Part 16

The room occupied by Galileo at the Selve communicates by a winding staircase with an upper terrace where he used to spend the nights in watching the stars. Here he discovered the spots on the sun and its revolution upon its axis, the ring of Saturn, the phases of Venus and Mars and their rotation round the sun, and here he wrote his treatise on the planets, the history of the sun-spots and other works. He loved the country and country pursuits, and his favourite recreation was working in the garden; very proud was he of his skill in pruning vines and fruit trees and he used to declare there was no better preservative of health than living in the open air. A wall at the back of the villa with a peculiar curve is said to have been built under his supervision. If two people whisper in a low voice at the ends each can hear the other distinctly.

In 1614 Filippo Strozzi died at Barcelona and Galileo left the villa he loved so well. About the same time a Dominican friar, Tommaso Caccini, preached a sermon in Santa Maria Novella denouncing Galileo and all professors of mathematics. “Mathematics are of the devil,” he exclaimed, “and mathematicians as the authors of all heresies should be driven out of every state.” Monks and theologians denied the existence of the Medicean planets, some even insisted that the moon shone by her own unaided light.[78]

From the broad terrace of the villa the view is magnificent, “you see half the world” the peasants say. Below is the glinting river fringed with tall poplars and on the summit of the hill on the opposite bank stands the huge Medicean Villa Artimino surrounded by ilexes. To the right is the picturesque old bridge across the Arno connecting Ponte a Signa with Beata Signa; further away still the grey machicolated walls and towers of Lastra a Signa stand out against the fruitful green plain. In the far distance Poggio a Cajano rises like a giant above the village clustering round it, and the trees look like shrubs beside the villa where Francesco I, and his second wife, “the infamous Bianca” as her brother-in-law called her, died on the 19th and 20th October 1587.

Lastra a Signa owes its walls, built in 1377, to the English condottiere Sir John Hawkwood; he advised the Republic of Florence to erect them as a defence against the Pisans who some years before, aided by English auxiliaries, had taken and burnt the strong castle of Gangalandi near by. Twenty years later Alberigo, a captain in the pay of Galeazzo Visconti Lord of Milan who was at deadly feud with the Republic of Florence, besieged and took Lastra a Signa. The walls were restored again in time to keep part of the army of the Prince of Orange at bay for some time in 1529. Francesco Ferrucci, whose head-quarters were at Empoli five miles lower down the river, had garrisoned the place with some of his best troops, and as long as their ammunition lasted they beat off the Spaniards. Whilst treating for the surrender, five hundred more Spanish Lances arrived with scaling ladders and battering-rams, made a breach in the walls (which still exists) and cut the defenders to pieces.

Beata Signa on the opposite bank of the river, owes its name of Beata (Blessed) to a shepherdess. Giovanna was a good and holy maiden who tended her flock of sheep on the banks of the Arno and worked miracles in days long past. Her mummified body still lies under an altar in the picturesque church, and on Easter Monday the pretty old-world _Festa degli Angeli_ is held in her honour. The confraternities of neighbouring parishes bring offerings of oil, for the lamp kept always burning before her tomb, in small barrels slung pannier fashion on a donkey. On a little platform above the barrels stands the Angel, the prettiest small child of the parish, supported by an iron upright ending in a hoop. Crowned with roses and carnations, decked with the pearl necklaces of the peasant women and often with a pair of white wings fastened to its shoulders, the Angel on the donkey form the centre of many processions which wind along the country lanes with banners flying and generally a band playing. As each procession arrives in the little townlet of Beata Signa it files into the old church, the Angel and the barrels of oil are lifted off the donkey in front of the altar of the Blessed Giovanna, the band plays its loudest and sometimes the donkey brays, which causes great amusement.

Near by the Villa delle Selve, nestling amid elms and cypresses on a spur of the same hill, is the church of Le Selve adjoining a monastery of Carmelite friars suppressed, like so many others, by Napoleon I. The abbot’s rooms are now inhabited by the village priest and the monk’s garden, with a fine old well in the centre and surrounded by two-storied cloisters, has been turned into a nursery for olive trees. The church, said to have been restored by Buontalenti, possesses a nave of considerable height and beauty terminating in an apse and under the high altar is a small crypt where St Andrea Corsini celebrated his first mass. The young priest fled from the grand preparations made in Florence, and took refuge with the monks at Le Selve; when at daybreak trembling with religious fervour he raised the chalice to his lips a vision of Our Lady appeared to him; smiling graciously she bent her head and said _Tu est servus meus_.

A miraculous crucifix is in the church, and every fifty years the _Festa_ of the Crucifix of Providence is celebrated in the month of April. Just before sunset the crucifix is borne out of the church followed by a long line of priests, little acolytes in snow-white robes and stalwart peasants dressed in their best carrying banners and canopies. The steep hill down to Ponte a Signa is all strewn with rose leaves, irises and sweet herbs, and the long procession winds down to the river and returns with flaring torches like a huge fiery serpent, creeping up the hill beneath the olives and cypresses when the stars come out. The peasants put candles in their windows and the stately villa, now the property of the Contessa Cappelli, becomes a blaze of light.

[Illustration: (Drawing of three story Villa seen from garden)]

FOOTNOTES:

[77] See _Marietta de’ Ricci_. A. Ademollo. 2a Edizione con aggiunte di L. Passerini. Firenze, 1845. Vol. III. p. 816, and Vol. IV. p. 1216.

[78] _Vita di Galileo Galilei._ G. B. Clemente de’ Nelli. Losanna, 1793.

[Illustration: VILLA I COLLAZZI]

[Illustration: (Drawing of two story villa with u-shaped colonnade, with a double stairway to garden)]

VILLA I COLLAZZI

On a ridge of the hills which rise above the fortress-convent built by Niccolò Acciajuoli for the monks of the Certosa, once stood a castle of the Buondelmonti; but all trace of it has long since disappeared and on the site stands the famous Florentine Villa I Collazzi, now belonging to Signor Bombicci-Pomi. When Messer Agostino Dini commissioned his architect to build him a house, the time for strongholds and mediæval castles had passed away, and the villa which rose upon the Tuscan hillside was characteristic of the century of Michelangelo. Such is the grandeur and beauty of I Collazzi, with its imposing double flight of steps leading from a broad terrace up to the courtyard, with its two wells crowned by fine old iron work, its lofty arcade and the large vaulted rooms wherein one feels a race of giants ought to live, that many have attributed its building to Michelangelo. But there are a few blemishes in the finish and detail of the decoration which, though by no means detracting from the general beauty of the whole structure, are easily recognised by a student of the Master, and lead him to suppose it to be rather a work of one of his scholars. The Dini papers have been lost, used to light the fires a century ago some say, and the only clue we have to the architect is from Baldinucci who tells us that Santi di Tito, scholar of Bronzino in painting and of Vasari in architecture, “worked for Agostino Dini at Giogoli ... for this same Agostino he also painted one of his finest altar pictures,” which is still in the chapel of I Collazzi. But those who support the theory that Michelangelo built the villa, say that Santi di Tito only completed the work begun by his great forerunner. The building raised upon the lonely Tuscan hill within a few miles of Florence, yet not within sight of her towers, is the finest villa of its kind to be found in all the countryside. There is nothing to spoil the impression of grandeur and beauty; the unfinished wing on the left of the courtyard only seems to give variety of line and grouping as one approaches between a long avenue of cypresses so closely planted together as to form a sombre green wall shutting out all else but the villa in front. Across the broad terrace, raised on high bastioned walls above the vineyards, the villa faces the valley of the Arno where villas are strewn like diamonds on the sunlit hills, and higher up towards the north the mountains behind Pistoja with their thick covering of snow show palely against the sky. The view opening out wider as the eye travels towards Prato seems even sunnier and more brilliantly coloured, for the country round here is subdued in tints, losing the sunlight early, and the shadows lie almost black on the ilex and pine woods near by. So striking is the monotonous scene of rounded pine-covered hills that the name I Collazzi (small hillocks) suggested itself to the Dini family for the fine villa they built in lieu of the modest abode which satisfied all their desires in those early days when great Florentine families lived simply and frugally, and the lady passed her time in looking after her household and teaching her daughters to sew and say their prayers. If the girl’s daily task was not done in time, “cuffs would fly, or even a cane would cleanse her skirts of dust,” says an old writer. Conversation with men, even with near relations, was not permitted; in some houses the girls were not allowed to play with their brothers and at table they never spoke save in answer to their parents. If an entertainment was given they were shut up in their own room, and looking out of the window was severely prohibited as it might lead to loss of reputation.

But things changed in the sixteenth century when Messer Agostino Dini built for himself this villa suited to a noble Florentine, and like many another spent too much money on bricks and mortar. No doubt the Dini were among the people blamed by Senator Vincenzio di Giovanni di Niccolò Giraldi who, writing to a friend in 1598, deplores the gradual extinction of simple old Florentine customs in favour of Spanish grandeur and magnificence. “Now,” he writes, “little girls wear dresses of fine cloth, not only in Florence but in the country, more suitable to brides than to children, and expect to be waited on by men and maid-servants. Going afoot is out of fashion, and that they may not accustom themselves to so rustic a custom they take the air in a carriage.... There are not more grains of sand in the bed of the Arno after a flood, than there are ornaments and flimsy vanities on their heads in order to augment the natural love of dress inherent in woman. And when of marriageable age they no longer rise with the sun to go to early mass, but lie abed so as not to lose their sleep or spoil their complexions. As to work, I am told the girls sometimes fashion pretty and delicate things but coarse sewing, such as our wives did, they will not look at, for such work and the making of their beds of a-morning is not noble, so is left to the maids.... When the blessed and much desired husband arrives none can describe the grandeur and comforts that are indulged in. Dresses of cloth of gold and of thick silk trimmed with gold lace of diverse kinds are bought for the bride, without reflecting whether they are suited to her own or her husband’s condition. She must be on a par with others, for there is no longer any difference between one person and another, or between high and low rank. People say such a one spends of his own and so may do as others do; it would be a small evil if he only spent what was his, but often now-a-days it becomes apparent that he spends what belongs to others. Then a carriage and fine horses are a necessity, for whoso takes a wife and does not set up a carriage would be flouted by the women and pointed at as ill-bred and miserly. So they pay their visits in Florence in noble fashion with great comfort, scornfully pitying the poor women of bygone times who trotted round on their own feet wearing coarse and heavy gowns only fit, as they consider, for peasants. The house must correspond and be furnished according to modern ideas. The walls are hung from floor to ceiling with damask, and fine pictures are needful; above all the chairs, when not covered with velvet, must at least be covered with silk so that the ladies may sit softly. Whoso takes a wife must also keep a good table, not served with homely dishes, which are plebeian, for the ladies of the present day insist on delicate food, not for gluttony—oh no—but because it keeps them healthy and of good heart, and consequently enables them to have fine and well-made children. If linen has to be sewn for the husband or babes the work is commonly sent to the convents, and then the husband is told there is so much to pay for such work and so much for the other and he has to loose his purse-strings or confront a pouting face.

“With what majesty do the ladies now drive in their carriage, a peacock when he rustles and spreads his tail is not so proud and puffed up. A new custom too has been introduced in order to have more frequent occasion for going about the town. Visits are paid to brides, even by those who are not relations, and thus the women can spy out other folk’s business, which is always attractive. If the house be not nobly furnished they jeer at the master thereof and call him a miser; but if it be better found than their own they return home discontented and begin to grumble, saying: ‘I have been to see such a one and her house is beautiful; she has this and the other and all is in good taste; but we live worse than artisans, so that I no longer dare invite anyone as I will not have it said that I, who am as good as many of them, and had a marriage portion large eno’ to enjoy what they have—but as it must be so, _pazienza_.’ And the poor wretch of a husband has to swallow it all, and either be constantly tormented, or content his wife and do what he dislikes or perchance cannot afford; for at length the perpetual clapper of the bell at night would break even the head of a ram, which is proverbially hard.

“The ladies now all carry fans attached to golden chains when they leave the house, and not only in the streets do they flutter them but in the churches, as an aid to devotion while hearing mass. I have been told by a lady of honour and veracity, not in fun but in sober earnest, that she has seen women’s smocks trimmed round with lace exactly like Monsignori’s surplices. When they leave town for their villas, if the carriages are too large and heavy to go the whole distance, a lettiga[79] is necessary because mounting a horse savours of rusticity, though I have seen my mother-in-law, wife of Messer Luigi Capponi, and the wife of his brother Alessandro, who were not exactly plebeians or beggars, going to their villa in Val d’ Elsa some twenty miles from Florence on the horses of their factor or peasants.

“Intending to write only about women I will but just mention that the young men of the present day imitate them in many things. They are lovers of ease, of amusements and of show; carriages are even more used by them than by the women and certainly more than is warranted by their youth. They emulate the maidens in dress, love comfort and anoint themselves with perfumes, in short they enjoy life and stint themselves in nothing, without thinking about increasing or preserving their estates. If they cannot live like princes, at least they try as far as they can to show how noble they are; their desires are those of emperors, their purses are those of beggars. Yet I do not imagine that our city will be less rich, for I know that land cannot run away nor money take wings; but I conceive that they may change masters. Soon our fine villas, if this style of life be persevered in, will be in the possession of shopkeepers, apothecaries, grocers and the like. The nobles will either live obscurely in Florence or retire to some small villa still left to them, to quarrel with their peasants over the division of the harvest, or pass the day in trying to shoot a hare or a few small birds to diminish the butcher’s bill; in short with a little smoke and no substance they will eke out their wretched life to the undoing and ultimate disappearance of their caste....”[80]

[Illustration: (Drawing of patio with carved banister, and lion statue)]

FOOTNOTES:

[79] A sedan chair borne between two mules.

[80] _Di Certe Usanze delle Gentildonne Fiorentine, nella seconda Meta del secola XVI. Lettera di Vincenzio Giraldi._ Nozze Gori-Moro. Edizione integra di LXXX esemplari. Firenze, Carnesecchi e Figli.

[Illustration: (Drawing of Villa Ferdinanda from lawn)]

VILLA FERDINANDA A ARTIMINO

Long ere the Medici thought of building yet another princely villa on the Florentine hillside, or Cosimo I came to hunt in the woods above Signa, Artimino was a famous portion of the Arno valley and is continually mentioned in the oldest of the Tuscan chronicles. Its name may have come from the narrow defile (arctus minor) where the Arno forces its way through the barrier of hills at the Gonfolina and Artimino juts out into the valley like the prow of a ship, its foot bathed by the Ombrone and the Arno. It is really a spur of the great Mount Albano and so far back as the days of Cicero it had achieved a certain importance, for we find in his nineteenth epistle to Attico the mention that Silla had proclaimed Artimino, together with the territory of Volterra, public property in order to divide it amongst his soldiers. The hill of Artimino attracted not only the leaders of passing armies but numerous Roman families, who found the groves of ilex and oak upon its summit delightful sites for villas when they left the towns during the summer months. The valley of the Arno in those days may have suggested the same thoughts to a Roman poet as later to Ariosto, when he looked down from some Medicean terraced garden upon the “gay Arno,” and the palaces strewn so thickly over the hillsides. It is believed that the group of villas then standing on Artimino’s hill made quite a little community, and a certain record of life there has been preserved to us in a quantity of bronze idols, cinerary urns, necklaces and coins, mosaics and leaden tubes for conducting water of what may have been public baths found in the grottoes of the hillside. Scanty as is the history of the place in Roman times it begins to emerge in the tenth century, when Otto III, gave over Artimino and its church San Leonardo to the Pistojan bishop Antonino; and from this time we may date the building of its castle which was to serve as a protection to the frontiers of Pistoja against the ever encroaching raids of the Florentines. Now the Fattoria or agent’s house, a few peasants’ houses, part of a tower and an old wall, probably part of the ramparts whence the soldiers watched the valley far below for the approach of an enemy, are all that remain to recall the ancient village of Artimino. A stretch of country lane between the vineyards and an avenue of cypresses growing in a half circle behind the village now symbolise an age of securer peace, and between the straight, bare stems we see the little parish church of San Leonardo a little lower down on the hillside, with its loggia of rounded arches under which the peasants linger when they meet for mass on a Sunday morning. Its square campanile, so strongly built and tall, might easily have served as a watch-tower in the time of trouble.

[Illustration: VILLA FERDINANDA A ARTIMINO.]

The strong position of the old castle above the Arno valley caused it to be connected with several Florentine events during the prosperous but troubled times of the Commonwealth. Up to the year 1204 the people of Artimino enjoyed a certain amount of political independence, but when the struggle began between Pistoja and Florence the latter envied the rival Tuscan city the possession of so strong a fortress, situated on the summit of a steep and precipitous mountain and commanding the narrow defile. When the Florentines invaded the lands of Artimino it appeared, says the chronicler, as though a mighty tempest had swept over the land, leaving vines, olives and fruit trees bowed beneath its passage. A little later the people of Artimino began to prey upon the neighbouring Carmignano, which continued for some time to be a deadly foe; swooping down like falcons from their eyrie, hardly a day passed without bloodshed, and at last things came to such a pass that Pistoja had to send mediators to conciliate these war-like dwellers of the hill and their truculent neighbours. “But finding it impossible to obtain anything by persuasion, the mediators were obliged to have recourse to threats in order to induce them to keep the peace, which under pain of severe penalties and fines was at last arranged on the 28th June 1224, when the mediators returned to Pistoja where those of Carmignano swore fealty to the Consuls.”