RIDOLFI, FAMIGLIA. — Family that entered Florence in the 13th century and was enrolled in the Wool Guild. It grew wealthy through commerce and played a very prominent part in the history of the Florentine Republic. It attained the supreme dignity of gonfalonier 21 times and the priorate 52 times.
Before the Medici predominance, the foremost name in the family was that of LORENZO di Antonio (1362–1442), one of the greatest Florentines of his time, compared by the biographer Vespasiano da Bisticci, for his civic virtues, «to those ancient Romans»; he was a wise statesman employed by the Republic in innumerable offices and embassies, a professor of civil and canon law at the Florentine Studium, and the author of legal works reprinted several times in the 15th century, such as the treatise De usuris. For the Council of Pisa he wrote, at its request, a Consilium pro collegio cardinalium contra antipapas.
During the Medici predominance, this family too included those who took a stand against the Medici, such as GIOVAMBATTISTA di Luigi (1448–1514), one of Savonarola’s principal followers, and those who supported them, such as NICCOLÒ (1444–97), the brother of the aforementioned, beheaded for having taken part in a conspiracy to restore the Medici to their homeland after their expulsion in ’94. PIERO di Niccolò married Contessina, daughter of Lorenzo il Magnifico, and from these new ties of blood the R. derived renewed greatness. Besides the persons just mentioned, and those treated below in separate articles, the following members of this family should be chiefly remembered: ANTONIO di Lorenzo, much employed in offices and embassies; BERNARDINO di Lorenzo (d. 1575), a knight of S. Stefano, who fought at Lepanto and was admiral of the Tuscan fleet; Cardinal OTTAVIO (1586–1624). In the 19th century, COSIMO di Luigi (1794–1865) rendered distinguished service to the agricultural sciences, was president of the Council of Ministers of Tuscany in 1848, and later a senator of the Kingdom of Italy.