Part 2
Villa Palmieri will live for ever in Boccaccio’s exquisite and untranslatable _Decameron_. “The Queen,” he writes, “led them to a most beautiful and sumptuous palace situated somewhat above the plain on a small hill. They entered and went all over it, and seeing the large halls, the cleanly and well-decorated bed-chambers, completely furnished with all that pertains thereunto, their praise was unstinting and they reputed the owner to be rich and magnificent. Then descending and seeing the vast and pleasant courtyards of the palace, the cellars stocked with most excellent wines, and the copious springs of coldest water, they commended the place yet more highly. Desirous of repose they then seated themselves in a loggia overlooking the courtyard (every place being covered with flowers pertaining to that season, and with greenery), and the courteous steward came forward to welcome them and offered rich and dainty sweetmeats and rare wines for their refreshment.” The lovely gardens with _pergole_ of vines laden with bunches of grapes, the hedges of jasmine and crimson roses, the carved marble fountains, whose overflow of water was conducted by cunningly devised underground channels down to the plain, where it turned two mills “to the great profit of the lord of the villa,” are all described by Boccaccio in his inimitable poetic prose.
[Illustration: (Drawing of elegant gardent stairway leading to house, with statues.)]
The mills mentioned by Boccaccio were almost entirely destroyed by a flood of the Mugnone in 1409. Two years later they were rebuilt, and a third mill, nearer the town, was erected after the siege of Florence in 1529, and bestowed upon the Foundling Hospital as compensation for damage done to some of its farms. The arms of the Hospital, a swaddled baby, are still to be seen on one of the walls near the mill.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] G. Vasari. Tom. III. p. 314. Firenze, 1879. Vasari states that in addition to the Palmieri altarpiece Botticelli “painted two angels in the Pieve of Empoli on the same side where is the St Sebastian by Rossellino” (ed. 1568, I. 474). These two angels form the lateral panels of a tabernacle containing St Sebastian by Rossellino, now in the museum of the Pieve at Empoli. In the same museum is another tabernacle formerly over the High Altar of the church. From documents in the State archives of Florence it appears that the commission for this second tabernacle was given on 28th March 1484 to Francesco Botticini, and it requires but little acquaintance with Florentine art to see that both are by the same hand, as Signor Milanese long since hinted. From these two works our knowledge of Botticini as a painter is derived, and the Palmieri altarpiece is evidently, from analogy of manner, by the same master. It is remarkable that though Botticini fell under many influences, no direct influence of Botticelli can be traced in any of his works. Vasari, no doubt, misread the name _Botticelli_ for _Botticini_, just as he confused the name _Benozzo_ with _Melozzo_. Vide ed. Sansoni, III. 51–2. I am indebted to Mr Herbert P. Horne for the above information.
[2] Notizie Istoriche delle Chiese Fiorentine. G. Ricca. Tom. I. p. 155. Firenze, 1754.
[3] Lord Cowper’s mother was the youngest daughter and co-heiress of Henry de Nassau d’Overquerque, Earl of Grantham, an illegitimate descendant of Maurice of Nassau.
[Illustration: (Drawing of Villa Di Poggio a Cajano)]
VILLA DI POGGIO A CAJANO
There is an old tradition that a Roman citizen named Cajo once owned a villa at Poggio a Cajano, hence the name Villa Caja, Rus Cajana; but the present royal villa, about ten miles from Florence, dates from the time of Lorenzo the Magnificent. He bought the old castle and the estate from the powerful family of the Cancellieri of Pistoja, and ordered Giuliano da San Gallo to design the imposing pile now towering high above the little village nestling at its feet, and which was built on the foundations of the ancient castle. From afar with its bastions, it looks so like a great fortress, that when the Emperor Charles V spent a day there in May 1536, he remarked that such walls were not meet for a private citizen, and before leaving for Lucca he created the bastard Alessandro de’ Medici Duke of Tuscany.
[Illustration: VILLA DI POGGIA A CAJANO.]
Lorenzo the Magnificent desired to have a large hall, vaulted with one arch of huge span in his villa, so Giuliano da San Gallo constructed a room according to Lorenzo’s idea in a house he was building for himself in Florence, and this being a success he carried it out on a large scale at Poggio a Cajano. Vasari writes “There is no doubt this is the largest vault ever seen till now.” Later, by order of Leo X, Andrea del Sarto, Franciabigio and Pontormo decorated the hall with frescoes allegorical of the glories of the Medici. Del Sarto represents the gifts sent by Egypt to Cæsar—metaphorical of the presents given by the Sultan to Lorenzo; Franciabigio, under the guise of Cicero returning from exile, illustrates the return of Cosimo de’ Medici to Florence in 1434; Pontormo, in the banquet given by Syphax to Scipio, figures the one given by the King of Naples to Lorenzo; while Titus Flaminius, rejecting the ambassadors of Antiochus (also by Pontormo), is illustrative of Lorenzo defeating the ambitious designs of Venice at the Diet of Cremona. But the finest fresco by far is seldom pointed out by guide book or guide—Pontormo’s exquisite lunette at one end of the hall. I am proud to find my opinion ratified by Mr Berenson, who writes, “Pontormo, who had it in him to be a decorator and portrait painter of the highest rank, was led astray by his awe-struck admiration for Michelangelo, and ended as an academic constructor of monstrous nudes. What he could do when expressing _himself_, we see in the lunette at Poggio a Cajano, as design, as colour, as fancy, the freshest, the gayest, most appropriate mural decoration now remaining in Italy.”[4] The fine external staircase, up and down which horses can easily walk, was the work of Stefano d’Ugolino da Siena, and the frieze is by one of the Della Robbia.
Beautiful are the gardens sloping down to the little river Ombrone. Trees and shrubs grow luxuriantly, thanks to the moist soil. The fields are intersected with small canals which in spring are fringed with tall yellow iris, purple loosestrife and feathery meadowsweet, and decked with white water-lilies. In the time of the Medici the whole plain was cultivated with rice, which made it very unhealthy, and it is still feverish. The little streamlet Ambra, flowing into the Ombrone close by, has been more honoured in song than many a larger river. Poliziano writes in his introduction to the study of Homer, “We also, therefore, with glad homage dedicate to him this garland of Pieria’s flowers, which Ambra, loveliest of Cajano’s nymphs, gave to me, culled from meadows on her father’s shore, Ambra, the love of my Lorenzo, whom Umbrone, the horned stream begat—Umbrone, dearest to his master Arno—Umbrone, who now henceforth will never break his banks again.”[5]
On a small island, also called Ambra, Lorenzo planted rare flowers and shrubs, and raised dykes round it to ward off the sudden floods of the Ombrone. But one day “the horned stream” rose and carried away the islet. Lorenzo vented his grief in that charming poem _Ambra_ in which the Florentine love of, and delight in, the country is vividly portrayed in idiomatic style by a thorough Tuscan, who knew and loved his Ovid without servilely imitating him. After describing the flight of Zephyr to Cyprus, where he dances with the lazy flowers amid the joyous grass; and Boreas tearing the mist off the old white-headed Alps, only to fling them back again, he continues, “Auster leaves hot Ethiopia, dipping his dry sponges into the Tyrrhenean sea as he passes; then heavy with water and girdled with clouds he squeezes his tired hands when he reaches his destination, and the rivers joyously burst forth from their ancestral caverns to meet the friendly waters. They give thanks to Father Ocean, whose temples are adorned with rushes and flowering reeds, conches and crooked horns joyfully resound, and his wide bosom swells yet more; the fury conceived days ago against the timid banks at length breaks forth, and foaming he bursts through the hated dykes.”
The poor peasant has barely time to open the stable door and save his cattle, the housewife carries away the baby in its cradle, some of the family take refuge on the roof and “thence they watch their poor riches, fruit of their toil, their one resource, vanish below; they neither weep nor speak, for in their sorrowing hearts they fear for their lives and seem to take no account of what was once most dear. Thus a great ill drives out every other.” Ambra the beautiful nymph, flies from the embraces of the river-god Ombrone, and prays to Diana for help, who turns her into a rock.
Lorenzo, who was fond of horses and of racing, kept a large stud at Poggio a Cajano, and Poliziano, writing to Valori, mentions an invincible roan horse which, when sick or tired, refused all food save from the hand of his master. When if lying down he heard Lorenzo’s step, he would spring to his feet and neigh, rubbing his head against him with every mark of affection. “What wonder,” exclaims Poliziano, “that Lorenzo should be the delight of mankind when even brute beasts shew such love for him.”
Varchi, whose admiration for Poggio a Cajano was great, tells us “the Medici, that is the Cardinal and Ippolito and Alessandro left Florence on Friday the 17th day of May 1527 at 18 o’clock, accompanied by Count Piero Noferi and many others, (there were many who said, as the company rode down Via Larga, which was crowded with people, that they would one day repent letting them depart alive,) and went full of fear to Poggio a Cajano, their villa of marvellous size and magnificence.... Hardly had the Medici left Florence than the people rushed to rob their houses, and only with great difficulty could Niccolò [Capponi] and other good men hold them back and save the houses; and the next day (when, without knowing who set the rumour about, news spread that the Pope had come out of Castel Sant’ Angelo) people said that the Medici with a goodly following of foot and horse were returning to re-enter Florence, and Lodovico Martelli publicly affirmed under the Loggia de’ Signori that from his place Le Gore they had been seen at Careggi, their villa two miles outside Florence, and although (not so much because he was a Martelli, who are generally held to be untrustworthy, as because he was looked on as the sworn follower of his brother-in-law Luigi Ridolfi) small reliance was placed on his word, nevertheless in a few hours, this being repeated by one to the other and by the other to another, there arose a great hubbub in Florence and the shops (this by now had become a daily custom) and doors were closed. News of the rising was taken by Nibbio, who spurred by fear left Florence in hot haste and returned to Poggio to the Cardinal and the Magnificent, besides which friends wrote to warn them and enemies to frighten them, that Piero Salviati was preparing to start with two hundred cross-bowmen on horseback; all these things so alarmed the Cardinal that he, with all the others, left at once ... and went to Pistoja.”
There were great doings at Poggio a Cajano on the 24th July 1539 when Cosimo I and his bride Eleonora of Toledo spent five days there on their way from Pisa to Florence. Twenty-six years later their son Francesco de’ Medici met his bride, Joan of Austria, at the same place, where some time afterwards he died together with his second wife the infamous Bianca Cappello. Little did the poor Arch-Duchess think that the beautiful villa, where she first met her affianced husband, was to become the favourite residence of the handsome and dissolute Venetian, who rendered her life intolerable, and was suspected of poisoning her only son. In 1578 Joan died, and on her deathbed entreated her husband to give up his mistress. Sobbing he swore he would never see her again, but two months afterwards, on the 5th June 1578, Francesco I, was secretly married to Bianca Cappello (her husband having been conveniently murdered some little time before) in the private chapel of Palazzo Vecchio.
In September the Republic of Venice sent ambassadors to compliment the new Grand Duchess and declare her to be “the daughter of St Mark,” and she was solemnly crowned in Santa Maria de’ Fiore.
Cardinal Ferdinando de’ Medici, brother and heir to Francesco I, had kept aloof from the Tuscan court since the marriage with Bianca, but at last, early in October 1587, he was persuaded to come to Florence and was received by her with great demonstrations of affection. They went off immediately to Poggio a Cajano for the shooting, and on the 8th October the Grand Duke was attacked by fever, declared by the doctors to be tertian. Two days later the Grand Duchess fell ill of the same malady and the court physician called in Giulio Angeli da Barga, professor of medicine at the University of Pisa, and Giulio Cini, the doctor in attendance on the Cardinal. At first the illness of the Grand Duke and of Bianca was kept secret, but when vague rumours reached the ears of the Pope, it was declared that Francesco had over-eaten himself with mushrooms, whereupon the Holy Father wrote him a homily about abstaining from all indigestible food. To put an end to the various rumours in circulation, a statement was sent to Rome on the 16th October, setting forth that “the Grand Duke has a double tertian fever and incessant thirst; at present everything points towards his restoration to health, as the fourth and seventh days have been easy with abundant sweats, and we hope to go from good to better. But there must be no excesses, and the approach of autumn makes us fear the malady will be a long one. Cause therefore prayers to be said, all the more that the Grand Duchess has almost the same sickness, and this increases the malady of the Grand Duke because she cannot attend on him.”
“On the ninth day,” writes Galluzzi, “the illness of the Grand Duke augmented, and the fever was not purged by two bleedings. It increased and breathlessness came on, so that he died on the night of the 19th October. He had always insisted on treating himself according to his own fashion, as to food and iced drinks, and as he was devoured by ardent thirst during the whole course of illness it was thought that he died burnt up by the heating meats and drinks in which he always immoderately indulged. In the post-mortem examination the chief seat of the malady was found to be the liver; this gave him a bad digestion and a harshness of the stomach, which led him to indulge in elixirs and such-like drinks for comfort. When the Grand Duke felt that death was near he called his brother the Cardinal to his bed-side, and after begging his pardon for past events, gave him the pass-word for the fortresses, and recommended to his care his wife, Don Antonio,[6] his ministers and all his friends. Cardinal Ferdinando comforted him as best he could, but when he saw that all hope was lost he sent to take possession of the fortresses and ordered the militia and the troops to be called under arms. As soon as Francesco was dead, Cardinal Ferdinando left Poggio a Cajano for Florence in order to be on the spot if any disorders occurred, but before leaving he paid a visit to the Grand Duchess Bianca, and ordered that her husband’s death should be kept from her. He tried to comfort her with hopes of a speedy recovery and consigned her to the care of Bishop Abbioso, her daughter Pellegrina and her son-in-law Ulisse Bentivoglio. Her illness was less severe than that of the Grand Duke, but she was weakened by former maladies and by the violent medicines she had taken in the hopes of bearing children. The outrageous noise, the trampling of many feet and the tearful eyes of those about her made her aware of what had happened, she lost consciousness and died at 18 o’clock on the 20th October.”[7]
The Cardinal Grand Duke ordered her body to be opened in the presence of the doctors, of her daughter and her son-in-law, and then to be sent to Florence with the same formalities as had been used for the Grand Duke; but he would not allow her to be buried in the tomb of the Medici, and she was interred in the crypt of San Lorenzo in such fashion that no memory of her should be left. He was moreover so irritated with her artifices and intrigues, which the ministers vied with each other in disclosing, that he ordered her arms to be effaced wherever they were quartered with those of the Medici, and the arms of his brother’s first wife, Joan of Austria, to be put in their place. He also forbade the title of Grand Duchess being used before her name, and in a decree relating to the birth of Don Antonio insisted on her being repeatedly described as “the abominable Bianca.” No wonder Ferdinando hated her. She had induced the Grand Duke Francesco to palm off a supposititious son (Don Antonio) upon his heir, and had twice feigned to be with child after her second marriage.
The deaths of Francesco and Bianca were naturally attributed to poison. One version was that the Cardinal poisoned them; another that Bianca made a tart with her own hands for her brother-in-law, who, warned by the paling of a stone in his ring, refused to touch it, while her husband insisted on eating largely of it and in despair she did the same.
Little more than a year after this double tragedy Poggio a Cajano resounded to the merry-making which greeted Cristina of Lorraine, the youthful bride of the Grand Duke (late Cardinal) Ferdinando I. She arrived on the evening of the 28th of April 1589 and was met by her bridegroom and a gallant company of lords and ladies. Brought up at the French court, tall, graceful, handsome and with charming manners, the sixteen year old girl won all hearts. She does not seem to have frequented Poggio a Cajano, and people thought it an odd choice of the Grand Duke to meet his bride at the place which had been so fatal to his brother, and if report said true was near being fatal to himself.
Cosimo III, the bigoted great-grandson of Ferdinando I, also married a French Princess, Marguerite Louise, daughter of Gaston, Duc d’Orleans. Good-looking and vivacious, used to the brilliant court of Louis XIV, and passionately in love with Prince Charles of Lorraine, she came to Tuscany determined to hate everything. Martinelli, whose father was about the court, has left an amusing description of the tom-boy games the young French Princess played, to the horror and disgust of her husband, who passed his days in reading the lives of the saints and was entirely under the influence of the Jesuits. He even tried to put an end to all love-making and courtship in his dominions, by a law forbidding young men to enter any house where there were marriageable girls.
After the birth of three children Cosimo III considered the succession to be secure and occupied himself no more with his wife. “He obliged the Grand Duchess,” writes Martinelli, “to send the French cavaliers and ladies of her court back to France, only a cook was allowed to remain.” Cosimo, entirely given up to devotion and solitude, governed his family as well as his dominions like Tiberius. He only permitted his wife to indulge in the amusement of a concert for two or three hours in the evening.... The Grand Duchess was young and found the concert tiresome, or else being born in France she did not care for Italian music, so she used to call for the cook who appeared in his white apron and cap. This cook was, or pretended to be, extremely ticklish, and the Princess knowing this took great pleasure in tickling him, while he made all those contortions, screams and exclamations of one who cannot bear to be tickled. Thus the Princess pursuing, and the cook defending himself and running from one end of the room to the other, caused her to laugh immoderately, and at last when tired she would seize a pillow from off her bed and beat the cook with it over the head and about the body while he shouted and begged for mercy, and got first under and then on the bed of the Princess, who continued to beat him, until tired out with laughing and beating she would sink down on a chair. While these games were going on between the Grand Duchess and her cook the musicians ceased playing and rested until she sat down. For a long time the Grand Duke knew nothing of what went on, but one evening the cook being very drunk shouted louder than usual, so that Cosimo, whose rooms were at some distance from those of the Grand Duchess, heard the extraordinary noise. When he entered his wife’s apartments she was beating the cook on the Grand Ducal bed. Horror-struck the Prince condemned the cook to the galleys, but I believe he was eventually pardoned, and read his wife such a lecture that she declared she would return to France....[8] She went to Poggio a Cajano and her children, dressed in deep mourning, were sent to bid her good-bye. Touched by their tears she determined to ask her husband’s pardon and his permission to return to Florence; but this was refused, and after spending some months in solitude at the villa the Princess left for Paris, where she died in September 1721 at the age of seventy-six, having spent her life in love and intrigue.
The son of Cosimo III, by this eccentric lady, made a bad husband to the pretty and amiable Violante of Bavaria. He passed most of his time at Poggio a Cajano with musicians and actors, and followed a young Venetian singer, Vittoria Bombagia, to Venice for the carnival, whence he returned desperately ill and soon afterwards died.
The beautiful villa continued to be used occasionally as a royal residence by the family of Lorraine, and the iron bridge over the Ombrone, about half a mile from the high road, was the first suspension bridge built in Tuscany (1833) by Leopoldo II.
[Illustration: (Decorative emblum)]
FOOTNOTES:
[4] Bernhard Berenson, _The Florentine Painters._
[5] _Carmina_, etc., p. 224. Translated by J. A. Symonds.
[6] The supposititious child of Bianca. He was said to have been introduced into Palazzo Pitti in a lute, and the Grand Duke, persuaded he was his child, left him large property, and bought for him the estate and title of Prince of Capistrano in the Abruzzi. The real mother was murdered by order of Bianca.
[7] Galuzzi. _Istoria del Granducato di Toscana._ Vol. IV. p. 54 _et seq._
[8] _Lettere Familiare e Critiche di Vincenzio Martinelli._ Londra. Presso G. Nourse, Libraio nello Strand. 1758.
[Illustration: (Drawing of Cafaggiuolo)]
CAFAGGIUOLO