Gondi

Gondi may refer to:

See also

Gondi family

The Florentine banking family of the Gondi were prominent financial partners of the Medici. Unlike the Medici, they were of the old Florentine nobility, tracing their line traditionally from the legendary Philippi, said to have been ennobled by Charlemagne himself, in 805; from him the Strozzi and the Gualfreducci also claimed their descent. With Orlando Bellicozzo, a member of the Great Council of Florence in 1197, the Gondi emerge into history, receiving their patronymic from Gondo Gondi, sitting on the Great Council in 1251, signatory to a treaty between Florence and Genoa in that year. In the fourteenth century several members of the family sat on the Great Council. Simon de Gondi renounced the Ghibelline party for himself and his house, in 1351; he loaned the Republic 8000 golden florins in a time of extremity. He held extensive lands round Valcava, in the Mugello, where the church bore the Gondi arms inside and out. Of Simon's seven children, his grandson another Simon was the first of the Gondi to hold the position of Grand Prior of the Republic, on three occasions. His daughter Maddalena, who married Giovanni Salviati, by the marriage of her daughter Maria with Giovanni dalle Bande Nere, became the grandmother of Cosimo I de' Medici; thence were descended all the Catholic crowned heads of pre-Napoleonic Europe. Carlo de Gondi was a staunch backer of Piero de' Medici, and when the Medici came to be Grand Dukes, the Gondi received empty but honorary titles of Senators.