Part 11

The ruined church and castle of Montelupo on the opposite side of the river is well worth a visit, and the view thence is very fine. Down by the Arno the potteries still exist where those quaint plates with straddling men at arms and wonderful purple horses, and the _bocale_ or wide-mouthed jugs inscribed with pithy sentences, were once made. These jugs were in such common use that they gave rise to the proverb: “E scritta nei bocale di Montelupo” (It is written on the jugs of Montelupo), to indicate that a thing is of public notoriety.

FOOTNOTES:

[55] See _Don Antonio de’ Medici al Casino di San Marco_, by Count P. F. Covoni. Firenze, 1892.

[Illustration: VILLA DI PRATOLINO.]

[Illustration: (View of Villa from garden, with statue)]

VILLA DI PRATOLINO

The villa of Pratolino, about six miles from Florence on the high road to Bologna, lies on the eastern slope of Mount Uccellatojo and owes its existence to the Grand Duke Francesco I, who bought the estate of Benedetto di Buonaccorso Uguccione in 1569 and squandered enormous sums upon the villa and the garden, which he filled with statues, grottoes, fountains and _jeux d’eaux_ of every description. The peasantry around were reduced to misery by the large amount of ground he threw out of cultivation to make the park, and by the destruction of their cattle in hauling marble, stone and sand up the long steep hill from Florence. Bernardo Buontalento was the architect, and Baldinucci tells us that “all the architects of that day declared that never had so simple, yet so elegant a building been seen.” The rooms were frescoed by Crescenzio Onofrio Romano, Francesco Petrucci, Pier Dandini and Giovanni da San Giovanni, while the best landscape gardeners of the day were employed to lay out the beautiful gardens and park. Stefano Della Bella has left some delightfully fantastic engravings of the grottoes wherein graceful ladies and tall cavaliers are disporting themselves; of a gigantic tree with a platform high up in its branches on which a gay company is supping; of various fountains; of a long alley, shaded, not by trees but by arches of water under which stately lords and ladies are walking; and of several statues. A rare pamphlet, by Bernardo Sgrilli, gives elaborate plans of the villa and describes the marble statues standing in niches cut out of evergreen hedges; the wonderful animals lurking in caves which suddenly spouted water over the unwary admirer; and the cunningly devised grottoes containing life-like figures or groups. In one a shepherd piped to his flock, in another a knife-grinder sharpened a scythe; then there was a fortress whose walls suddenly became alive with soldiers firing volleys at an imaginary enemy whilst cannon boomed from the embrasures and the rattle of drums was heard; in others a pretty shepherdess tripped daintily along and filled her pails with water at a well, disdaining to look at a lovesick swain who played plaintive airs on his bagpipes; Vulcan made sparks fly from his anvil; a miller ground corn at his mill; a huntsman encouraged his hounds, “baying as though they were alive”; birds sang sweetly in the boughs of fairy-like trees; gliding serpents, hooting owls and “other most beautiful and stupendous inventions too many to enumerate were set in motion by diverse hidden machines driven by water.” But if any unwary spectator sat down on an inviting bench, or took refuge from the sun in a cool grotto, streams of water would pour on him from every side and he was drenched to the skin in an instant.[56]

Of all these marvels nothing remains but the beautiful park with its magnificent trees, and a few of the rare shrubs planted by Francesco, a passionate collector of curious plants and animals, who was in correspondence with all the famous botanists of the day; and the huge statue of the Apennines, cunningly built of large blocks of stone by Giovanni da Bologna. (?)

Bianca Cappello, the second wife of Francesco I, was fond of Pratolino, where she passed the summer months to escape the heat in Florence. No less a person than Torquato Tasso has sung its beauties in many charming sonnets, mingling praises of the place with adulation of the all-powerful Venetian:

“Pleasant and stately grove, Your scented foliage spread forth cool and green, For here beneath your screen This noble maid to couch on grass doth love. Together join your boughs, beeches and firs; Ye too link yours together, pine and oak, Thou, sacred laurel, and thou myrtle bright: Guard from all harm those fairest locks of hers And keep her from fierce noonday’s fiery stroke; Mingle your green with golden glancing light. Shades gentle and serene, Nobler is this your victory o’er the sun Than that each night by pale Astræa won.”[57]

Bianca was helpful to the unhappy poet, who in return indited madrigals in her honour. “Had Your Royal Highness not experienced both good and evil fortune, you would not so well understand the misfortunes of others,” he writes to her in 1586. People who wished to make presents to the Grand Duchess occasionally asked Tasso to write a madrigal to be sent with the gift, thus enhancing its value. Among others, a Florentine lady, Caterina Frescobaldi, sent Bianca a magnificent dress embroidered with eight different designs, and to each was pinned an appropriate poem. In the collection of fifty madrigals, privately printed in 1871 from the copy given by Tasso to the fair Venetian, he plays fancifully with her name Bianca, turning it into Alba, Candida, Bianca Luna, etc.; this play upon words renders it difficult to translate them into English.

“Behold Love’s miracle, That my White Dawn should shed Glory, which doth the light by Day’s Dawn spread In radiance far excell. Dawn’s glory is not her own, the Sun knows well; For that himself doth lend her; But from herself hath my White Dawn her splendour.”

When on his way from Bologna to Florence in 1580 Montaigne visited Pratolino and quaintly remarks, “the Grand Duke has used all his five senses to beautify it.... The house is contemptible as seen from afar, but very fine when you come near, though not so handsome as some of ours in France.... But marvellous is a grotto with several chambers; this surpasses anything we have seen elsewhere. It is all encrusted with certain stuff they say was brought from the mountains which is fastened on with invisible nails. Not only does the movement of water make music and harmony, but it causes various statues to move and doors to shut, animals also plunge in to drink, and other such devices. In one moment the whole grotto is filled with water, every chair squirts it over your thighs, and fleeing therefrom up the steps to the villa, if they choose they can start a thousand jets and drench you to the skin.” Montaigne goes on to describe the statues and the gardens, and particularly notices the ingenious manner of storing ice and snow, much as is done at the present time, invented by that universal genius Bernardo Buontalento, and the building of the huge statue of the Apennines, then nearly finished. Twelve years later Sir Henry Wotton writing to Lord Zouch in June about the feast day of St John says: “it was somewhat more than ordinary upon the arrival of the Count di Santa Fiore in the court here, who is espoused unto Leonora Ursina, but of the marriage day no speech; for the Grand Duke hath desire to celebrate the marriage of his Niece, and the other, both in one day, because they have been jointly brought up together and (for congruity sake) aparall’d all days alike. The fore-named Earl is nephew of the lively Cardinal Sforza.... In person not tall nor low, and one of the worst faces a man shall ordinarily see, so that some think Leonora Ursina would be contented to revoke the match, and take her first offer.” In August he writes again, “since my last unto your honour (contrary to the expectation of all) is the marriage of Leonora Ursina accomplished at Pratolino, where the Cardinal Sforza arrived on the 16 of August, and gave the ring on Sunday last. I hear the Gentlewoman to be in some pensiveness of mind and to have abandoned her Cythern, on which she was wont to play; having rather been the wife of the Prince of Transylvania than of the Count of Santa Fiore, but that, since she saw him, or rather (as some say) since she tried him. To grace her husband the better, they style him Duke Sforza, which here we laugh at.” The court, he notes in a later letter, “is still at Pratolino attending unto the fresh air.”[58]

It must have been this same Prince of Transylvania who in the summer of 1597 sent an ambassador to Florence called Sigismondo Sarmorago with gifts for the Grand Duke Ferdinando I, (who had succeeded his brother Francesco) and his wife Christine of Lorraine. They were at Pratolino, and the ambassador climbed the long hill from Florence followed by a pair of magnificent iron-grey Turkish horses and two very large dogs with collars _alla Turca_ set with precious stones for the Grand Duke, and a wonderful Indian naked spotted dog for the Grand Duchess, whose collar was resplendent with pearls and diamonds.

Pratolino, or rather its garden, seems to have astonished all beholders; John Evelyn stopped there on his way to Bologna from Florence in 1645 and notes in his Diary:—

“The house is a square of four pavilions, with a fair platform about it, balustred with stone, situate in a large meadow, ascending like an amphitheatre, having at the bottom a huge rock, with water running in a small channel, like a cascade; on the other side are the gardens. The whole place seems consecrated to pleasure and summer retirement. The inside of the Palace may compare with any in Italy for furniture of tapestry, beds, etc., and the gardens are delicious, and full of fountains. In the grove sits Pan feeding his flock, the water making a melodious sound through his pipe; and a Hercules, whose club yields a shower of water, which, falling into a great shell, has a naked woman riding on the backs of dolphins. In another grotto, is Vulcan and his family, the walls richly composed of corals, shells, copper, and marble figures, with the hunting of several beasts moving by the force of water. Here, having been well washed for our curiosity, we went down a large walk, at the sides whereof several slender streams of water gush out of pipes concealed underneath, that interchangeably fall into each other’s channels, making a lofty and perfect arch, so that a man on horseback may ride under it, and not receive one drop of wet. This canopy, or arch of water, I thought one of the most surprising magnificences I had ever seen, and very refreshing in the heat of the summer. At the end of this very long walk, stands a woman in white marble, in posture of a laundress wringing water out of a piece of linen, very naturally formed into a vast laver, the work and invention of M. Angelo Buonarotti. Hence we ascended Mount Parnassus, where the Muses played to us on hydraulic organs. Near this is a great aviary. All these waters came from the rock in the garden, on which is the statue of a giant representing the Apennines, at the foot of which stands this villa.”[59]

Cosimo III does not seem to have frequented Pratolino, but his son Prince Ferdinando, who even as a child showed an extraordinary talent for music, had a special love for the place. He sang well and played various instruments, and to his father’s anger often spent the carnival in Venice when no less than six theatres were open, four for opera, two for prose. An old writer tells us “he was such a master of counterpoint that a most difficult sonata being put before him at Venice, not only did he read it off at sight, but to the astonishment of all played it through from memory afterwards.”

After his marriage with Violante of Bavaria he decided to build a theatre at Pratolino, the big room there being unfit for the operas he wished to give. He called in the architect who rebuilt the cathedral at Pescia, Antonio Ferri, and an admirable theatre was erected on the third floor of the villa, the Prince himself directed the painting of the scenery and the making of the stage machinery. He corresponded with composers, singers and poets, and often suggested changes in the _libretti_, or the addition of a song for the reigning favourite of the hour. An army of singers and musicians were in his pay and several musical critics, whose duty it was to travel from city to city in search of fresh talent. Every year saw the birth of at least one new opera, and Scarlatti composed no less than five for Pratolino. In a long letter to Prince Ferdinando about one called Lucio Manlio, he explains: “where it is marked _grave_ I do not mean _melancolico_, where _andante_ not _presto_ but _arioso_, where _allegro_ not _precipitoso_, where _allegrissimo_ not so fast as to exhaust the singers and drown the words, where _andante lento_, I exclude the pathetic, but desire a charming vagueness which should not lose the _arioso_; and none of the airs are to be melancholy. In my theatrical compositions I have always attempted to make the first act as it were, a child beginning to learn how to walk, the second, a youth already sure of himself, the third, a young man who gallantly attempts, and by his ardour succeeds, in every undertaking. Thus have I done in Lucio Manlio, the eighty-eighth opera composed by me in less than thirty-three years, which I should like to crown as the Queen of all the others. If I have failed to succeed, at least I have had the courage to attempt this; let Your Highness deign to accept it as Your vassal; as a maiden forlorn and homeless, to be guarded from the shocks and tricks of fortune....”

Prince Ferdinando de’ Medici died in 1713 before his father and the theatre was closed for ever. A hundred years later another Ferdinand, but of the family of Lorraine, called in a Bohemian engineer of the name of Frichs, who made new roads, threw many farms out of cultivation, planted trees and finally persuaded the Austrian Grand Duke to destroy the Medici villa built by Buontalento. Ferdinand died in 1824, before the new villa designed by Frichs had been begun, and Pratolino became the private property of his successor, Leopold II, as compensation for large sums advanced from his privy purse for the bonification of the Maremme of Massa and Grosseto. Not only were the foundations of the old villa blown up, but all the water-works and grottoes, save one, were destroyed; some of the statues were removed to Florence, many were stolen, others broken up and used to fill in cisterns and under-ground grottoes.

[Illustration: (Drawing of giant statue looking into lake, with trees)]

When in 1872 Prince Paul Demidoff bought Pratolino from the house of Lorraine he added to the old _Paggeria_ or villa of the pages, and restored other smaller villas in the magnificent park; but his death in 1885 put a stop to further work, and the present villa is not worthy of its beautiful surroundings or of the memories of bygone splendour.

FOOTNOTES:

[56] _Descrizione Della Regia Villa, Fontane, e Fabbriche di Pratolino._ Bernadone Sgrilli. Architetto Fiorentino. Nella Stamperia Ducale. Firenze, 1742.

[57] The translations are by R. C. Trevelyan, from _Cinquanta Madrigalli Inediti_, del Signor Torquato Tasso, alla Gran Duchessa Bianca Cappello nei Medici. Firenze, M. Ricci, 1871. Ediz. di CCL Esemplari non venale.

[58] _Reliquæ Wottonianæ_, pp. 672, 690.

[59] _Diary of John Evelyn._ Vol. I. p. 190.

[Illustration: VILLA SALVIATI.]

[Illustration: (Drawing of Villa seen through gardens)]

VILLA SALVIATI

It is strange no records remain about either the building or the builder of Villa Salviati, one of the finest and most widely known villas round Florence. But a search among archives and chronicles has only elicited the meagre facts that in 1100 a fastness stood on the site of the present villa and was owned by the Montegonzi, who about the year 1450 sold it to Messer Alemanno Salviati. It was then described as “a strong castle with towers and battlements,” which suggests the idea that the last members of the Montegonzi may have transformed their twelfth century fastness into a fortress-villa, and the rich and powerful Salviati no doubt added to its splendour and magnificence. One is tempted to think the great architect Michelozzi must have been called in, so strong is the resemblance of Villa Salviati to his known works Cafaggiuolo and Careggi. Certainly it belongs to his epoch, 1396–1472, and the bastion-like walls, the towers and machicolations give the impression that he who commissioned the villa lived at a time when a dwelling-house in town or on the hills within sight of the city, had also to be a fortress and serve as a place of refuge during civil strife. The only positive information about the villa we have from Vasari, who tells us that in 1529 it was besieged and burnt during the siege by the Florentine mob, when all the fine sculptures by Giovan Francesco Rustici were destroyed; but like Careggi its massive walls must have withstood the fire. In more modern times a pent-roof, as at Careggi and Cafaggiuolo, was placed above its battlements in the vain endeavour to hide its war-like aspect, and layers of pink and chocolate coloured paint now give a somewhat artificial and mean appearance to what really is a magnificently proportioned and boldly conceived fortress-villa. The principal block of building rises in the form of a massive tower, crenelated and with bastioned walls sloping out on to the grass terrace, while the remainder rises round a courtyard with elegant Renaissance arches and capitals of grey Fiesole stone, and then broadens out at each corner into a tall tower whence, in days of trouble between noble and citizen, the retainers of the Salviati must have often watched for the sign of coming danger.

Certainly as we walk round the villa, especially on its north side where it looks towards the double-peaked hill of Fiesole, seen somewhat bleak on a winter’s day, our mind is full of mediæval Florence, of a time before the nobles built such peaceful dwelling-houses with terraced gardens as the Villa Palmieri for instance, just in sight across the narrow valley of the Mugnone. Viewed only from this its austerest aspect the Salviati villa would be beautiful indeed, but unlike any other we know of it possesses a very different side of which Zocchi shows us something. An eighteenth century owner, feeling perhaps that the somewhat menacing look of his ancestral villa ill coincided with the more joyous tastes of his day, laid out the enchanting rococo orange houses with graceful balustrade ornamented with vases and a clock tower. Joined on to the villa at right angles and built in so opposite a style, it yet fascinates by very contrast, leading the eye gradually to feast with delight upon the terraced gardens laid out with such taste by Jacopo Salviati in 1510. From under the heavy foliage of the ilexes, trimmed and trained so closely as to let no glimpse of sky be seen between their branches, we look out across the city of Florence to the hill of San Miniato, a view, it is true, familiar to everyone who has walked on these slopes, but what a different foreground we have here! Where in Italy can one see not only so fair a city, bell-towers, domes and palaces, the late afternoon sun playing soft lights about them so that they seem distant, ethereal and shrouded in a thin faint film of golden mist; but between us and this fairy city lie two small lakelets, one below the other, their shining limpid water catching every glint of light till the sun shall have dropt behind the Signa hills. All the winds are hushed in this dell. They move the leaves and sway the branches of the narrow wood above, but here reigns a peace such as one finds in northern valleys, even the thin sharp shadows across the pools, from the clumps of white plumes of the pampas grass and the aloes in flower upon the banks, lie still on the unruffled surface of their waters.

The rich and powerful family of Salviati descended from a doctor, Messer Salvi di Maestro Guglielmo di Forese di Gottifredo, of great reputation in Florence towards the end of the thirteenth century. His two sons, Cambio and Lotto, both became Priors of the city, and altogether the Salviati had sixty-three Priors and twenty-one Gonfaloniers in their family. A grandson of Lotto, named Forese, was extremely popular, and distinguished himself first as a diplomatist and afterwards as Captain-General of the Tuscan Romagna in 1397; and his descendants served the Republic with honour as soldiers or as envoys and ambassadors. The only one of the family whose name is still a by-word in Florence was Giuliano, son of Francesco Salviati and Laudomia de’ Medici. One of the first to incite the mob to plunder the Medici palaces and deface their arms when driven from Florence in 1527, he afterwards became the boon companion of the dissolute Duke Alessandro, and he it was who insulted Luisa Strozzi at a masked ball and paid for it by being maimed for life by her brother; whilst his wife was always supposed to have been instrumental in poisoning the beautiful and virtuous woman who had resented the infamous behaviour of the Duke and of Salviati. Fortunately that branch of the family ended with his daughter. A very different man was his cousin Jacopo Salviati, married to Lucrezia, daughter to Lorenzo the Magnificent and sister to Leo X, with whom Jacopo was a favourite. He was the one man amongst the envoys from Florence who dared to raise his voice at the court of Clement VII, against creating the bastard Alessandro de’ Medici absolute Lord of Florence, and against building the great fortress of San Giovanni, now called Fortezza da Basso, to dominate the town. Setting forth how at the death of Leo X, the citizens of Florence had preserved the State for the Medici, he contended that the best and surest fortress was the love of the people, who are content when food is abundant and justice properly administered. And when Filippo Strozzi argued against him Jacopo turned round saying, “Filippo, either you speak not your thoughts, or if you think as you speak you think amiss”; then as though gifted with the spirit of prophecy he continued, “God grant that in advocating the building of this fortress Filippo is not preparing his own grave.” “For these words,” as Varchi who describes the scene writes, “the Pope called him no more to council, and those citizens who once bore him on the palms of their hands avoided him ... and his dependants who had received favours from him turned away when they saw him in the distance.”