Palazzo Cevoli, via San Martino

A 17th century palace, born from the combination of nine tower houses built between the 12th and 14th centuries: observing the façade, we can observe the restoration technique that left the stone pillars of the oldest tower houses and the bricks of the most recent ones uncovered. However, the real treasure is found inside, where the frescoes by Alessandro Gherardini and G.D. Ferretti decorate the walls and ceilings of some halls. Some frescoes were commissioned by the Cevoli family to commemorate the episode of 1446, when the beginning of the reign of the United Countries was established, but also to remember the stay of Frederick IV, king of Norway and Denmark, who was a guest here in 1709, as the epigraph on the entrance door of the building also reminds us. Federico, before being crowned king in 1700, had already been in Tuscany in 1692, when he met Maddalena Trenta, a beautiful girl from Lucca. It was love at first sight. At the time, she was engaged to a Bolognese count, but this was not an obstacle, she broke the engagement with Federico. Unfortunately, however, the two were never able to join in marriage. There was, in fact, another obstacle, greater than them, a religious impediment: he was Protestant and she was Catholic. Magdalene entered the cloistered convent of Santa Maria Maddalena dei Pazzi, in Florence, while Federico, soon after, married a Danish noblewoman and became king of Norway and Denmark. The year he stayed at Palazzo Cevoli, Federico had not returned for a Grand Tour of Tuscany, but to speak with Maddalena again. It was not easy to meet her, both the Mother Superior and the Bishop refused the King's request, but Cosimo III de’ Medici consented, hoping for the King's conversion to Catholicism, which, however, never happened. The two lovers met, never alone, 5 times, but the chronicles tell that on 21 March 1709, after having seen her for the last time, the King burst into tears without any hope of being able to see her again.