Sarcophagus of Aldobrandino Ottoboni?

This sarcophagus, rectangular case shaped, in white and green marble, by Florentine craftsmen, stylistically referable to the XIII century: it is the sepulcher of an anonymous character.

The lid is sloping, the base rests on shelves and is identified by three trefoil arches. On the front of the case there are three coats of arms: on the sides, two shields with facing eagles and, in the centre, a Greek cross with flowers.

Borghini recalls that in the sixteenth century the chest was opened and few remains were found inside, while Richa recalls a survey in the eighteenth century: the interior is divided into three spaces, containing, one, some bones; the central, a skull, while the third is empty.

Del Migliore in the seventeenth century handed down two identifications of the tomb. According to the first tradition, it would have belonged to Conradin Hohenstaufen, son of the emperor Arrigo III and nephew of Conrad, Marquis of Tuscany, who died in Florence in 1101. According to another tradition, the sarcophagus would belong to Aldobrandino Ottobuoni (or Ottoboni), an elder of the Florentine Republic, a member of the Guelph faction, which Villani said was been buried in the ancient Santa Reparata in 1258 and whose body, during the revolts between Guelphs and Ghibellines that followed the battle of Montaperti (1261), was dragged in vituperation for the city or thrown into the Arno river. The sarcophagus, with few remains inside, would therefore have been placed on the wall in the new Cathedral in the following century. There is no inscription on the sarcophagus, but the lateral coats of arms, with the shield in which the eagle stands out, coincide in fact both with that of the Ottobuoni family and with the coat of arms of the house of Swabia, and the cross in the center could be that of the people of Florence and therefore refer to a "public" monument. In the fourteenth century the sarcophagus was placed on the wall in the fourth bay of the left aisle under the tabernacle with the so called "Poggio Bracciolini". During the new arrangement of the Cathedral, operated by Baccani in 1842, the sarcophagus was placed above the so-called door of the Mandorla, symmetrically opposite that of Bishop D'Orso. The architect Castellucci placed it in its current location in 1937.