Vincenzo Galilei's house

Epigrafe apposta su casa Bocca, in Borgo Stretto (L. Corevi, Comune di Pisa)

Vincenzo Galilei was born in Santa Maria a Monte (Pi) in 1533 from a noble family and was one of the greatest musical theorists in Italy. He was master luthier and musical teacher and this was the reason that led him to Pisa in 1562, the year in which he married Giulia Venturi degli Ammannati (mother of Galileo Galilei). Indeed, arrived in the city, he opened a music schola. 'Ricordo faccio io Giuseppe Bocca come hoggi questo di’ IX di luglio 1564 al pisa- no, abbiamo appigionato a Vincentio Galilei, m° di musica da Fiorenza, la casa N.ra posta nel chiasso dei Mercanti, per anno uno, il quale debba accominciar il primo di’ di Agosto 1564 per pregio di scudi 12 d’oro l’anno…' (Note by Giuseppe Bocca, found in 1893 by Count Alfredo Venerosi della Seta among the papers of the Bocca family). We therefore know from a rental contract, registered in the deeds of Pisan notary Maria Giovanni Simone di Giovanni Mazzuoli, that, in the year 1563 (the date of the quotation must be read in Pisan style, according to the use of the ab Incarnatione calendar), he settled in this house, between via Mercanti and Borgo Stretto, and presumably lived here until 1574, the year of his transfer to Florence. Among his most important studies was the one on the correlation between music and mathematics and how the diversity of physical characteristics can produce different acoustic results.

The renovation (renovatio) of the Medici: In 1594 the Sea consuls (Consoli del Mare) imposed the renovation of the arcades in Borgo Stretto, as they were dilapidated. The wooden beams with cross vaults were replaced and new masonry colonnades were built. Palazzo Bocca is one of the best examples, also because the family enjoyed considerable privileges at the Medici court. On the façade an epigraph testifies to the recovery intervention in 1595, which also included the insertion of the bust of Ferdinando I de' Medici (on the sides the coats of arms of the Bocca and Della Seta families), a distinctive element that characterises the entire structure.