Part 1
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE
Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.
Footnote anchors are denoted by [number], and the footnotes have been placed at the end of the chapter.
Some minor changes to the text are noted at the end of the book.
FLORENTINE VILLAS
_This Edition is limited to 200 copies for England and 100 copies for America_
_All rights reserved_
[Illustration: (CAST OF THE FACE OF LORENZO THE MAGNIFICENT, TAKEN AFTER DEATH)]
FLORENTINE VILLAS
BY JANET ROSS
WITH REPRODUCTIONS IN PHOTOGRAVURE FROM ZOCCHI’S ETCHINGS AND MANY LINE DRAWINGS OF THE VILLAS BY NELLY ERICHSEN
[Illustration: (Colophon)]
LONDON: J. M. DENT & CO. NEW YORK: DUTTON & CO. MDCCCCI
To
MARGARET
COUNTESS OF CRAWFORD AND BALCARRES THE OWNER OF ONE OF THE MOST BEAUTIFUL OF THE FLORENTINE VILLAS THIS BOOK IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED IN MEMORY OF OLD FAMILY TIES AND FRIENDSHIPS BY HER COUSIN JANET ROSS
PREFACE
Visitors to Florence are more or less intimately acquainted with the history of her churches, galleries and palaces, but there are few books dealing with the villas which crown the hills surrounding the lovely city. For years friends have asked me to write some account of them and the first beginning was made in an article in the _National Review_ (May 1894) called “A stroll in Boccaccio’s country,” dealing chiefly with the two villas described by him in the _Decameron_ in language of matchless grace and charm. Becoming interested in the subject I collected what information I could about the Florentine Villas and the families to whom they had belonged, and coming across Guiseppe Zocchi’s rare work _Vedute delle Ville e d’altri luoghi della Toscana_ published in 1744, it was thought that reproductions of his beautiful etchings would enhance the interest of my book. Zocchi, about whom but little is known, was born near Florence in 1711 and died in 1767. Frescoes were executed by him in the Serristori and Rinuccini palaces and he was commissioned by the people of Siena to decorate their city with painted tapestries and hangings for a visit of Leopoldo, Grand Duke of Tuscany. This he probably owed to his patron the Marquis Gerini to whom the volume of engravings of the Villas was dedicated.
In early times the great Florentine families lived in their strong castles like robber chieftains, waging incessant war on each other and on the adjacent villages and towns, and when later they went to dwell in the walled city they built their palaces like strongholds. High towers and thick walls defended Guelf against Ghibelline, and as one party or the other obtained supremacy the beaten rivals were driven to seek refuge in their hill-castles. “The nobles,” writes Macchiavelli, “were divided against each other and the people against the nobles.... And from these divisions resulted so many deaths, so many banishments, so many destructions of families, as never befell in any other city.”
Life became more luxurious under the Medici; famous Master Builders, such as Michelozzi, Ammannati and Buontalenti were charged by the rich Florentines to design, or to enlarge and beautify, the villas which are still the pride and glory of Florence. In the country houses of the Medici, artists, poets and learned men met together and discussed literary subjects with their princely hosts; others were used, much as is the custom now, for summer retreats when the dust and heat of the town made life irksome. The “villegiatura” still plays an important part in the life of an Italian. The head of the family, his sons, their wives and children, install themselves in the huge villas, and even those who can afford to cross the Alps, hurry back to their country places in September for the vintage—always a time of merriment—when music and dancing recall the gaiety of olden days.
My work has been rendered pleasant by the kindness and courtesy of the owners of the Villas described in these pages, and I have to thank H. E. Prince Corsini for much valuable information, and for obtaining permission from the Società Colombaria, of which he is the President, to have the interesting and hitherto almost unknown deathmask of Lorenzo the Magnificent, in their possession, photographed for my book. To Cavaliere Angelo Bruschi, Librarian of the Marucelliana library, I am indebted for unceasing kindness in suggesting and obtaining for me rare pamphlets and manuscripts which illustrated the manners and customs of bygone times. My thanks are also due to Mr Temple Leader for allowing me to use the illustration out of his book, of Sir Robert Dudley’s curious instrument for the measurement of tides; to my kind friend Dr E. Percival Wright for reading the proof-sheets; to my niece Lina Duff Gordon for visiting and describing some of the more distant villas to which I was unable to go; to Colonel Goff for his drawing of Countess Rasponi’s beautiful villa Font’ all ’Erta; to Miss Erichsen whose charming drawings of the villas and gardens as they now appear add so much to the beauty and interest of the book, and lastly to the Dowager Countess of Crawford for lending me Zocchi’s volume of etchings for reproduction.
JANET ROSS.
POGGIO GHERARDO, FLORENCE.
CONTENTS
VILLA PALMIERI _Page_ 1
VILLA DI POGGIO A CAJANO ” 8
CAFAGGIUOLO ” 16
VILLA DI CAREGGI ” 26
VILLA DI RUSCIANO ” 37
VILLA DI POGGIO IMPERIALE ” 41
VILLA DI LAPPEGGI ” 48
VILLA DELLA PETRAJA ” 53
VILLA DI BELLOSGUARDO ” 59
VILLA DI CASTELLO ” 65
VILLA CORSINI AT CASTELLO ” 71
VILLA MEDICI AT FIESOLE ” 81
VILLA DELL’ AMBROGIANA ” 88
VILLA DI PRATOLINO ” 91
VILLA SALVIATI ” 97
VILLA DI FONT’ ALL’ ERTA ” 108
VILLA DI GAMBERAIA ” 116
VILLA DI MONTE GUFFONE ” 120
VILLA DI CASTEL-PULCI ” 126
VILLA DI POGGIO GHERARDO ” 131
VILLA DELLE SELVE ” 139
VILLA I COLLAZZI ” 143
VILLA FERDINANDA A ARTIMINO ” 148
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PHOTOGRAVURES
CAST OF THE FACE OF LORENZO THE MAGNIFICENT, TAKEN AFTER DEATH _Frontispiece_
VILLA PALMIERI _Facing page_ 1
VILLA DI POGGIO A CAJANO ” 8
CAFAGGIUOLO ” 16
VILLA DI CAREGGI ” 26
MEDALS OF COSIMO PATER PATRIAE, LORENZO DE’ MEDICI AND MARSILIO FICINO ” 37
VILLA DI POGGIO IMPERIALE ” 41
VILLA DI LAPPEGGI ” 48
VILLA DELLA PETRAJA ” 53
MEDALS OF COSIMO II, BIANCA CAPPELLO AND MARIA MADDALENA D’AUSTRIA ” 59
VILLA DI CASTELLO ” 65
VILLA CORSINI AT CASTELLO ” 71
MEDALS OF CATERINA SFORZA, SAVONAROLA AND PICO DELLA MIRANDOLA ” 81
VILLA DELL’ AMBROGIANA ” 88
VILLA DI PRATOLINO ” 91
VILLA SALVIATI ” 97
MEDALS OF COSIMO I, DE’ MEDICI, ALESSANDRO DE’ MEDICI, FERDINANDO I AND CHRISTINE OF LORRAINE ” 108
VILLA DI GAMBERAIA ” 116
VILLA DI MONTE GUFFONE ” 120
VILLA DI CASTEL-PULCI ” 126
MEDALS OF BOCCACCIO, MICHELANGELO AND DUKE FEDERIGO OF URBINO ” 131
VILLA DELLE SELVE ” 139
VILLA I COLLAZZI ” 143
VILLA FERDINANDA A ARTIMINO ” 148
ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT
VILLA PALMIERI:
THE TERRACE _Page_ 1 THE VILLA AND TERRACE FROM THE LOWER GARDEN ” 7
VILLA DI POGGIO A CAJANO:
THE FACADE ” 8
CAFAGGIUOLO:
THE FACADE ” 16 CASTLE OF TREBBIO ” 25
VILLA DI CAREGGI:
THE GARDEN FRONT WITH LORENZO DE’ MEDICI’S LOGGIA ” 26 ANOTHER VIEW OF THE VILLA ” 35
VILLA DI RUSCIANO:
THE NORTH FACADE ” 37 BRUNELLESCHI’S WINDOW ” 38 VIEW OF FLORENCE FROM THE VILLA _facing page_ 38
VILLA DI POGGIO IMPERIALE:
THE FORMAL GARDEN _page_ 41 THE GREAT ENTRANCE ” 46
VILLA DI LAPPEGGI:
THE TERRACE AND VILLA ” 48
VILLA DELLA PETRAJA:
THE VILLA, WITH VICTOR EMANUEL’S ILEX ” 53 THE FOUNTAIN OF VENUS, BY TRIBOLO AND GIOVANNI DA BOLOGNA ” 58
VILLA DI BELLOSGUARDO:
THE NORTH FACADE AND TOWER ” 59 DISTANT VIEW OF THE VILLA FROM THE PODERE OF THE VILLA DELL’ OMBRELLINO _facing page_ 62 MONTAUTO, WITH THE TOWER OF BELLOSGUARDO IN THE DISTANCE _page_ 64
VILLA DI CASTELLO:
THE GARDEN AND FOUNTAIN OF HERCULES, BY TRIBOLO AND AMMANNATI ” 65 THE “APENNINES” FOUNTAIN ” 70
VILLA CORSINI AT CASTELLO:
THE BOSCO AND FOUNTAIN ” 71 SIR ROBERT DUDLEY’S INSTRUMENT FOR FINDING THE EBB AND FLOW OF THE TIDES ” 75 (_By Permission of Mr Temple Leader_) THE ROCOCO FACADE ” 80
VILLA MEDICI AT FIESOLE:
DISTANT VIEW OF THE VILLA AND MONASTERY OF SAN FRANCESCO AT FIESOLE, FROM SAN DOMENICO ” 81 GENERAL VIEW OF THE VILLA ” 85 THE TERRACE WITH FIESOLE IN THE BACKGROUND ” 87
VILLA DELL’ AMBROGIANA:
THE VILLA FROM THE COURTYARD ” 88 THE TOWN OF MONTELUPO ” 90
VILLA DI PRATOLINO:
THE SERVITE MONASTERY AT MONTE SENARIO ” 91 L’APPENNINO, GIGANTIC STATUE BY GIOVANNI DA BOLOGNA ” 96
VILLA SALVIATI:
GENERAL VIEW OF THE VILLA ” 97 THE VILLA FROM THE TERRACE ” 107
VILLA DI FONT’ ALL’ ERTA:
BOCCACCIO’S “VALLE DELLE DONNE” WITH VILLA LANDOR IN THE DISTANCE ” 108 AMMANNATI’S LOGGIA ” 111 VIEW OF THE VILLA BY COL. GOFF ” 115
VILLA DI GAMBERAIA:
THE WATER GARDEN ” 116 DISTANT VIEW OF THE VILLA ” 119
VILLA DI MONTE GUFFONE:
GENERAL VIEW OF THE VILLA ” 120 THE VILLA AND TOWER ” 125
VILLA DI CASTEL-PULCI:
DISTANT VIEW OF THE VILLA FROM A PODERE ” 126 THE GATEWAY OF THE BADIA A SETTIMO ” 130
VILLA DI POGGIO GHERARDO:
GENERAL VIEW OF THE VILLA FROM THE PODERE ” 131 DISTANT VIEW OF THE VILLA ” 135 VIEW OF FLORENCE FROM THE CYPRESS TREES OF POGGIO GHERARDO ” 138
VILLA DELLE SELVE:
SIR JOHN HAWKWOOD’S WALLS AT LASTRA A SIGNA ” 139 THE VILLA, WITH GALILEO’S TERRACE ” 142
VILLA I COLLAZZI:
THE LOGGIA ” 143 ON THE TERRACE ” 147
VILLA FERDINANDA A ARTIMINO:
GENERAL VIEW OF THE VILLA ” 148 THE MEDICI SHIELD ” 153
VILLA DI LAPPEGGI:
THE VIEW FROM THE TERRACE ” 162
[Illustration: VILLA PALMIERI]
[Illustration: (Drawing of Garden Banister, with statues.)]
VILLA PALMIERI
Schifanoja (avoid, or banish care) was the old name of Villa Palmieri when it belonged to Cioni de’ Fini; then the Tolomei bought it in the fourteenth century and called it Villa or Palazzo de’ Tre Visi, either from a bas-relief representing the heads of the Trinity which once existed in a bastion wall, or from a fountain with a head of Janus. In 1454 they sold the villa to Matteo Palmieri, who added to it; but it was a descendant of his, Palmiero Palmieri, who in 1670 transformed the house into “a most noble palace,” and called it by his own name. The northern wing is said to have been built by him; the loggia which connects the two wings and leads on to the grand terrace, guarded by grim stone deities of bygone times, whence a stately double flight of steps sweeps down to the lower gardens, was certainly his handiwork. Palmiero also threw the long archway (forming the terrace) across the old Fiesole road which once divided the Villa from the gardens, and under this archway was the place of meeting of the brethren of the Misericordia of Florence with those of Fiesole. Here they were entitled to rest and allowed to accept a drink of vinegar and water because of the steepness of the road to Fiesole. In 1874 the Earl of Crawford bought Villa Palmieri and made a new carriage road up the hill of Schifanoja to San Domenico; he closed the old one which passed under the Arco de’ Palmieri, so now the brethren of the two confraternities meet and rest in the little garden at the entrance gate.
The legendary derivation of the name of the old owners of the Villa is poetical and pretty. When Otho I conquered Berenger IV Pope Agabetus II sent a palm branch with a congratulatory message to the Emperor, who appointed his favourite young cup-bearer to carry the branch before him, and thus show the world how highly he had been honoured by the Pope. The handsome lad came to be called _il Palmiero_ (the palm-bearer), and his own name was forgotten. Some years later Otho gave him a castle in the Mugello, and his grandson, who inherited the family good-looks, won the heart of the only daughter of Latino, Lord of Rasoio. Thus, according to the old legend, did the Palmieri become powerful and possessed of great wealth. Their real story is more prosaic. Vespasiano da Bisticci, bookseller and scribe, a biographer of rare merit who was a contemporary of Matteo, writes: “The Florentine Matteo di Marco Palmieri, born of parents in a humble condition of life, founded his house and ennobled it by his singular virtues.” They were of the guild of pharmacists, and in the State archives is the note-book of Matteo, with entries of the different sources of the family income. He often laments bitterly how little the pharmacy of the Canto alle Rondine brought in, and how taxes increased every year.
Matteo Palmieri was born in 1405, Sozomeno of Pistoja instructed him in grammar and rhetoric, and two great scholars—Ambrogio Traversari, General of the Cistercians, and Carlo Aretino (Marsuppini), Chancellor of the Republic of Florence, taught him Greek and Latin. Matteo was appointed to pronounce the funeral oration in Santa Croce in 1453 of Carlo Aretino, and his eloquence was such that he drew tears from all present. A friend of Cosimo de’ Medici, and of all the famous humanists of that period, he was an able scholar and an accomplished author at a time when learning stood high, and when all Florence was ringing with the praises of Pico della Mirandola, Poggio Bracciolino, and Marsilio Ficino.
By his wife Cosa Serragli, to whom he was passionately attached, Matteo had no children, so he adopted his brother Bartolomeo’s two orphan sons, the younger of whom succeeded him in the family pharmacy. In 1437 Matteo became Gonfalonier of Florence together with Adonardo Acciajuoli; in 1445 he was elected Prior of the Commune, and again in 1468. In 1453 he was Gonfalonier of Justice, and was sent at various times as ambassador of the Republic to King Alphonso of Naples, to Siena, Pisa, Perugia, Bologna and Rome.
His book _Della Vita Civile_ was translated into French by de Rosiers; _De Captivitate Pisarum_, and the Life of the Grand Seneschal Acciajuoli, written in Latin, were translated into Italian and published in a more or less mutilated form. But _Città di Vita_, the poem which made the name of Matteo Palmieri celebrated, was never published, and probably has not been read by a score of persons since he wrote it. No doubt the Platonic philosophy, then so popular, had taken a strong hold on him. Written in _terza rima_, it is one of the last poems to have been inspired by the spirit of Dante, and describes how the Cumean sybil leads the author to the Elysian fields through Tartarus, and finally to the City of Life. Lionardo Dati, a pious canon of the cathedral of Florence, who became secretary to the Pope, and Bishop of Massa, to whom Matteo showed the work, pronounced it to be “almost divine,” while Marsilio Ficino hailed him as _Poeta Theologicus_. In spite of such praise Palmieri sealed up his manuscript, and gave it into the care of the Pro-Consul of the Guild of Notaries with strict orders that it should not be opened till after his death. In 1475, at his funeral in San Pier Maggiore, it was placed upon his breast, and Allemanno Rinnuccini in his funeral oration spoke of it as “the glory of Matteo.” But when the contents of _Città di Vita_ were known, the fury of the tribunal of the Inquisition knew no bounds; they declared that the heresy of Origen contaminated its accursed pages, and wanted to dig up the corpse of old Palmieri and burn it and the poem in one fire. Fortunately the Republic had the strength of mind to resist, and the manuscript was returned to the care of the Pro-Consul of the Notaries. Several pages were damaged in 1557 when the Arno flooded the city, and then with other precious documents it was removed to the Laurentian Library. There it was locked up in a cupboard, of which the librarian was not allowed to have the key lest his soul might be contaminated by the odious heresies contained in its pages. The heretical manuscript, with its dainty, imaginative illuminations of the signs of the Zodiac, is now one of the treasures of the library, and on its last page is the portrait of the author, showing a strong, bony and clever face of true Florentine type.
According to Vasari, Sandro Botticelli painted a picture for the altar of the Palmieri chapel in San Pier Maggiore “with an infinite number of figures, being the Assumption of our Lady, with the zones of the heavens, the Patriarchs, the Prophets, the Apostles, the Evangelists, the Martyrs, the Confessors, the Doctors, the Virgins and the Hierarchies; all after the design given him by Matteo, who was a man of letters and of learning: and he executed the work after a masterly fashion and with extreme diligence. He portrayed Matteo and his wife kneeling at the foot of the picture. But although this work was most beautiful and ought to have been above envy, there were some malicious and evil-speaking persons who being unable to abuse it in other ways, said Matteo and Sandro had fallen into the grave sin of heresy; let none expect an opinion from me as to whether this be true or not; enough that the figures painted by Sandro are in truth worthy of praise for the great work he had in designing the circles of the heavens and fitting foreshortenings and landscapes in divers different ways between the figures and the angels; everything being excellently well drawn.”[1] Eventually the picture was carried to Villa Palmieri and walled up until the beginning of this century when it was taken out of its hiding-place and sold. At length it passed into the collection of the Duke of Hamilton and in 1882 was bought for our National Gallery. Father Ricca in his exhaustive work on the churches of Florence devotes a whole chapter to this “much-to-be-praised” picture and to the _Città di Vita_. “In these cantos,” says the Jesuit father, “when talking of the angels he [Matteo] follows the condemned opinions of Origen, more from a poetic license than from any theological bias, and supposes that our bodies are inhabited by those angels who are falsely thought to have remained neutral when Lucifer fell; and that God, desirous to try them once more, obliges them to adopt our human bodies. This is the real story of Matteo’s book, which has been altered and corrupted by malevolent and ignorant persons, whose calumnies and lies have been believed even by ultra-montane writers, so that Germany, France and England, were filled with the rumour thereof.”[2]
In 1766 Villa Palmieri was inhabited by Lord Cowper who had come on a visit to Florence and found the place so attractive that he refused to return to England. He married the beautiful Miss Gore who was most popular in her Tuscan home, and the Villa was the scene of many brilliant entertainments, as the Grand Duke admired the young and lovely Countess and was a frequent guest. That dear old gossip, Sir Horace Mann, tells us “the birth of her son [the late Lady Palmerston’s first husband], diffused a riotous joy among the common people who have expressed it for three days by little bonfires and lights at their paper windows.” He also informs us that at a dull Court dinner “the Comptroller of the Table has pleased the Grand Duke much by his giving Lord Cowper and Lord Tylney beer and punch, which he thinks is the constant beverage of the English.” The ambition long cherished by Lord Cowper to be created a Prince of the Holy Roman Empire was at length gratified in 1778, though his desire to be Prince Overkirk was frustrated by the Nassaus, who, as Sir Horace writes, “objected to his bearing their name with the title of Prince. The Emperor [Joseph II.] therefore thought he had found a medium by substituting Overquerque[3] but his cousins of that family have likewise put their negative to that; so that it is now reduced to plain Prince Cowper, for which he must pay ten thousand zecchins (about £5000). The heralds of the Empire have objected to his bearing the arms of Nassau. They don’t allow such a right from females, and more particularly when there is any male branch of the family. Neither the Emperor nor my Lord seem to know what they were about, when it was asked and granted, and I believe that both now repent of it.” Horace Walpole in a letter to Mann criticising Zoffany’s well-known picture of the Tribune in the Uffizzi (now at Windsor) sneers at Lord Cowper’s title of Prince. He says “it is crowded by a flock of travelling boys, and one does not know nor care whom. You and Sir John Dick, as Envoy and Consul, are very proper. The Grand Ducal family would have been so too.... I do allow Earl Cowper a place in the Tribune; an Englishman who has never seen his Earldom, who takes root and bears fruit in Florence and is as proud of a pinchbeck principality in a third country, is as great a curiosity as any in the Tuscan collection.”
Though eccentric, Lord Cowper was a patron of men of letters and had a passionate admiration for Niccolò Macchiavelli; he subscribed large sums to the erection of the great secretary’s tomb in Santa Croce and to the publication of a complete edition of his works; while his generous, hospitable character gained him great favour among the Italians, who are generally inclined to quote the old proverb “an italianised Englishman is a devil incarnate.”
In 1824 Villa Palmieri was bought by Miss Mary Farhill from the executors of the last of the Palmieri. She was an odd woman, but the Florentines appear to have liked her, and she was a favourite of the Grand Duchess Marie Antoinette to whom she left her villa, and who sold it in 1874 to the Earl of Crawford. He planted the hillside behind the villa and made the gardens once more resemble the impassioned description in the _Decameron_. As a scholar and a student his name stands high, and he will long be remembered in his Tuscan home for many a kindly and charitable act. In 1888 and in 1893 Lady Crawford lent her beautiful villa to H.M. Queen Victoria.
Villa Palmieri has always been identified with the second villa visited by the seven maidens and the three youths in the _Decameron_. Baldelli, in his Life of Boccaccio, tells us that “owning a small villa in the parish of Majano, Boccaccio took pleasure in describing the surrounding country, more especially the lovely slopes and rich valleys of the Fiesolean hills near his modest dwelling. Thus in the enchanting picture he has drawn of the first halting-place of the joyous company we recognise Poggio Gherardo, and in the sumptuous palace chosen by them afterwards, in order not to be disturbed by tiresome visitors, the beautiful Villa Palmieri. His fairy-like description of the tiny circular valley into which Elisa led the lovely ladies to disport themselves and bathe in the heat of the day, brings that small flat meadow before us, through which the Affrico, after having divided two hills and abandoned their stony ledges, meandering unites his waters in a canal in the adjacent plain under the cloister of Doccia at Fiesole.”