In just a few meters, there are concentrated historic buildings of rare beauty carrying the story of a relatively unknown Florentine family: the Rustici.

Via de’ Rustici is a perfect example of “Florentine low profile”. This expression where the expression indicates that treasures are better hidden in the folds of history compared to other places. The Rustici family is rarely mentioned among the first Florentine families due to their dispersion into various branches, which led to the decline of the “golden griffin with the imperial eagle’s head” in the city’s politics. They did have noteworthy figures, though, such as the goldsmith Marco di Bartolommeo, who was responsible for the faithful frontal drawings of the facades of our churches, still reproduced everywhere today.

Before the arrival of the Rustici, the street was called Via de’ Peruzzi, named after the bankers who owned almost the entire neighborhood. They were the first to build palaces, making the medieval dwellings disappear, though you can still see a residual example at civic number 1.

The other buildings are noble palaces of great importance, although unknown to tourist itineraries. Casa Mannini at 3, where you can still see the ancient structure with arched windows; Palazzo Visconti di Modrone at 4, a perfect example of sixteenth-century architecture; the “second Peruzzi palace” at 5, where eighteenth-century alterations don’t hide the three-century-old structure; Palazzo Venerosi-Pesciolini at 7, which was completely transformed in the 18th century (but gained its arched portal), and the sixteenth-century Palazzo Borgianni at 8.

At the corner with Piazza dei Peruzzi, there was also the Loggia dei Peruzzi, later destroyed. In short, a place of secret enchantment, today and even more so in the time of Marco di Bartolommeo de’ Rustici, who, when he returned from his pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 1447, had the impression of “having returned to paradise” because he found his street and his city better than anything he had seen in the Middle East and decided to depict its beauties.

A similar but opposite story was unfolded with his relative Giovan Francesco Rustici almost a century later. A close friend of Leonardo, he was famous for organizing joyful revelries in the family’s Loggia; when he returned after the Siege of Florence, he found out that it had been destroyed and the other palaces burnt. He was so disheartened that he didn’t want to stay in the city and let himself die far away—far away. A melancholy excess, perhaps, considering that via dei Rustici can still show its treasures to those who have eyes to see them today.