Palazzo di San Clemente (also called Palazzo del Pretendente) is a residential palace 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.

History

Along the current Via Capponi there was a small building visible in the plan of the city from 1584, which was acquired and enlarged by Luigi di Toledo, brother of Grand Duchess

Eleanor of Toledo Eleanor of Toledo (Italian: ''Eleonora di Toledo'', 11 January 1522 – 17 December 1562), born Doña Leonor Álvarez de Toledo y Osorio, was a Spanish noblewoman and Duchess of Florence as the first wife of Cosimo I de' Medici. A keen businessw ...

. Late Renaissance art biographer

Giorgio Vasari Giorgio Vasari (, also , ; 30 July 1511 – 27 June 1574) was an Italian Renaissance Master, who worked as a painter, architect, engineer, writer, and historian, who is best known for his work '' The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculp ...

speaks about it in the ''Life'' of Jacopo Sansovino. In 1634 the Guadagni family bought it, entrusting architect

Gherardo Silvani Gherardo Silvani (1579–1675) was an Italian architect and sculptor, active mainly in Florence and other sites in Tuscany during the Baroque period. Biography His son Pierfrancesco Silvani, Pierfrancesco also became an architect. He worked on ...

with the renovation of the palace and the garden (1644). The edifice was thus transformed into a suburban villa, of the type then known as a ''Casino''. The family owned it until 1777, when they sold it to

Bonnie Prince Charlie Bonnie, is a Scottish given name and is sometimes used as a descriptive reference, as in the Scottish folk song, My Bonnie Lies over the Ocean. It comes from the Scots language word "bonnie" (pretty, attractive), or the French bonne (good). That ...

, who then used the alias of count of Albany; since the latter was the legitimist pretender to the thrones of

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

and

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...

, the palace is also called ''Palazzo del Pretendente''. Later it went to Simone Velluti Zati, duke of San Clemente, hence the current name. Russian prince

Nikolai Demidov Count Nikolai Nikitich Demidov (9 October / November 1773 Chirkovitsi village near Saint Petersburg – 22 April 1828) was a Russian industrialist, collector and arts patron of the Demidov family. Life The son of Nikita Akinfiyevich Demido ...

was his guest here in 1882. The edifice is a seat of the Faculty of Architecture of the

University of Florence The University of Florence (Italian: ''Università degli Studi di Firenze'', UniFI) is an Italian public research university located in Florence, Italy. It comprises 12 schools and has around 50,000 students enrolled. History The first universi ...

Sources

San Clemente San Clemente (; Spanish for " St. Clement") is a city in Orange County, California. Located in the Orange Coast region of the South Coast of California, San Clemente's population was 64,293 in at the 2020 census. Situated roughly midway between ...

Charles Edward Stuart University of Florence {{architecture-stub