name derives. Since 1974 it has housed the Accademia Fiorentina delle Arti del Disegno, an

academy An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosop ...

of the arts.

History

The Palazzo dell'Arte dei Beccai was built in the fourteenth century on the site of houses of the Macci family. It was initially used by the Capitani di Orsanmichele. It was home to the Arte dei Beccai until 1534, and then, from 1583, to the Arte dei Fabbricanti e Legnaioli, the guild of masons and carpenters, into which the Arte dei Beccai had by then been merged. From 1772 it was used by the Customs of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, and from 1789 passed into the hands of the Congregazione di Carità di San Giovanni Battista, a charitable institution. From the 1940s it was home to the Ente Comunale di Assistenza, a branch of the city administration. In the late 1960s it was purchased by the

Banco di Sicilia Banco di Sicilia was an Italian bank based in Palermo, Sicily. It was a subsidiary of UniCredit but absorbed into the parent company in 2010. History It was founded as ''Banco Regio dei Reali Domini al di là del Faro'' in 1849 and was renamed i ...

. It was by then in very poor repair. Restoration was begun in the early 1970s, and from 1974 the building, now the property of the State, became the home of the Accademia Fiorentina delle Arti del Disegno.

The building

The

façade A façade () (also written facade) is generally the front part or exterior of a building. It is a loan word from the French (), which means ' frontage' or ' face'. In architecture, the façade of a building is often the most important aspect ...

is largely unchanged from its 14th-century appearance, although some windows have undergone later modification. The '' piano nobile'' is marked by four large arched windows. Above them are the arms of the Arte dei Beccai, a long-horned billy-goat, the it, becco from which the name of the guild derives; this work has been attributed to

Donatello Donato di Niccolò di Betto Bardi ( – 13 December 1466), better known as Donatello ( ), was a Florentine sculptor of the Renaissance period. Born in Florence, he studied classical sculpture and used this to develop a complete Renaissance s ...

. Lower on the façade are other crests, the ''giglio'' or iris of Florence and the three interlocking wreaths of the Accademia Fiorentina delle Arti del Disegno. In 1901 the building was included in a listing of buildings to be considered part of the national heritage, compiled by the Direzione Generale delle Antichità e Belle Arti, or "general directorate of antiquities and fine arts". File:Palazzo dell'arte dei beccai 03 stemma arte dei beccai.JPG, Façade: the arms of the Arte dei Beccai File:Palazzo dell'arte dei beccai 04 stemmi facciata.JPG, Façade: other crests File:Palazzo arte beccai, stemma retro.JPG, Arms of the Arte dei Beccai on the corner facing Piazza dei Tre Re

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Arte dei Beccai Houses completed in the 14th century Palaces in Florence