Chapter I: Preface (1)

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

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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

CAFAGGIUOLO

Strictly speaking Cafaggiuolo, situated some eighteen miles from Florence, can hardly be called a Florentine villa; but it is too intimately connected with the history of the Tuscan city and of the Medici not to be mentioned together with Careggi, Poggio a Cajano and other well-known villas.[9]

The carriage road to Bologna climbs boldly up the hills behind Fiesole, so swiftly that the hills which towered so high above us but a while ago, now, as we look back upon them, seem to mingle with the plain; and we plunge into the Mugello, where the olive is no longer seen. As San Pier a Sieve is neared, memories intermingle of Florentine painters and Florentine tyrants, and the land itself seems strangely divided between the sense of absolute peace and of preparations for defence against neighbouring foes. Vespignano, the birthplace of Giotto, lies at no great distance, and further again the small fortified village of Vicchio where Beato Angelico passed his earliest years. Above the Sieve, which flows so quietly and evenly through the valley towards the Arno, its pure green waters receiving a delicate shade from the tall poplar trees on its low banks, rise low rounded hills covered with oaks, while here and there a pine wood shows dark and unvaried through spring and winter months. The tower of Trebbio, rising on its hill like a castle keep, is seen in strong relief against the sky for many miles round, and tells of past centuries of insecurity and warfare. Opposite is the fortress of San Martino, now dismantled, built to guard the road to Florence through the Mugello, and far and near can be descried small watch-towers on the hill-tops; but vain seem these preparations made by nobles and princes against their foes when we look at the long line of the Apennines, scarred, rugged and woodless, stretched at right angles across the valley.

Vasari tells us that Michelozzo Michelozzi designed for Cosimo the Elder “the palace of Cafaggiuolo in the Mugello in the guise of a fortress amid the woods, the copses and other matters appertaining to fine and famous villas, and two miles distant from the said palace he finished the Capuchin monastery, which is a very splendid thing.”[10]

Dr G. Brocchi, a contemporary of Zocchi, wrote a history of the Mugello in 1747, and describes Cafaggiuolo as being “built after the fashion of an ancient fortress with sundry towers, and moats round it and drawbridges. Inside is a large chapel dedicated to the saints Cosimo and Damiano, protectors of the royal house of Medici. There are likewise many halls and great rooms, with various courtyards, loggie and galleries, which make it (though according to ancient fashion) very noble and magnificent.” Very noble the old place still is though the real entrance under the tower is now abolished, and the late Princess Borghese, who bought Cafaggiuolo in 1864, made an arch in the front wall which spoils the façade. Moats and drawbridges have disappeared, and the grass grows right up to the walls. Cafaggiuolo is typical of the practical style of Michelozzi, who adopted classical forms rather because of their simplicity and convenience than because he shared Brunelleschi’s æsthetic enthusiasm. Cosimo probably ordered his favourite architect to build a castle to serve as a stronghold in case of any popular rising, rather than a villa, but the lines dictated by this utilitarian end are treated with great skill and produce a sense of dignity and grandeur. It is in fact a mediæval castle adapted to the new taste for classical architecture by the use of classical mouldings in doors and windows, but without any essential reconstruction of the mediæval plan of building. Cosimo Pater Patriae spent what time he could spare from the cares of government between his two favourite villas Careggi and Cafaggiuolo; he preferred the latter to his other possessions because all the country he saw from the windows belonged to him, and whenever the plague broke out in Florence he took refuge in the pure air of the Mugello. “You may know,” wrote one of his friends, “when Florence is menaced; for if Cosimo and his family go to Cafaggiuolo you may be sure that eight or ten people die _per diem_ in the town, but should they leave it the plague is indeed severe.”

Lorenzo and Giuliano de’ Medici passed much of their childhood at Cafaggiuolo; they were sent there when their grandfather Cosimo the Elder lay dying and the plague was ravaging Florence. The two boys wrote thence to their father: “Magnifice Pater, we arrived here yesterday morning in safety; at Tagliaferro we had a little rain, but all the rest of the journey could not have been pleasanter. On arrival we ordered that the family of Messer Zanobi should go on to Gagliano, and we made them understand that if any of them went to Florence or any other infected places they could not return. As to Pulci, who had been waiting two days in order to be with us, we cleverly sent him back to Chavallina,[11] and in all things till now we have observed your commands. Thus shall we continue to do. We commend ourselves to you and to Mona[12] Lucrezia. Your sons Laurentius et Giulianus de’ Medicis.”

In the Medicean archives are many letters from the factor of Cafaggiuolo to Piero de’ Medici giving him news of his children and their grandmother. In April 1467 he reports: “Yesterday we went out fishing and they caught enough for their dinner and returned home at a reasonable hour; to-morrow, if they will, we go out riding after dinner and begin to show them the estate as you ordered.” Again in August the following year he writes: “Madonna Contessina and the boys are well, may God preserve them. Lorenzo wants to smooth the ground in front of Cafaggiuolo. Here we stand in need of wax and tallow candles. I told Madonna Contessina, and she said I was to take white Venetian ones; but they appear to me too honourable for Cafaggiuolo. If it seems so to you also tell Madonna Lucrezia to send us others, and at all events let tallow ones be sent for common use. Yestermorn Madonna Contessina, Lorenzo and Giuliano with the household went on horseback to the Friars of the Wood and heard High Mass. Madonna rode Lorenzo’s mule, and was astonished to find herself more agile than she had expected. As it seems to please her we shall go to Comugnole and about in the plain to have a little amusement, but always with two footmen at her stirrup, and we shall do what we can to save her all fatigue and trouble in the management of the house. The boys are having a happy time and go bird-catching and shooting and return at a reasonable hour; they enliven her and the neighbourhood.”

Cafaggiuolo always brings Donatello to one’s memory, as Piero de’ Medici, in obedience to the wishes of his father Cosimo, made him a present of a house and farm belonging to the estate. The great sculptor was delighted at thus becoming a landed proprietor, but after a year’s experience of farming begged Piero to take back his gift. Life, he said, was too short to be spent in listening to the incessant complaints of an ignorant and tedious peasant, whose roof was always being carried off by the wind, his crops damaged by hail, or his cattle seized for arrears of taxes. Piero laughed heartily at Donatello’s inability to cope with the astute Mugello peasant and exchanged the farm for a pension.