Casket/Jewellery Box that Belonged to the Strozzi Family, circa 1600/1620

Sarcophagus-shaped jewelery casket, made of hand-wrought forged iron and semiprecious stones, which belonged to the Strozzi family of Florence, dating back to between 1600 and 1620.

Its base, rectangular in shape with notched corners, is supported by four hemispheres into which small inverted metal cones are hammered down to form the support feet.

At the center of each of the four facades that make up part of the casket there are ancient tiles in precious semiprecious stones, set inside very fine carved frames. Also around them, created as in a Carthusian embroidery, tiny frames made up of forged shoots, flowers and leaves are expertly carved, embossed and intertwined with each other and finally fixed by hot nailing.

The truncated pyramid lid is fixed to the base by a hinge and is made up of five sides, four of which have a large cove tapering towards the top of a flat rectangular shape surmounted by a magnificent flower made of micro sculpture. On two of these facades (the largest) the noble coat of arms of the Strozzi family, composed of three half moons, and the coat of arms of the city of Florence: the Lily, have been masterfully created and applied respectively. The two coats of arms, as well as the twigs with flowers and leaves placed to form the valuable outline, are forged, sculpted, carved and embossed by hand.

The coats of arms on the casket place it as an object that belonged to some member of the Strozzi family of Florence who had it made by one of the most skilled and illustrious masters of Florentine blacksmithing, in a period between 1600 and 1620.

Its dimensions are:

Width: 21 cm

Depth: 15 cm

Height: 20 cm

Weight: 2188 gr. about

Extraordinary casket of exceptional historical value and very fine workmanship from the Florentine Baroque period.

The Strozzi Family:

The Strozzi family is one of the most important and oldest families in Florence. Thanks to her financial activity she became very rich, for some documented periods the richest in the city, and with the opening of numerous bank branches throughout Europe her descendants spread all over the place, acquiring fame and fortune in Italy and abroad . Unlike other families, the Strozzis did not have many churchmen, with only one cardinal, Lorenzo Strozzi, but instead stood out for their bankers, politicians and numerous valuable military leaders. To date, a dozen different patrician branches can be counted, living in various Italian cities.

In the 13th century the family had Florence as its center of first origin, with a historically verified but almost legendary progenitor named Strozza Strozzi, who had five main children, each of whom decided to take his own different path, operating on his own, giving rise to a real diaspora.

The first member of the family of political importance was Ubertino Strozzi, son of Rosso. He was among the protagonists of the reform of the republican administration after the expulsion of the Ghibellines from Florence, establishing, among other things, that anyone wishing to carry out an activity had to be registered with one of the guilds of the Arts, thus ousting the feudal nobility from exercise of professions and favoring the rush to power of the merchant class, who in those very years were weaving their plots for those extraordinary cases of social ascent that would manifest themselves starting from the following century. The family resided in the Torre degli Strozzi and in the adjacent buildings, which are still found today in Via Monalda.

It was above all the extremely important banking activity that allowed the family to build a solid economic base from which the positions and honors, noble titles and patronage then derived. The Strozzi Bank, among the main ones in the city since the early fifteenth century, lent money to popes and kings and had branches throughout Europe: France, Spain, Flanders, as well as a bank in the main Italian courts: Rome, Naples, Ferrara, Venice, etc. At least until the fifteenth century, the Strozzi were by far the richest family in Florence. To support the estimate of wealth, there is a register of a taxation called prenza, a forced loan requested from all the families of the city in 1343: if the Medici were taxed for example 304 florins, the Strozzi had to pay out 2,063.

In each city the Strozzi family had luxurious residences built which also served the purpose of representation towards their illustrious clientele, and they were well trained in that gym of bankers which was the ruthless competition of Florence. In all, the Strozzi gave the city of Florence 93 priors and sixteen Gonfalonieri of Justice.

Palla Strozzi was a fine man of letters, philologist and philosopher, collector of rare books and connoisseur of Greek and Latin. Already advanced in years, he finally found himself in a head-on clash against Cosimo de' Medici, the man who had taken all the city power and before whom only two paths were possible: allying himself by accepting a subordinate role or clashing head-on, and Palla, from the height of his wealth and proud of his culture, he was the head of the anti-Medici faction together with another indomitable oligarch, Rinaldo degli Albizi.

The literary fame of the family is also guaranteed by the Ferrarese Tito Vespasiano, father, and Ercole Strozzi, son.

Meanwhile, after Filippo Strozzi the Elder began the grandiose project of Palazzo Strozzi in Benedetto da Maiano in Florence, the most beautiful Renaissance palace in the city, his son Filippo Strozzi the Younger earned a lasting fame as one of the most influential politicians of his era.

His son Filippo Strozzi, who also inherited his name from his father, was also a very rich banker, but was also one of the most important politicians of his time. He married a Medici, but with the rise to power of the tyrannical Duke Alessandro he became one of the main exponents of the anti-Medici party. In 1537, determined to retake the city after the assassination of Alessandro and the rise to power of a new scion of the Medici house, perhaps still inexperienced, led him to gather an army of Florentine exiles who marched on the city. The new duke, however, Cosimo I de' Medici who then unified Tuscany under his crown, already revealed himself to be a leader who was anything but easy to beat, in fact his victory was overwhelming. Philip was arrested and ended his days in the prisons of the Fortress of San Giovanni Battista.

Meanwhile, Philip's descendants had taken refuge in France, under the protection of Caterina de' Medici: Piero Strozzi became Marshal of France and Leone Strozzi had tasks and embassies to carry out in Italy. They both returned to Italy to defend Siena from the aims of the family enemy, Cosimo I. The resistance in the besieged city was tough from the beginning, with the Florentine troops supported by the help of imperial troops. On 11 June 1554 Piero attempted a sortie from the city with ten thousand men, heading towards Pontedera. Hoping to reach Florence through the Val di Nievole, he took his enemies by surprise. After an initially favorable outcome, Piero's troops retreated to Pistoia to await aid by sea brought by Leone Strozzi. But Leone had died struck by an arquebus near Castiglione della Pescaia and bad weather prevented the ships from docking. So Piero only managed to luckily return to Siena. Piero attempted a new sortie on 2 August, but was defeated at Marciano della Chiana. The Siena war was lost.

As the generations passed, the Strozzis made peace with the Medici and returned to Florence. In the seventeenth century their palace was one of the most popular with numerous receptions, and the Accademia della Crusca also met there.

No less important was the Strozzi branch of Rome, where they experienced a glorious period especially in the eighteenth century.

At the beginning of the 19th century Palazzo Strozzi was restored in Florence, and upon the death of Prince Piero Strozzi, with a layout that was then new for the city of Florence, it was donated to the State. The definitive transition occurred only in 1937.

Filippo Strozzi il Vecchio (1428–1491), son of Matteo Strozzi and of Alessandra Macinghi, was exiled as a young man and became a successful banker in Naples. He was also a condottiero or leader of mercenary soldiers and after his reconciliation with the Medici and return in 1462, began the Palazzo Strozzi, which was finished by his son Filippo II.

Filippo II (1488–1538) is probably the most well known member of the family. Although married to Clarice de' Medici, a daughter of Piero di Lorenzo de' Medici and member herself of the Medici family, he was vehemently opposed to the hegemony the Medicis had acquired as the unofficial rulers of the Florentine republic and was among the leaders of the uprising of 1527. Michelangelo's Doni Tondo was probably commissioned by Agnolo Doni to commemorate his marriage to Maddalena Strozzi.

After the republic was overthrown in 1530 Alessandro de' Medici attempted to win Filippo Strozzi's support, but Strozzi declined and instead retired to Venice. After the murder of Alessandro in 1537 he assumed leadership of a group of republican exiles with the object of re-entering the city but having been captured and subsequently tortured he committed suicide.

Filippo Strozzi's older son Piero (1500–1558), married Laudomia de' Medici, and fought in Scotland against the English, and in France against the Holy Roman Empire and Spain, and was made a Marshal of France in 1554. He took part in the French siege of Calais (1557), and died of wounds incurred in battle at Thionville, in Lorraine, in 1558. A younger son Leone (1515–1554) was a distinguished admiral in the service of France and fought against the Medici. He died of a wound received while attacking Sarlino in 1554. Another son, Lorenzo Strozzi (1513–1571) went into the Church, also in France, and ended as a cardinal and Archbishop of Siena from 1565. The son of Piero, Filippo di Piero Strozzi (1541–1582) was born in exile in France and served as a royal page and then in the French army, before being captured and killed by the Spaniards at the Battle of Terceira.

Senator Carlo Strozzi (1587–1671) formed an important library and collected a valuable miscellany known as the Carte Strozziane, of which the most important part is now in the state archives of Florence. He was the author of a Storietta della città di Firenze dal 1219 al 1292 (unpublished) and a Storia della casa Barberini (Rome, 1640).

It is unclear whether Bernardo Strozzi (c.1581–1644), a prominent and prolific Italian Baroque painter born and active mainly in Genoa and Venice, was a part of this immediate family. The composer Barbara Strozzi (1619–1677) was adopted by the poet Giulio Strozzi, presumably her natural father.

The Strozzi acquired by marriage the titles of Princes of Forano and Dukes of Bagnolo. A branch of the family moved to Vienna and built the Palais Strozzi there. The Palazzo Strozzi in Florence belonged to the family until 1937 when it was sold to the Istituto Nazionale delle Assicurazioni (INA). From 1999 it became property of the Italian State. Today, Strozzi descendents are still living in Florence, America and elsewhere.

The Villa Cusona is the Tuscan home of the family, operated as a vineyard by Prince Girolamo Strozzi and his family. British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his family were regular holiday visitors to the Villa Cusona. In 2013, the villa was allegedly seized as part of a fraud investigation.