Palazzo Tolomei, Renaissance palace in central Florence, Italy

Palazzo Tolomei is a Renaissance palace in central Florence that features decorated rooms, frescoed walls, and a central courtyard. The building shows typical characteristics of wealthy Florentine residences from the 1500s, with rooms designed to display art and craftsmanship.

The house belonged to the Ermini di Lucolena until 1644, when Neri Tolomei bought it for 3,000 scudi using the dowry of his wife Margherita Frescobaldi and rebuilt it as the couple's home. The Florentine Tolomei, silk merchants ennobled in 1591, came from Legri in Val di Marina. In 1726 Neri Maria Tolomei bought the adjoining Del Chiaro palace, called casa grande, while this one became the casa piccola. In 1850 Paolo Tolomei sold both to Giuseppe Garzoni Venturi of Lucca.

The staircase vault holds a portrait of Ferdinando II de' Medici beside an allegorical figure, frescoes that survive from the palace's years as the Tolomei family home. The family, called Tolomei Gucci after Tolomeo di Guccio, traded silk and held stakes in several banking companies before entering the nobility in 1591.

The palace is at via de' Ginori 23 and is now divided into private condominium units, so the interior, including the staircase frescoes, is not open as a hotel or public museum. Visitors see the late-Renaissance facade from the street: the central arched portal with rusticated frame, two graded-framed windows beside it, and three windows on each of the two upper floors.

The palace was long called "casa piccola" (small house) to distinguish it from the neighbouring Palazzo Del Chiaro, the "casa grande", bought in 1726 by Neri Maria Tolomei with his wife's dowry. The two buildings stayed in the family until 1850, when Paolo Tolomei sold both to Giuseppe Garzoni Venturi of Lucca.