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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76926 ***
+
+  TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE
+
+  Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.
+
+  Footnote anchors are denoted by [number], and the footnotes have been
+  placed at the end of the chapter.
+
+  Some minor changes to the text are noted at the end of the book.
+
+
+
+
+                               FLORENTINE
+                                 VILLAS
+
+
+
+
+           _This Edition is limited to 200 copies for England
+                       and 100 copies for America_
+
+                          _All rights reserved_
+
+   [Illustration: (CAST OF THE FACE OF LORENZO THE MAGNIFICENT, TAKEN
+                             AFTER DEATH)]
+
+
+
+
+                               FLORENTINE
+                                 VILLAS
+
+                                   BY
+                               JANET ROSS
+
+                   WITH REPRODUCTIONS IN PHOTOGRAVURE
+                         FROM ZOCCHI’S ETCHINGS
+                  AND MANY LINE DRAWINGS OF THE VILLAS
+                            BY NELLY ERICHSEN
+
+                       [Illustration: (Colophon)]
+
+                        LONDON: J. M. DENT & CO.
+                         NEW YORK: DUTTON & CO.
+                                 MDCCCCI
+
+
+
+
+                                   To
+
+                                MARGARET
+
+                   COUNTESS OF CRAWFORD AND BALCARRES
+              THE OWNER OF ONE OF THE MOST BEAUTIFUL OF THE
+                            FLORENTINE VILLAS
+                  THIS BOOK IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED
+                              IN MEMORY OF
+                     OLD FAMILY TIES AND FRIENDSHIPS
+                              BY HER COUSIN
+                               JANET ROSS
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+Visitors to Florence are more or less intimately acquainted with the
+history of her churches, galleries and palaces, but there are few books
+dealing with the villas which crown the hills surrounding the lovely
+city. For years friends have asked me to write some account of them and
+the first beginning was made in an article in the _National Review_
+(May 1894) called “A stroll in Boccaccio’s country,” dealing chiefly
+with the two villas described by him in the _Decameron_ in language
+of matchless grace and charm. Becoming interested in the subject I
+collected what information I could about the Florentine Villas and the
+families to whom they had belonged, and coming across Guiseppe Zocchi’s
+rare work _Vedute delle Ville e d’altri luoghi della Toscana_ published
+in 1744, it was thought that reproductions of his beautiful etchings
+would enhance the interest of my book. Zocchi, about whom but little
+is known, was born near Florence in 1711 and died in 1767. Frescoes
+were executed by him in the Serristori and Rinuccini palaces and he was
+commissioned by the people of Siena to decorate their city with painted
+tapestries and hangings for a visit of Leopoldo, Grand Duke of Tuscany.
+This he probably owed to his patron the Marquis Gerini to whom the
+volume of engravings of the Villas was dedicated.
+
+In early times the great Florentine families lived in their strong
+castles like robber chieftains, waging incessant war on each other and
+on the adjacent villages and towns, and when later they went to dwell
+in the walled city they built their palaces like strongholds. High
+towers and thick walls defended Guelf against Ghibelline, and as one
+party or the other obtained supremacy the beaten rivals were driven to
+seek refuge in their hill-castles. “The nobles,” writes Macchiavelli,
+“were divided against each other and the people against the nobles....
+And from these divisions resulted so many deaths, so many banishments,
+so many destructions of families, as never befell in any other city.”
+
+Life became more luxurious under the Medici; famous Master Builders,
+such as Michelozzi, Ammannati and Buontalenti were charged by the rich
+Florentines to design, or to enlarge and beautify, the villas which
+are still the pride and glory of Florence. In the country houses of
+the Medici, artists, poets and learned men met together and discussed
+literary subjects with their princely hosts; others were used, much as
+is the custom now, for summer retreats when the dust and heat of the
+town made life irksome. The “villegiatura” still plays an important
+part in the life of an Italian. The head of the family, his sons, their
+wives and children, install themselves in the huge villas, and even
+those who can afford to cross the Alps, hurry back to their country
+places in September for the vintage—always a time of merriment—when
+music and dancing recall the gaiety of olden days.
+
+My work has been rendered pleasant by the kindness and courtesy of the
+owners of the Villas described in these pages, and I have to thank H.
+E. Prince Corsini for much valuable information, and for obtaining
+permission from the Società Colombaria, of which he is the President,
+to have the interesting and hitherto almost unknown deathmask of
+Lorenzo the Magnificent, in their possession, photographed for my book.
+To Cavaliere Angelo Bruschi, Librarian of the Marucelliana library,
+I am indebted for unceasing kindness in suggesting and obtaining for
+me rare pamphlets and manuscripts which illustrated the manners and
+customs of bygone times. My thanks are also due to Mr Temple Leader
+for allowing me to use the illustration out of his book, of Sir Robert
+Dudley’s curious instrument for the measurement of tides; to my kind
+friend Dr E. Percival Wright for reading the proof-sheets; to my niece
+Lina Duff Gordon for visiting and describing some of the more distant
+villas to which I was unable to go; to Colonel Goff for his drawing of
+Countess Rasponi’s beautiful villa Font’ all ’Erta; to Miss Erichsen
+whose charming drawings of the villas and gardens as they now appear
+add so much to the beauty and interest of the book, and lastly to the
+Dowager Countess of Crawford for lending me Zocchi’s volume of etchings
+for reproduction.
+
+                                                             JANET ROSS.
+
+  POGGIO GHERARDO,
+  FLORENCE.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+  VILLA PALMIERI                                               _Page_  1
+
+  VILLA DI POGGIO A CAJANO                                        ”    8
+
+  CAFAGGIUOLO                                                     ”   16
+
+  VILLA DI CAREGGI                                                ”   26
+
+  VILLA DI RUSCIANO                                               ”   37
+
+  VILLA DI POGGIO IMPERIALE                                       ”   41
+
+  VILLA DI LAPPEGGI                                               ”   48
+
+  VILLA DELLA PETRAJA                                             ”   53
+
+  VILLA DI BELLOSGUARDO                                           ”   59
+
+  VILLA DI CASTELLO                                               ”   65
+
+  VILLA CORSINI AT CASTELLO                                       ”   71
+
+  VILLA MEDICI AT FIESOLE                                         ”   81
+
+  VILLA DELL’ AMBROGIANA                                          ”   88
+
+  VILLA DI PRATOLINO                                              ”   91
+
+  VILLA SALVIATI                                                  ”   97
+
+  VILLA DI FONT’ ALL’ ERTA                                        ”  108
+
+  VILLA DI GAMBERAIA                                              ”  116
+
+  VILLA DI MONTE GUFFONE                                          ”  120
+
+  VILLA DI CASTEL-PULCI                                           ”  126
+
+  VILLA DI POGGIO GHERARDO                                        ”  131
+
+  VILLA DELLE SELVE                                               ”  139
+
+  VILLA I COLLAZZI                                                ”  143
+
+  VILLA FERDINANDA A ARTIMINO                                     ”  148
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+  PHOTOGRAVURES
+
+  CAST OF THE FACE OF LORENZO THE MAGNIFICENT, TAKEN
+  AFTER DEATH                                             _Frontispiece_
+
+  VILLA PALMIERI                                         _Facing page_ 1
+
+  VILLA DI POGGIO A CAJANO                                       ”     8
+
+  CAFAGGIUOLO                                                    ”    16
+
+  VILLA DI CAREGGI                                               ”    26
+
+  MEDALS OF COSIMO PATER PATRIAE, LORENZO DE’ MEDICI AND
+  MARSILIO FICINO                                                ”    37
+
+  VILLA DI POGGIO IMPERIALE                                      ”    41
+
+  VILLA DI LAPPEGGI                                              ”    48
+
+  VILLA DELLA PETRAJA                                            ”    53
+
+  MEDALS OF COSIMO II, BIANCA CAPPELLO AND MARIA
+  MADDALENA D’AUSTRIA                                            ”    59
+
+  VILLA DI CASTELLO                                              ”    65
+
+  VILLA CORSINI AT CASTELLO                                      ”    71
+
+  MEDALS OF CATERINA SFORZA, SAVONAROLA AND PICO DELLA
+  MIRANDOLA                                                      ”    81
+
+  VILLA DELL’ AMBROGIANA                                         ”    88
+
+  VILLA DI PRATOLINO                                             ”    91
+
+  VILLA SALVIATI                                                 ”    97
+
+  MEDALS OF COSIMO I, DE’ MEDICI, ALESSANDRO DE’ MEDICI,
+  FERDINANDO I AND CHRISTINE OF LORRAINE                         ”   108
+
+  VILLA DI GAMBERAIA                                             ”   116
+
+  VILLA DI MONTE GUFFONE                                         ”   120
+
+  VILLA DI CASTEL-PULCI                                          ”   126
+
+  MEDALS OF BOCCACCIO, MICHELANGELO AND DUKE FEDERIGO
+  OF URBINO                                                      ”   131
+
+  VILLA DELLE SELVE                                              ”   139
+
+  VILLA I COLLAZZI                                               ”   143
+
+  VILLA FERDINANDA A ARTIMINO                                    ”   148
+
+
+  ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT
+
+  VILLA PALMIERI:
+
+  THE TERRACE                                                  _Page_  1
+  THE VILLA AND TERRACE FROM THE LOWER GARDEN                     ”    7
+
+  VILLA DI POGGIO A CAJANO:
+
+  THE FACADE                                                      ”    8
+
+  CAFAGGIUOLO:
+
+  THE FACADE                                                      ”   16
+  CASTLE OF TREBBIO                                               ”   25
+
+  VILLA DI CAREGGI:
+
+  THE GARDEN FRONT WITH LORENZO DE’ MEDICI’S LOGGIA               ”   26
+  ANOTHER VIEW OF THE VILLA                                       ”   35
+
+  VILLA DI RUSCIANO:
+
+  THE NORTH FACADE                                                ”   37
+  BRUNELLESCHI’S WINDOW                                           ”   38
+  VIEW OF FLORENCE FROM THE VILLA                       _facing page_ 38
+
+  VILLA DI POGGIO IMPERIALE:
+
+  THE FORMAL GARDEN                                            _page_ 41
+  THE GREAT ENTRANCE                                              ”   46
+
+  VILLA DI LAPPEGGI:
+
+  THE TERRACE AND VILLA                                           ”   48
+
+  VILLA DELLA PETRAJA:
+
+  THE VILLA, WITH VICTOR EMANUEL’S ILEX                           ”   53
+  THE FOUNTAIN OF VENUS, BY TRIBOLO AND GIOVANNI DA
+    BOLOGNA                                                       ”   58
+
+  VILLA DI BELLOSGUARDO:
+
+  THE NORTH FACADE AND TOWER                                      ”   59
+  DISTANT VIEW OF THE VILLA FROM THE PODERE OF THE
+    VILLA DELL’ OMBRELLINO                              _facing page_ 62
+  MONTAUTO, WITH THE TOWER OF BELLOSGUARDO IN THE
+    DISTANCE                                                   _page_ 64
+
+  VILLA DI CASTELLO:
+
+  THE GARDEN AND FOUNTAIN OF HERCULES, BY TRIBOLO
+    AND AMMANNATI                                                 ”   65
+  THE “APENNINES” FOUNTAIN                                        ”   70
+
+  VILLA CORSINI AT CASTELLO:
+
+  THE BOSCO AND FOUNTAIN                                          ”   71
+  SIR ROBERT DUDLEY’S INSTRUMENT FOR FINDING THE EBB
+    AND FLOW OF THE TIDES                                         ”   75
+             (_By Permission of Mr Temple Leader_)
+  THE ROCOCO FACADE                                               ”   80
+
+  VILLA MEDICI AT FIESOLE:
+
+  DISTANT VIEW OF THE VILLA AND MONASTERY OF SAN
+    FRANCESCO AT FIESOLE, FROM SAN DOMENICO                       ”   81
+  GENERAL VIEW OF THE VILLA                                       ”   85
+  THE TERRACE WITH FIESOLE IN THE BACKGROUND                      ”   87
+
+  VILLA DELL’ AMBROGIANA:
+
+  THE VILLA FROM THE COURTYARD                                    ”   88
+  THE TOWN OF MONTELUPO                                           ”   90
+
+  VILLA DI PRATOLINO:
+
+  THE SERVITE MONASTERY AT MONTE SENARIO                          ”   91
+  L’APPENNINO, GIGANTIC STATUE BY GIOVANNI DA BOLOGNA             ”   96
+
+  VILLA SALVIATI:
+
+  GENERAL VIEW OF THE VILLA                                       ”   97
+  THE VILLA FROM THE TERRACE                                      ”  107
+
+  VILLA DI FONT’ ALL’ ERTA:
+
+  BOCCACCIO’S “VALLE DELLE DONNE” WITH VILLA LANDOR
+    IN THE DISTANCE                                               ”  108
+  AMMANNATI’S LOGGIA                                              ”  111
+  VIEW OF THE VILLA BY COL. GOFF                                  ”  115
+
+  VILLA DI GAMBERAIA:
+
+  THE WATER GARDEN                                                ”  116
+  DISTANT VIEW OF THE VILLA                                       ”  119
+
+  VILLA DI MONTE GUFFONE:
+
+  GENERAL VIEW OF THE VILLA                                       ”  120
+  THE VILLA AND TOWER                                             ”  125
+
+  VILLA DI CASTEL-PULCI:
+
+  DISTANT VIEW OF THE VILLA FROM A PODERE                         ”  126
+  THE GATEWAY OF THE BADIA A SETTIMO                              ”  130
+
+  VILLA DI POGGIO GHERARDO:
+
+  GENERAL VIEW OF THE VILLA FROM THE PODERE                       ”  131
+  DISTANT VIEW OF THE VILLA                                       ”  135
+  VIEW OF FLORENCE FROM THE CYPRESS TREES OF POGGIO
+    GHERARDO                                                      ”  138
+
+  VILLA DELLE SELVE:
+
+  SIR JOHN HAWKWOOD’S WALLS AT LASTRA A SIGNA                     ”  139
+  THE VILLA, WITH GALILEO’S TERRACE                               ”  142
+
+  VILLA I COLLAZZI:
+
+  THE LOGGIA                                                      ”  143
+  ON THE TERRACE                                                  ”  147
+
+  VILLA FERDINANDA A ARTIMINO:
+
+  GENERAL VIEW OF THE VILLA                                       ”  148
+  THE MEDICI SHIELD                                               ”  153
+
+  VILLA DI LAPPEGGI:
+
+  THE VIEW FROM THE TERRACE                                       ”  162
+
+                     [Illustration: VILLA PALMIERI]
+
+
+
+
+       [Illustration: (Drawing of Garden Banister, with statues.)]
+
+
+
+
+VILLA PALMIERI
+
+
+Schifanoja (avoid, or banish care) was the old name of Villa Palmieri
+when it belonged to Cioni de’ Fini; then the Tolomei bought it in the
+fourteenth century and called it Villa or Palazzo de’ Tre Visi, either
+from a bas-relief representing the heads of the Trinity which once
+existed in a bastion wall, or from a fountain with a head of Janus. In
+1454 they sold the villa to Matteo Palmieri, who added to it; but it
+was a descendant of his, Palmiero Palmieri, who in 1670 transformed
+the house into “a most noble palace,” and called it by his own name.
+The northern wing is said to have been built by him; the loggia which
+connects the two wings and leads on to the grand terrace, guarded by
+grim stone deities of bygone times, whence a stately double flight of
+steps sweeps down to the lower gardens, was certainly his handiwork.
+Palmiero also threw the long archway (forming the terrace) across the
+old Fiesole road which once divided the Villa from the gardens, and
+under this archway was the place of meeting of the brethren of the
+Misericordia of Florence with those of Fiesole. Here they were entitled
+to rest and allowed to accept a drink of vinegar and water because of
+the steepness of the road to Fiesole. In 1874 the Earl of Crawford
+bought Villa Palmieri and made a new carriage road up the hill of
+Schifanoja to San Domenico; he closed the old one which passed under
+the Arco de’ Palmieri, so now the brethren of the two confraternities
+meet and rest in the little garden at the entrance gate.
+
+The legendary derivation of the name of the old owners of the Villa is
+poetical and pretty. When Otho I conquered Berenger IV Pope Agabetus
+II sent a palm branch with a congratulatory message to the Emperor,
+who appointed his favourite young cup-bearer to carry the branch
+before him, and thus show the world how highly he had been honoured
+by the Pope. The handsome lad came to be called _il Palmiero_ (the
+palm-bearer), and his own name was forgotten. Some years later Otho
+gave him a castle in the Mugello, and his grandson, who inherited the
+family good-looks, won the heart of the only daughter of Latino, Lord
+of Rasoio. Thus, according to the old legend, did the Palmieri become
+powerful and possessed of great wealth. Their real story is more
+prosaic. Vespasiano da Bisticci, bookseller and scribe, a biographer of
+rare merit who was a contemporary of Matteo, writes: “The Florentine
+Matteo di Marco Palmieri, born of parents in a humble condition of
+life, founded his house and ennobled it by his singular virtues.”
+They were of the guild of pharmacists, and in the State archives is
+the note-book of Matteo, with entries of the different sources of the
+family income. He often laments bitterly how little the pharmacy of the
+Canto alle Rondine brought in, and how taxes increased every year.
+
+Matteo Palmieri was born in 1405, Sozomeno of Pistoja instructed him
+in grammar and rhetoric, and two great scholars—Ambrogio Traversari,
+General of the Cistercians, and Carlo Aretino (Marsuppini), Chancellor
+of the Republic of Florence, taught him Greek and Latin. Matteo was
+appointed to pronounce the funeral oration in Santa Croce in 1453 of
+Carlo Aretino, and his eloquence was such that he drew tears from all
+present. A friend of Cosimo de’ Medici, and of all the famous humanists
+of that period, he was an able scholar and an accomplished author at a
+time when learning stood high, and when all Florence was ringing with
+the praises of Pico della Mirandola, Poggio Bracciolino, and Marsilio
+Ficino.
+
+By his wife Cosa Serragli, to whom he was passionately attached,
+Matteo had no children, so he adopted his brother Bartolomeo’s two
+orphan sons, the younger of whom succeeded him in the family pharmacy.
+In 1437 Matteo became Gonfalonier of Florence together with Adonardo
+Acciajuoli; in 1445 he was elected Prior of the Commune, and again in
+1468. In 1453 he was Gonfalonier of Justice, and was sent at various
+times as ambassador of the Republic to King Alphonso of Naples, to
+Siena, Pisa, Perugia, Bologna and Rome.
+
+His book _Della Vita Civile_ was translated into French by de Rosiers;
+_De Captivitate Pisarum_, and the Life of the Grand Seneschal
+Acciajuoli, written in Latin, were translated into Italian and
+published in a more or less mutilated form. But _Città di Vita_, the
+poem which made the name of Matteo Palmieri celebrated, was never
+published, and probably has not been read by a score of persons since
+he wrote it. No doubt the Platonic philosophy, then so popular, had
+taken a strong hold on him. Written in _terza rima_, it is one of
+the last poems to have been inspired by the spirit of Dante, and
+describes how the Cumean sybil leads the author to the Elysian fields
+through Tartarus, and finally to the City of Life. Lionardo Dati,
+a pious canon of the cathedral of Florence, who became secretary
+to the Pope, and Bishop of Massa, to whom Matteo showed the work,
+pronounced it to be “almost divine,” while Marsilio Ficino hailed him
+as _Poeta Theologicus_. In spite of such praise Palmieri sealed up his
+manuscript, and gave it into the care of the Pro-Consul of the Guild of
+Notaries with strict orders that it should not be opened till after his
+death. In 1475, at his funeral in San Pier Maggiore, it was placed upon
+his breast, and Allemanno Rinnuccini in his funeral oration spoke of it
+as “the glory of Matteo.” But when the contents of _Città di Vita_ were
+known, the fury of the tribunal of the Inquisition knew no bounds; they
+declared that the heresy of Origen contaminated its accursed pages,
+and wanted to dig up the corpse of old Palmieri and burn it and the
+poem in one fire. Fortunately the Republic had the strength of mind to
+resist, and the manuscript was returned to the care of the Pro-Consul
+of the Notaries. Several pages were damaged in 1557 when the Arno
+flooded the city, and then with other precious documents it was removed
+to the Laurentian Library. There it was locked up in a cupboard, of
+which the librarian was not allowed to have the key lest his soul might
+be contaminated by the odious heresies contained in its pages. The
+heretical manuscript, with its dainty, imaginative illuminations of the
+signs of the Zodiac, is now one of the treasures of the library, and on
+its last page is the portrait of the author, showing a strong, bony and
+clever face of true Florentine type.
+
+According to Vasari, Sandro Botticelli painted a picture for the altar
+of the Palmieri chapel in San Pier Maggiore “with an infinite number
+of figures, being the Assumption of our Lady, with the zones of the
+heavens, the Patriarchs, the Prophets, the Apostles, the Evangelists,
+the Martyrs, the Confessors, the Doctors, the Virgins and the
+Hierarchies; all after the design given him by Matteo, who was a man
+of letters and of learning: and he executed the work after a masterly
+fashion and with extreme diligence. He portrayed Matteo and his wife
+kneeling at the foot of the picture. But although this work was most
+beautiful and ought to have been above envy, there were some malicious
+and evil-speaking persons who being unable to abuse it in other ways,
+said Matteo and Sandro had fallen into the grave sin of heresy; let
+none expect an opinion from me as to whether this be true or not;
+enough that the figures painted by Sandro are in truth worthy of praise
+for the great work he had in designing the circles of the heavens
+and fitting foreshortenings and landscapes in divers different ways
+between the figures and the angels; everything being excellently well
+drawn.”[1] Eventually the picture was carried to Villa Palmieri and
+walled up until the beginning of this century when it was taken out of
+its hiding-place and sold. At length it passed into the collection of
+the Duke of Hamilton and in 1882 was bought for our National Gallery.
+Father Ricca in his exhaustive work on the churches of Florence devotes
+a whole chapter to this “much-to-be-praised” picture and to the _Città
+di Vita_. “In these cantos,” says the Jesuit father, “when talking of
+the angels he [Matteo] follows the condemned opinions of Origen, more
+from a poetic license than from any theological bias, and supposes
+that our bodies are inhabited by those angels who are falsely thought
+to have remained neutral when Lucifer fell; and that God, desirous to
+try them once more, obliges them to adopt our human bodies. This is
+the real story of Matteo’s book, which has been altered and corrupted
+by malevolent and ignorant persons, whose calumnies and lies have been
+believed even by ultra-montane writers, so that Germany, France and
+England, were filled with the rumour thereof.”[2]
+
+In 1766 Villa Palmieri was inhabited by Lord Cowper who had come on a
+visit to Florence and found the place so attractive that he refused
+to return to England. He married the beautiful Miss Gore who was
+most popular in her Tuscan home, and the Villa was the scene of many
+brilliant entertainments, as the Grand Duke admired the young and
+lovely Countess and was a frequent guest. That dear old gossip, Sir
+Horace Mann, tells us “the birth of her son [the late Lady Palmerston’s
+first husband], diffused a riotous joy among the common people who
+have expressed it for three days by little bonfires and lights at
+their paper windows.” He also informs us that at a dull Court dinner
+“the Comptroller of the Table has pleased the Grand Duke much by his
+giving Lord Cowper and Lord Tylney beer and punch, which he thinks is
+the constant beverage of the English.” The ambition long cherished by
+Lord Cowper to be created a Prince of the Holy Roman Empire was at
+length gratified in 1778, though his desire to be Prince Overkirk was
+frustrated by the Nassaus, who, as Sir Horace writes, “objected to his
+bearing their name with the title of Prince. The Emperor [Joseph II.]
+therefore thought he had found a medium by substituting Overquerque[3]
+but his cousins of that family have likewise put their negative to
+that; so that it is now reduced to plain Prince Cowper, for which he
+must pay ten thousand zecchins (about £5000). The heralds of the Empire
+have objected to his bearing the arms of Nassau. They don’t allow such
+a right from females, and more particularly when there is any male
+branch of the family. Neither the Emperor nor my Lord seem to know what
+they were about, when it was asked and granted, and I believe that
+both now repent of it.” Horace Walpole in a letter to Mann criticising
+Zoffany’s well-known picture of the Tribune in the Uffizzi (now at
+Windsor) sneers at Lord Cowper’s title of Prince. He says “it is
+crowded by a flock of travelling boys, and one does not know nor care
+whom. You and Sir John Dick, as Envoy and Consul, are very proper. The
+Grand Ducal family would have been so too.... I do allow Earl Cowper a
+place in the Tribune; an Englishman who has never seen his Earldom, who
+takes root and bears fruit in Florence and is as proud of a pinchbeck
+principality in a third country, is as great a curiosity as any in the
+Tuscan collection.”
+
+Though eccentric, Lord Cowper was a patron of men of letters and had
+a passionate admiration for Niccolò Macchiavelli; he subscribed large
+sums to the erection of the great secretary’s tomb in Santa Croce
+and to the publication of a complete edition of his works; while his
+generous, hospitable character gained him great favour among the
+Italians, who are generally inclined to quote the old proverb “an
+italianised Englishman is a devil incarnate.”
+
+In 1824 Villa Palmieri was bought by Miss Mary Farhill from the
+executors of the last of the Palmieri. She was an odd woman, but the
+Florentines appear to have liked her, and she was a favourite of the
+Grand Duchess Marie Antoinette to whom she left her villa, and who sold
+it in 1874 to the Earl of Crawford. He planted the hillside behind
+the villa and made the gardens once more resemble the impassioned
+description in the _Decameron_. As a scholar and a student his name
+stands high, and he will long be remembered in his Tuscan home for many
+a kindly and charitable act. In 1888 and in 1893 Lady Crawford lent her
+beautiful villa to H.M. Queen Victoria.
+
+Villa Palmieri has always been identified with the second villa visited
+by the seven maidens and the three youths in the _Decameron_. Baldelli,
+in his Life of Boccaccio, tells us that “owning a small villa in the
+parish of Majano, Boccaccio took pleasure in describing the surrounding
+country, more especially the lovely slopes and rich valleys of the
+Fiesolean hills near his modest dwelling. Thus in the enchanting
+picture he has drawn of the first halting-place of the joyous company
+we recognise Poggio Gherardo, and in the sumptuous palace chosen by
+them afterwards, in order not to be disturbed by tiresome visitors,
+the beautiful Villa Palmieri. His fairy-like description of the tiny
+circular valley into which Elisa led the lovely ladies to disport
+themselves and bathe in the heat of the day, brings that small flat
+meadow before us, through which the Affrico, after having divided two
+hills and abandoned their stony ledges, meandering unites his waters in
+a canal in the adjacent plain under the cloister of Doccia at Fiesole.”
+
+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
+
+
+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]
+
+                      [Illustration: CAFAGGIUOLO.]
+
+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.
+
+Lorenzo and Giuliano de’ Medici often returned to Cafaggiuolo as young
+men, and with their friends the Pulci frequented the fairs and weekly
+markets of the Mugello. At one of these, Lorenzo met the heroine of
+that delightful country idyll _Nencia da Barberino_, “a masterpiece of
+true genius and humour. It can scarcely be called a parody of village
+life and feeling, although we cannot fail to see that the town is
+laughing at the country all through the exuberant stanzas, so rich in
+fancy, so incomparably vivid in description.”[13] Luigi Pulci imitated
+it in _La Istoria della Beca da Dicomano_, while his brother Luca
+in the _Driadeo d’Amore_ praises the rivers Sieve, Lora, Sturo and
+Tavaiano, and under feigned names describes the places where Lorenzo
+and Giuliano and the three brothers Pulci went hawking and fishing.
+
+After the Pazzi conspiracy and the murder of Giuliano in 1476, Lorenzo
+sent his wife Clarice with the children and their tutor Angelo
+Poliziano to Cafaggiuolo for safety. Poliziano wrote to Lucrezia, who
+had remained in Florence with her son: “Magnifica Domina mea. The news
+I can send from here is that we are all well, that we have so much
+and such continual rain that we cannot quit the house, and that we
+have exchanged hunting for playing at ball, so that the children may
+not want for exercise.... I remain in the house by the fireside in my
+slippers and greatcoat, and you would take me for melancholy in person
+could you see me; but perhaps I am but myself after all, for I neither
+do nor see nor hear anything that amuses me, so much have I taken to
+heart our calamities; sleeping and waking they haunt me. Two days since
+we began to spread our wings as we heard the plague had ceased, now we
+are again depressed on learning that things are not yet quite settled
+with you. When at Florence we have some consolation—if nought else
+that of seeing Lorenzo return home safe. Here we are always anxious
+about everything; and as for myself, I declare to you I am drowned in
+weary laziness for the solitude in which I find myself. I say solitude,
+because Monsignore [probably the Bishop of Arezzo] shuts himself up in
+his room, where I find him sorrowful and full of thought, so that being
+with him increases my own melancholy; Ser Alberto del Malherba mumbles
+offices all day long with the children; I remain alone, and when tired
+of studying ring the changes on plague and war, on sorrow for the
+past and fear for the future, and have no one with whom to air these
+my phantasies. I do not find my Madonna Lucrezia here to whom I can
+unbosom myself and I am dying of weariness.... I commend myself unto
+you. Ex Cafasolo, die 18 dicembris 1478. Your servant Angelus.”
+
+Poliziano was no favourite with the proud and unlettered Clarice, and
+he complained to Lorenzo about Giovanni (afterwards Pope Leo X): “His
+mother sets him to read the Psalter, of which I do not approve. When
+she does not interfere with him he makes most wonderful progress.”
+It ended by Clarice sending away Poliziano and engaging a priest to
+superintend her son’s studies. Before his birth she dreamed that she
+was delivered of a huge but docile lion, and his father always destined
+him for the Church. Soon after he was seven he received the tonsure
+and was declared capable of ecclesiastical preferment; whereupon the
+King of France made him abbot of Fonte-dolce, an appointment rapidly
+followed by so many others that, after enumerating them all, old
+Fabroni in his life of Leo X exclaims: “Bone Deus, quot in uno juvene
+cumulata sacerdotia.”
+
+In April 1533, the stern old villa echoed to the laughter of a bevy
+of young girls who went with Caterina de’ Medici, the only daughter
+of Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino,[14] then only fourteen years of age, to
+receive Margaret of Austria, the illegitimate daughter of Charles
+V. The poor child was but nine when she arrived in Tuscany as the
+affianced bride of Alessandro, Duke of Florence, whose mother was a
+negress, or some say a peasant woman from Collevecchio, the wife of a
+groom in the service of the Duke of Urbino. He was supposed to be the
+son either of Lorenzo himself or of the Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici
+(afterwards Clemente VII); and the interest taken in him by Pope
+Clemente, who warmly supported his election as Duke of Florence, rather
+points to the latter supposition. He is inscribed in the family tree
+as “of uncertain parentage.” Alessandro’s cruelty and licentiousness
+are matters of history; he left his mother to suffer dire poverty, and
+she is said to have died of poison administered by his orders, so that
+his murder by Lorenzino de’ Medici delivered the poor little Princess
+from a brutal husband. Lorenzino fled to Cafaggiuolo after murdering
+his cousin, and waited to know how the news was received in Florence.
+When he heard that messengers had arrived at Trebbio, another Medicean
+villa close to Cafaggiuolo, where Maria Salviati, widow of Giovanni de’
+Medici (delle Bande Nere), and her son Cosimo lived, he left in hot
+haste for Venice. “It only needed that someone should begin a tumult,”
+writes Varchi, “when Signor Cosimo, who had been secretly warned by
+friends and summoned by many citizens, arrived in Florence with a small
+company; he being the son of Signor Giovanni, and of comely aspect, and
+having always shown himself of a pacific and kindly nature, it cannot
+be said, described, or imagined with what delight he was looked on by
+the people or how ardently they desired and hoped to see him Prince.”
+
+His father’s memory probably preserved his life a few years before,
+for Varchi tells us, “Signor Otto da Montauto was taken up for
+killing Bernardo Arrighi at Prato and condemned to lose his head, but
+the punishment was commuted to a fine of 1000 ducats and a year’s
+imprisonment. But it is supposed that these rigorous measures were not
+taken against Signor Otto for the murder committed, but because on his
+return from succouring Lastra when sent on a secret mission to Trebbio
+to fetch Madonna Maria de’ Medici and Cosimino her son, he failed to
+do so; some say that having asked a peasant who was coming down from
+Trebbio: ‘Who is up there and what are they doing?’ The man, being
+intelligent and quick-witted, understood what manner of man he was, and
+answered with intent to frighten him: ‘Up there are the Lady Maria and
+the Lord Cosimo with many soldiers and all the peasants of the country
+round, and they are making good cheer and keep watch day and night.’ So
+Signor Otto would not tempt fortune. Others say he did not go because,
+not only do good soldiers dislike doing the work of policemen, but
+having begun life under the Lord Giovanni and gained his spurs with
+him, like all who had fought under the Lord Giovanni he worshipped his
+memory in a way not to be believed, and therefore was attached to his
+wife and his son.”
+
+The “kindly nature” of Cosimo was only skin-deep if all the tales
+told of him are true, and his youngest son Don Pietro de’ Medici
+was distinguished for immorality. Married against his will to
+Eleonora, daughter of his mother’s brother Don Garcia di Toledo, he
+systematically neglected the young and lovely Spaniard, described as
+“beautiful, elegant, gracious, kindly, charming and affable; and above
+all with two eyes rivalling the stars in brilliancy.”[15] Evil tongues
+whispered that the Grand Duke’s admiration for his wife’s niece was
+the principal motive for her marriage with Don Pietro which ended
+so tragically at Cafaggiuolo. After the death of Cosimo I the name
+of Alessandro Gaci, a handsome youth from Castiglion Florentino, was
+coupled with that of Donna Eleonora, but the threats of the Grand Duke
+Francesco forced him to leave Florence and enter a Capuchin monastery.
+His successor was a Florentine, Bernardino Antinori, whose passionate
+admiration for the lovely princess soon became known. The lovers were
+imprudent; a letter fell into the hands of the Grand Duke, whose
+scandalous ill-treatment of his wife Joan of Austria and subserviency
+to every whim of the dissolute Venetian, Bianca Cappello, were the talk
+of Florence. He asserted that the honour of his family demanded an
+example and ordered Antinori to be taken to the Bargello and strangled,
+and his sister-in-law to be sent to rejoin her husband at Cafaggiuolo.
+Bidding a tearful farewell to her little son, Eleonora left Florence on
+the morning of the 11th July 1576 and reached the stern old villa at
+nightfall, where Don Pietro received her with unwonted demonstrations
+of affection and at supper was very merry. He insisted on accompanying
+her to her room, and before she could summon her women threw her on
+to the bed and plunged his dagger several times into her breast. She
+died in a few minutes imploring God to show her more mercy than she had
+received at the hands of men, and kneeling by the lifeless body, Don
+Pietro prayed to his patron saints for forgiveness and vowed he would
+never marry again—a vow he did not keep. Then he sat down and wrote a
+few lines to his brother the Grand Duke announcing the sudden death of
+Donna Eleonora.
+
+The doctor’s certificate that Donna Eleonora de’ Medici had died of
+failure of the heart, was received in Florence with the incredulity
+vouchsafed to most of the sudden deaths in the Medici family. Francesco
+I pretended to believe it when he wrote to his brother, Cardinal
+Ferdinando, at Rome: “Yesternight at the fifth hour Donna Eleonora,
+being in bed, had so violent a stroke that she was suffocated before
+Don Pietro or others could apply any remedies; this has sore disturbed
+me, and will, I know, afflict Your Eminence. But as whatever comes from
+the hand of God must be borne with patience, I pray you may accept
+quietly the will of the Divine Majesty. This night the body will be
+brought from Cafaggiuolo for proper interment, of which I hereby desire
+to give you notice, taking advantage of the courier who has come from
+Spain.”
+
+But the Grand Duke told the real story in a letter dated 16 of July,
+and sent to the Florentine ambassador at Madrid with orders to read it
+to the King of Spain. “Although in a former letter it was stated that
+Donna Eleonora died of failure of the heart, you are, nevertheless, to
+inform His Catholic Majesty that the Lord Don Pietro, our brother,
+took her life with his own hands for her betrayal of him in ways
+unbecoming a lady of high birth. This he had communicated to Don Pedro
+her brother, through a secretary, begging him to come here; not only
+did he refuse to come, but he prevented the secretary from having
+speech with Don Garcia (Donna Eleonora’s father). We desire that H.M.
+should know the truth, being determined H.M. shall be informed of all
+the doings of Our house, and especially of this; for if We did not
+lift the veil from H.M.’s eyes, it would seem to Us not to serve H.M.
+well and honourably. All facts shall be sent on the first opportunity
+so that H.M. may know with what good reason the Lord Don Pietro thus
+acted.”
+
+Settimanni accuses Don Pietro of the further crime of poisoning his
+little son who was odious to him on account of his likeness to his
+mother. He also records that when, thirty-eight years after death,
+Donna Eleonora’s body was moved from one vault to another in San
+Lorenzo it was found to be perfectly preserved, and the beautiful young
+princess (she was but twenty-one when so foully murdered) lay as though
+asleep, clothed all in white with her hands crossed over the wounds in
+her breast.[16] Murders and sudden deaths were too common in the Medici
+family to deter the Grand Duke Francesco I from taking his second
+wife Bianca Cappello to Cafaggiuolo in 1585 with a great following
+of courtiers. Hearing that their favourite painter Sandrino Bronzino
+was painting an altarpiece for the church of Santa Maria a Olmi near
+Borgo San Lorenzo, they mounted their horses and went to pay a visit
+to the prior, Don Quintilio Rinieri. He was an old acquaintance of
+Bianca’s, and entreated them to do him the honour of dining with him.
+Don Quintilio had a fine taste in wine and some reputation as a sayer
+of good things, he was moreover a courtier, and before dinner was over
+he obtained the consent of the Grand Duchess Bianca to allow Bronzino
+to paint her portrait on the wall of his room. In 1871 the fresco was
+transferred to canvas and placed in the Uffizzi gallery. Bianca, who
+was then thirty-seven, sits resplendent in crimson velvet, and this,
+Signor Baccini thinks, is probably the only authentic portrait that
+exists of the “daughter of Venice.”[17]
+
+When Cardinal Ferdinando succeeded his brother Francesco as Grand Duke,
+he used to spend the autumn months at Cafaggiuolo, where he could
+enjoy complete liberty and indulge in his passion for the chase. From
+an unpublished diary in three large volumes by Cesare Tinghi, one of
+his secretaries, and found in the National Library by Signor Baccini,
+we learn that Ferdinando I was very strict as to preserving his game,
+and punished poachers severely. He rose early and went out shooting
+or fishing with his gentlemen, and in the afternoon gave audiences to
+princes and ambassadors who were received with great magnificence.
+Often the peasants would be summoned to dance for the amusement of the
+Grand Duchess Christine and her children, and sent home rejoicing with
+presents of ribbons, scarves and nick-nacks; or the soldiers from San
+Martino, the fortress begun by Cosimo I, and finished by Ferdinando,
+which guarded the entrance to the Mugello, would execute military games
+and sham battles.
+
+Cafaggiuolo was not much frequented by the Medici after the time of
+Ferdinando I, and only occasional references to it are found in the
+archives. The family of Lorraine preferred the villas nearer Florence,
+though they sometimes passed a night there on their way to Austria,
+but when Ferdinando III returned to Tuscany in 1814 after the fall of
+Napoleon, the Florentine nobility rode out to Cafaggiuolo to meet him
+and the whole of the Mugello was illuminated in his honour.
+
+Before leaving “the old den among the hills” its majolica ware must
+be mentioned, over which such bitter controversy has raged; some
+writers, like the late M. Jacquemart, over-estimating its antiquity and
+importance, others, like Dr Malagola and Professor Argnani, asserting
+that it never existed and that the pieces signed _Cafaggiuolo_ (more or
+less ill-spelt) were made by a family of Faenza, the Cà Fagioli (House
+of Fagioli). Some documents, printed also in the _Athenæum_ (Dec.
+1899, p. 872) prove that as early as 1485 several kilns for common
+pottery, _stoviglie_, and for bricks were in existence near and at
+Cafaggiuolo itself. Signor Baccini[18] cites others in a list of the
+possessions of Cosimo I, drawn up in 1566, which show that either some
+of these _stovigliai_ had become _vasellai_, _i.e._ makers of vases
+and decorative ware, or that the kilns were then tenanted by artistic
+potters. Two of the kilns, with a house and _botega_, stood near the
+villa, where now are the stables, and both were rented by a Jacopo
+di Stefano. Mr Drury E. Fortnum, in his magnificent work on majolica
+published by the Clarendon Press, gives a long list of Cafaggiuolo ware
+from the earliest dated piece known of 1507, and the marks on the most
+characteristic pieces, such as the letters P. and S. with a paraph, or
+a plain or barred P., while others have a monogram of J. P. C. These
+marks have apparently not been explained, but Signor Baccini gives good
+reasons for supposing them to be the initials of a family who went
+from Montelupo to Cafaggiuolo to manufacture the famous _bocali_ or
+measuring jugs, beginning with a certain Piero; his son was Stefano di
+Piero and his grandson the Jacopo di Stefano who in 1566 tenanted the
+house, shop and kilns of Cafaggiuolo.
+
+     [Illustration: (Drawing of a tower on a hill over orchards.)]
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[9] The name Cafaggio, or Cafaggiuolo (Cafagium), meaning a wooded
+estate surrounded with a fence or ditch, is often met with in Tuscany,
+and dates from old Lombard times.
+
+[10] Bosco a’ Frati is a monastery said to have been founded in the
+time of St Francis of Assisi by the Ubaldini family. It was here that
+St Bonaventura received the cardinal’s hat sent to him by Gregory X.
+in 1273. The messengers found him with his sleeves rolled up washing
+dishes in the scullery; turning round he pointed to a tree near by and
+bid them hang the hat on a bough until he had finished his work.
+
+[11] The Pulci owned a villa “Il Palagio” at Cavallina a few miles from
+Cafaggiuolo.
+
+[12] Mona or Monna is an abbreviation of Madonna, Mia Donna, and all
+well-born women were thus addressed. It corresponds to the French
+Madame.
+
+[13] J. A. Symonds. _Renaissance in Italy._ _Italian Literature_, p.
+381.
+
+[14] Leo X deprived the adopted son of Guidobaldo di Montefeltro,
+Francesco Maria Della Rovere, of the Dukedom of Urbino in favour of his
+nephew Lorenzo de’ Medici in 1516.
+
+[15] _Diario di Firenze._ A. Lapini.
+
+[16] See Settimanni. Cronaca M.S. all’ anno 1608.
+
+[17] See _Le Ville Medicee in Mugello_. Guiseppe Baccini. Firenze, 1897.
+
+[18] _Opus cit._
+
+
+
+
+             [Illustration: (Drawing of Villa Di Careggi.)]
+
+
+
+
+VILLA DI CAREGGI
+
+
+The three great Medicean villas, Careggi, Cafaggiuolo and Poggio
+Cajano, have been so often sung by poets and celebrated by historians,
+that to all who love Italy their names are household words.
+
+Careggi lies about two miles north-west of Florence, on what old Varchi
+calls “the most delightful hill named Montughi, after the ancient and
+noble family of the Ughi, whereon are innumerable villas of splendid
+construction; and most splendid of them all, the new Careggi built
+by Cosimo the elder.”[19] The name Careggi is derived from the Latin
+_Campus Regis_, and Roman remains abound in the neighbourhood. Near by
+was the Via Cassia, leading from Rome to Pistoja and Lucca, and some of
+the inscriptions found relating to it have been placed in the courtyard
+of the church, San Stefano in Pane de Arcora.[20]
+
+                   [Illustration: VILLA DI CAREGGI.]
+
+On the 17th June 1417, Cosimo de’ Medici bought a country house at
+Careggi from Tommaso Lippi for 800 florins. “A palace with a
+courtyard, a loggia, a well, archways, dove-cotes, a tower, a walled
+kitchen-garden, two peasant houses and arable land, vineyards,
+olive-groves, and spinnies, in the parish of Careggi.” Thus runs the
+contract.
+
+Cosimo called in his friend and favourite architect, Michelozzo
+Michelozzi, to rebuild the villa, and no doubt remembering the place
+of his birth—the strong castle of Trebbio in the Mugello—he ordered
+that Careggi should become a castle with battlements, covered galleries
+round the upper part, a tower, a drawbridge, and high walls all round
+the pleasure grounds.
+
+The huge pile of Careggi lies embosomed among fine cedars, pines and
+firs; unfortunately the villa has been painted a dirty chocolate brown,
+which detracts considerably from its beauty. But the entrance hall is
+fine, and the great straight staircase leading from the open courtyard
+up to the first floor is most imposing.
+
+The first room at the top of the staircase is a large hall with a
+huge grey stone fireplace. How one would like to conjure up the
+magnificent Lorenzo and his friends; to listen entranced while Luigi
+Pulci declaimed a Canto of Morgante, or Messer Angelo Poliziano recited
+a Ballata; or hear the learned Greek Argyropoulos discuss philosophy
+with Marsilio Ficino and Pico della Mirandola, Bernardo Rucellai, Leo
+Battista Alberti and Cristofano Landino, while Michelangelo Buonarroti
+sat by listening, his head resting on one hand like one of his own
+prophets.
+
+Out of the big hall one goes through three or four rooms on to a loggia
+facing west, with a brilliantly gay ceiling painted by Poccetti. Here,
+no doubt, the Academicians sat in the long summer evenings looking down
+on the garden with its fountains, and on the oak woods crowning the
+neighbouring hills.
+
+The last room on the south side of the house (on the first floor) was
+probably where Lorenzo de’ Medici died, and not the one generally
+pointed out to strangers. On an ancient plan of the villa the end room
+is found marked “the room of Messer Lorenzo,” and the small closet
+opening out of it, with a spiral staircase in the thickness of the wall
+leading down into the courtyard, is indicated as “the study of Messer
+Lorenzo.”
+
+From the courtyard one enters a fine vaulted and frescoed room leading
+into a loggia under the one painted by Poccetti. This has been closed
+in by glass windows, and here Mr Watts, while staying with Lord
+Holland, who rented Careggi when he was minister to the Tuscan court in
+1845, painted a large fresco of the murder of Piero Leoni, doctor to
+Lorenzo. It is a fine work with daring and successful foreshortening.
+
+From the covered gallery round the top of the villa the view is
+splendid. To the south is “the delightful hill Montughi,” dotted with
+villas, to most of which is attached some story of love or bloodshed;
+then the towers and palaces of fair Florence backed with line upon line
+of blue and violet mountains. Looking westward we can follow the track
+of the Arno flowing down to the sea, until lost behind the hill on
+which stands Artimino, another Medici villa. The little town of Prato
+shines white in the sun, and if the day be at all clear Pistoja can
+be seen, with the rugged Apennines and the white peaks of the Carrara
+mountains in the distance. To the north, shielding Careggi from the
+harsh north wind, rises Monte de’ Vecchi, so-called because the great
+family of Vecchi, or Vecchietti, whose palaces stood on the site of
+the Campidoglio in the centre of Florence and were destroyed by the
+Ghibellines after the battle of Monteaperti, possessed villas and
+estates on its slopes.
+
+At Careggi, Cosimo the elder passed what time he could spare from the
+affairs of state, surrounded by a galaxy of artists and men of letters
+such as the world has seldom seen. Among the former were Brunelleschi,
+Donatello, Michelozzo Michelozzi, Ghiberti, Verrocchio, Paolo Uccello,
+Luca della Robbia, Fra Angelico, Fra Filippo Lippi and Masaccio.
+Among the latter, Marsilio Ficino, Niccolò de’ Niccoli, Cristofano
+Landino, Lionardo Aretino (Bruni), Carlo Aretino (Marsuppini), Poggio
+Bracciolini, Ambrogio Traversari and Giannozzo Manetti.
+
+To Ficino Cosimo gave a villa (la Fontanella)[21] close to Careggi,
+and named him President of the Platonic Academy which he founded,
+having been convinced of the importance of Platonic studies by Giorgius
+Gemistus, a native of Byzantium, who came to Florence in 1438 in
+the train of the Emperor Palaelogus. Niccolò de’ Niccoli “censor of
+the Latin tongue,” as Lionardo Aretino called him, was one of the
+Academicians. He spent his whole fortune in buying MSS., and his
+house, stored with treasures, was open to all strangers, students and
+artists. Cristofano Landino, known for his commentary on Dante, and
+Lionardo Aretino (Bruni), Chancellor of the Republic of Florence, were
+also Academicians. The translations of the latter from Greek were
+celebrated for their sound scholarship and pure latinity, while his
+diplomatic letters were regarded as models, and his public speeches
+were compared to those of Pericles. When he walked abroad a train of
+scholars and foreigners attended him, and when he died the Priors of
+Florence decreed him a public funeral in Santa Croce, “after the manner
+of the ancients.” Carlo Aretino (Marsuppini), another member of the
+Platonic Academy, succeeded Bruni as Chancellor; an omnivorous reader
+and possessed of an extraordinary memory, he formed a great contrast to
+Niccoli, who had introduced him to Cosimo. Vespasiano describes Niccoli
+as “of a most fair presence, lively, with a smile ever on his lips, and
+very pleasant in his talk”; whereas Marsuppini was grave in manner,
+taciturn, and given to melancholy.
+
+Poggio Bracciolini was another of the great scholars attracted to
+Florence by the fame of Cosimo’s liberality. He was a friend of
+Ambrogio Traversari, whose cell in the convent of the Angeli was the
+meeting-place of learned men. Giannozzo Manetti, the Hebrew scholar,
+had studied Greek under Traversari, and his Latin was so perfect that
+Bruni is said to have been jealous of him. The Republic sent him as
+her ambassador to various Italian courts, and there is a good story
+in the Commentario, that “when he was speaking at Naples the King was
+so entranced he did not even brush the flies from his face.” At last
+Manetti roused the jealousy of the Medicean party and ended his life
+in exile. “These men,” writes Symonds, “formed the literary oligarchy
+who surrounded Cosimo de’ Medici, and through their industry and
+influence restored the studies of antiquity at Florence.” Cosimo was
+a Mæcenas worth serving. For his own family he built the great palace
+in Via Larga (afterwards Riccardi, now the Prefecture), he restored
+or rebuilt the villas of Cafaggiuolo, Trebbio and Careggi, while he
+expended 500,000 golden florins on public buildings. During the last
+years of his life he seldom moved from Careggi, and the following
+letter, written by his son Piero to Lorenzo and Giuliano about their
+grandfather four days before his death, gives a pleasant picture of the
+private life of the Medici family:—
+
+“I wrote to you the day before yesterday how much worse Cosimo was;
+it appears to me that he is gradually sinking, and he thinks the same
+himself. On Tuesday evening he would have no one in his room save only
+Mona Contessina [Cosimo’s wife] and myself. He began by recounting
+all his past life, then he touched upon the government of the city,
+and then on its commerce, and at last spoke of the management of the
+private possessions of our family and of what concerns you two; taking
+comfort that you had good wits, and bidding me educate you well so that
+you might be of help to me. Two things he deplored. Firstly, that he
+had not done as much as he had wished or could have done; secondly,
+that he left me in such poor health and with much irksome business.
+Then he said he would make no will, not having made one whilst
+Giovanni[22] was alive seeing us always united in true love, amity and
+esteem; and that when it pleased God to so order it he desired to be
+buried without pomp or show, and reminded me of his often expressed
+wish to be interred in San Lorenzo. All this he said with much method
+and prudence, and with a courage that was marvellous to behold; adding
+that his life had been a long one and that he was ready and content
+to depart whensoever it pleased God. Yestermorn he left his bed, and
+caused himself to be carefully dressed. The Priors of San Marco, of
+San Lorenzo and of the Badia were present, and he spoke the responses
+as though in perfect health. Then being asked the articles of faith,
+he repeated them word by word, made his confession, and took the Holy
+Sacrament with more devotion than can be described, having first asked
+pardon of all present. These things have raised my courage and my hope
+in God Almighty, and although according to the flesh I am sorrowful,
+yet, seeing the greatness of his soul and how well disposed, I am in
+part content that his end should be thus. Yesterday he was pretty
+well and also during the night, but on account of his great age I
+have small hope of his recovery. Cause prayers to be said for him by
+the Monks of the Wood, and bestow alms as seems good to you, praying
+God to leave him to us for a while, if such be for the best. And you,
+who are young, take example and take your share of care and trouble
+as God has ordained, and make up your minds to be men, your condition
+and the present case demanding that of you lads. And above all take
+heed to everything that can add to your honour and be of use to you,
+because the time has come when it is necessary that you should rely on
+yourselves, and live in the fear of God, and hope all will go well. Of
+what happens to Cosimo I will advise you. We are expecting a doctor
+from Milan, but I have more hope in Almighty God than in aught else. No
+more at present. Careggi, the 26 July 1464.”
+
+Cosimo died on the 1st August 1464; he was buried with sovereign
+honours in the sacristy he had built in San Lorenzo, and on his tomb
+was inscribed, by public desire, “Cosimo Pater Patriae.” Piero, his
+son, succeeded quietly to the honours and power of his father. He had
+met and loved Lucrezia Tornabuoni at Careggi, her father having a villa
+close by,[23] and Cosimo sanctioned the marriage and regarded Lucrezia
+as a daughter. She was a gifted woman, handsome and virtuous, a
+poetess, and at the same time devoted to all her household cares. Piero
+de’ Medici died only five years after his father of a fit of the gout
+at Careggi on the 3rd December 1469, and was succeeded by his brilliant
+son Lorenzo the Magnificent.
+
+“Lorenzo,” writes John Addington Symonds, “was a man of marvellous
+variety and range of mental power. He possessed one of those rare
+natures, fitted to comprehend all knowledge and to sympathise with
+the most diverse forms of life. While he never for one moment relaxed
+his grasp on politics, among philosophers he passed for a sage; among
+men of letters for an original and graceful poet; among scholars for
+a Grecian, sensitive to every nicety of Attic idiom; among artists
+for an amateur gifted with refined discernment and consummate taste.
+Pleasure-seekers knew in him the libertine, who jousted with the
+boldest, danced and masqueraded with the merriest, sought adventures in
+the streets at night, and joined the people in their May-day games and
+Carnival festivities. The pious extolled him as an author of devotional
+lauds and mystery plays, a profound theologian, a critic of sermons.
+He was no less famous for his jokes and repartees than for his pithy
+apothegms and maxims; as good a judge of cattle as of statues; as much
+at home in the bosom of his family as in the riot of an orgy; as ready
+to discourse on Plato as to plan a campaign or to plot the death of a
+dangerous citizen.”[24]
+
+“What other men call study and hard toil, for thee shall be pastime;”
+sings Poliziano, “wearied with deeds of state, to this thou hast
+recourse, and dost address the vigour of thy well-worn powers to song;
+blest in thy mental gifts, blest to be able thus to play so many parts,
+to vary thus the great cares of thy all-embracing mind, and weave so
+many divers duties into one.”[25] Angelo Poliziano, “honour and glory
+of Montepulciano” as Pulci calls him, who thus sounds the praises of
+Lorenzo, was born in 1454. His name, famous in Italian literature,
+is a latinised version of his birthplace, Montepulciano. As a boy of
+ten he entered the University of Florence, and studied under Landino,
+Argyropoulos, Andronicus Kallistos and Ficino. At thirteen he published
+Latin letters, at seventeen Greek poems, and edited Catullus when he
+was eighteen. Lorenzo de’ Medici received the young student into his
+own household, and made him tutor to his children. Ugly and misshapen,
+he squinted and had an enormous nose, but his voice was wonderfully
+sweet and melodious, and his eloquence great. Men of learning visited
+Florence on purpose to see him, and he complains (in a letter to
+Hieronymus Donatus, May 1480), “does a man want a motto for a ring, an
+inscription for his bedroom or a device for his plate, or even for his
+pots and pans, he runs like all the world to Poliziano.”
+
+Another famous frequenter of Careggi, Pico della Mirandola, is thus
+described by Poliziano:—
+
+“Nature seemed to have showered on this man, or hero, all her gifts.
+He was tall and finely moulded, from his face a something of divinity
+shone forth. Acute, and gifted with prodigious memory, in his studies
+he was indefatigable, in his style perspicuous and eloquent. You could
+not say whether his talents or his moral qualities conferred on him the
+greater lustre. Familiar with all branches of philosophy and the master
+of many languages, he stood on high above the reach of praise.” Pico
+della Mirandola showed remarkable abilities at a very early age. His
+mother, a niece of Boiardo the knightly poet of “Orlando Innamorato,”
+sent him at the age of fourteen to Bologna. There he mastered the
+humanities and what was taught of mathematics, logic, philosophy
+and oriental languages, and then went to Paris, the headquarters of
+scholastic theology. His memory was wonderful, a single reading served
+to fix the language and the matter of the text on his mind for ever.
+Pico was about twenty when he came to Florence, and his beauty, noble
+manners and great learning made him the idol of society. But every year
+he inclined more and more to grave and abstruse studies, and as Symonds
+notes: “at last the Prince was merged in the philosopher, the man of
+letters in the mystic.”[26]
+
+In a letter to Jacopo Antiquario Poliziano, after describing the malady
+from which Lorenzo had been suffering for some time, continues: “The
+day before his death, being at his villa of Careggi, he grew so weak
+that all hope of saving him vanished. Perceiving this, like a wise man,
+he called before all else for the confessor to purge himself of his
+past sins. This same confessor told me afterwards that he marvelled
+to see with what courage and constancy Lorenzo prepared himself for
+death; how well he ordered all things pertaining thereunto, and with
+what prudence and religious feeling he thought on the life to come.
+Towards midnight, while he was quietly meditating, he was informed that
+the priest, bearing the Holy Sacrament, had arrived. Rousing himself,
+he exclaimed, ‘It shall never be said that my Lord, who created and
+saved me, shall come to me—in my room—raise me I beg of you, raise
+me quickly, so that I may go and meet Him.’ Saying this he raised
+himself as well as he could, and supported by his servants advanced to
+meet the priest in the outer room, there crying he knelt.” Poliziano
+here gives the text of a long prayer which Lorenzo recited and then
+continues: “these and other things he said sobbing, while all around
+cried bitterly. At length the priest ordered that he should be raised
+from the ground and carried to bed, so as to receive the Viaticum in
+more comfort. For some time he resisted, but at last out of respect
+to the priest he obeyed. In bed, repeating almost the same prayer and
+with much gravity and devotion, he received the body and blood of
+Christ. Then he devoted himself to consoling his son Pietro, for the
+others were away, and exhorted him to bear this law of necessity with
+constancy; feeling sure the aid of Heaven would be vouchsafed to him,
+as it had been to himself in many and divers occasions, if he only
+acted wisely. Meanwhile your Lorenzo, the doctor from Pavia, arrived;
+most learned as it seemed to me, but summoned too late to be of any
+use; yet to do something he ordered various precious stones to be
+pounded together in a mortar, for I know not what kind of medicine.
+Lorenzo thereupon asked the servants what that doctor was doing in
+his room and what he was preparing; and when I answered that he was
+composing a remedy to comfort his intestines he recognised my voice
+and looking kindly, as was his wont, ‘Oh Angiolo,’ he said, ‘art thou
+here?’ and raising his languid arms took both my hands and pressed them
+tightly. I could not stifle my sobs or stay my tears, though I tried
+hard to hide them by turning my face away. But he showed no emotion
+and continued to press my hands between his. When he saw that I could
+not speak for crying, quite naturally he loosed my hands and I ran
+into the adjoining room where I could give free vent to my grief and
+to my tears. Then drying my eyes I returned, and as soon as he saw me
+he called me to him and asked what Pico della Mirandola was doing. I
+replied that Pico had remained in town, fearing to molest him with his
+presence. ‘And I,’ said Lorenzo, ‘but for the fear that the journey
+here might be irksome to him, would be most glad to see him and speak
+to him for the last time before I leave you all.’ I asked if I should
+send for him. ‘Certainly, and with all speed,’ answered he. This I did,
+and Pico came and sat near the bed, while I leaned against it by his
+knees in order to hear the languid voice of my lord for the last time.
+With what goodness, with what courtesy, I may say with what caresses,
+Lorenzo received him. First he asked his pardon for thus disturbing
+him, begging him to look upon it as a sign of the friendship—the
+love—he bore him; assuring him that he died more willingly after seeing
+so dear a friend. Then introducing, as was his wont, pleasant and
+familiar sayings, he joked also with us. ‘I wish,’ he said to Pico,
+‘that death had spared me until your library had been complete.’ Pico
+had hardly left the room when Fra Girolamo (Savonarola) of Ferrara,
+a man celebrated for his doctrine and his sanctity and an excellent
+preacher, came in. To his exhortations to remain firm in his faith, and
+to live in future, if Heaven granted him life, free from crime; or if
+God so willed it, to receive death willingly; Lorenzo replied that he
+was firm in his religion, that his life would always be guided by it,
+and that nothing could be sweeter to him than death if such was the
+divine will. Fra Girolamo then turned to go, when Lorenzo said, ‘Oh,
+father, before going deign to give me thy benediction.’ Then bowing his
+head, immersed in piety and religion, he repeated the words and the
+prayers of the friar, without attending to the grief, now openly shown,
+of his familiars. It seemed as though all save Lorenzo were going to
+die, so calm was he. He gave no signs of anxiety or of sorrow; even in
+that extreme moment he showed his usual strength of mind and fortitude.
+The doctors who stood round him, not to seem idle, worried him with
+their remedies and assistance: he accepted and submitted to everything
+they suggested, not because he thought it would save him, but in order
+not to offend anyone, even in death. To the last he had such mastery
+over himself that he joked about his own death. Thus when given
+something to eat and asked how he liked it he answered, ‘As well as a
+dying man can like anything.’ He embraced us all tenderly and humbly
+asked pardon if, during his illness, he had caused annoyance to anyone.
+Then disposing himself to receive extreme unction he recommended his
+soul to God. The gospel containing the passion of Christ was then read,
+and he showed that he understood by moving his lips, or raising his
+languid eyes, or sometimes moving his fingers. Gazing upon a silver
+crucifix inlaid with precious stones and kissing it from time to time,
+he expired....”
+
+The other accounts of the last interview of Lorenzo with Savonarola by
+various authors—Pico della Mirandola, Cinozzi, Burlamacchi, Barsanti,
+Razzi, Fra Marco della Casa, etc.—give the more generally accepted
+story that Lorenzo sent for Savonarola, and said he wished to confess
+to him. He deplored three great sins: the sack of Volterra; the dowry
+monies taken from the Monte delle Fanciulle, whereby so many girls
+were driven to a life of shame; and the blood shed after the Pazzi
+conspiracy. The friar told him that three things were required of him.
+“Firstly, a lively faith in the mercy of God.” “I have that,” said
+Lorenzo. “Secondly, to restore what you have unjustly taken, and to bid
+your sons make restitution.” This, after some moments of hesitation,
+Lorenzo also acceded to. Then Savonarola drew himself up to his full
+height and said, “Lastly, to restore to Florence her liberty.” Lorenzo
+turned his head away and Savonarola departed without hearing his
+confession and without giving him absolution. Professor Villari, who
+may be supposed to understand the manners and motives of his countrymen
+better than foreigners, does not believe that Savonarola would have
+gone to Careggi save at the express desire of Lorenzo, who sent for
+him in order to confess his sins and receive absolution from a man he
+knew to be honest. Cinozzi gives the words of Savonarola, stating that
+the conversation was a preliminary to the confession which was never
+made. He adds: “These words were repeated to me by Fra Silvestro, who
+died with his superior Fra Ieronimo, and who, as I well believe, had
+them and heard them from Fra Ieronimo’s own lips.” Professor Villari
+considers that Poliziano would not have dared to make a genuine report
+of the scene (supposing he saw it), in order not to cast a slur on the
+memory of his patron and benefactor, and to avoid giving offence to the
+Medicean party.
+
+             [Illustration: (Drawing of Villa Di Careggi.)]
+
+Various versions also exist of the death of Pier Leoni, who evidently
+was what we should call the trusted family doctor of the Medici; for
+when Lorenzo’s daughter Magdalena, married to Francesco Cybo, son of
+Innocent III, was so ill at Rome, she sent an express messenger to her
+father to beg him to send Maestro Leoni to see her. Poliziano declares
+that Piero Leoni killed himself in despair at not being able to save
+Lorenzo; Piero Ricci (Petrus Crinitus), a contemporary author, also
+records that he drowned himself in a well near Florence, but other
+accounts say that he was murdered by some of Lorenzo’s people, who
+suspected him, unjustly, of poisoning their master. Enemies of the
+Medici went so far as to accuse Piero de’ Medici of inducing him to
+administer poison to his father, and then of drowning him in the well
+of the courtyard at Careggi.
+
+In 1494 the Medici were expelled from Florence and an attempt was
+made to reconstitute a commonwealth upon the model of Venice. But
+the internal elements of discord were too potent. The Medici were
+recalled, again to be expelled in 1527. “Two years later Dante and
+Lorenzo da Castiglione and a number of youths went in hot haste,”
+writes Varchi, “and set fire to the villas of Careggi and Castello;
+the latter, however, did not burn easily, and fearing lest the enemy’s
+forces should cut off their retreat they fell back. So one of Signor
+Cosimo’s labourers was enabled to saw some beams in half and put out
+the fire. They also set fire to the palace of Jacopo Salviati, which
+was burnt, as well as Careggi.”
+
+Luckily the thick walls of the fine old villa defied the flames,
+and the first care of Alessandro de’ Medici was to restore it to
+its pristine splendour; but he was murdered by his cousin Lorenzino
+before he had time to finish the work. The Grand Duke Ferdinando II,
+had an especial affection for Careggi, and attempted to resuscitate
+the Platonic Academy which once flourished there, but in vain. All he
+could do was to commemorate it in a fresco in the Pitti palace, which
+represents Plato surrounded by the illustrious men who had formed part
+of it—
+
+    “Mira qui di Careggi all’ aure amene
+    Marsilio, e il Pico, e cento egregj spirti,
+    E di, s’ all’ ombre degli Elisj mirti
+    Tanti n’ ebber giammai Tebe, o Atene.”
+
+(Behold here in the soft air of Careggi, Marsilio, and Pico, and a
+hundred men of learning, and say whether at Thebes or Athens there were
+as many in the shade of the Elysian myrtles) is the inscription.
+
+In 1779 Careggi was sold to Vincenzo Orsi for 31,000 scudi. In 1848 it
+again changed hands and was bought by Mr Sloane, who left it to Count
+Boutourline, from whose family the present owner, M. Segré, bought the
+villa a few years ago.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[19] Benedetto Varchi. _Storia Florentina._ Lib. IX. p. 251 F. Mazzei
+in a pamphlet, _La Macine a Montughi_, gives another derivation; he
+says that in 1100 the Marchioness Villa left large estates to her
+son Ugone in this district, and thence the hill was called _Montem
+Hugonis_, corrupted into Montui by the common people and into Montughi
+by writers.
+
+[20] Moreni. _Contorni di Firense._ Vol. I. p. 45, _et seq._
+
+[21] Now belonging to Mr Mason.
+
+[22] Cosimo’s favourite son, who died 1463.
+
+[23] Villa Lemmi. The frescoes by Botticelli, now in the Louvre, were
+discovered there.
+
+[24] John Addington Symonds. _Renaissance in Italy._ _The Revival of
+Learning_, p. 320.
+
+[25] Angelo Poliziano. _Carmina_, etc., p. 179.
+
+[26] J. A. Symonds. _Renaissance in Italy._ _The Revival of Learning_,
+p. 331.
+
+
+                  [Illustration: COSIMO PATER PATRIAE,
+
+                             By MICHELOZZI.
+
+                       (_Villa di Cafaggiuolo_).]
+
+                   [Illustration: LORENZO DE’ MEDICI,
+
+                         By NICCOLÒ FIORENTINO.
+
+                         (_Villa di Coreggi_).]
+
+                    [Illustration: MARSILIO FICINO,
+
+                              By ANONIMO.
+
+                           (_Villa Medici_).]
+
+
+
+
+             [Illustration: (Drawing of Villa Di Rusciano)]
+
+
+VILLA DI RUSCIANO
+
+
+About a mile outside the great three-storied gateway of San Niccolò
+stands the old brown villa of Rusciano, which even in the days of
+Sacchetti had the reputation of changing masters more frequently than
+any other in Tuscany. It is first mentioned in 785, when Charlemagne
+is said to have granted the estate to the church of San Miniato a
+Monte; three centuries later Pope Nicholas II, gave it to the hospital
+of St Eusebius, popularly known as San Sebbo; then it belonged to two
+sisters, Buoninsegna and Princia, who in 1267 sold the house and lands
+to the nuns of San Jacopo in Pian di Ripoli. After passing through
+several other hands it was bought by Luca Pitti, who crowned the
+beautiful hill with what Vasari calls “a luxurious and superb palace,”
+built, or rather adapted and enlarged for him in 1434 by Brunelleschi,
+to render it a fitting residence for one who was Gonfalonier of
+Florence and at the height of his prosperity.
+
+Herr Cornel von Fabriczy[27] considers that only the eastern side of
+the villa is Brunelleschi’s work, the western being the original
+building, while the southern façade dates from late in the sixteenth
+century. One of the glories of Rusciano, much written about by
+critics, is a most beautiful window looking into the courtyard, but
+lately covered in. It is said by some to be by Brunelleschi, but
+the exaggerated consoles ornamented with acanthus leaves, and the
+pillars at the sides with Corinthian capitals, are not like the work
+of the great master. The garlands of flowers at the sides, tied in
+here and there, remind one of those on the monument to Marsuppini by
+Desiderio da Settignano, as does the delicate frieze at the top. Herr
+von Fabriczy suggests that this lovely window, which recalls those of
+the palaces at Urbino and at Gubbio, may perhaps have been designed
+by Luciano da Laurana, architect to Federigo di Montefeltre, to whom,
+as we shall see, the villa belonged for a short time. Anyhow this
+one richly ornamented piece of architecture contrasts strangely with
+the absolute simplicity, almost amounting to bareness, of everything
+else in the courtyard. Dr Carl von Stegmann, in his _Architekten der
+Renaissance_ thinks the frieze and the shape of the capitals are in the
+style of Desiderio da Settignano, while the garlands of flowers remind
+him more of the work of Benedetto da Majano. The rooms of the villa are
+of huge size, and many still retain their fine old wooden ceilings,
+gigantic beams resting on simply-shaped consoles with curved outlines.
+
+            [Illustration: (Detail of carved window frame)]
+
+      [Illustration: (Drawing of overlook of town from a garden)]
+
+Luca Pitti would have been a happier man had he taken to heart the wise
+words of Cosimo de’ Medici. “You,” said Cosimo, “strive towards the
+indefinite, I towards the definite; you aspire to reach the heavens
+with your ladder, I place mine on the earth so that I may not climb so
+high as to fall: and if I desire that the honour and reputation of my
+house should surpass yours, it seems to me but just and natural that
+I should favour rather mine own than what belongs to you. Nevertheless
+let us do as big dogs, which meeting, sniff one at the other and then,
+both having teeth, separate and go their ways: you to attend to your
+concerns, I to see after mine own.” But the character of Luca was
+correctly gauged by that acute and charming lady, Alessandra Macinghi,
+married to a Strozzi, who calls him, in her letters to her exiled sons
+after their father’s death which give so vivid a picture of what wives
+and mothers endured in the good old times, “a vain ambitious man and a
+weathercock, moreover badly surrounded.” After intriguing against the
+Medici, and even plotting to assassinate Cosimo’s son Piero, Luca Pitti
+abandoned the anti-Medicean faction and accepted pardon at the hands of
+Piero, after which his old friends scorned him and avoided meeting him
+in the streets.
+
+In the summer of 1472 the Gonfalonier of Florence, Tanai de’ Nerli,
+received the Captain-General of the Florentine army, Count Federigo
+di Montefeltre, outside the city gates and escorted him, amid the
+acclamations of the citizens, to the Piazza, where the magistrates
+thanked him for his services in conquering rebellious Volterra, and
+presented him with a richly caparisoned charger and a silver helmet
+studded with jewels and chased in gold by Pollajuolo, with Hercules
+trampling on a griffin (the device of Volterra) as its crest. The
+grateful Republic also bought Rusciano of Luca Pitti and bestowed it
+on their victorious general together with the freedom of the city. But
+he does not seem to have inhabited his Florentine villa long, for in
+the following year it was let to Giuliano Gondi, and towards the end of
+the fifteenth century Federigo’s successor, Guidobaldo, Duke of Urbino,
+sold it to the Frescobaldi. After this Rusciano changed hands every few
+years and was owned by the Covoni, Usimbardi, Capponi, Gerini and many
+other less illustrious Florentine families, until in 1825 it came into
+the possession of an Englishman, Mr Baring, and after three more sales
+the noble old villa now belongs to Baron von Stumm.
+
+The Baron is a master in the art of landscape gardening, and with
+a northerner’s love for trees has transformed the grounds into a
+veritable earthly paradise, whence lovely views of Florence, framed
+by rare conifers and bays, are like so many glimpses of a fairy city.
+When seen on a morning with deep snow lying on every mountain, while a
+pale tinge of colour among the vineyards tells of coming spring in the
+valley of the Arno, and the city, usually so brown and strongly defined
+upon the river banks, shines white as though reflecting the dazzling
+snow peaks around, one is tempted to exclaim with Rogers,
+
+    “Of all the fairest cities of the Earth
+    None is so fair as Florence. ’Tis a gem
+    Of purest ray.”
+
+All the town lies below us, but unlike the vast unbroken bird’s-eye
+view from Bellosguardo or San Miniato, here we only feel her presence,
+and while listening to the midday bells we see, between two clumps of
+slender bamboo, Palazzo Vecchio looming like some enchanter’s castle
+out of the thick atmosphere and suffused with rosy hues. The mysterious
+feeling of the building is enhanced, for the bay and olive trees hide
+the houses around it and nothing of the modern town is visible.
+
+Such a city, seen from a terrace where a column of purest marble makes
+the rose tints of the sky more clearly felt, may well inspire her
+people to weave legends, even in this century of ours, as to her having
+been built by angels in the night. Between the cypresses the Duomo,
+sometimes so russet brown above the city it is guarding, to-day is
+toned and mellowed in the winter sunlight, and the downward markings of
+its cupola shine like ribs of alabaster. Whiter still and fairer rises
+the campanile “coloured like a morning cloud, and chased like a sea
+shell.”
+
+The terraced garden of Rusciano, where granite columns with capitals
+encircled by dolphins rise amidst palms and magnolias, lies on the
+southern side of the villa facing the heights of Monticci.
+
+A watch-tower on the slopes, a little village in the plain with pointed
+bell-tower rising above the jutting roofs of peasant houses low-lying
+among the fruit trees, hills palely outlined, their cypress-covered
+summits seen against still paler distance, pine trees along the valley
+wreathed in mist and nearer, olive trees reflecting, like so many
+mirrors, the radiant hues of the morning sunlight on each of their
+small pointed leaves—all these things and many more we see from the
+garden of Rusciano.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[27] _Filippo Brunelleschi, sein Leben und seine Werke_, von Cornel von
+Fabriczy. Stuttgard, 1892.
+
+
+[Illustration: VILLA DI POGGIO IMPERIALE.]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: (Drawing of gardent of Villa Di Poggio Imperiale)]
+
+
+VILLA DI POGGIO IMPERIALE
+
+
+About a mile outside Porta Romana on the heights of Arcetri stands the
+fine Villa Poggio Imperiale, now a school for girls. Formerly it was
+called Poggio Baroncelli, from the rich and powerful family of that
+name who owned large possessions on this side of Florence, and turned
+an old castle into a dwelling-house; but they failed in 1487, when
+the villa and much of the land belonging to it became the property
+of Agnolo Pandolfini, whose descendants sold it to Piero d’Alamanno
+Salviati. In 1548 the Salviati were declared rebels and Cosimo I seized
+all their possessions.
+
+Cosimo had such an affection for Tommaso, one of the descendants of
+the Baroncelli, that he insisted on his living in the Medici palace
+in Via Larga (now palazzo Riccardi, Via Cavour). When in 1569 Pius V
+gave the Duke Cosimo I, in spite of strenuous opposition on the part
+of the Emperor Maximilian, the title of Grand Duke of Tuscany, Tommaso
+Baroncelli rode out to meet him on his return from the coronation at
+Rome. “Such was his joy,” writes Cosimo Baroncelli (son of Tommaso) in
+a manuscript history of his family, “on seeing that great Prince his
+most gracious Lord, that he fainted and would have fallen from his
+horse if the attendants had not quickly supported him and lifted him
+from the saddle. They placed him on a low wall near the fountain of San
+Gaggio where he died, to the very great grief of H.H. and of the whole
+court; he being singularly beloved for his kind and courteous manners.
+He died in the year 1569 on the 21st March, the day of St Benedict the
+Abbot.”
+
+There is a tradition that a duel took place close to the villa in 1312
+between four Florentines and four Germans during the siege of Florence
+by the Emperor Henry VII, but the one between Lodovico Martelli and
+Giovanni Bandini is historical and has been minutely described by
+Varchi. “Lodovico di Giovan Francesco Martelli, a youth of great
+courage, having a secret enmity against Giovanni Bandini, seized a
+favourable occasion of fighting and if necessary dying, for the love
+of his city; he sent him a challenge, written by Messer Salvestro
+Aldobrandini, setting forth that he (Bandini) and all Florentines
+serving in the enemy’s ranks were traitors to their country, and that
+he was ready to prove this in the lists fighting hand to hand, leaving
+the choice of place, of arms and whether on foot or on horseback to
+him.... Giovanni, who lacked not courage and abounded in wit, tried
+to evade fighting in so bad a cause, and replied with more prudence
+than truth, that he was in the enemy’s camp to visit certain friends
+and not to fight against his country which he loved as well as anyone.
+This, whether true or false, ought to have sufficed Lodovico; but he
+being desirous at all costs to cross swords with Giovanni replied in
+such manner, that not to fail in the honour of a gentleman, on which
+he particularly prided himself, Giovanni was obliged to accept; it
+was arranged that each should choose a companion. Giovanni ... chose
+Bertino di Carlo Aldobrandini, a youth whose beard had but just begun
+to sprout ... Lodovico chose Dante di Guido da Castiglione, who
+accepted the risk solely for love of his country.
+
+“Lodovico and Dante quitted Florence on the 2nd day of March (1530)
+leaving the Piazza San Michele Berteldi in the following order—to
+recount everything in minute fashion. In front of them were two pages
+clothed in red and white, on horses whose caparisons were of white
+leather, and then two other pages mounted on great chargers and dressed
+in the like manner; followed by two trumpeters blowing continuously.
+After these came Captain Giovanni da Vinci, a youth of extraordinary
+stature, the second of Dante, and Pagolo Spinelli, a citizen and an old
+soldier of great experience, second of Lodovico, and Messer Vitello
+Vitelli, umpire of both.... Then followed the two champions on fine
+Turkish horses of marvellous beauty and value. They wore tunics of
+red satin with sleeves of the same slashed with lace, their breeches
+were of red satin laced with white and lined with cloth of silver; on
+their heads were skull-caps of red satin and hats of red silk with
+white plumes. Six servants dressed in the same fashion as the pages on
+horseback walked by the stirrups of the knights ... and in their wake
+were several captains and brave soldiers with many of the Florentine
+militia, who having eaten with them that morning bore them company as
+far as the gate.... They followed the Via di Piazza, by Borgo Santo
+Apostolo, down Parione, crossing the Carraja bridge to the San Friano
+gate where was their baggage; twenty-one mules laden with all and every
+sort of thing they might want in the way of food or arms for man and
+horse. Not to be beholden to the enemy for anything, they carried with
+them bread, wine, oats, straw, wood, meat of all kinds, every sort of
+bird and of fish and of pastry, tents fitted with every convenience and
+furniture they could need even to water. They took a priest, a doctor,
+a barber, a butler, a cook and a scullion with them. Going out of the
+gate with all this baggage they went along under the walls, until close
+to the gate of San Pier Gattolini [now Porta Romana] they turned to
+the right ... where was the last of the enemy’s trenches, and then
+proceeded to Baroncelli [Poggio Imperiale], the whole camp running to
+see them, it having been agreed that until they stood before the Prince
+of Orange no shot should be fired from any artillery, either large or
+small on either side, and this was faithfully observed.
+
+“At twelve on the day of St Gregory, which fell on a Saturday, they
+fought in two stockades.[28] ... They fought in their shirts, that is
+breeches and no jackets, with the right sleeve cut off at the elbow, a
+sword and a short mailed glove on the sword hand and nothing on their
+heads.... Thus it was chosen by Giovanni to gainsay the opinion held of
+him in Florence, that he had more prudence than valour and behaved with
+more cunning than courage.
+
+“Dante having caused his red beard which descended nearly to his waist
+to be shaved, attacked Bertino, and in the first round received a
+wound in his right arm and a slight touch on the mouth; he was then
+assailed with such fury by his adversary that without being able to
+shield himself he got three wounds on his left arm, one severe, and two
+slashes, so that if Bertino had continued to press him as he should
+have done, he was in such condition that he would have been forced to
+yield; being unable to hold his sword in only one hand he took it with
+both, and keenly watching the movements of his adversary saw how he
+rushed towards him with the utmost fury and inconsiderateness ... so
+advancing and extending both arms he drove his sword into Bertino’s
+mouth between the tongue and the uvula in such fashion that his right
+eye swelled forthwith; thus he who just before had boastingly promised
+to die a thousand times sooner than yield once, either vanquished by
+the extreme pain ... or else out of his senses, asked for quarter,
+to the very great displeasure of the Prince [of Orange] ... and died
+the following night at the sixth hour. Then Dante, to encourage his
+companion, shouted twice aloud ‘Victory, Victory,’ not being able, by
+reason of the laws agreed upon between them to otherwise help him.
+
+“Lodovico at the first trumpet blast attacked Giovanni with incredible
+fury; but Giovanni, who was a master of fence and did not allow himself
+to be carried away by anger or any other passion, gave him a cut above
+the eyebrow, the blood from which began to impede his sight; therefore
+he with increased rage tried three times to seize his opponent’s sword
+with his left hand and wrest it from him, but Giovanni turning it
+quickly and drawing it hard towards him, always pulled it out of his
+hand and wounded him in three places in the said left hand; so that the
+more Lodovico tried to clear his eye from blood with his left hand in
+order to see light, the more he besmeared himself; nevertheless with
+his right hand he made a ferocious pass at Giovanni which passed more
+than a span beyond him, but did him no other harm than a slight scratch
+beneath the left breast. Then did Giovanni deal him a right-handed
+blow on the head, which he not being able to ward off in other fashion
+parried with his wounded left hand and tried once more to seize the
+sword. Failing in this and being severely wounded, he placed both hands
+to the hilt of his sword and resting it against his breast rushed at
+Giovanni to run him through; but the latter, agile as he was strong,
+sprang back, and at the same moment dealt him a blow on the head
+saying: ‘If thou wouldst not die yield thyself to me.’ Lodovico, unable
+to see and wounded in several places, answered: ‘I yield myself to
+the Marquis del Guasto,’[29] but Giovanni insisting he yielded unto
+him.”[30]
+
+Lodovico Martelli died of his wounds twenty-four days after the duel,
+and it was solemnly decreed that his portrait should be placed in the
+Uffizi gallery among those of men famous for their patriotic virtues.
+Patriotism had, however, little to do with the duel, which was fought
+for love of Marietta Ricci, wife of Niccolò Benintendi.[31]
+
+In 1565 Cosimo I gave the villa to his favourite daughter Isabella,
+married to Paolo Giordano Orsini, Duke of Bracciano, with faculty
+to leave it by will to her children; if she died intestate it was to
+revert to the crown. Eleven years later she was strangled one summer’s
+night by her husband at their villa Cerreti Guidi, and in the following
+October her brother, the Grand Duke Francesco I, confirmed his
+brother-in-law in the possession of Poggio Baroncelli.
+
+In 1619 it became the property of the Grand Duchess Maria Maddalena of
+Austria, wife to Cosimo II. She bought it from Paolo Giordano Orsini,
+who was in want of money to pay the dower of his sister Camilla,
+engaged to Marcantonio Borghese, Prince of Sulmona. At the same time
+the Grand Duchess bought several farms to enlarge the grounds and make
+the broad carriage road leading up to the villa. She also planted the
+ilexes and cypresses which are now such a feature in the landscape.
+It became her favourite residence, and here Claudia de’ Medici, her
+sister-in-law, was married to Federigo Ubaldo della Rovere, eldest son
+to the Duke of Urbino, with less pomp than was usually displayed by the
+Medici owing to the recent death of the Grand Duke Cosimo II.
+
+Maria Maddalena determined to enlarge and beautify her villa, and
+chose Giulio Parigi as her architect, changing its name from Poggio
+Baroncelli to Poggio Imperiale. She and Christine of Lorraine (mother,
+grandmother and guardians of the young Grand Duke Ferdinando II)
+entertained Prince Stanislao of Poland there in 1625 with the tragedy
+of St Ursula, a ball, and a ballet on horseback performed in an
+amphitheatre built for the purpose in front of the villa.
+
+Ferdinando II married his cousin Vittoria, only child of Claudia de’
+Medici and Federigo della Rovere, who died soon after the birth of his
+daughter. Brought up at Poggio Imperiale by her aunt Maria Maddalena,
+Vittoria bought the villa from her husband after his mother’s death for
+62,500 scudi and spent large sums in enlarging and embellishing the
+place; several of the rooms added by her were frescoed by Volterrano
+(Baldassare Franceschini). When her half-brothers (by her mother’s
+second marriage with the Arch Duke Leopold of Austria) came to Florence
+she gave a magnificent entertainment there, including the favourite
+Florentine pastime of the _Buratto_ or Saracen. Loud laughter greeted
+the unhappy wight whose lance missed the proper spot on the breast of
+Buratto and was then knocked off his horse by the staff unerringly
+wielded by the wooden statue.
+
+  [Illustration: (Drawing of two women walking out of a stone gateway,
+               with statues and trees in the background.)]
+
+Violante of Bavaria, wife of Prince Ferdinando, son of Cosimo III,
+lived occasionally at Poggio Imperiale, and it was frequently visited
+by her brother-in-law Gastone, the last of the Medicean Grand
+Dukes, who inherited all the vices but none of the talent of his
+house. Pietro Leopoldo of Lorraine, his successor, had a particular
+predilection for the imperial villa and spent 1,300,000 francs on
+enlarging it and building immense stables (now cavalry barracks). When
+he, on the death of his brother in 1790, became Emperor of Austria,
+his second son Ferdinando III succeeded to the Grand Duchy of Tuscany,
+and gave hospitality at Poggio Imperiale to the King of Sardinia and
+his wife, who had been compelled to quit Piedmont by the revolution.
+Charles Emanuel IV and Marie Clotilde arrived on the 19th January
+1799, only to be driven out after a month of quiet and repose. They
+fled to Sardinia, and Napoleon having abolished Tuscany with a stroke
+of a pen, the Grand Duke took refuge with his brother in Vienna. A
+new kingdom—Etruria—was then created, with Lodovico of Bourbon, son
+of the Duke of Parma, as king. He died in 1803, leaving his young
+widow as regent for his little son, and Poggio Imperiale became her
+favourite residence. She added the rustic loggia and was beginning
+other improvements when Napoleon, unmoved by her tears and entreaties,
+swept Etruria off the map of nations and the poor Queen Regent and
+her small boy were driven into exile. A new mistress now ruled in the
+great villa—Napoleon’s sister, the brilliant Elise Bonaparte married
+to Captain Felice Baciocchi, who had been created Prince of Lucca and
+Piombino; and she gave balls and festivals to celebrate her brother’s
+victories in the villa which owed most of its splendour to Austrian
+princesses. Her grandeur was, however, short-lived; in 1814 she left
+Poggio Imperiale at dead of night, and Ferdinando III returned to
+Tuscany.
+
+Three years later a royal company assembled in the “Villa of five
+hundred rooms,” as Poggio Imperiale was commonly called, to say
+farewell to the Arch Duchess Leopoldine of Austria who was to embark at
+Leghorn as the bride of the Crown Prince of Portugal and the Brazils.
+Her two sisters, one married to Prince Leopold of Naples the other to
+Napoleon, then a prisoner at St Helena, met her there together with the
+Princess of the Brazils who had come to receive her son’s future wife
+at the hands of Prince Metternich.
+
+In the autumn of 1822, when Carlo Alberto, Prince of Carignano, that
+strange compound of hesitation and daring, religion and mysticism,
+came as an exile to Florence, his father-in-law Ferdinando III lent
+him Poggio Imperiale, and here his son Victor Emanuel, the future King
+of United Italy, narrowly escaped being burnt to death as a baby.
+His nurse, driven distracted by the mosquitoes tried to burn them on
+the mosquito-net and set fire to the bed. Snatching up the child she
+clasped him to her breast and saved his life at the sacrifice of her
+own. When the “Re Galant’ Uomo” entered Florence on the 15th April
+1860, his first visit was to Poggio Imperiale to see the room he had
+inhabited as a child, and the apartments occupied by his parents.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[28] Lodovico Martelli and Giovanni Bandini in one, Dante da
+Castiglione and Bertino Aldobrandini in the other.
+
+[29] Colonel in command of the Spanish infantry.
+
+[30] Varchi. _Storia Fiorentina._ Firenze, 1836–1841. Vol. II. p. 302.
+
+[31] See Letter XVIII. Busini.
+
+
+
+
+              [Illustration: (Drawing of S shaped stairway
+                     leading from house to garden)]
+
+
+VILLA DI LAPPEGGI
+
+
+The hamlet of Lappeggi lies some six miles south-east of Florence in
+the picturesque valley of the Ema, and here the Ricasoli had a villa
+which in 1569 they sold to Francesco de’ Medici, son of Cosimo I.
+Francesco I was succeeded by his brother Ferdinando I, who, in order
+to avoid any controversy with Don Antonio de’ Medici, the supposed
+illegitimate son of the Grand Duke Francesco and Bianca Cappello,[32]
+gave him a life interest in a considerable share of the family
+property, Lappeggi among the rest. On the death of Don Antonio in 1604
+the Grand Duke again came into possession and bestowed it on the Orsini
+family. Alessandro, last of the Orsini, died about thirty years later,
+and once more Lappeggi reverted to the crown when Don Mattias de’
+Medici had it for his life, but seldom lived there, as he was governor
+of Siena. Finally the villa became the property of Cardinal
+Francesco Maria de’ Medici, whose favourite place of residence it was.
+
+                   [Illustration: VILLA DI LAPPEGGI.]
+
+Antonio Ferri, the court architect, was then ordered to prepare designs
+for a villa, and choosing the most magnificent the Cardinal asked what
+the cost would be; after a few moments of reflection Ferri answered
+forty thousand scudi for solid good building. “And if I only desire to
+spend thirty thousand, and yet have my villa built according to this
+design, how long would it last?” said the Cardinal. On the architect
+replying that he would guarantee it for eighteen years, the Cardinal
+exclaimed, “Eighteen years? That is enough; that will serve my time.”
+
+Lappeggi is celebrated in the _Rime Piacevole_ of Giovan Battista
+Fagiuoli, a poet who was one of the chief boon companions of the
+pleasure-loving Cardinal, and seems to have been consulted as to the
+planting of the grounds. He strongly recommended bay trees: “they are
+evergreen, but not funereal like cypresses, so noble that kings make
+crowns of their leaves; and above all they avert thunderbolts, which
+are frequent at Lappeggi. But,” he continues in his facetious poem,
+“plant what you will, everyone is sure to praise your work, for a
+Prince can do no wrong. Should he by chance commit some gross error,
+liars and courtiers will make it out a miracle; so that if you plant a
+pumpkin to-morrow they will all exclaim, ‘What a beautiful outlandish
+fruit.’ Or if you sow a bean—a common enough thing—you will hear, ‘What
+a glorious plant, what a show it makes, what taste the Cardinal has.’”
+
+Francesco Maria de’ Medici was very fond of practical jokes. Once he
+saw an ass go pass the villa with her foal, and calling his French
+cook Monsù Niccolò and his two aids bade them buy the foal and serve
+it dressed in various ways at dinner. After the guests had eaten their
+fill, particularly of an excellent pasty, the bleeding legs and head
+of the little donkey with the hair on, were solemnly placed on the
+centre of the table. Some of the party had to leave the room, but most
+of them praised the good dinner and laughed, or pretended to laugh,
+at the Cardinal’s wonderful wit. Fagiuoli writes a long description
+of the scene in verse, saying that for his part, he preferred the
+long ears. He also describes the game of _pallone_, in high favour at
+Lappeggi, and various games of cards over which large sums of money
+were lost. Comedies written by him were learned and acted by the
+courtiers within six hours, in obedience to a master whose every whim
+had to be gratified at once. On the Cardinal’s birthday there was a
+fair on the sward near the villa; all Florence, and the inhabitants of
+the neighbouring villages, flocked to see the fun and danced till late
+in the night. Marionettes, musicians, astrologers, conjurors “who,”
+says our satirical poet, “did not much astonish me, because the talent
+of changing cards by sleight of hand is by no means uncommon in these
+days.”
+
+There were great doings at Lappeggi in 1709; Frederick IV, King of
+Denmark,[33] was in Florence, and the Cardinal de’ Medici begged
+him to honour his villa with his presence, and asked ten ladies of
+the aristocracy, chosen for their knowledge of French, to meet him.
+Prince Giovan Gastone waited betimes upon the King with all the court
+dignitaries to accompany him to his uncle’s villa where the ladies
+received His Majesty at the door with much reverence and courtesying,
+and at dinner they and Prince Giovan Gastone sat at the King’s table
+and were served by the pages of the court; the Cardinal having a bad
+fit of the gout being unable to do the honours himself. The dinner
+consisted of four complete changes: one cloth after another was removed
+and towards the end came a course of sweet dishes of various kinds;
+after these had been tasted, sugar-plums disposed in pyramids and many
+kinds of liqueur were placed on the table. In front of the King was put
+a large coffee-pot in the shape of a fountain with four jets, and at
+the sides of the table were four golden dishes, two containing three
+cups of chocolate each, the others cups of water. Between the golden
+dishes the space was covered with Savoy and other biscuits, and when
+the coffee-pot was removed, “trionfi” of bottles of San Lorenzo and
+other rare wines took its place, and all the glasses used were of the
+finest engraved Bohemian glass. During dinner there was a concert,
+and the same musicians followed the King about during the whole day,
+and managed so well as to be ready to receive him with dulcet tunes
+at every halting-place. After the banquet the King withdrew with the
+ladies and cavaliers into another room and played games until four
+o’clock, when they drove about the grounds and visited the home farm.
+Then going into the orange garden they found a sumptuous cold repast,
+preparations of milk, capons in jelly, iced fruit and sweetmeats of
+divers kinds. The iced fruit, a dish new to the King and to all his
+people, delighted them so much that His Majesty asked permission to
+make a present of a dish to his dwarf, who was of noble birth and a
+great favourite and trusted counsellor. On a table apart stood small
+flasks of the most costly Tuscan wines, chiefly those made on the
+surrounding hills praised so highly by Redi in his _Bacco in Toscana_.
+The King and all the company sat down and ate heartily of the good
+things, and then, to crown so royal a day, it was proposed to dance;
+the King set the example, but as night was approaching and dew began
+to fall it was considered prudent to retreat indoors. More liberty and
+jollity being permitted in the country than in town, French dances were
+abandoned and peasant dances, such as the _Spalmata_, the _Mestola_ and
+the _Scarpettaccia_ were indulged in, to the great satisfaction and
+delight of His Majesty. Thus they amused themselves until three in the
+morning, when all returned to Florence.”[34]
+
+In July of the same year the Cardinal was, for family reasons, induced
+to obtain dispensation from Holy Orders and marry the Princess
+Eleonora Gonzaga of Guastalla, twenty-five years his junior, and the
+bachelor amusements at Lappeggi came to an end. The young Princess
+openly manifested her dislike and contempt for her worn-out, gouty and
+corpulent husband, and he, they say, took this so much to heart that he
+died after only eight months of married life.
+
+Lappeggi was then abandoned and shut up for four years when Cosimo
+III lent it to Princess Violante of Bavaria, widow of his eldest son.
+She loved the society of literary men and poets and had a particular
+admiration for _improvisatori_. Cavaliere Bernadino of Siena, famous
+for his talent in improvising, often visited her at Lappeggi, where he
+met the burlesque poet Ghivizzani, and a peasant girl who lived near
+by called Domenica Maria Mazzetti, surnamed la Menica di Legnaja, who
+had a great reputation for improvising in “terza rima.” So delighted
+was Princess Violante with the girl’s talent that she had her taught
+reading, writing, Latin and music, all which she learnt with ease.
+After the death of Cosimo, Princess Violante had to give up Lappeggi
+and went to live in Rome; she took the peasant girl with her and caused
+her to be crowned with bays on the Campidoglio.
+
+In 1816 Lappeggi was sold by public auction to Signor Capacci; he
+soon resold it to Captain Cambiagi, who was obliged to take down the
+second story, which was causing the walls to bulge and threatened to
+destroy the whole house, and at his death the Gheradesca family bought
+it and turned the royal villa into a lodging-house for poor people. In
+1876 it came into the possession of the well-known sculptor Giovanni
+Dupré, whose daughter, also a sculptress, still owns it. In May 1895
+the villa, like so many in the neighbourhood of Florence, suffered
+severely from an earthquake; but time, neglect and earthquakes have
+been unable to quite destroy the beauty of the place, and as we stand
+on the wide broad terrace in front of the villa looking out across the
+valley of the Chianti towards Siena, the talent of Antonio Ferri the
+architect is realised, who so happily placed the villa of Lappeggi and
+its gardens in sight of so fine a scene. The lines of the balustrade,
+projecting above the garden in a bold half circle, are seen against the
+hills where they slope down towards the valley, thus forming a scene as
+austerely beautiful as a drawing by some great Tuscan Master. A wide
+staircase leads swiftly down on either side of the terrace to the lower
+level of the garden, which is raised above the vineyards by strong
+bastions and confined by a low rampart wall. The outline of the beds
+remain as in Zocchi’s print, but where the pleasure-loving Cardinal
+once walked with a gay company of Florentines among the brightness of
+his flowers now are seen only artichokes and potatoes, and the statues
+and vases are no longer standing to recall the pageantry of those days.
+At the top of the garden a big grotto has been scooped out beneath the
+upper terrace, which Francesco Maria, no doubt remembering for a brief
+moment his title of Cardinal, caused to be ornamented with terra-cotta
+bas-reliefs illustrating such scenes as Moses before the burning bush,
+while a huge statue of St Mark with his lion seated above a pool of
+water, might easily be mistaken by a casual observer for a Neptune
+rising from the sea with his dolphin.
+
+From the loggia of the house one enters a finely proportioned room,
+decorated with charming frescoes of landscapes seen through arches,
+where pheasants strut on terraced walks, while a statue of Venus looks
+down upon a lake, all faintly painted and with a dim distance which
+gives to the room that great idea of space which the Italians of the
+eighteenth century so well knew how to render. We sat here one rainy
+day reading of the gay doings of Cardinal Francesco Maria, and as we
+saw the rents in the walls made by the earthquake, and recalled the
+bargain between the Cardinal and his architect, we wondered that the
+villa should have stood so long.[35]
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[32] A new-born babe was smuggled into the Pitti Palace in a lute and
+presented to the Grand Duke by Bianca Cappello as his child; Francesco
+I bought for him the estate of Capistrano in the Abruzzi which carried
+the title of Prince with it, and left him also large property by will.
+The real mother was murdered, as soon as she had given up her child, by
+the orders of Bianca.
+
+[33] When travelling in Italy as crown prince in 1691, Frederick fell
+in love with Maddalena Trenta, daughter of a gentleman at Lucca; and
+being at Venice for the carnival in 1709 he could not resist going
+to Florence in order to see once more the woman he had loved so
+passionately. After his departure she had sought refuge and consolation
+in the convent of Santa Maria Maddalena de’ Pazzi, and he obtained a
+special dispensation to pay visits to the still beautiful nun, who they
+say tried to convert him.
+
+[34] Taken from a manuscript (No 893 in the MSS. Moreniani). “Relazione
+di tutti le Cerimonie, Trattamenti, Feste e Trattenimenti seguiti
+in Firenze l’anno 1708 in 1709, nella venuta di Federigo IV, Re di
+Danimarca e Norvegia.”
+
+[35] For the account of Lappeggi in the days of the Cardinal Francesco
+Maria de’ Medici, I am chiefly indebted to a rare pamphlet by Signor G.
+Palagi, _La Villa di Lappeggi e il Poeta Gio. Batt. Fagiuoli_. Firenze,
+Succ. Le Monnier 1876.
+
+
+[Illustration: VILLA DELLA PETRAJA]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: (Drawing of the view from garden to the Villa.)]
+
+
+VILLA DELLA PETRAJA
+
+
+The number of beautiful homes owned by the Medici strikes one with
+fresh surprise when visiting the villas of Petraja and Castello, which
+lie close together with a shady ilex wood between them, about three
+miles from Florence. Something of the old charm still lingers about
+them although the life of that time has departed, and few now pace the
+terraced walks, or sit in the shade of the quiet ilex woods, where
+once all the gay world of Florence thronged to hold court round their
+Medicean rulers. The charm of both villas now lies in their gardens
+and surroundings, and though so essentially Florentine each has its
+individual character—Petraja, within sight of the city, peaceful,
+amidst a garden of roses and carnations, its terraces sinking gradually
+down to the plain, with an enormous marble reservoir of clear green
+water, in which colossal carp disport themselves under the first one,
+on which the villa and a few huge ilexes stand. A rustic staircase
+twines round the trunk of the largest of these trees leading up to a
+platform among the branches, where Victor Emanuel used to dine. The
+view of Florence at one’s feet, surrounded by villa-crowned hills, is
+lovely, and Ariosto is said to have written his well-known lines while
+standing on the terrace of Petraja—
+
+    “To see the hills with villas sprinkled o’er
+    Would make one think that, even as flowers and trees,
+    Here earth tall towers in rich abundance bore.
+
+    “If gathered were thy scattered palaces
+    Within a single wall, beneath one name,
+    Two Romes would scarce appear so great as these.”[36]
+
+The beautiful fountain on the east side of the villa was removed from
+Castello and brought here by the Grand Duke Pietro Leopoldo. It is one
+of Tribolo’s masterpieces, and Vasari tells us “he carved on the marble
+base a mass of marine monsters, all plump and under-cut, with tails
+so curiously twisted together that nothing better can be done in that
+style; having finished it, he took a marble basin, brought to Castello
+long before ... and in the throat, near to the edge of the said basin,
+he made a circle of dancing boys holding certain festoons of marine
+creatures carved with excellent imagination out of the marble; also the
+stem to go above the said basin he executed with much grace, with boys,
+and masks for spouting out water of great beauty, and on the top of
+this stem Tribolo placed a bronze female figure a yard and a half high
+to represent Florence ... of which figure he had made a most beautiful
+model, wringing the water out of her hair with her hands.”[37]
+
+Petraja is first celebrated in Florentine history for a gallant
+defence made by its owners the Brunelleschi, against the Pisans and
+their English and German allies in 1364. It was the time of the fierce
+feud between Pisa and Florence, when the Pisans were smarting under
+the loss of the great iron chain used for closing the entrance of
+their port, which the Florentines had carried off in triumph and hung
+over the western door of San Giovanni. Piero de’ Farnese, commander
+of the Florentine army, had also taunted the Pisans by striking a
+commemorative coinage under their very walls; Piero, however, died of
+the plague, and the fortune of war changed. The Pisans not only coined
+money under the walls of Florence, but they ravaged the whole country.
+“The Germans,” writes Scipione Ammirato, “the Pisan despoilers and
+the English, encamped at Sesto and Colonnato on their way back from
+the Mugello, and spreading over the slopes of Monte Morello took San
+Stefano in Pane, where they remained some days devastating the villas,
+which they burned down over a radius of three miles. The sons of
+Boccaccio Brunelleschi, most valorous youths, then owned Petraja....
+The villa being therefore well defended by the young Brunelleschi,
+who showed no sign of surrendering, the enemy determined to take it
+by force, with the intention of cutting the defenders to pieces and
+razing the building to the ground. The English[38] first undertook the
+work and advanced in fine order with the greatest ferocity, carrying
+ladders and catapults as though they had to storm the walls of Florence
+itself. But all was in vain. Some were killed, many others were bruised
+and wounded. The Germans then determined to try their luck and made a
+second assault as furious as any castle ever underwent. Neither more
+nor less happened to them than what had befallen the English. So they
+determined with combined forces to assault the villa a third time, and
+to their shame and the everlasting glory of the Brunelleschi they were
+once more repulsed.”[39]
+
+The Brunelleschi were on the winning side, and had the joy of
+witnessing the triumphal entry of Galeotto Malatesta and his army into
+Florence; when, by way of insulting a fallen foe, the Pisan prisoners
+were compelled to kiss the tail of the Marzocco, the stone lion beloved
+of all Florentines.
+
+The Strozzi were the next owners of Petraja, and we can fancy the
+pleasure Palla Strozzi took in spending some of his wealth on laying
+out terraces and beautiful gardens and filling his villa with costly
+works of art and valuable manuscripts. He occupied several high offices
+in Florence and took a leading part in the affairs of the city;
+unfortunately he joined the Albizzi against the Medici and was exiled
+in 1435. His son Messer Lorenzo di Palla Strozzi seems however to have
+still owned Petraja in 1438, as is shown by a deed executed by him
+before a public notary dated “from my villa of Petraja.” Whether it
+came into the possession of the Medici when the estates of Palla were
+confiscated by the Republic of Florence after the return of Cosimo
+the Elder from exile, or whether it was confiscated in consequence of
+the rebellion of Filippo Strozzi against the government of Cosimo, is
+not ascertained. Palla Strozzi was sixty-six years old when he was
+driven into exile, and although he carefully avoided the society of
+other Florentine malcontents and lived entirely with learned men, his
+sentence of banishment was renewed. He lost one son after another, and
+died in 1462 without seeing his beloved Florence again.
+
+Cosimo de’ Medici died two years later at the age of seventy-six, the
+Republic inscribed the glorious title of “Pater Patriae” on his tomb,
+and he was universally mourned as the most sagacious man in Italy. “His
+financial genius,” says Galluzzi, “was such that when Alfonso, King
+of Naples, joined the Venetians against the Republic of Florence, he
+caused so great a dearth of coin by drawing bills as to compel them
+to come to terms. There are few examples in history of a citizen who,
+without arms, and solely by the admiration excited by his virtues,
+became the master of his fatherland.”[40] “Nothing is denied to him,”
+exclaimed Pius II, “he is a judge of war and peace, a moderator of the
+laws; not so much a citizen as the lord of the country. The policy
+of the Republic is settled in his house, he gives commands to the
+magistrates.” “Write in private to Cosimo,” was the advice Sforza’s
+envoy gave to his master, “if you want anything particularly....
+Cosimo does everything.... Without him nothing is done.”[41] The most
+eminent men in Florence were among his intimate friends: Antonino the
+saintly archbishop, Fra Angelico the holy painter, and the learned monk
+Ambrogio Traversari, who set aside one of the cells of St Marco for his
+use. Cosimo invited Argyropulos the Greek to Florence, and made him one
+of the teachers of his son Piero and of his grandson Lorenzo. Marsilio
+Ficino was brought up in his house, and the last year of his life he
+spent in studying the translation made by his protegé of Plato’s _On
+the highest good_.
+
+Cosimo I, his collateral descendant, was like all his house a patron of
+men of letters; he lived much at Petraja, and wishing to have Varchi
+near him “to enjoy his sweet converse,” lent him “La Topaja,” a small
+villa on the hillside above Petraja. Poets, artists and strangers of
+note who came to Florence, toiled up the steep road to visit the great
+historian, and Varchi must often have entertained there the celebrated
+courtezan Tullia d’ Arragona, whose portrait at Brescia by Bonvicino
+fully justifies the passionate verses addressed to her by so many poets
+of that time.
+
+                        ... “occhi belli.
+    Occhi leggiadri, occhi amorosi e cari,
+    Piu che le stelle belle e piu che il sole.”
+
+writes Muzio; while Ercole Bentivoglo indited sonnets to
+her celestial brow. Tasso called her “la mia Signora,” and Alessandro
+Arrighi praised her wise conversation, her most rare beauty, and her
+singing, which could turn a marble statue into flesh and blood. Tullia
+was the daughter of Cardinal Luigi d’ Arragona (son of the Marquis of
+Gerace, a natural son of Francis I of Arragon, King of Naples, and of
+Diana Guardato). Born in Rome and educated in Siena and Florence, she
+aspired to be a second Sappho. Varchi, in spite of the silvered hair he
+talks so much about, evidently succumbed to the charms of the beautiful
+woman, and even when love had cooled into a platonic friendship he
+continued to polish and sometimes re-write, in his elegant scholarly
+language, the sonnets and verses of the lovely Tullia. Her reputation
+as a poetess induced Cosimo to excuse her from wearing the yellow veil,
+odious sign of her profession. The sonnet sent with her petition, which
+is still in the state archives of Florence, bears _Fasseli gratia
+per poetessa_ in his handwriting on the margin. In her old age she
+became devout and was a protegée of the pious Duchess Eleonora of
+Toledo, wife of Cosimo. Tullia’s poem _Guerrino il Meschino_, which
+she declared to be the versification of a Spanish story, was written
+about this time; it is no doubt an old popular tale, and some critics
+hold that from it Dante took the conception of his Divine Comedy. In
+the preface she rates Boccaccio soundly for “the improper, indecent and
+truly abominable things” in his book, and wonders how people calling
+themselves Christians can hear his name mentioned without making the
+sign of the Holy Cross. “Yet,” she goes on, “so corrupt is our nature,
+that the book is not avoided as an abomination, but run after by all.”
+Poor Tullia, when young and beautiful she no doubt read the _Decameron_
+with as much zest as other people, and one cannot help thinking
+she must occasionally have been rather bored in her new rôle of a
+well-conducted woman. Her patroness Eleonora, disliked in spite of many
+virtues by the Florentines on account of her “insopportabile gravità,”
+died in 1562, and Tullia did not long survive her.
+
+After the death of Cosimo I, Petraja was the favourite residence of his
+son, Cardinal Ferdinando de’ Medici, on his rare visits to Florence.
+He commissioned Bernardo Buontalenti to enlarge and improve the villa,
+“but,” says Ammirato, “I am persuaded that the tower we see to-day,
+which Cardinal Ferdinando certainly did not touch when he altered the
+rest of the building, is the same that was assaulted by the Pisan
+army.[42] When the Cardinal left the church and married Christine of
+Lorraine, Petraja was their favourite residence; and here in May 1598
+they received the _Chiaus_ of the _Gran Signore_, as old Settimanni
+calls the Sultan’s ambassador, who came to treat about Levantine
+commerce, a very important thing for Leghorn. The Turk evidently
+enjoyed himself at Florence, as he spent seventy-four days there, and
+“although he had a large company with him he was a cheap and frugal
+guest,” remarks the old chronicler.
+
+Ferdinando, one of the best of the Medici, was fond of gathering
+literary society about him. He gave Scipione Ammirato, “the modern
+Livy,” rooms in his palace in Florence, and offered him La Topaja as a
+country residence. But the steepness of the road alarmed the southern
+Italian, accustomed to the dead flat of the country about Lecce; so
+the Grand Duke gave him an apartment in Petraja, where the history
+of Florence was chiefly written. In front of La Topaja is an orchard
+garden with a marble statue of St Fiacrio, whom Moreni calls a son
+of Eugenius IV, King of Scotland (he really was I am told an Irish
+Chief), who devoted all the hours he could spare from his orations to
+the culture of medicinal plants. A laudatory inscription was put on the
+base of the statue by Cosimo III, in 1696.[43]
+
+When Victor Emanuel came to Florence (as a stepping-stone to Rome)
+Petraja and Castello were his two favourite villas, and enormous
+aviaries were erected on the upper terrace of Petraja for his fine
+collection of pheasants. His wife “la bella Rosina” lived there,
+and her beauty is still talked of by the people about the place.
+For the King’s convenience the great inner courtyard, with frescoes
+by Volterrano—or what little was left of them after having been
+white-washed and then “restored”—was glazed over, which though perhaps
+convenient has entirely spoiled the look of the villa.
+
+[Illustration: (Drawing of fountain with trees in background)]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[36] Translated by R. C. Trevelyan.
+
+[37] Critics declare the “Florence” to be by Giovanni Bologna.
+
+[38] Under the command of Sir John Hawkwood, “Giovanni Aguto, who for
+a surname in his own country,” says Ammirato, “had the appellation
+_Falcone di Bosco_ (Hawk of the wood), because his mother being taken
+with the pains of labour on an estate belonging to her, had herself
+carried into a wood and there gave birth to a son.”
+
+[39] Scipione Ammirato. _Istoria di Firenze_, p. 638.
+
+[40] Galluzzi. _Istoria del Granducato di Toscana._ Vol. I. p. 22.
+
+[41] _Cosimo de’ Medici._ Dorothea Ewart. P. 184.
+
+[42] The tower is commonly called _La Torre de’ Brunelleschi_ from the
+name of the former owners of Petraja, and not because it was built
+by the great architect Filippo Brunellesco as is often said. Filippo
+was of a different family. See _Notizie Storiche dei Palazzi e Villa
+appartente alla I.E.R. Corona di Toscana._ G. Anguillesi. Pisa, 1815.
+
+[43] See Moreni. _Contorni di Firenze._ Vol. I, p. 101.
+
+
+                       [Illustration: COSIMO II,
+
+                               By DUPRÈ.
+
+                    (_Villa di Poggio Imperiale_).]
+
+                    [Illustration: BIANCA CAPPELLO,
+
+                               By SELVI.
+
+                     (_Villa di Poggio a Caiano_).]
+
+               [Illustration: MARIA MADDALENA D’AUSTRIA,
+
+                               By DUPRÈ.
+
+                    (_Villa di Poggio Imperiale_).]
+
+
+
+
+          [Illustration: (Drawing of lawn in front of Villa)]
+
+
+VILLA DI BELLOSGUARDO
+
+    “... Tuscan Bellosguardo,
+    Where Galileo stood at night to take
+    The vision of the stars....”
+
+
+Bellosguardo near Florence is mentioned as a favourable spot for
+erecting villas as early as 1427. But the great Villa Bellosguardo was
+in existence long before, as it belonged to the noble knight Messer
+Cavalcante Cavalcanti, father of the poet Guido, and lord of the castle
+of Le Stinche, of Montecalvo in Val di Pesa, of Luco, of Ostina in the
+Upper Val d’ Arno, and of other places. Some say his ancestors came
+from Cologne in 806 with the Emperor Charlemagne, others declare them
+to have come from Fiesole. Dino Compagni mentions Guido, who died about
+1301, as “a gracious youth, courteous and brave, but of a quick and
+solitary temper and much given to study.” He was an intimate friend of
+Dante, and no doubt the two poets often stood on the terrace of the
+fine old villa gazing on the fair city below while discussing poetry
+and philosophy. Both were Guelphs; and Guido’s hatred of Messer Corso
+Donati, the head of the Ghibelline party, who had tried to assassinate
+him while on a pilgrimage, was so intense that he tried one day to
+kill him in the streets of Florence, and in consequence had to fly
+the country. Villani tells us that when the two rival factions were
+reconciled in 1267 a marriage was arranged between Guido Cavalcanti
+and a daughter of the staunch Ghibelline Farinata degli Uberti; but
+discord again broke out, the Priors of Florence exiled the chief
+leaders, and Dante was one of the Priori who voted in favour of the
+banishment of his friend. The Ghibellines were sent to Castello della
+Pieve; the Guelphs, Guido among them, to Sarzana. He was, however,
+almost immediately released as the bad air made him ill, and he died
+soon after reaching Florence.
+
+Lorenzo de’ Medici in a letter to Don Federigo d’ Arragona, son of the
+King of Naples, writes about “the delicate Florentine Guido Cavalcanti,
+a subtle logician, and for his century a profound philosopher. Even as
+he was handsome, winning and of gentle blood, so was he above nearly
+all the others in the grace and charm of his writings: accurate and
+admirable in conception, dignified in his sentences, copious and
+elevated, wise and far-seeing in his composition. All these gifts are
+adorned, as though with an embroidered vest, by an enchanting, sweet
+and ever-youthful style, which, had it been used in a wider field,
+would indubitably have set him in the first rank.” Dante did place him
+in the first rank, even above Guido Guinicelli then considered the
+greatest of Italian poets, when he wrote—
+
+    “Thus hath one Guido from the other snatch’d
+    The letter’d prize....”
+
+He dedicated the _Vita Nuova_ to Guido Cavalcanti, whom he calls
+“primo de’ miei amici,” and they wrote many sonnets to each other;
+but Guido’s _Ballate_ are by far the most natural and charming of his
+productions; “Here,” says Symonds, “we find the first full blossom of
+genuine Italian verse. Their beauty is that of popular song, starting
+flower-like from the soil and fragrant in its first expansion beneath
+the sun of courtesy and culture.” His poem, _Donna mi prega perch’ io
+voglia dire_, has had volumes of commentaries written on its beauties,
+and is one of the poems cited by Petrarch as among the finest in the
+Italian language.
+
+Soon after Guido’s death new dissensions broke out between the rival
+factions: Masino Cavalcanti was beheaded by the advice of Pazzino
+de’ Pazzi, the palaces of the Cavalcanti in Florence were burnt and
+they fled to their castles, from whence they harried the territory
+of the Republic. The Florentines marched out to attack the strong
+castle of Le Stinche which after a desperate struggle fell into their
+hands, and the defenders were immured in a new prison the Signoria
+had just built on the site of some houses belonging to the Uberti in
+the parish of San Simone. From these first inmates the prison came to
+be called Le Stinche—dreaded name in the later annals of the city.
+Montecalvo was also taken, and the Cavalcanti were only permitted
+to return to Florence three years later, to be again driven out in
+1311 when Paffiero Cavalcanti murdered Pazzino de’ Pazzi to revenge
+the decapitation of his brother Masino. Several of the family then
+emigrated to Naples, where their descendants filled some of the highest
+posts in the kingdom.
+
+In 1447 the Cavalcanti sold Villa Bellosguardo to Tommaso, son of Gino
+Nerii de’ Capponi, for 1500 golden florins. After in vain trying on
+a hill lacking both springs and wells to make lakes and build brick
+kilns, “which have not turned out what I wished and have cost me fifty
+florins more than I encashed,” as Tommaso writes to his brother, he
+soon sold the place again to its old owners the Cavalcanti. Whether
+they destroyed the villa of their own free will in 1530 when Florence
+was besieged, or whether the Prince of Orange, or the German commander,
+Felix von Werdenberg, wilfully made a target of it, is unknown, but in
+some of the chronicles of that time it is mentioned as being in ruins.
+
+Cosimo I confiscated Bellosguardo with other property of the
+Cavalcanti in 1559 and gave it to one of his servants for life. Eight
+years afterwards it reverted to the Medici and was bought from them
+by Lionardo Marinozzi, another of Cosimo’s favourites. His son sold
+it in 1583 to Girolamo di Antonio Michelozzi, whose descendants still
+own it. It was then described as “una torre ad uso di palazzo,” which
+would seem as though Lionardo had added the magnificent tower on to
+an already existing villa instead of building, as was usually done,
+a dwelling-house round an old tower. It has been immortalised by Mrs
+Browning as—
+
+    “... a tower that keeps
+    A post of double observation o’er
+    The valley of the Arno (holding as a hand
+    The outspread city) straight toward Fiesole
+    And Mount Morello and the setting sun.”
+
+The front of the villa is ornamented with _grafite_, and over the
+front door is a Pietà by Francavilla, a Dutch pupil of Giovan Bologna,
+while the large entrance hall contains damaged frescoes said to be
+by Poccetti. The fine old place is now inhabited by Lady Paget, who
+has converted an orangery into a most picturesque and delightful
+sitting-room, and restored Villa Bellosguardo to its pristine
+splendour. All parts of the town can be seen from the terrace; only the
+Arno lies hidden between two endless rows of palaces, until it reaches
+the long line of trees in the Cascine, whence its course can be traced
+for many miles along the valley. From here Florence seems to be closely
+set between olive-clothed hills, with villas spreading like endless
+chains as far as the eye can reach, up to the summits above Fiesole,
+on to the slopes beyond Prato, and behind us towards the Val di Pesa,
+where the pine woods stand like sentinels against the sky. Straight
+in front, towards the north, are the heights of Monte Senario, three
+serrated peaks black even in the sunlight, with the Servite convent
+lying like a streak of snow among the fir woods. On clear days the
+point of the Falterona, where the Arno takes its rise, can be seen to
+the right of the long hill of Vallombrosa on the east.
+
+This view has been celebrated by more than one poet and has given
+the world-known name—Bellosguardo—to this side of Florence. But only
+at twilight does the whole beauty of the scene appear. Strange white
+gleams touch the hills, and in the uncertain light of the closing day
+there is a confused sense of colour as though the wind were driving
+great masses of autumn leaves before it through the valley. Then the
+clearer evening glow succeeds the twilight, and Florence and her
+russet-coloured roofs stand out clear again in a setting of shadowed
+hills.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Adjoining Villa Bellosguardo is the Villa dell’ Ombrellino, now
+belonging to M. Zouboff. Here lived for sixteen years one of the
+greatest of Italians—Galileo Galilei; and here he composed the dialogue
+discussing the Ptolemaic and the Copernican systems. All learned
+Florentines and every foreigner of distinction breasted the steep hill
+of Bellosguardo to listen to the wonderful conversation of Galileo.
+Eloquent, sarcastic, brimming over with fun and humour yet full of
+learning, he was a delightful companion. Virgil, Horace and Seneca he
+knew by heart and often quoted, as he did the poetry of Petrarch, of
+Berni, and especially of Ariosto, for whom he had a great admiration.
+He never permitted Tasso to be compared to Ariosto, saying there
+was the same difference between them as though a man tried to eat a
+cucumber after a good melon. Galileo was only happy in the country,
+declaring cities to be the prisons of human intellect, “whereas the
+country is the book of nature, always open to him who cares to read
+and study it with intelligence, for the writing and the alphabet in
+which it is written are so many propositions, problems and geometrical
+corollaries, by whose help some of the infinite mysteries of nature may
+be penetrated.”
+
+In 1633, after the second bitter persecution suffered at Rome by
+Galileo, he was allowed to return to Florence and live on
+
+    “Thy sunny slope, Arcetri, sung of old
+    For its green wine; dearer to me, to most,
+    As dwelt on by that great Astronomer,
+    Seven years a prisoner at the city gate,
+    Let in but in his grave-clothes. Sacred be
+    His villa (justly was it called the Gem).
+    Sacred the lawn, where many a cypress threw
+    Its length of shadow, while he watched the stars.
+    Sacred the vineyard, where, while yet his sight
+    Glimmered, at blush of morn he dressed his vines,
+    Chanting aloud in gaiety of heart
+    Some verse of Ariosto.—There unseen,
+    In manly beauty Milton stood before him,
+    Gazing with reverent awe—Milton, his guest,
+    Just then come forth, all life and enterprise;
+    _He_ in his old age and extremity,
+    Blind, at noonday exploring with his staff;
+    His eyes upturned as to the golden sun,
+    His eyeballs idly rolling.”[44]
+
+         [Illustration: (Drawing of Villa seen through trees.)]
+
+At Arcetri, Galileo rented a villa from his pupil Esau Martellini,
+called “Il Gioiello” (the Gem). This was practically his prison, as
+the Inquisition forbade him to hold meetings, give lectures, receive
+friends to dinner, or “commit any action showing a want of reverence.”
+In 1634 his favourite daughter, a nun in the convent of San Matteo in
+Arcetri died, and the sick man was inconsolable, but Urban VIII, and
+his worthy advisers the Jesuits, continued their persecution, ordering
+that he was not to converse with anyone “not even the most wise and
+respectable person.” Through the Grand Duke he petitioned the Pope to
+grant him some mitigation of his rigorous imprisonment, whereupon the
+Inquisition commanded him to desist from further supplications on pain
+of instant punishment. In 1638 Galileo became blind and died four years
+later. Viviani describes him in his old age as “strongly built, of
+middle height, full-blooded, phlegmatic and very strong, but hard work
+and pain, both of body and mind, had debilitated his frame, so that he
+often fell into a languid condition.” He was a good musician and played
+well on the lute, a clever draughtsman, and so able an architect that
+the government consulted him on the new front they desired to build for
+the Cathedral of Florence. After 1633 all his letters are dated “from
+my prison at Arcetri.”
+
+Not far from the Bellosguardo villa, but on the other slope of the
+hill, overlooking the lower valley of the Arno, stands the old
+Villa Montauto, once belonging to the Bonciani, who owned large
+possessions about there. In the tower of this villa Hawthorne wrote
+_Transformation_, and the peasants still remember the foreign gentleman
+who “sat like an owl up in the tower and refused to come down to talk
+to visitors.” He describes it accurately in the twenty-fourth chapter
+of his novel.
+
+“About thirty yards within the gateway rose a square tower, lofty
+enough to be a very prominent object in the landscape, and more than
+sufficiently massive in proportion to its height. Its antiquity was
+evidently such that, in a climate of more than abundant moisture, the
+ivy would have mantled it from head to foot in a garment that might by
+this time have been centuries old, though ever new. In the dry Italian
+air, however, Nature had only so far adopted this old pile of stonework
+as to cover almost every hand’s-breadth of it with close-clinging
+lichens and yellow moss; and the immemorial growth of these kindly
+productions rendered the general hue of the tower soft and venerable,
+and took away the aspect of nakedness which would have made its age
+drearier than now.
+
+“Up and down the height of the tower were scattered three or four
+windows, the lower ones grated with iron bars, the upper ones vacant
+both of window-frames and glass. Besides these larger openings,
+there were several loopholes and little square apertures which
+might be supposed to light the staircase that doubtless climbed the
+interior towards the battlemented and machicolated summit. With this
+last-mentioned war-like garniture upon its stern old head and brow,
+the tower seemed evidently a stronghold of times long past. Many a
+crossbowman had shot his shafts from those windows and loopholes,
+and from the vantage height of those grey battlements; many a flight
+of arrows, too, had hit all round about the embrasures above, or
+the apertures below, where the helmet of a defender had momentarily
+glimmered.... Connected with the tower, and extending behind it, there
+seemed to be a very spacious residence, chiefly of more modern date.
+It perhaps owed much of its fresher appearance, however, to a coat of
+stucco and yellow wash, which is a sort of renovation very much in
+vogue with the Italians.”
+
+        [Illustration: (Drawing looking up at tower from lawn)]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[44] _Italy._ Samuel Rogers. P. 140.
+
+
+
+
+                   [Illustration: VILLA DI CASTELLO]
+
+
+
+
+      [Illustration: (Drawing of wide stone stairway with statues,
+                         leading to fountain)]
+
+
+VILLA DI CASTELLO
+
+
+The villa of Castello, “built by Pier Francesco de’ Medici with much
+judgment,” as Vasari remarks, belonged to the Medici family before they
+became Grand Dukes of Tuscany, and was always one of their favourite
+residences. Unlike Petraja, which towers above the plain, Castello
+is a long low villa on a gentle incline above the high road, with no
+extensive view, and the eye feasts only on the garden behind. And what
+a charming scene it is on a windless summer’s day! The magnolia trees,
+the pride of the place, are in flower, copper beeches and oleanders
+mingle their glorious colours in marvellous variety above the green
+lawns and give a luxuriant look to what is really a formal garden; for
+on the terraces which rise from the back of the villa, lemon trees
+in big terra-cotta pots edge the gravel walks, and the Florentine
+gardener has not forgotten to tie the carnations to canes so that they
+stand stiffly up from their pots on the low walls. Then there is the
+fountain in the centre of a terrace of its own, divided from the others
+by steps, and surrounded with statues of ladies and gentlemen of the
+Medici family; but their drapery is so tightly drawn round them in
+stiff straight folds that they resemble far more one’s idea of Roman
+senators and their wives.
+
+The fountain, generally referred to as a work of Giovanni Bologna,
+Vasari attributes to Tribolo, and the mixture of bronze and marble is
+fine. It is divided into various basins; on the larger one are four
+little bronze “putti” lying on the edge of the marble basin playing
+with the water. Below them, in the centre of the fountain, seven marble
+“putti” are seated upon lions’ claws; four rams’ heads look over the
+edge of the upper and smaller basin, and marble figures of children
+hold wild geese by the necks which spout water from their bills. Four
+other “putti” are seated below the pedestal on which Hercules is
+wrestling with Antæus, a group by Ammanati, so curiously like figures
+by Pollaiuolo that it might have been suggested by one of his drawings.
+Breasting the hill and crossing another terrace we come to a large cool
+grotto scooped out of the hillside, its roof decorated with masks,
+scrolls, baskets of flowers and arabesques done in different coloured
+shells. Queer, nearly life-size animals fill the three recesses in the
+grotto, a camel with a monkey on its back, a unicorn, a wild boar,
+a ram, a lion, a bear, hounds, and smaller creatures carved out of
+various marbles and stone to correspond to the colours of the animals
+portrayed, stand on rocks in happy confusion. Animals from every
+quarter of the globe are united here by the fanciful artist whose one
+idea was not zoology but the amusement of the members of a Florentine
+ducal house during long summer days. In order to enhance illusion he
+has given the stag and the ram real horns, and the boar has real tusks
+in his ferocious mouth. The large sarcophagii, or baths, under these
+groups, of white and pink marble, are very fine. One has all sorts of
+sea fish sculptured on its side; the others, a tangle of shells, crabs,
+lobsters and crayfish; all three rest on large dolphins.
+
+On the terrace above this grotto are remains of the labyrinth described
+by Vasari in his life of Tribolo, some fine trees and a large round
+reservoir full of emerald green water with an island in the centre on
+which crouches a colossal bronze figure of the Apennines surrounded
+with lilies and ferns. The statue is said to be by Tribolo, and one
+asks oneself how the same man who designed the lovely fountain in the
+garden could perpetrate such a hideous monster.
+
+The walk (about a mile) from Castello to Petraja through the ilex wood
+is very charming, and passes close by a small church—or rather one may
+call it a campanile with a chapel attached, for the exquisite beauty of
+the bell-tower is the first thing to attract one as it rises from the
+hillside so evenly balanced by a group of cypresses. The whole forms
+a perfect jewel of architectural effect. No wonder the people of the
+country round are proud of their campanile and call it “la meraviglia
+di Castello.”
+
+The name of the villa does not come from _castle_ as is often said, but
+from the roman _castellum_, a receptacle for water. Villani tells us
+that Marcrinus, a Roman senator, made a conduit on arches and brought
+the water seven miles, in order that the citizens of Florentia might
+have abundance of good water to drink. The aqueduct started from the
+streamlet Marina at the foot of Monte Morello, and collected all the
+springs above Sesto, Quinto, Colonnato, etc., on its way. That worthy
+old academician, Domenico Manni, in his book _Le Terme Fiorentine_,
+describes various arches, pilasters, and great pieces of masonry still
+existing in his time (1750) near Doccia, near the torrent Mugnone, near
+the Villa Corsini, close to Castello, and at Ponte a Rifredi. He gives
+drawings of two arches which soon afterwards fell down, and copies
+of many inscriptions found while digging foundations for houses or
+ploughing the fields. The aqueduct is still commemorated in the name of
+a church near Montughi, San Stefano in Pane de Arcora.
+
+Caterina Sforza, widow of Giovanni de’ Medici, the celebrated mother of
+a still more celebrated son, inhabited Castello during the last seven
+years of her chequered existence. An illegitimate daughter of the Duke
+of Milan, she was affianced at eleven years of age to Girolamo Riario,
+a favourite nephew of Sixtus, and married to him after the murder of
+her father. Her beauty, grace of manner, wit and intelligence gained
+the heart, not only of the Pope but of all who knew her, to judge by
+the impassioned description given by Fabio Oliva when she was about
+twenty. “As she issued from her litter, it seemed as if the sun had
+emerged, so gorgeously beautiful did she appear, laden with silver and
+gold and jewels, but still more striking from her natural charms. Her
+hair, wreathed in the manner of a coronet, was brighter than the gold
+with which it was entwined. Her forehead of burnished ivory almost
+reflected the beholders. Her eyes sparkled behind the mantling crimson
+of her cheeks, as morning stars amid those many-tinted lilies which
+returning dawn scatters along the horizon.”
+
+After the murder of her first husband in 1488, avenged by her without
+mercy, she proclaimed her son Ottaviano, Count of Forli; and soon
+afterwards married Giacomo Fea, the handsome, loyal and brave captain
+who kept the citadel of Forli so well against the insurgents who had
+killed Count Girolamo Riario. Ratti, the biographer of the Sforzas
+says: “It would be difficult to find in history any woman who so far
+surpassed her sex, who was so much the amazement of her contemporaries
+and the marvel of posterity. Endowed with a lofty and masculine spirit,
+she was born to command; great in peace, valiant in war, beloved by her
+subjects, dreaded by her foes, admired by foreigners.” Likenesses of
+Caterina, of her first husband and her two eldest sons, are to be seen
+in the altarpiece of the Torelli chapel in the church of San Girolamo
+at Forli.
+
+In 1496 she was once more a widow, Giacomo Fea having been murdered
+by some of her own subjects, whom she punished as she had done the
+assassins of her first husband. Giovanni de’ Medici, envoy of Florence
+to the court of her son, married her the following year and died soon
+after, leaving her with an infant boy. After vainly trying to stem
+the invasion of her eldest son’s territories by Duke Valentino, who
+entered the citadel of Forli by treachery, she was made prisoner and
+sent to Rome; but after a short imprisonment was allowed to retire
+to Florence, where she dedicated herself to the education of her
+little son, Giovanni de’ Medici. Her letters, full of family troubles,
+complaining bitterly that she was left without sheets for her bed,
+forks or tablecloths, are sad reading. Pierfrancesco and Lorenzo de’
+Medici attempted to contest her right to the villa and to the little
+that was left of the heritage of her third husband “the Magnificent
+Joanne de’ Medici”; and she lived in constant fear that Lorenzo, who
+had unlawfully assumed the tutelage of her son, would make away with
+him in order to dissipate the patrimony of his dead father. After
+a law suit she rescued the boy from the clutches of his uncle and
+smuggled him, with some waiting-women, into the nunnery of Anna-Lena.
+Here, dressed as a girl and jealously guarded by the faithful nuns,
+the future soldier Giovanni delle Bande Nere—the last of the great
+condottiere—passed eight months. It was only after the death of
+Lorenzo, in 1504, that he joined his mother at Castello, when she
+devoted all her remarkable energy to his education. Tutor succeeded
+tutor, for Madonna Caterina wished the boy to be an accomplished and
+learned gentleman; but he despised book-learning, and only cared for
+athletic exercises and out-door sports. “So you have your boy back,”
+wrote an old follower of her husband whom she commissioned to procure
+“a small and handsome horse” for the seven year old Giovanni. “If my
+father had come to life again I could not be more glad; and so it is
+with all the condottieri here in camp. The day your letter arrived the
+commissary was so overjoyed he could not eat. As to the horse, we will
+search among the condottieri here, and whosoever has one will be only
+too proud to give it. We shall, without fail, find what you want.”[45]
+
+In 1527 there were grand doings at Castello, when, as is described by
+old Varchi, two armies came, “one to attack and pillage Florence as an
+enemy—which was the army of the Bourbons; while the other under the
+guise of a friend and defender pillaged and spoiled her—which was the
+army of the League; and it happened that on the last Friday of April,
+which was on the twenty-sixth day of the year 1527, the Cardinal of
+Cortona [Silvio Passerini], although he knew all the intrigues and
+confabulations of both old and young against the State, either not
+believing or wishing to show he feared them not, left Florence most
+imprudently with the other two Cardinals, the Magnificent, Count Piero
+Noferi and the whole court, and went a little over two miles outside
+the Faenza gate to Castello, the villa of Signor Cosimo, to meet and
+receive the Duke of Urbino and the other heads of the League. Meanwhile
+the citizens rose and took possession of the palace of the Signoria,
+and the Cardinals with Ippolito had to return in all haste to quell the
+insurrection. Thereupon the citizens sadly and sorrowfully went back to
+their houses without injury but in great fear.”
+
+Maria Salviati, the mother of Cosimo I, died at Castello; and they say
+he was with difficulty persuaded to quit a hunting party and return
+to receive her last blessing. He enlarged the villa considerably on
+the eastern side after the designs of Tribolo, and charged Pontormo
+to decorate the Loggia, but all the frescoes have perished. Cosimo
+retired to Castello after his secret marriage with Camilla Martelli, a
+marriage so distasteful to his Austrian daughter-in-law that she wrote
+to her brother the Emperor to complain. He answered in the following
+arrogant lines which she was silly enough to send to her father-in-law:
+“I cannot conceive what the Grand Duke was thinking of when he made so
+shameful and odious an alliance, ridiculed by all; it is thought the
+good Duke must be out of his mind. I beg Your Highness not to permit
+this impudent woman to be exalted, and to hold no communication with
+her; for if in this matter you fail to show the greatness of Your soul
+and Your magnanimity, everyone will be angered.”
+
+The reply given by Cosimo de’ Medici was far more dignified: “As to
+my having taken a wife, H.I.H. remarks that perhaps I had taken leave
+of my senses.... One might have rather said I was off my head when I
+ceded the reins of government to the Prince (Francesco, his eldest
+son, husband of the Arch-Duchess) with seven hundred thousand ducats
+of income. I did it with pleasure and I have no intention to cancel
+my act, although it depends on my own will and pleasure, because I
+had to do with men; but with regard to my marriage, wherein I had to
+do with God, one cannot speak thus. I am not the first Prince who has
+taken a vassal to wife, and shall probably not be the last; my wife
+is of gentle birth, and is to be respected as such. I do not seek for
+quarrels, but I shall not avoid them if they are forced upon me by my
+own family. When I make up my mind to do a thing, I do it, regardless
+of the consequences, trusting in God and my own right hand.”
+
+In October 1608 Castello was the scene of much rejoicing for the
+reception of Maria Maddalena of Austria, who passed some days there
+before her solemn entry into Florence as the bride of Cosimo, eldest
+son of Ferdinando I. The pomp and magnificence then displayed surpassed
+anything yet seen; Ferdinando himself crowned his daughter-in-law at
+the gate of the town, and then the Arch-Duchess, mounting a splendid
+white palfrey, rode to the cathedral door amidst the acclamations
+of the crowd. Christine of Lorraine, widow of Ferdinando I, whose
+favourite villa Castello was, died there in December 1636 after
+two days’ illness; and twenty-seven years afterwards her grandson
+Giancarlo, brother of the Grand Duke Ferdinando II, who was first a
+soldier in the service of the King of Spain and then a Cardinal, closed
+his unworthy life in the same villa. Described as “a man of little
+worth and of evil morals,” he yet has a claim to the gratitude of
+posterity as the builder of the charming theatre of the Pergola.
+
+The gardens of both Petraja and Castello have been celebrated by many
+writers in poetry and prose. Among others Redi, the jovial doctor,
+sings the praises of the vineyards in his _Bacco in Toscana_, and takes
+the opportunity to pay a compliment to that poor creature Cosimo III,
+his patron.
+
+    “But lauded
+    Applauded,
+    With laurels rewarded,
+    Be the hero who first in the vineyards divine
+    Of Petraja and Castello
+    Planted first the Moscadello.”[46]
+
+              [Illustration: (Drawing of lake in garden.)]
+
+Jacopo Cortesi, the Jesuit painter, better known as _Il Borgognone_,
+lived as the guest of Cosimo III for some months at Castello, and
+painted his own portrait there for the Uffizzi gallery in the habit of
+his Order. Vast sums were spent by Pietro Leopoldo, the beloved Grand
+Duke of Tuscany who became Emperor of Austria, on beautifying the
+gardens of the two villas, and they still bear some faint traces of his
+love for rare trees and shrubs.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[45] _Caterina Sforza._ By Pier Desiderio Pasolini. Vol. II. p. 321.
+Firenze, 1893.
+
+[46] _Bacchus in Tuscany._ A dithyrambic poem, from the Italian of
+Francesco Redi, with notes original and select. By Leigh Hunt. London,
+1828.
+
+
+               [Illustration: VILLA CORSINI AT CASTELLO.]
+
+
+
+
+      [Illustration: (Drawing of stone plaza sourounded by trees)]
+
+
+VILLA CORSINI AT CASTELLO
+
+
+This villa first belonged to the Strozzi, who sold it to the Rinieri in
+1460, when it was called “La Lepre dei Rinieri.” About a century later
+it was bought by Francesco di Jacopo Sangalletti, whose estates were
+confiscated by the Medici, and sold to Pagolo Donati in 1597. It again
+changed hands and at last became the property of Cosimo de’ Medici, son
+of the Grand Duke Ferdinando I, but finding it useless to have three
+villas—Petraja, Castello and Rinieri—so close together, he sold the
+last in 1650 to Piero Cervieri, who died without heirs and left all he
+possessed to the Jesuits. On the suppression of their Order the villa
+was bought by the Lanfredini, from whom it passed into the possession
+of the great house of Corsini, who enlarged and altered it, probably
+from the designs of Antonio Ferri, the same architect who built the
+large saloon, the fine staircase and the façade of the Corsini palace
+on the Lung’ Arno in Florence.
+
+Villa Corsini stands at the foot of the royal villa La Petraja. It is
+a rather stately baroque edifice, with a large square courtyard in
+the centre; and though but little raised above the plain, the view of
+Florence from the south side of the garden is lovely. On the north
+is a typical Italian pleasaunce, where narrow paths meander under the
+deep shade of tall ilexes, oaks and fir trees; grey stone columns and
+balustrades surround small squares and circles of ground, as though
+it had been once parcelled out among the children of the house. A
+fountain represents a prancing seahorse who is unceasingly occupied in
+keeping a huge sarcophagus, entirely overgrown with maiden-hair fern,
+always brimful of water. Standing by the splashing fountain we get a
+beautiful glimpse of Petraja through the trees, standing high up on the
+hill behind. Prince Corsini told me the fine ilexes at Narford Hall
+were raised from acorns off these trees; the much-travelled Sir Andrew
+Fountaine, who resided for some time in Florence, and probably bought
+a good deal of his celebrated collection of Italian pottery from the
+Grand Duke Cosimo III,[47] was an intimate friend of Prince Corsini who
+sent a bagful of acorns to Narford. A present feature of the garden of
+the Villa Corsini is a shady avenue of ilexes which leads to the stable
+and was planted only fifty years ago.
+
+To English people the villa is interesting as it was inhabited by Sir
+Robert Dudley, to whom it was lent by the Grand Duke of Tuscany. Robert
+Dudley (born 1573) was the son of the Earl of Leicester by his second
+wife Douglas Howard, widow of Lord Sheffield; but the marriage, for
+various private and political reasons, was secretly solemnised and
+never acknowledged by Leicester, who a few years later married Lettice,
+widow of the Earl of Essex. Leicester calls Robert Dudley “my base son”
+in his will, yet he left him “the lordships of Denbighe and Chirke,
+etc., the castle of Kenilworth with all the Parkes, Chases and Lands
+after the death of my dear brother Ambrose the Earl of Warwick,” and
+other estates too numerous to mention here.
+
+The Earl of Leicester died in 1588, and his brother a year later,
+when Robert Dudley succeeded to Kenilworth. In 1591 he was affianced
+to Frances Vavasour, maid of honour to Queen Elizabeth, who however
+forbade the celebration of the marriage on account of Dudley’s youth.
+
+Dudley was educated at Christ Church, Oxford; where, under the date 7th
+May 1588, he was entered as _Comitis Filius_. But his love of travel
+and adventure drove him to study navigation; he built some warships,
+engaged the best pilots he could find and started for the West Indies.
+After conquering the Island of Trinidad he discovered Guiana (of which
+he made a map published in his work, _L’Arcano del Mare_), and after
+taking several galleons from the enemy returned to England with much
+booty. Entering the navy, he, in the absence of his uncle the Earl of
+Nottingham, took command of the English fleet in 1596; the following
+year he led the van-guard in the battle of Cadiz; then he besieged
+Faro in Algarve in Portugal; and when Calais was taken by Mendoza, he
+commanded the English ships sent to the rescue.
+
+In a letter to the Rev. Mr Hakluyt, a well-known writer on sea-voyages
+and travels in the time of Elizabeth and James I, Dudley gives a
+curious account of his first voyage at the age of twenty-one. “...
+I weighed ancker from Southampton road the 6th of November 1594.
+Upon this day my selfe in the ‘Beare,’ a ship of 200 tunnes, as
+Admirall; and Captaine Munck in the ‘Beare’s Whelpe,’ Vice-Admirall;
+with two small pinnesses, called the ‘Frisking’ and the ‘Earwig,’ I
+passed through the Needles, and within two dayes after bare in with
+Plimmouth. But I was enforced to returne backe. Having parted company
+with my Vice-Admirall, I went wandering alone on my voyage, sailing
+along the coast of Spaine, within view of Cape Finisterre and Cape St
+Vincent, the north and south capes of Spaine. In which space, having
+many chases, I could meet with none but my countreymen or countrey’s
+friends. Leaving these Spanish shores, I directed my course, the 14th
+December, towards the Isles of the Canaries. Here I lingered twelve
+dayes for two reasons; the one, in hope to meete my Vice-Admirall; the
+other, to get some vessel to remove my pestered men into, who being
+140 almost in a ship of 200 tunnes, there grew many sicke. I tooke
+two very fine caravels under the calmes of Tenerif and Palma, which
+both refreshed and amended my company, and made me a fleet of three
+sailes.... Thus cheered as a desolate traveller, with the company of
+my small and newe erected Fleete, I continued my purpose for the West
+Indies.
+
+“Riding under this White Cape two daies, and walking on shore to view
+the countrey, I found it a waste, desolate, barren and sandie place,
+the sand running in drifts like snow, and very stony; for so is all the
+countrey sand upon stone (like Arabia Deserta and Petrea), and full
+of blacke venemous lizards, with some wild beasts and people which be
+tawny Moores, so wilde, as they would but call to my caravels from the
+shore who road very neare it. I now caused my master Abraham Kendall to
+shape his course directly for the Isle of Trinidad in the West Indies;
+which after twenty-two dayes we descried, and the 1st Feb. came to
+anker under a point thereof, called Curiapan, in a bay which was very
+full of pelicans, and I called it Pelican Bay. About three leagues to
+the eastward of this place we found a mine of Mercazites, which glister
+like golde (but all is not golde that glistereth), for so we found the
+same nothing worth, though the Indians did assure us it was Calvori,
+which signifieth golde with them. These Indians are a fine shaped and
+a gentle people, all naked and painted red, their commanders wearing
+crowns of feathers. These people did often resort unto my ship, and
+brought us hennes, hogs, plantans, potatos, pines, tobacco, and many
+other pretie commodities, which they exchanged with us for hatchets,
+knives, hookes, belles and glasse buttons. The countrey is fertile, and
+ful of fruits, strange beasts and foules, whereof munkies, babions and
+parats were in great abundance.
+
+“Right against the northernmost part of Trinidad, the maine was called
+the high land of Paria, the rest a very lowe land. Morucca I learned to
+be ful of a greenestone called Taracao, which is good for the stone.
+Caribes I learned to be man-eiters or canibals and great enemies to
+the Islanders of Trinidad. In the high land of Paria I was informed by
+divers of these Indians, that there was some Perota, which with them
+is silver, and great store of most excellent cane tobacco.... I was
+told of a rich nation, that sprinkled their bodies with the powder of
+golde, and seemed to be guilt, and that farre beyond them was a great
+towne called El Dorado, with many other things.... And after carefully
+doubling the shouldes of Abreojos, I now caused the Master (hearing by
+a pilote that the Spanish Fleete ment to put out of Havana) to beare
+for the Meridian of the yle of Bermuda, hoping there to finde the
+Fleete. The Fleete I found not, but foule weather enough to scatter
+many Fleetes which companies left me not, till I came to the yles of
+Flores and Cuervo; whither I made the more haste, hoping to meete some
+greate Fleete of Her Majestie my Sovereigne, as I had intelligence, and
+to give them advise of this rich Spanish Fleete; but findinge none, and
+my victuals almost spent, I directed my course for England.”
+
+Here he fell in love with, and married, a sister of Thomas Cavendish,
+who died without children in 1596. Soon afterwards he married Alice,
+daughter of Sir Thomas Leigh of Stoneleigh, Warwickshire, by whom
+he had four daughters. His one desire after coming into possession
+of Kenilworth was to clear his own and his mother’s reputation and
+honour, and for this purpose he instituted proceedings at law to prove
+his legitimacy. At first in the Ecclesiastical Court he had hopes of
+success, but the influence of the Essexs and Sydneys proved too strong;
+the case was transferred to the Star Chamber, which ordered that
+all “depositions should be sealed up and no copies taken,” and only
+admitted the evidence of Lady Essex.
+
+Irritated by such injustice Dudley left England, and with him went
+his beautiful young cousin Elisabeth, eldest daughter of Sir Robert
+Southwell. At Lyons they entered the Roman Catholic Church, obtained
+the Pope’s dispensation from the laws of consanguinity, and were
+married, Lady Alice Dudley having in vain offered to join him with
+their four girls and to become a Catholic.
+
+From Lyons Sir Robert and his new wife went to Florence and Dudley
+wrote to the Grand Duke asking for his protection and offering his
+services. In quaint French he set forth his noble birth and high
+lineage, claimed by virtue of descent to be Duke of Northumberland,
+Earl of Warwick, and Earl of Leicester, and declared himself second
+to none in the science of navigation and the art of ship-building; he
+also promised to make the Grand Duke absolute master in the seas of the
+Levant in spite of all Spanish, infidel and other galleys.
+
+            [Illustration: (Drawing of navigation compass)]
+
+Ferdinando II, made inquiries of Lotti, his Minister in London,
+about the “Conte di Varuich” before taking him into his service.
+After expatiating upon the “exquisite stature, fair beard and noble
+appearance” of Sir Robert Dudley, Lotti added that King James was
+very angry at his marriage and his assumption of the title of Earl
+of Warwick, and then writes in cipher, “the chief reason is that His
+Majesty does not want Catholic subjects, especially when they are brave
+and worthy men.” This brought the matter to a conclusion, and Dudley
+immediately began building ships for the Grand Duke. He wrote proudly
+of the galleon _San Giovanni_, “she was a rare and strong sailer, of
+great repute, and the terror of the Turks in these seas”; and his
+designs seem to have attracted notice in England, as Lotti wrote to the
+Grand Duke in March 1607, “H. E. (Sir Thomas Challoner, tutor to Prince
+Henry) showed me the design of a ship made in Leghorn by the Earl of
+Warwick, and he also showed me another which he said was more perfect
+than any.” This may account for James I, sending Dudley an order to
+return to England, promising him an earldom and the title of Earl of
+Warwick. But all offers that left his own and his mother’s name under
+a slur were refused by Dudley, who remained in Tuscany where, thanks
+to him, Leghorn became a great commercial port. He induced the Grand
+Duke to build fortifications, to declare it a free port and to allow
+an English factory to be set up. The draining of the marshes between
+Leghorn and Pisa was also suggested by him.
+
+In the _Specola_, or Natural History Museum, in Florence, are three
+large manuscript volumes in Dudley’s writing on ship-building. The two
+first are in English, the third in Italian, and his orthography, to
+say the least, is in both languages peculiar. In the same museum is a
+curious instrument of his invention for finding the ebb and flow of the
+tides, of which I give, through the kindness of Mr Temple Leader, an
+engraving taken from his interesting _Life of Sir Robert Dudley_, from
+which most of my facts are taken.
+
+In Florence, Dudley and his wife (mentioned by Lord Herbert of
+Cherbury as “the handsome _Mrs Sudel_ whom he carried away with him
+out of England and is here taken for his wife”) were known as Earl
+and Countess of Warwick, until the Emperor Ferdinand II, to please
+his sister the Grand Duchess Maria Maddalena, whose grand chamberlain
+Dudley was, created him Duke of Northumberland in 1620.
+
+Dudley was undoubtedly a remarkable man. He had been carefully
+educated, was a brave and scientific seaman and well versed in military
+and naval architecture; he excelled in all knightly exercises and was
+cited for his courtly and polished manners. A man of letters and a
+good mathematician, he also busied himself with medicine and invented
+a powder known as _Pulvis Comitis Warvicensis_, much praised by Mario
+Cornacchini, professor of medicine at Pisa, who declares that “clearing
+the Italian seas of barbarous and evil pirates was not a greater
+benefit to mankind than his fighting and exterminating the evil humours
+which molest humanity and cause disease.”
+
+Of Dudley’s twelve children the eldest, Maria, married the Prince
+of Piombino; Maria Maddalena became the wife of Malaspina Marchese
+d’Olivola, High Steward to Queen Christina of Sweden; and Teresa
+married the Duke della Cornia. Robert, the eldest son, died a few
+days before he attained his majority, and his mother was so affected
+by his loss that she followed him to the grave within a few weeks,
+to the intense grief of her husband. The second son, Charles, was an
+unmannerly scapegrace who gave his father infinite trouble. He married
+a Frenchwoman, Marie Madeleine, daughter of Charles Antoine Gouffier,
+Marquis de Braseux and Seigneur de Crevecœur. His daughter was the
+beautiful, witty and wild Christina Dudley married to the Marchese
+Paleotti of Bologna, whose adventurous and romantic life has been
+so well described by Signor Corrado Ricci,[48] and whose daughter
+Adelaide, after various adventures, turned Protestant, married the Duke
+of Shrewsbury, became a leader of fashion in London and Lady-in-Waiting
+to the Princess of Wales; her son Ferdinand, after giving endless
+annoyance to the Shrewsburys, ended his ill-spent life on the gallows.
+He was hung at Tyburn on March 28th, 1718, for the murder of his
+Italian servant, and curiously enough the Tuscan Minister present at
+his execution was Don Neri Corsini, whose family now own the villa
+where Sir Robert Dudley, Duke of Northumberland and Earl of Warwick,
+lived for so many years and died in Sept. 1649.
+
+Since 1230, when the Corsini came from Poggibonsi, their name fills
+many a page of the history of Florence as Priors and Gonfaloniers of
+the city. Andrea, the beloved and revered bishop of Fiesole, left such
+a reputation for goodness and sanctity that he was beatified in 1440
+and canonised by Urban VIII, in 1629. He restored the cathedral of his
+diocese and the façade we now see was built by him. His brother Neri
+succeeded him as bishop of Fiesole, while another brother, Matteo,
+went to England, where his uncle was Master of the Mint, and made a
+large fortune in trade. He is known as the author of interesting family
+records and of the _Rosaia della Vita_, often quoted in the dictionary
+of the Crusca as a model of pure and elegant Italian. Tommaso di
+Duccio, their uncle, a learned jurist and a great statesman, was one of
+the chief citizens of Florence in the fourteenth century, and to his
+prudent counsels and wise administration the Republic owed much of her
+prosperity and power. After long negotiations he induced the Visconti
+to make peace with Florence, and when this was at length signed in
+1353 he withdrew from public life, entered the Order of the _Gaudenti_
+(instituted for the protection of widows and orphans) and jointly with
+the Rossi and Manieri erected a monastery outside the Porta Romana.
+For himself he built a small house hard by the monastery and passed
+the rest of his days almost as a hermit, occupied in prayer and good
+works. Notwithstanding the large amount given in charity he left a
+very considerable fortune to his sons; the eldest, Amerigo, was bishop
+of Florence at the time of the Council of Constance, which put an end
+to the schism of the Church and elected Martino V, Pope. In order to
+conciliate the citizens Martino raised Florence to the rank of an
+archbishopric and bestowed the privilege of wearing the crimson robes
+of a cardinal on her archbishop.
+
+Luca Corsini was the popular Prior of Florence who shut the door of
+the Palazzo della Signoria in the face of Piero de’ Medici after his
+cession of Pisa, Leghorn, Pietrasanta and Sarzana to Charles VIII, of
+France. As ardent a republican and as great an enemy of the Medici as
+he was a friend of Savonarola, it is related that in 1498 the grave
+magistrate was seen throwing stones and fighting in the streets in
+defence of Fra Girolamo like any young lad. A daughter of the house
+of Corsini, Marietta, married the celebrated Niccolò Macchiavelli and
+is said to be depicted in his novel _Belfegor_; this may be—but he
+mentions her in his will with affection and esteem. Bertholdo Corsini,
+who was elected a Prior of Florence in 1531 after the fall of the
+Republic, must have been a weak man. He paid court to Duke Alessandro
+de’ Medici, who made him custodian of the fortress of San Giovan
+Battista; but when Alessandro was murdered by his cousin Lorenzino,
+Corsini repented and offered to give up the arms and ammunition in the
+fortress to the citizens, who fearing a snare refused to listen to
+him. When Cosimo II, entered the city, Bertholdo fled and joined the
+standard of Piero Strozzi. He escaped with his life from the battle
+of Montemurlo and after fighting in Piedmont and in France, returned
+to Italy when the Siennese revolted and was appointed custodian of
+the castle of Sienna. In the battle of Orbetello Bertholdo was taken
+prisoner by the Spaniards, sold to Cosimo for 600 scudi, and beheaded
+on the 2nd March 1555 in the Piazza S. Apollinari.
+
+Not many years passed before the Corsini and the Medici became partners
+in a great banking firm in Rome, chiefly managed by Filippo Corsini
+who had been created Marchese of Sismano, Casigliano and Civitella by
+the Grand Duke Ferdinando II. Filippo was an intimate friend of Pope
+Urban VIII, with whom he was connected by his marriage with Maria
+Macchiavelli, a considerable heiress. Their eldest son Bartolomeo,
+brought up at the Tuscan court, was after the death of Ferdinando made
+Master of the Household to his widow Vittoria della Rovere. The second
+son Neri was a cardinal, and his moderation, prudence and good sense
+was of infinite service to the Holy See on two different occasions—when
+Avignon and when Ferrara revolted against the priestly rule. Filippo
+their nephew, was the companion and friend of Cosimo, son of the Grand
+Duke Ferdinando II, and the interesting account, now in the Laurentian
+Library, of the Prince’s visits to Oxford, Cambridge and many towns and
+country houses in England, was written by him and illustrated by P. M.
+Baldi. A member of most of the Academies of that day, he contributed
+largely to the cost of publishing the fourth edition of the Della
+Crusca dictionary. Lorenzo, his younger brother, became a cardinal
+in 1706 and twenty-four years later, when seventy-eight years of age
+and nearly blind, was elected Pope. It is related that when hailed
+as Clemente XII, he knelt down and begged the Consistory to allow an
+old blind man to die in peace; but they insisted, and Lorenzo Corsini
+unwillingly accepted. His first care was to put the finances in order
+and to dismiss Cardinal Coscia, the venal favourite of his predecessor
+Benedict XIII. He reformed the administration of justice, and ordered
+an emission of new coinage to replace the debased currency of former
+Popes. The magnificent gallery of the Campidoglio was founded by him;
+he built the fountain of Trevi, several churches, the façades of San
+Giovanni dei Fiorentini and of San Giovanni in Laterano, and restored
+the Vatican. But much of this was done with money derived from the
+abominable _Giuoco del Lotto_—“esterminio e ruina de’ popoli,” as the
+Venetian Ambassador Mocenigo calls it—which had been prohibited by
+Benedict XIII, and was restored by Clemente under the specious pretext
+that his subjects would spend their money in gambling outside the papal
+dominions if they were debarred from gambling at home. On his accession
+to the Papacy he summoned his two nephews, Bartolomeo and Neri, to
+Rome. The former was created Prince of Sismano, Duke of Casigliano and
+Captain-General of the Papal Guards. Tempted by Charles III, who held
+out hopes that Spain would renounce her claims on Parma and Tuscany
+in his favour if he aided her to secure the kingdom of Naples, he
+identified himself entirely with the Spanish party, only to find his
+ambitious plans absolutely ignored by the Congress of Vienna. As some
+consolation he was appointed Viceroy of Sicily in 1737 and a Grandee of
+Spain two years later. Neri was made a cardinal and practically ruled
+the Papal States not only under his uncle, who trusted him implicitly,
+but under three successive Popes. He built the great Corsini palace
+at Rome and formed magnificent collections of pictures, engravings,
+manuscripts and books. Intensely hostile to the Jesuits, he used all
+his influence to obtain the suppression of the Order, but died in 1770
+before the promulgation of the decree against them.
+
+Pope Clemente would have left a greater name had he abstained from
+showering gifts and honours on members of his own family. One
+great-great-nephew he made a Knight of Malta while still in swaddling
+clothes and Prior of Pisa at the age of four, in spite of the indignant
+protests of the Grand Master of the Order; another was domestic prelate
+and Apostolic pro-notary almost before he could read and a cardinal at
+twenty-four; while Bartolomeo, their brother, became Captain-General of
+the Papal Guard. His son Tommaso began life as Chamberlain to the Grand
+Duke Pietro Leopoldo, but when Florence was occupied by the troops of
+the French Republic and “death to the aristocrats” was the popular cry,
+he fled to Sicily, and when he returned he found Tuscany transformed
+into the Kingdom of Etruria. Queen Maria Louisa made Tommaso Corsini
+master of her household and sent him to Bologna to receive Napoleon
+I, on whom he made so favourable an impression that when Tuscany was
+incorporated with the Empire he summoned him to Paris, made him a
+Senator, a Count of the Empire and a Chamberlain, in which capacity
+he escorted the Arch Duchess Marie Louise to France. On the fall of
+the Emperor Corsini returned to Italy, and was Senator of Rome during
+the exciting days of 1848, when the first dawn of Italian Unity was
+fostered for a time by Pio IX. After the Pope abandoned the popular
+party Corsini in vain attempted to stem the tide of republicanism;
+he had to fly for his life and only returned to Rome after the Papal
+Government had been re-established by French troops. He was a man of
+considerable culture and added largely to the Corsini galleries at
+Florence and Rome. His brother Neri was deservedly beloved in Tuscany,
+for he advocated her independence at the Congress of Vienna, and
+obtained the restitution of the art treasures which had been carried
+off to Paris. As Prime Minister he devoted himself to the amelioration
+of the condition of the people, made new roads, gave a fresh impulse to
+the great work of the bonification of the Val di Chiana, and, a strong
+free-trader, successfully withstood his retrograde colleagues who,
+during a period of scarcity, desired to impose a heavy tax on corn.
+Imbued, like all his forebears, with a great dislike and distrust of
+the Jesuits he resolutely set his face against their re-admittance into
+the country. Don Tommaso, the present representative of the princely
+house of Corsini, by his kindly hospitality, learning and charm of
+manner has endeared himself to all his fellow-citizens and worthily
+continues the liberal traditions of his family.
+
+   [Illustration: (Drawing of path leading to Villa door, a clock is
+                      built in over the doorway.)]
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[47] See _Maiolica_. By C. Drury E. Fortnum. P. 76. Oxford: Clarendon
+Press. 1896.
+
+[48] _Una illustre Avventuriera._ Corrado Ricci. Fratelli Treves.
+Milano.
+
+
+                    [Illustration: CATERINA SFORZA,
+
+                         By NICCOLÒ FIORENTINO.
+
+                        (_Villa di Castello_).]
+
+                       [Illustration: SAVONAROLA,
+
+               By FRA LUCA, OR FRA AMBROGIO DELLA ROBBIA.
+
+                         (_Villa di Cafeggi_).]
+
+                  [Illustration: PICO DELLA MIRANDOLA,
+
+                         By NICCOLÒ FIORENTINO.
+
+                      (_Villa Medici a Fiesole_).]
+
+
+
+
+   [Illustration: (Drawing looking up hill through an orchard at the
+               Villa, which is near the top of the hill)]
+
+
+
+
+VILLA MEDICI A FIESOLE
+
+
+“Not more than two miles distant from Florence,” writes old Varchi,
+“shines Fiesole, once a city, now a fruitful hill; yet is she still
+a city.... I say still a city, because she always had and still has,
+her bishop.... Of a truth the position on this charming hill is so
+pleasant and delightful that the fable about its having been built by
+Atlantus under a constellation which bestows peace of mind, repose of
+body and gaiety of heart seems to be true.” Another tradition says it
+was founded by Comero Gallo, son of Japhet, in the tenth year of the
+Assyrian empire; he surrounded it with great walls, built high towers
+and erected two castles, one to the east the other to the west, for
+defence; others again attribute it to Jason, brother of Dardanus;
+while some say Hercules of Egypt laid the first stone. Hesiod affirms
+that Fiesole was one of the nymphs from whom sprang the constellation
+of the Pleiads which forms a half moon, still the emblem of the city;
+“Faesulas ex una Pleaidum ferunt esse dictum,” says also Volterrano.
+But Dante considers all these to be old women’s tales:
+
+          “Another with her maidens, drawing off
+    The tresses from the distaff, lectured them
+    Old tales of Troy, and Fiesole, and Rome.”[49]
+
+Borghini in his history of Fiesole cautiously remarks: “From the
+divers opinions of so many and such various authors I can only conclude
+that the city is so ancient that her history can only be guessed at,
+not known or discovered; and as she is beyond all memory so is she
+beyond all other cities in renown. The more mysterious her origin, the
+more attractive she is.”
+
+Vasari tells us that Michelozzo Michelozzi built for Giovanni, son of
+Cosimo de’ Medici, a “magnificent and noble palace at Fiesole; the
+foundations of the lower part on the steep slope of the hill cost an
+enormous sum, but it was not thrown away, as there he made vaults,
+cellars, stables, places for the making of wine and oil, and other good
+and commodious habitations; and above them, besides the bed-chambers,
+drawing-rooms and other apartments, he arranged rooms for containing
+books and for music: in short Michelozzo showed in this edifice how
+valiant an architect he was, for it was so well built that although
+high up on that hill, no crack has ever started.”
+
+Here, beneath the Etruscan city of Fiesole, with all Florence in the
+valley far below, Lorenzo the Magnificent passed his happiest hours in
+the company of Landino, Scala, Ficino, Poliziano, Pico della Mirandola
+and other literary friends, at one moment discussing Plato, at another
+writing sonnets and songs in idiomatic Tuscan. A true Florentine in his
+love of the country, his poetry abounds in descriptions of woods and
+rivers, of the song of birds and the joys of the chase. The following
+sonnet on the violet will show how well he merited the praise bestowed
+on his poetry by his contemporaries.
+
+    “Not from bright cultured gardens, where sweet airs
+    Steal softly round the rose’s terraced home,
+    Into thy white hand Lady have we come;
+    Deep in dark dingles are our wild-wood lairs.
+    Here once came Venus racked with aching cares,
+    Seeking Adonis through our leafy gloam:
+    Hither and thither vainly doth she roam,
+    Till her bare foot a felon bramble tears.
+    To catch the sacred blood that from above
+    Dripped off the leaves, our small white flowers we spread:
+    Whence came that purple hue which now is ours.
+    Not summer airs, nor rills from far springs led
+    Have nursed our beauty; but by tears of love
+    Our roots were watered; love-sighs fanned our flowers.”[50]
+
+The villa at Fiesole was nigh being the scene of a double murder, when,
+as Roscoe writes, “a pope, a cardinal, an archbishop, and several other
+ecclesiastics associated themselves with a band of ruffians to destroy
+two men who were an honour to their age and country; and purposed to
+perpetrate their crime at a season of hospitality....” The two men were
+Lorenzo the Magnificent and his brother Giuliano, one of the best of
+the Medici; the conspirators were Sixtus IV, and his nephew Girolamo
+Riario, Francesco de’ Pazzi, whom jealousy of the Medici had led to
+settle at Rome, his uncle Jacopo de’ Pazzi, a gambler and a libertine,
+and all his ten nephews save two; Gugliemo, married to Lorenzo’s sister
+Bianca before their father’s death, and Renato, a man of letters. The
+Pope’s chief agent was the archbishop of Pisa, Francesco Salviati,
+a man of notoriously bad character, whose preferment to the see of
+Pisa Lorenzo had strenuously opposed, seconded by his brother Jacopo
+Salviati and by the son of Poggio Bracciolini the great scholar. Jacopo
+Poggio was of some repute in the world of letters and dedicated a
+commentary on Petrarch’s _Trionfo della Fama_ to Lorenzo. “I am aware,”
+he writes, “that what little I know is due to the help and valiant
+encouragement given to me in my youth by Cosimo thy grandfather.... I
+consider myself obliged and constrained out of gratitude to dedicate
+unto thee, his true and worthy heir, whatever fruit is born of his
+grave and weighty admonitions and exhortations; as a recognition that
+whatever virtues I possess derive from thy house.” The underlings
+were Bernardo Bandini, a man of ill-fame, Giovan Battista Montesicco,
+a condottiere engaged in the service of the Pope, Antonio Maffei, a
+priest from Volterra and Stefano da Bagnone, an apostolic scribe.
+
+Mecatti gives a vivid account of the attempted murder of Lorenzo,
+who seems to have behaved with admirable coolness, in his _Storia
+Chronologica di Firenze_. “When Cesare Petrucci was Gonfalonier of
+Florence in 1478, the Pazzi, brothers-in-law of the Medici, for
+Guglielmo had a sister of Lorenzo and Giuliano to wife, proposed,
+together with the Salviati, to murder Lorenzo and Giuliano; they knew
+that the Pope would give them a free hand in this undertaking because
+Francesco Pazzi, treasurer to the Pope, wrote that on account of the
+aid given to Vitelli the Pontiff was exceeding wroth with him, and
+also that the King of Naples approved of it. On communicating this
+their idea to Salviati, archbishop of Pisa, he immediately joined
+them, accounting himself offended by Cosimo for having outlawed Jacopo
+Salviati his relation, and by Lorenzo for not having been able to take
+possession of his archbishopric; moreover he promised to bring with
+him many of his relations and friends. Matters being thus arranged
+they thought of how to execute their design. Now there was in Florence
+at the Loggia de’ Pazzi[51] a nephew of Count Girolamo Riario lately
+created a cardinal, who was studying at Pisa and considered as an
+archbishop; so they thought their design might be effected when they
+went to dine at the villa of Lorenzo at Fiesole. But this came to
+nought because Giuliano did not come; then they determined to do the
+deed in the Medici house, for they made sure that when the archbishop
+came to Florence to attend High Mass Lorenzo, according to his custom,
+would invite him to dinner. Thus was it therefore settled, and on the
+26th April, the day fixed for the function, the cardinal went with a
+large following to the house of Lorenzo, who received him with every
+mark of extreme benevolence and courtesy and invited him and all his
+company to dinner. But on the conspirators hearing that Giuliano would
+not be present, they determined to do that in church which they had
+thought to accomplish at table, and settled among themselves that the
+signal was to be the elevation of the Body of Christ. Therefore when
+all had gone into the cathedral and the mass had begun, the archbishop
+of Pisa went with thirty of his companions to the Palace of the
+Signoria to kill the Gonfaloniere and take possession of the Palace.
+But on entering to speak with the Gonfaloniere his confusion was such
+that Petrucci, calling his people ordered them to arm and take prisoner
+the archbishop, his brother, his nephew Jacopo del Poggio, secretary
+of the cardinal Riario and the five brothers Perugini with the rest
+of their company. A short while after securing them a great noise
+was heard in the street, and Jacopo de’ Pazzi appeared on horseback,
+galloping hither and thither and shouting aloud Liberty, Liberty.
+Then the Priors and their familiars threw several stones from the
+windows: and meanwhile came the news that in Santa Maria del Fiore at
+the elevation of the Host Giuliano de’ Medici had been murdered, and
+Lorenzo wounded in the neck by Stefano Bagnone, rector of Montemurlo
+and chancellor of Jacopo de’ Pazzi, and Antonio Maffei of Volterra an
+apostolic scribe: that Francesco Nori had fallen by his side, and that
+Lorenzo, all streaming with blood, had been carried to his own house.
+When the Gonfaloniere heard this he commanded cords to be put round the
+necks of the archbishop, of his brother, of his nephew and of Jacopo
+del Poggio, and that they should be thrown out of the windows, the
+cords being attached to the columns; the other wounded he caused to be
+either driven out of the doors on to the Piazza or thrown also out of
+the windows. Then the people rose in fury, and rushing to the house
+of the Pazzi found Francesco in bed, he having wounded himself on the
+leg when he struck Giuliano, and naked as he was they took him to the
+Palace and hung him at once by the side of the archbishop. They would
+have done yet more ferocious things, but that on going to the Medici
+house Lorenzo showed himself, and begged them to let vengeance be taken
+by the magistrate. In a short time Giovanni and Galeotto de’ Pazzi
+Riario himself and his brother were brought in, when Lorenzo entreated
+of the Signoria that no proceedings should on any account be taken
+against the cardinal or his brother. Meanwhile from the Mugello arrived
+Renato, Giovanni and Niccolò de’ Pazzi with many men from Montesicco
+as prisoners, and soon after Jacopo and Renato his nephew were hung,
+the latter somewhat unjustly, because, being a man of letters, when
+he heard of the plot he disapproved and hastened away to his villa in
+order not to be present.”[52]
+
+       [Illustration: (Drawing looking down the hill at Villa.)]
+
+It was after this attempt on his life that Lorenzo sent his wife and
+children and their tutor Angelo Poliziano to Cafaggiuolo for safety.
+Madonna Clarice had always disliked Poliziano and he was bored to
+death in such uncongenial company, so after a little while Clarice
+dismissed him, and was very irate when Lorenzo gave him hospitality
+in his Fiesole villa. A delightful description of the life led by
+the Platonists is to be found in a letter from Poliziano to Marsilio
+Ficino: “When your retreat at Careggi becomes too hot in the month of
+August, I hope you may think this our rustic dwelling of Fiesole not
+beneath your notice. We have plenty of water here and, as we are in a
+valley, but little sun, and are never without a cooling breeze. The
+villa itself, lying off the road and almost hidden in the midst of a
+wood, yet commands a view of the whole of Florence; and although in
+a densely populated district yet have I perfect solitude, such as is
+loved by him who leaves the town. I have a double attraction to offer
+you, for Pico often comes from his oak wood to see me, stealing in
+unexpectedly he drags me out of my den to share his supper, which as
+you know is frugal, yet well served and sufficient, and seasoned with
+most pleasant talk and jests. But come to me, you shall not sup worse
+and perchance you shall drink better; for the palm of good wine I am
+ready to contend even with Pico himself.”[53]
+
+It was in this “perfect peace” that Poliziano wrote his famous Latin
+poem _Rusticus_, full of the same love of woods and fields that
+animated Lorenzo the Magnificent, to whom he affectionately refers
+towards the end of the poem:
+
+    “Such was my song, with idle thought
+    In Fiesole’s cool grottoes wrought,
+    Where from the Medici’s retreat
+    On that famed mount, beneath my feet
+    The Tuscan city I survey,
+    And Arno winding far away.
+    Here sometime at happy leisure
+    Bounteous Lorenzo takes his pleasure
+    His friends to entertain and feast,
+    (Of Phœbus’ sons himself not least)
+    Offering a haven safe and free
+    To stormtossed ships of Poesy.”[54]
+
+Little is heard of the Fiesole villa after the death of Lorenzo the
+Magnificent; eventually it was sold to the Marchese del Serre, who let
+it to that eccentric Englishwoman the Countess of Orford, about whom
+Sir Horace Mann tells Walpole: “she has been detained by the purchase
+of her own Villa, at Fiesole, which, about a year ago, had been bought
+over her own head.... Cavaliere Mozzi, her messenger told me that she
+had commissioned him to desire that I would inform you that, if her
+age and ill-health permitted, she would hasten to England, though she
+does not see in what shape she could be useful to her son.... She set
+out yesterday for Naples, I believe to bring away all her furniture,
+in order to fix in Tuscany.... She has bought the villa at Fiesole.”
+Later in the same year he mentions her again as riding for some hours
+every morning and maintaining “a vivacity not common at her age.” In
+Jan. 1781, Mann informs Walpole: “Lady Orford died at Pisa on the
+13th.... She has left everything she was possessed of to Mozzi. The
+whole inheritance will be very considerable, reckoning only what she
+had here and at Naples.” Three years later he notes, “Lady Orford’s old
+Cicisbeo, Cavaliere Mozzi married.” He sold the Medicean villa to the
+Buoninsegni family of Siena, from whom Mr Spence bought it in 1862,
+and for many years it was the meeting-place of all English visitors to
+Florence, attracted by the genial hospitality of its versatile owner.
+In 1897 it passed into the possession of Col. Harry Macalmont, whose
+mother now lives there. But little remains of the original design of
+Michelozzi as Mozzi unfortunately restored and altered the building
+considerably, turning it into a villa of the eighteenth century.
+
+   [Illustration: (Drawing looking across outdoor walkway)]
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[49] Dante. _Paradise_, Canto XV. Cary’s translation.
+
+[50] Translated by R. C. Trevelyan.
+
+[51] A villa then belonging to the Pazzi family, bought afterwards by
+the Panciaticchi and eventually by the great singer Catalani; near the
+village of La Lastra some two miles outside Porta San Gallo.
+
+[52] _Storia Chronologica della Città di Firenze._ Dell’ Abbate
+Guiseppe Maria Mecatti. Vol. II. p. 450. Napoli, 1755.
+
+[53] Politian. _Ep._ Lib. X. Ep. 14.
+
+[54] Translated by R. C. Trevelyan.
+
+
+
+
+     [Illustration: (Drawing looking at Villa from the drive. Villa
+                      has towers at each corner)]
+
+
+VILLA DELL’ AMBROGIANA
+
+
+The villa of the Ambrogiana, near the junction of the Pesa and the
+Arno, was built by the Grand Duke Ferdinando I, on the ruins of a more
+ancient villa belonging to the extinct family of the Ardinghelli.
+Going from Florence to Pisa by the railway none can fail to admire
+the villa—a huge cube with a tower at each corner—close to Montelupo.
+Near by is the small parish church of San Quirico, where, probably
+the preliminaries of the peace between the Republic of Florence, the
+Commune of Pistoja and the Counts of Capraja, were signed in 1204.
+
+                [Illustration: VILLA DELL’ AMBROGIANA.]
+
+The Ambrogiana was a favourite hunting-lodge of Ferdinando de’ Medici,
+and the court spent a week or ten days there several times a year.
+In October 1592 the marriage of Donna Eleonora Orsini, his niece, to
+the Duke of Segni, son of Count of Federigo Sforza, was celebrated
+with great magnificence in the private chapel of the villa. After the
+ceremony a banquet was given in the large hall, when the Grand Ducal
+table was served by pages dressed in white satin, with Spanish cloaks
+of red velvet embroidered in gold with the Medici arms and collars
+of fine lace; four negroes in rich oriental costume handed them the
+dishes and the servants who waited on the other guests, seated at small
+tables round the hall, wore sky-blue liveries trimmed with gold
+lace and a short sword at their sides. In the evening the terrace was
+illuminated, fireworks were let off and a cantata was sung. For four
+days the court remained at the beautiful river-side villa and much game
+was shot in the well stocked preserves, and then the Duke and Duchess
+of Segni left for Florence and stayed at the Casino di San Marco,
+lent to them by Don Antonio de’ Medici, until they returned to the
+Ambrogiana in December to assist the Grand Duke and Duchess to receive
+Cardinal de Retz.
+
+In November 1594 Don Antonio returned from Hungary, where he had
+been fighting the Turks with the Tuscan contingent sent to the aid
+of the Emperor of Austria by Ferdinando, and joined the court at
+the Ambrogiana. His descriptions of battles and sieges amused the
+Princesses, and if he spoke as well as he wrote to his uncle during the
+campaign the young ladies were right to linger over their sweetmeats.
+In the summer of the following year Don Antonio left for Transylvania
+to join the Austrian army, and some of the best names of Florence
+appear on the roll of the killed and wounded in battle. When he
+returned in January he again went to the Ambrogiana to report himself
+to the Grand Duke who was shooting in the woods of Mount Vettolini.[55]
+
+In October 1600 when Maria de’ Medici left Florence for France as the
+bride of Henry IV, she rested awhile at the Ambrogiana on her way
+to Pisa. She must have had enough of triumphal arches, addresses,
+offerings of flowers and madrigals by the time she stepped on board the
+chief galley of the Knights of San Stefano, where a raised dais had
+been prepared on the poop for the future Queen of France, with a gilt
+chair having the fleur de lis of France and the balls of the Medici
+embroidered on the back in jacinths, topazes and other precious stones.
+Nine years later the Grand Duke Ferdinando died, and the court retired
+to the Ambrogiana for the first weeks of deep mourning.
+
+Cosimo III, decorated the villa with numerous paintings of animals and
+flowers by the two Scacciati and by Bartolomeo Bimbi of Settignano,
+which no longer exist. He seldom went there, perhaps on account of its
+proximity to the high road, or else because of the wind “which blows
+there, and will blow to all eternity,” as his doctor, the well-known
+poet Redi, wrote to a friend.
+
+The last record of court festivities I can find in connection with
+the Ambrogiana is on April 1791, when Ferdinando III, second son of
+the Grand Duke Pietro Leopoldo, who succeeded his brother as Emperor
+of Austria after governing Tuscany with wisdom and liberality for
+twenty-five years, met his bride Louisa Maria of Bourbon at the villa
+and escorted her to Florence.
+
+Now the fine old villa has fallen from its high estate and is used as a
+prison. The forests where Ferdinando I, shot and hunted have long since
+been destroyed, and the picturesque little hill-village of Capraja
+has forgotten that her name was really _Cerbaria_, from the thick and
+wild woods surrounding the hill whence she frowns defiance at her
+enemy Montelupo on the opposite side of the river. Cerbaria is first
+mentioned in a concession by the Emperor Otho III, to the Bishop of
+Pistoja in 998, and again in 1155 in a diploma of Frederic II. It must
+have been well nigh impregnable in those days, and the narrow, steep
+tortuous streets, which are only practicable to mules in single file,
+are most picturesque. Gradually the name was changed to Capraria, then
+to Capraja (Capra, a goat), and when the Republic of Florence built the
+castle of Montelupo on the heights opposite, the proverb arose: “Per
+distrugger questa Capra, non vi vuol altro che un Lupo.” (To destroy
+this Goat, a Wolf is necessary.)
+
+[Illustration: (Drawing looking up from lake to village going up hill)]
+
+The ruined church and castle of Montelupo on the opposite side of the
+river is well worth a visit, and the view thence is very fine. Down
+by the Arno the potteries still exist where those quaint plates with
+straddling men at arms and wonderful purple horses, and the _bocale_
+or wide-mouthed jugs inscribed with pithy sentences, were once made.
+These jugs were in such common use that they gave rise to the proverb:
+“E scritta nei bocale di Montelupo” (It is written on the jugs of
+Montelupo), to indicate that a thing is of public notoriety.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[55] See _Don Antonio de’ Medici al Casino di San Marco_, by Count P.
+F. Covoni. Firenze, 1892.
+
+
+                  [Illustration: VILLA DI PRATOLINO.]
+
+
+
+
+        [Illustration: (View of Villa from garden, with statue)]
+
+
+VILLA DI PRATOLINO
+
+
+The villa of Pratolino, about six miles from Florence on the high road
+to Bologna, lies on the eastern slope of Mount Uccellatojo and owes
+its existence to the Grand Duke Francesco I, who bought the estate of
+Benedetto di Buonaccorso Uguccione in 1569 and squandered enormous sums
+upon the villa and the garden, which he filled with statues, grottoes,
+fountains and _jeux d’eaux_ of every description. The peasantry around
+were reduced to misery by the large amount of ground he threw out of
+cultivation to make the park, and by the destruction of their cattle in
+hauling marble, stone and sand up the long steep hill from Florence.
+Bernardo Buontalento was the architect, and Baldinucci tells us that
+“all the architects of that day declared that never had so simple, yet
+so elegant a building been seen.” The rooms were frescoed by Crescenzio
+Onofrio Romano, Francesco Petrucci, Pier Dandini and Giovanni da San
+Giovanni, while the best landscape gardeners of the day were employed
+to lay out the beautiful gardens and park. Stefano Della Bella has
+left some delightfully fantastic engravings of the grottoes wherein
+graceful ladies and tall cavaliers are disporting themselves; of a
+gigantic tree with a platform high up in its branches on which a gay
+company is supping; of various fountains; of a long alley, shaded, not
+by trees but by arches of water under which stately lords and ladies
+are walking; and of several statues. A rare pamphlet, by Bernardo
+Sgrilli, gives elaborate plans of the villa and describes the marble
+statues standing in niches cut out of evergreen hedges; the wonderful
+animals lurking in caves which suddenly spouted water over the unwary
+admirer; and the cunningly devised grottoes containing life-like
+figures or groups. In one a shepherd piped to his flock, in another a
+knife-grinder sharpened a scythe; then there was a fortress whose walls
+suddenly became alive with soldiers firing volleys at an imaginary
+enemy whilst cannon boomed from the embrasures and the rattle of drums
+was heard; in others a pretty shepherdess tripped daintily along and
+filled her pails with water at a well, disdaining to look at a lovesick
+swain who played plaintive airs on his bagpipes; Vulcan made sparks fly
+from his anvil; a miller ground corn at his mill; a huntsman encouraged
+his hounds, “baying as though they were alive”; birds sang sweetly in
+the boughs of fairy-like trees; gliding serpents, hooting owls and
+“other most beautiful and stupendous inventions too many to enumerate
+were set in motion by diverse hidden machines driven by water.” But if
+any unwary spectator sat down on an inviting bench, or took refuge from
+the sun in a cool grotto, streams of water would pour on him from every
+side and he was drenched to the skin in an instant.[56]
+
+Of all these marvels nothing remains but the beautiful park with its
+magnificent trees, and a few of the rare shrubs planted by Francesco,
+a passionate collector of curious plants and animals, who was in
+correspondence with all the famous botanists of the day; and the huge
+statue of the Apennines, cunningly built of large blocks of stone by
+Giovanni da Bologna. (?)
+
+Bianca Cappello, the second wife of Francesco I, was fond of Pratolino,
+where she passed the summer months to escape the heat in Florence.
+No less a person than Torquato Tasso has sung its beauties in many
+charming sonnets, mingling praises of the place with adulation of the
+all-powerful Venetian:
+
+    “Pleasant and stately grove,
+    Your scented foliage spread forth cool and green,
+    For here beneath your screen
+    This noble maid to couch on grass doth love.
+    Together join your boughs, beeches and firs;
+    Ye too link yours together, pine and oak,
+    Thou, sacred laurel, and thou myrtle bright:
+    Guard from all harm those fairest locks of hers
+    And keep her from fierce noonday’s fiery stroke;
+    Mingle your green with golden glancing light.
+    Shades gentle and serene,
+    Nobler is this your victory o’er the sun
+    Than that each night by pale Astræa won.”[57]
+
+Bianca was helpful to the unhappy poet, who in return indited madrigals
+in her honour. “Had Your Royal Highness not experienced both good and
+evil fortune, you would not so well understand the misfortunes of
+others,” he writes to her in 1586. People who wished to make presents
+to the Grand Duchess occasionally asked Tasso to write a madrigal
+to be sent with the gift, thus enhancing its value. Among others, a
+Florentine lady, Caterina Frescobaldi, sent Bianca a magnificent dress
+embroidered with eight different designs, and to each was pinned an
+appropriate poem. In the collection of fifty madrigals, privately
+printed in 1871 from the copy given by Tasso to the fair Venetian, he
+plays fancifully with her name Bianca, turning it into Alba, Candida,
+Bianca Luna, etc.; this play upon words renders it difficult to
+translate them into English.
+
+    “Behold Love’s miracle,
+    That my White Dawn should shed
+    Glory, which doth the light by Day’s Dawn spread
+    In radiance far excell.
+    Dawn’s glory is not her own, the Sun knows well;
+    For that himself doth lend her;
+    But from herself hath my White Dawn her splendour.”
+
+When on his way from Bologna to Florence in 1580 Montaigne visited
+Pratolino and quaintly remarks, “the Grand Duke has used all his five
+senses to beautify it.... The house is contemptible as seen from afar,
+but very fine when you come near, though not so handsome as some of
+ours in France.... But marvellous is a grotto with several chambers;
+this surpasses anything we have seen elsewhere. It is all encrusted
+with certain stuff they say was brought from the mountains which is
+fastened on with invisible nails. Not only does the movement of water
+make music and harmony, but it causes various statues to move and doors
+to shut, animals also plunge in to drink, and other such devices. In
+one moment the whole grotto is filled with water, every chair squirts
+it over your thighs, and fleeing therefrom up the steps to the villa,
+if they choose they can start a thousand jets and drench you to the
+skin.” Montaigne goes on to describe the statues and the gardens, and
+particularly notices the ingenious manner of storing ice and snow,
+much as is done at the present time, invented by that universal genius
+Bernardo Buontalento, and the building of the huge statue of the
+Apennines, then nearly finished. Twelve years later Sir Henry Wotton
+writing to Lord Zouch in June about the feast day of St John says: “it
+was somewhat more than ordinary upon the arrival of the Count di Santa
+Fiore in the court here, who is espoused unto Leonora Ursina, but of
+the marriage day no speech; for the Grand Duke hath desire to celebrate
+the marriage of his Niece, and the other, both in one day, because
+they have been jointly brought up together and (for congruity sake)
+aparall’d all days alike. The fore-named Earl is nephew of the lively
+Cardinal Sforza.... In person not tall nor low, and one of the worst
+faces a man shall ordinarily see, so that some think Leonora Ursina
+would be contented to revoke the match, and take her first offer.” In
+August he writes again, “since my last unto your honour (contrary to
+the expectation of all) is the marriage of Leonora Ursina accomplished
+at Pratolino, where the Cardinal Sforza arrived on the 16 of August,
+and gave the ring on Sunday last. I hear the Gentlewoman to be in some
+pensiveness of mind and to have abandoned her Cythern, on which she was
+wont to play; having rather been the wife of the Prince of Transylvania
+than of the Count of Santa Fiore, but that, since she saw him, or
+rather (as some say) since she tried him. To grace her husband the
+better, they style him Duke Sforza, which here we laugh at.” The court,
+he notes in a later letter, “is still at Pratolino attending unto the
+fresh air.”[58]
+
+It must have been this same Prince of Transylvania who in the summer of
+1597 sent an ambassador to Florence called Sigismondo Sarmorago with
+gifts for the Grand Duke Ferdinando I, (who had succeeded his brother
+Francesco) and his wife Christine of Lorraine. They were at Pratolino,
+and the ambassador climbed the long hill from Florence followed by a
+pair of magnificent iron-grey Turkish horses and two very large dogs
+with collars _alla Turca_ set with precious stones for the Grand Duke,
+and a wonderful Indian naked spotted dog for the Grand Duchess, whose
+collar was resplendent with pearls and diamonds.
+
+Pratolino, or rather its garden, seems to have astonished all
+beholders; John Evelyn stopped there on his way to Bologna from
+Florence in 1645 and notes in his Diary:—
+
+“The house is a square of four pavilions, with a fair platform about
+it, balustred with stone, situate in a large meadow, ascending like an
+amphitheatre, having at the bottom a huge rock, with water running in
+a small channel, like a cascade; on the other side are the gardens.
+The whole place seems consecrated to pleasure and summer retirement.
+The inside of the Palace may compare with any in Italy for furniture
+of tapestry, beds, etc., and the gardens are delicious, and full of
+fountains. In the grove sits Pan feeding his flock, the water making
+a melodious sound through his pipe; and a Hercules, whose club yields
+a shower of water, which, falling into a great shell, has a naked
+woman riding on the backs of dolphins. In another grotto, is Vulcan
+and his family, the walls richly composed of corals, shells, copper,
+and marble figures, with the hunting of several beasts moving by the
+force of water. Here, having been well washed for our curiosity, we
+went down a large walk, at the sides whereof several slender streams
+of water gush out of pipes concealed underneath, that interchangeably
+fall into each other’s channels, making a lofty and perfect arch, so
+that a man on horseback may ride under it, and not receive one drop
+of wet. This canopy, or arch of water, I thought one of the most
+surprising magnificences I had ever seen, and very refreshing in the
+heat of the summer. At the end of this very long walk, stands a woman
+in white marble, in posture of a laundress wringing water out of a
+piece of linen, very naturally formed into a vast laver, the work and
+invention of M. Angelo Buonarotti. Hence we ascended Mount Parnassus,
+where the Muses played to us on hydraulic organs. Near this is a great
+aviary. All these waters came from the rock in the garden, on which is
+the statue of a giant representing the Apennines, at the foot of which
+stands this villa.”[59]
+
+Cosimo III does not seem to have frequented Pratolino, but his son
+Prince Ferdinando, who even as a child showed an extraordinary talent
+for music, had a special love for the place. He sang well and played
+various instruments, and to his father’s anger often spent the carnival
+in Venice when no less than six theatres were open, four for opera, two
+for prose. An old writer tells us “he was such a master of counterpoint
+that a most difficult sonata being put before him at Venice, not only
+did he read it off at sight, but to the astonishment of all played it
+through from memory afterwards.”
+
+After his marriage with Violante of Bavaria he decided to build a
+theatre at Pratolino, the big room there being unfit for the operas he
+wished to give. He called in the architect who rebuilt the cathedral
+at Pescia, Antonio Ferri, and an admirable theatre was erected on the
+third floor of the villa, the Prince himself directed the painting of
+the scenery and the making of the stage machinery. He corresponded
+with composers, singers and poets, and often suggested changes in the
+_libretti_, or the addition of a song for the reigning favourite of
+the hour. An army of singers and musicians were in his pay and several
+musical critics, whose duty it was to travel from city to city in
+search of fresh talent. Every year saw the birth of at least one new
+opera, and Scarlatti composed no less than five for Pratolino. In a
+long letter to Prince Ferdinando about one called Lucio Manlio, he
+explains: “where it is marked _grave_ I do not mean _melancolico_,
+where _andante_ not _presto_ but _arioso_, where _allegro_ not
+_precipitoso_, where _allegrissimo_ not so fast as to exhaust the
+singers and drown the words, where _andante lento_, I exclude the
+pathetic, but desire a charming vagueness which should not lose the
+_arioso_; and none of the airs are to be melancholy. In my theatrical
+compositions I have always attempted to make the first act as it were,
+a child beginning to learn how to walk, the second, a youth already
+sure of himself, the third, a young man who gallantly attempts, and
+by his ardour succeeds, in every undertaking. Thus have I done in
+Lucio Manlio, the eighty-eighth opera composed by me in less than
+thirty-three years, which I should like to crown as the Queen of all
+the others. If I have failed to succeed, at least I have had the
+courage to attempt this; let Your Highness deign to accept it as Your
+vassal; as a maiden forlorn and homeless, to be guarded from the shocks
+and tricks of fortune....”
+
+Prince Ferdinando de’ Medici died in 1713 before his father and the
+theatre was closed for ever. A hundred years later another Ferdinand,
+but of the family of Lorraine, called in a Bohemian engineer of
+the name of Frichs, who made new roads, threw many farms out of
+cultivation, planted trees and finally persuaded the Austrian Grand
+Duke to destroy the Medici villa built by Buontalento. Ferdinand died
+in 1824, before the new villa designed by Frichs had been begun, and
+Pratolino became the private property of his successor, Leopold II,
+as compensation for large sums advanced from his privy purse for the
+bonification of the Maremme of Massa and Grosseto. Not only were the
+foundations of the old villa blown up, but all the water-works and
+grottoes, save one, were destroyed; some of the statues were removed
+to Florence, many were stolen, others broken up and used to fill in
+cisterns and under-ground grottoes.
+
+[Illustration: (Drawing of giant statue looking into lake, with trees)]
+
+When in 1872 Prince Paul Demidoff bought Pratolino from the house of
+Lorraine he added to the old _Paggeria_ or villa of the pages, and
+restored other smaller villas in the magnificent park; but his death in
+1885 put a stop to further work, and the present villa is not worthy of
+its beautiful surroundings or of the memories of bygone splendour.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[56] _Descrizione Della Regia Villa, Fontane, e Fabbriche di
+Pratolino._ Bernadone Sgrilli. Architetto Fiorentino. Nella Stamperia
+Ducale. Firenze, 1742.
+
+[57] The translations are by R. C. Trevelyan, from _Cinquanta
+Madrigalli Inediti_, del Signor Torquato Tasso, alla Gran Duchessa
+Bianca Cappello nei Medici. Firenze, M. Ricci, 1871. Ediz. di CCL
+Esemplari non venale.
+
+[58] _Reliquæ Wottonianæ_, pp. 672, 690.
+
+[59] _Diary of John Evelyn._ Vol. I. p. 190.
+
+
+                    [Illustration: VILLA SALVIATI.]
+
+
+
+
+        [Illustration: (Drawing of Villa seen through gardens)]
+
+
+VILLA SALVIATI
+
+
+It is strange no records remain about either the building or the
+builder of Villa Salviati, one of the finest and most widely known
+villas round Florence. But a search among archives and chronicles
+has only elicited the meagre facts that in 1100 a fastness stood on
+the site of the present villa and was owned by the Montegonzi, who
+about the year 1450 sold it to Messer Alemanno Salviati. It was then
+described as “a strong castle with towers and battlements,” which
+suggests the idea that the last members of the Montegonzi may have
+transformed their twelfth century fastness into a fortress-villa, and
+the rich and powerful Salviati no doubt added to its splendour and
+magnificence. One is tempted to think the great architect Michelozzi
+must have been called in, so strong is the resemblance of Villa
+Salviati to his known works Cafaggiuolo and Careggi. Certainly it
+belongs to his epoch, 1396–1472, and the bastion-like walls, the towers
+and machicolations give the impression that he who commissioned the
+villa lived at a time when a dwelling-house in town or on the hills
+within sight of the city, had also to be a fortress and serve as a
+place of refuge during civil strife. The only positive information
+about the villa we have from Vasari, who tells us that in 1529 it was
+besieged and burnt during the siege by the Florentine mob, when all the
+fine sculptures by Giovan Francesco Rustici were destroyed; but like
+Careggi its massive walls must have withstood the fire. In more modern
+times a pent-roof, as at Careggi and Cafaggiuolo, was placed above
+its battlements in the vain endeavour to hide its war-like aspect,
+and layers of pink and chocolate coloured paint now give a somewhat
+artificial and mean appearance to what really is a magnificently
+proportioned and boldly conceived fortress-villa. The principal block
+of building rises in the form of a massive tower, crenelated and
+with bastioned walls sloping out on to the grass terrace, while the
+remainder rises round a courtyard with elegant Renaissance arches and
+capitals of grey Fiesole stone, and then broadens out at each corner
+into a tall tower whence, in days of trouble between noble and citizen,
+the retainers of the Salviati must have often watched for the sign of
+coming danger.
+
+Certainly as we walk round the villa, especially on its north side
+where it looks towards the double-peaked hill of Fiesole, seen somewhat
+bleak on a winter’s day, our mind is full of mediæval Florence, of
+a time before the nobles built such peaceful dwelling-houses with
+terraced gardens as the Villa Palmieri for instance, just in sight
+across the narrow valley of the Mugnone. Viewed only from this its
+austerest aspect the Salviati villa would be beautiful indeed, but
+unlike any other we know of it possesses a very different side of which
+Zocchi shows us something. An eighteenth century owner, feeling perhaps
+that the somewhat menacing look of his ancestral villa ill coincided
+with the more joyous tastes of his day, laid out the enchanting rococo
+orange houses with graceful balustrade ornamented with vases and a
+clock tower. Joined on to the villa at right angles and built in so
+opposite a style, it yet fascinates by very contrast, leading the eye
+gradually to feast with delight upon the terraced gardens laid out with
+such taste by Jacopo Salviati in 1510. From under the heavy foliage of
+the ilexes, trimmed and trained so closely as to let no glimpse of sky
+be seen between their branches, we look out across the city of Florence
+to the hill of San Miniato, a view, it is true, familiar to everyone
+who has walked on these slopes, but what a different foreground we have
+here! Where in Italy can one see not only so fair a city, bell-towers,
+domes and palaces, the late afternoon sun playing soft lights about
+them so that they seem distant, ethereal and shrouded in a thin faint
+film of golden mist; but between us and this fairy city lie two small
+lakelets, one below the other, their shining limpid water catching
+every glint of light till the sun shall have dropt behind the Signa
+hills. All the winds are hushed in this dell. They move the leaves and
+sway the branches of the narrow wood above, but here reigns a peace
+such as one finds in northern valleys, even the thin sharp shadows
+across the pools, from the clumps of white plumes of the pampas grass
+and the aloes in flower upon the banks, lie still on the unruffled
+surface of their waters.
+
+The rich and powerful family of Salviati descended from a doctor,
+Messer Salvi di Maestro Guglielmo di Forese di Gottifredo, of great
+reputation in Florence towards the end of the thirteenth century.
+His two sons, Cambio and Lotto, both became Priors of the city,
+and altogether the Salviati had sixty-three Priors and twenty-one
+Gonfaloniers in their family. A grandson of Lotto, named Forese, was
+extremely popular, and distinguished himself first as a diplomatist
+and afterwards as Captain-General of the Tuscan Romagna in 1397; and
+his descendants served the Republic with honour as soldiers or as
+envoys and ambassadors. The only one of the family whose name is still
+a by-word in Florence was Giuliano, son of Francesco Salviati and
+Laudomia de’ Medici. One of the first to incite the mob to plunder
+the Medici palaces and deface their arms when driven from Florence in
+1527, he afterwards became the boon companion of the dissolute Duke
+Alessandro, and he it was who insulted Luisa Strozzi at a masked ball
+and paid for it by being maimed for life by her brother; whilst his
+wife was always supposed to have been instrumental in poisoning the
+beautiful and virtuous woman who had resented the infamous behaviour of
+the Duke and of Salviati. Fortunately that branch of the family ended
+with his daughter. A very different man was his cousin Jacopo Salviati,
+married to Lucrezia, daughter to Lorenzo the Magnificent and sister to
+Leo X, with whom Jacopo was a favourite. He was the one man amongst
+the envoys from Florence who dared to raise his voice at the court
+of Clement VII, against creating the bastard Alessandro de’ Medici
+absolute Lord of Florence, and against building the great fortress
+of San Giovanni, now called Fortezza da Basso, to dominate the town.
+Setting forth how at the death of Leo X, the citizens of Florence had
+preserved the State for the Medici, he contended that the best and
+surest fortress was the love of the people, who are content when food
+is abundant and justice properly administered. And when Filippo Strozzi
+argued against him Jacopo turned round saying, “Filippo, either you
+speak not your thoughts, or if you think as you speak you think amiss”;
+then as though gifted with the spirit of prophecy he continued, “God
+grant that in advocating the building of this fortress Filippo is not
+preparing his own grave.” “For these words,” as Varchi who describes
+the scene writes, “the Pope called him no more to council, and those
+citizens who once bore him on the palms of their hands avoided him ...
+and his dependants who had received favours from him turned away when
+they saw him in the distance.”
+
+Maria, daughter of Jacopo Salviati, married Giovanni de’ Medici
+surnamed Delle Bande Nere, and was the mother of Cosimo I, to whom she
+in vain preached moderation and respect for the law. Three of her
+brothers joined the anti-Medicean faction and were implicated in every
+attempt to dethrone their nephew; but Messer Alamanno, the youngest,
+was one of the most trusted counsellors of the two Dukes Alessandro
+and Cosimo and left enormous wealth to his son Jacopo. Clement VIII,
+created Lorenzo Salviati, Jacopo’s son, a Marquis after he had bought
+the castles and lands of Giuliano and Rocca Massima, and Urban VIII,
+made his grandson Jacopo, who married Donna Veronica Cybo, daughter of
+the Prince of Massa, Duke of Giuliano. The following account of the
+marriage by a contemporary was, according to that excellent Italian
+fashion, privately printed in honour of a marriage some thirty years
+ago. I have translated the whole letter for the curious insight it
+gives into the manners of that day.
+
+“Being sure of giving Your Excellency agreeable tidings, I send a
+detailed account of the marriage of my Lord the Duke of Salviati and of
+my Lady Donna Veronica, which causes the people the more joy that my
+Lords the Prince and the Princess are so gratified thereat.
+
+“My Lord the Duke was to be in Massa on the 27th and sent one of
+his gentlemen on the day before to announce his arrival; he sent
+to the Duchess his wife four most beautiful dresses with jewels to
+match; one was white, one of flax-flower blue, one turquoise and one
+crimson, all enriched with gold and as yet uncut. At the same time
+I was sent by Their Excellencies to meet the Lord Duke and kiss his
+hands. We arrived at sundown at Massa, and at Salto della Cervia the
+Lord Marquis of Carrara,[60] accompanied by many gentlemen and 100
+archibusiers of Massa on horseback, met H.E., and soon afterwards the
+Prince himself with many gentlemen and 80 archibusiers of Carrara and
+his usual bodyguard came in sight. When we reached Nostra Signora del
+Monte the salvos of artillery from the castle began which made a fine
+effect, as besides the heavy artillery, which Y.E. knows of, and the
+200 spingards, the Prince had placed 500 musketeers, who repeated the
+salvos, and thus the castle seemed no less terrific than pleasing.
+
+“When we reached the palace the Duke retired to his apartments and sent
+to ask permission of the Prince, my master, to present some flowers
+he had brought from Florence to his bride; these were enclosed in a
+gilt enamelled glove box, and in other velvet cases were a ring with a
+splendid diamond, a necklace of very large diamonds, a jewel of large
+diamonds with a feather also of diamonds and a large pearl at the tip;
+these, with the chain of diamonds which the Duke had already sent with
+his portrait in a jewelled box, certainly were worth more than 15000
+scudi. That same evening my comedy was acted and proved a success.
+The wedding was on Monday morning, and when the bride and bridegroom
+left the palace and entered the Piazza a squadron of 1000 musketeers
+fired a salute, which was repeated at the bestowal of the ring and when
+they returned to the palace. The ring was splendid, my Lord Duke not
+permitting that the one sent before the marriage should be used, but
+this other special one. The Duchess was attired most richly in white,
+adorned with the jewels given to her the day before. My Lord Duke was
+habited in blue, but the extreme richness of the suit rendered it
+useless and of such weight that it could only be worn for a few hours
+and he was begged by all to change. If the first was rich the second
+was not less elegant, and every day H.E. wore a new suit each one more
+beautiful than the last; and he bestowed one on that silly buffoon of
+a doctor, who was present at all the marriage feasts, of cloth of gold
+embroidered also in gold, and the said doctor made a good meal one
+morning, filling himself with doubloons and zecchins given him by all
+the Seigneury who were at table.
+
+“On the night of the marriage there was a splendid entertainment;
+seventy-four ladies were there unmasked and forty-eight came masked,
+divided in companies of six, variously costumed in appropriate and
+pleasing dresses. Although the room was large four rows of seats were
+none too many and all passed with great order and contentment. Next day
+at a game my Lord Duke gave, with a pretty pretext, a bottle containing
+500 zecchins to the bride. That and the following days were spent in
+feasting and festivity, and for an improvised masquerade the Duke
+caused a hat to be made for my Lady Duchess with a rich garland of
+diamonds and under the brim he placed a very large diamond worth 14000
+scudi. The Duke asked to see the castle and was received with much
+honour, and left a good present to each soldier and bombardier and a
+chain worth 100 scudi to the Castellan.
+
+“The charitable gifts to convents and other institutions are also
+worthy of note, amounting to some hundreds of scudi. On the palace
+guard and the company of archibusiers which accompanied him to the
+confines of Tuscany with my Lord the Prince, he also bestowed largesse.
+Not only has he given to all but he also caused his bride to give to
+many; among others to her sister-in-law Princess Fulvia[61] she gave
+two of those dress-lengths sent to her by the Duke and the others she
+left to Donna Placidia, her sister. The Duke has bestowed many chains,
+besides presents in money, to the officers and to many others; and
+the Prince, my master, has at his request condoned many punishments,
+pardoned many exiles and released all the prisoners who were in the
+castle when he visited it. The Prince also insisted on giving a horse
+which once belonged to the Duke, and has been cured of vicious tricks
+so as now to be most pleasant to ride, back to him, and with it another
+which he thought the Duke admired. Also knowing his love of pictures
+my master gave him one by Raffaelle d’Urbino, besides hounds and a
+body-slave who waited on him here. The Princess, my mistress, gave him
+most finely worked linen shirts, and Don Alessandro an archibuse of
+perfect workmanship and great beauty.
+
+“To sum up, my Lord the Duke has been pleased with Massa and Massa
+pleased with my Lord Duke, as he is open-handed and of exquisite tact
+in all his dealings. All thought the Duchess very handsome as is but
+natural, she being of this house and sister to Princess Maria;[62] and
+I hope Tuscany will be no less satisfied with the Duchess Salviati than
+is Lombardy with the Princess della Mirandola. God preserve them both
+in the prosperity which he has granted them.
+
+“Bride and bridegroom took their departure on Friday morning in the
+Duke’s travelling carriage, which is so splendid that it would be
+sumptuous in a city; and were followed also by the lettiga (litter
+carried by mules), with velvet lining and golden fringes, columns of
+silver and beautiful carving; on a par with the magnificence of all
+else. Twelve grooms there were in livery and many gentlemen of goodly
+presence. Having thus satisfied my desire to serve Y.E. in a way that
+I know to be pleasing unto you, I kiss your hands, wishing you every
+felicity.
+
+  “GIULIO BEGGIO. Massa, 5th March 1628.”[63]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The glowing description of Donna Veronica given by the obsequious
+courtier of the house of Massa was not ratified by Florentine opinion.
+One old writer declares: “Donna Veronica was endowed with but small
+beauty, but _per contra_ with a most violent and imperious temper and
+a jealous disposition. Her husband, poor man, had small joy with her.”
+Duke Jacopo Salviata, handsome, gallant and accomplished, a brave
+soldier and an elegant poet, soon found his loveless life hard to bear,
+and some eight years after his marriage met (for her misfortune) the
+beautiful woman popularly called “the fair Cherubim” from her silken,
+wavy, golden hair and her exquisite colouring. The following account
+by an anonymous writer of the time, existing in manuscript in the
+Marucelliana library at Florence, tells the tragic tale graphically,
+and has, I believe, never been published.
+
+“All know of how much perfidy and cruelty a woman is capable when moved
+by a spirit of vengeance, particularly when roused thereto by offended
+love. I have often heard recounted a case which happened in the city
+of Florence, and will describe it as far as my feeble memory permits.
+There was in Florence a gentleman of the old and honourable family of
+the Canaccj named Giustino, well-known to me and to many still alive.
+He was considered a man of but small sense because, having several
+grown-up children by a first wife and being near seventy years of age,
+he took as his second wife a young girl called Caterina, inferior to
+himself in rank but endowed with marvellous beauty, daughter to a
+dyer from the Casentino. Now Giustino was also the ugliest, the most
+tiresome and the dirtiest man then in Florence, which encouraged many
+to solicit the good graces of Caterina who, though apparently leading a
+modest life, at length they said listened to Lorenzo da Jacopo Serzelli
+and to Vincenzio Carlini, a young Florentine who has now changed his
+habit and way of life, being the head of that hospital commonly called
+Bonifazio. There were also two youths, familiars of Jacopo Salviati
+Duke of Giuliano the greatest personage for birth, enormous wealth and
+other admirable qualities in the city of Florence, always excepting
+the Princes of the ruling house, who a few years before had taken to
+wife Donna Veronica daughter to Don Carlo Cybo, Prince of Massa and
+Carrara. This lady had not much beauty, but such pride and conceit that
+the Duke was driven to seek for comfort elsewhere. Once introduced to
+Caterina, the Duke, not to excite the suspicions of his wife, excused
+his occasional absences by an obligation to attend one of those
+Confraternities which meet only at night, and in Florence are called
+_Bucche_ (Holes), this one was named after St Anthony and situated in
+Pinti near Santa Maria Maddalena; and leaving it at a late hour he
+went to Caterina’s house in Via de’ Pilastri near S. Ambrogio. But he
+could not prevent this reaching the ears of the Duchess, who with other
+qualities possessed that of jealousy in a superlative degree.
+
+“It was rumoured, but I do not know if it be true, that the Duchess
+entered San Pier Maggiore one morning where was Caterina whom she
+knew well by sight, and as though by chance Donna Veronica placed
+herself by her side and in a few words bade her never again speak to
+her husband under pain of her dire displeasure. And Caterina replied,
+perchance with more arrogance and spirit than became her condition,
+thus increasing the ire of the Duchess and ensuring her own ruin.
+The Duke’s love grew every day and the Duchess determined to cut the
+thread; rumour has it that she tried to poison Caterina, but failing,
+determined to take vengeance in another way; and she did it with such
+cruelty and barbarity that one may rightly say it was done according to
+Genoese fashion, and it was as follows:—
+
+“She contrived, according to what was said at the time and it seems
+to be truth, to get hold of the brothers Bartolomeo and Francesco,
+sons of Giustino Canaccj, youths of about twenty-four or twenty-five,
+who though they did not inhabit, yet frequented their step-mother’s
+house; and after much talk representing to them how her licentious
+life brought ignominy on themselves and their posterity and that as
+persons of birth and consideration it behoved them to free themselves
+of her presence, she promised if they would do this not only to give
+them every help but such protection as would save them from any peril,
+and as they were poor she also promised to grant them a life-long
+allowance. I am by no means certain that the Duchess spake thus to
+both, or only to Bartolomeo the elder brother, who as we shall see
+was present at the misdeed and paid the penalty. It was said that the
+brothers, or the one, as it may have been, at first refused, but the
+offers being at length accompanied by threats they agreed to introduce
+into their step-mother’s house those persons chosen by the Duchess to
+work their vengeance (which was in truth her own) on poor Caterina.
+Some imagined that one of the reasons which led Bartolomeo to assist
+in the murder of his step-mother was her rejection of his love. Now as
+such things have occurred I do not absolutely deny that it may have
+been so, but it seems unlikely to me that Bartolomeo would have been
+received in his father’s house, also people would have talked much
+about it and I never remember to have heard it mentioned. Anyhow the
+Duchess got four assassins from Massa, and they entered one by one into
+the city so as to avoid observation and suspicion and were kept by her
+until the time was ripe for effecting her abominable project, which
+was not until the night of 31st December 1638, and was in this guise.
+At about three hours of the night Bartolomeo Canaccj, accompanied by
+the aforesaid bandits who stood at the opposite side of the street in
+the shade, knocked at his step-mother’s door; her maid looked out of
+the window and asked who was there, and on his answering _friends_ she
+recognised his voice and drew the cord of the latch; when Bartolomeo
+and the assassins rushed up the stairs with such fury that Lorenzo
+Serzelli and Messer Vincenzio Carlini, who were talking with Caterina,
+suspected some evil thing and springing to their feet had hardly time
+to fly by another staircase on to the roof, whence they escaped to a
+neighbouring house, before the ruffians with naked swords in their
+hands appeared at the door. Poor Caterina was then murdered by these
+infamous executors of the barbarous cruelty of the Duchess, together
+with her maid probably to prevent her from giving evidence. After which
+the bodies of these two most unfortunate women were cut into pieces,
+carried silently out of the house and put into a carriage; parts of the
+bodies were thrown down a well at the corner of Via de’ Pentolini and
+Piazza Sant’ Ambrogio, others were thrown into the Arno and found next
+day, all save the head of poor Caterina which those murderers carried
+to the Duchess for the full execution of this Tragedy as shall be
+hereafter set forth.
+
+“All these particulars were seen by Carlini and Serzelli, who with
+hot haste had left the house where they had taken refuge and knocked
+at one opposite to Caterina’s where lived a well-known woman commonly
+called Aunt Nannina, because three of the most famous courtezans of our
+day were her nieces. The door was at once opened to them, and from a
+slit in the window of an upstairs room they saw and heard what I have
+related.
+
+“Now the Duchess, by one of her waiting-women, was used to send to the
+Duke’s room on Sundays and other holidays a silver basin covered with
+a fair cloth, containing collars, cuffs and such-like things which the
+Duke was wont to change on those days. But on this the 1st of January,
+a day sacred to Christians because on it is celebrated the circumcision
+of Our Lord and also because according to the rites of the Roman Church
+it is the beginning of the year, the present sent was of a different
+nature. Taking the head of poor Caterina, which though bloodless and
+cold yet preserved the beauty which had been the cause of her death,
+the Duchess placed it in the basin, covered it with the usual cloth and
+sent it by her waiting-woman, who knew nought of the business, into the
+Duke’s room. When he rose and lifted the cloth to take his clean linen,
+let his horror be pictured when he saw such a pitiful sight. It is not
+my intention to describe here the lamentations, the sorrow, the anguish
+and the tears shed over the lifeless head of his love; they can be
+better imagined than writ with a pen. Knowing full well that his wife
+had done this deed he would have no more of her, and for many a long
+year refused to be where she was. When she came to Florence, he left
+for one of his villas, or for Rome where he had large estates; and if
+she went to a villa or to Rome, incontinently he returned to Florence.
+
+“But to return to our lamentable story. When the murder was known next
+day and the bodies of the unfortunate women were recognised, Giustino
+Canaccj, the husband of Caterina, and Bartolomeo and Francesco his
+sons were seized and imprisoned together with another son, whose name
+I forget, with his wife and an unmarried daughter of the said Giustino
+and one married to Luigi Tedaldi as well as Luigi himself. But against
+those scoundrels who committed the murder, either because the court
+had no knowledge of them, or because they had taken refuge in flight,
+or for some other occult reason, no steps were taken, nor against
+their principal; so true is the common saying that justice acts only
+against the poor, and that laws are like cobwebs, which catch flies
+and such small creatures while large ones tear and break them. Of
+the above-named prisoners, Giustino, his daughters, his step-son and
+the other son with his wife were liberated after a time as innocent;
+but Bartolomeo and Francesco were kept in prison and subjected to
+torture. Francesco, either really innocent and not present at the
+murder, or more prudent, or perchance more fortunate, confessed nothing
+and after many months was set free; but Bartolomeo, they say, whether
+truly or not will never be known, confessed to have aided in this
+terrible affair and on the ... of 1639 was beheaded in the doorway of
+the Bargello. Small applause did justice get for this execution, good
+citizens being scandalized that the less guilty one who had been, as we
+say, dragged into the business by the hair of his head and was known to
+have been a poor wretch of small wit, and thought to have been tortured
+into saying more than he knew, should suffer capital punishment; while
+the real delinquent, the principal and head of it all, received no
+punishment save perchance from her own conscience and sense of shame.
+It is true, and it was said at the time, that Madame Christine of
+Lorraine, grandmother to the Grand Duke Ferdinando II, a princess
+of great learning, good and pious, and very zealous in the cause of
+justice, horrified by so atrocious a deed wished to have the Duchess
+arrested; but as soon as the murder had been committed she fled to her
+villa of S. Cerbone, and warned of her danger left for Rome; so justice
+contented itself with exiling her, but the sentence was soon commuted.
+
+“Such was the end of the barbarity and cruelty of Duchess Veronica
+which I have described at length, not from any love of evil-speaking,
+but from the desire to enlighten posterity. The more so that it was
+said that justice, if it merits the name, in order to save the great
+bore heavy on the weak and, as we say, to throw dust in the eyes of
+the public, drew up two statements, one true which remained hid, one
+false which was published to the world. Let those who read these my
+recollections remember that our proverbs are always apt, and that whoso
+forgathers with great people is the last at table and the first at the
+gallows.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Cardinal Gregorio, the last of this branch of the Salviati, left his
+villa in 1794 to his niece Anna, married to Prince Borghese. Her two
+sons Prince Cammillo Borghese and Prince Don Francesco Aldobrandino
+inherited it at her death in 1809, and the three sons of the latter,
+Prince Marc’ Antonio Borghese, Prince Cammillo Aldobrandini and Duke
+Scipione Salviati sold it to Mr Vansittart in 1844. Later the old
+place once more changed hands and became the property of the Duke of
+Candia, better known as Mario, whose glorious voice, charming and
+courtly manners and great personal beauty will be remembered by many
+of my readers. When Garibaldi was in Florence he paid a visit to Mario
+and Grisi, and a remarkably ill-painted picture still hanging in the
+corridor of Villa Salviati commemorates the scene. M. Hagermann, a
+Swede, bought the villa from Mario, and his heirs have lately sold it
+to Signor Turri.
+
+[Illustration: (Drawing of Villa)]
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[60] Eldest son of the Prince of Massa, of whom Donna Veronica was the
+fourteenth child.
+
+[61] Daughter of Alessandro I, Duke of Mirandola, married to Alberico,
+brother to Veronica.
+
+[62] Married in 1626 to Galeotto, son of Alessandro I, Duke of
+Mirandola.
+
+[63] Le Nozze di Jacopo Salviati con Veronica Cybo, descritte da un
+contemporaneo, MDCXXVII. In Lucca co’ Torchi di B. Canovetti, 1871.
+
+Al Conte Ottavio Sardi nel Giorno delle sue Nozze con la Nobile
+Donzella Olimpia Fatinelli offre congratulandosi Giovanni Sforza, VII
+Settembre MDCCCLXXI.
+
+
+
+
+             [Illustration: (Drawing looking up at hills)]
+
+
+VILLA DI FONT’ ALL’ ERTA
+
+
+The name of this whole district is Camerata, derived, says Salvini,
+from “camere” or deposits for water-conduits. Villani thinks Fiesole
+had two suburbs—Villa Arpina and Villa Camarti—the latter being the
+scattered village now called Camerata; but Boccaccio recounts that long
+before Fiesole was built or thought of, the forests which clothed the
+hills around were the favourite hunting-grounds of the fair goddess
+Diana. He describes her crinkly golden hair, tall, lithe figure,
+beautiful eyes and face “shining like the sun,” when in the month of
+May she met her nymphs—
+
+    “By the fair waters of a limpid Fount
+    With flowers and grasses ever freshly decked,
+    Still welling from the foot of Cecer’s mount,
+    Just where from midday Throne with rays direct
+    The Sun looks down....”[64]
+
+“This,” writes Roberto Gherardi, “is the fountain now called Font’
+all’ Erta, at the foot of Monte Ceceri looking due south, below the
+villa of the Signori Pitti-Gaddi; of which one can only now see some
+pieces of wall, and some ruins and vestiges in the public road at the
+beginning of the slope; but the people are still alive who assure me
+that about the year 1710 the course of the water which came from
+a tank a little above and from other springs near by, was deviated
+because it chilled the land below and damaged the crops of the podere.
+At the time of our Boccaccio I find that this podere with Houses,
+Tanks, &c., extending to the end of the plain of San Gervasio, was sold
+on the 5th June 1370 by Giovanni di Agostino degli Asini to Messer
+Bonifazio Lupo, Marquis of Soragona and a Knight of Parma, who at
+that time was admitted a citizen of Florence. Being moved by a spirit
+of much-to-be-praised piety and a feeling of gratitude towards the
+Florentine Republic, he obtained from the same on the 20th December
+1377, as is stated by Ammirato in his XIII. book, permission to found
+the hospital in Via San Gallo of the said city, called precisely
+Bonifazio from the name of so pious a benefactor.”[65]
+
+                  [Illustration: COSIMO I, DE’ MEDICI.
+
+                        By PIETRO POLO GALEOTTI.
+
+                         (_Villa di Pelraja_).]
+
+
+                 [Illustration: ALESSANDRO DE’ MEDICI.
+
+                          By DOMENICO DI POLO.
+
+                       (_Villa di Cafagginolo_).]
+
+
+        [Illustration: FERDINANDO I, AND CHRISTINE OF LORRAINE.
+
+                             By MAZZAFERRI.
+
+                        (_Villa di Pratolino_).]
+
+
+When Florence became the capital of Italy the old Via di Font’ all’
+Erta was done away with and a broad boulevard took its place. Remains
+of an old water-conduit and cistern of Roman work were unearthed below
+the tank mentioned by Roberto Gherardi; a rusty sacrificial knife, some
+human bones and a few bits of Roman pottery were also found near by. On
+moonlight nights “the White Spectre,” as the peasants call it, a dim
+form—a cloud of white mist—floated hither and thither over the spot,
+but the uneasy spirit has not been seen since the new road was made.
+
+Font’ all’ Erta then came into the possession of the Nuti, and
+Bernadino Nuti sold it in 1506 to Taddeo Gaddi, a grandson of the great
+painter Taddeo who was an intimate friend of Dante. Taddeo the elder
+made a large collection of manuscripts of the Divine Comedy which he
+afterwards left to his son Angelo who, discarding the brush for trade,
+established a banking-house at Venice with some of his brothers and
+at last persuaded his father also to join him. Thenceforward, remarks
+Litta, Taddeo only painted occasionally, from habit. Angelo died at
+Venice in 1378 (or 1387), leaving his riches and manuscripts to his
+nephew Angelo, who increased the collection by purchase and by copies
+made with his own hand. Taddeo, Angelo’s son, as already said bought
+Font’ all’ Erta in 1506. He was three times elected a Prior of the
+Republic of Florence, and in 1496 was one of the Ten Magistrates
+of Liberty and Peace at the time of the war with Pisa. In 1527 he
+received Antonio Bonsi, the ambassador sent by Pope Clemente VII, (who
+declared that unless he returned to Florence he would not be buried
+in consecrated ground) “to try to reason and treat with the city.
+But no sooner did he (Bonsi) arrive at Camerata in the villa of the
+Gaddi, than the Signoria, declining to hear him or to listen to any
+explanations, sent Messer Bartolomeo Gualterotti to tell him to depart
+immediately, and Andrea Giugni to accompany him out of the state and
+to see their orders were obeyed.”
+
+Clemente paid for the reception of his ambassador by creating Taddeo’s
+son Niccolò a cardinal in May 1527; but at Bologna two years later
+Niccolò lost the favour of the Pope by warmly pleading the cause of
+the Florentine envoys, and became an avowed enemy of the house of
+Medici. In 1532 Taddeo Gaddi died and Font’ all’ Erta went to his
+son Sinibaldo, one of the richest citizens of Florence and allied by
+marriage with the Strozzi. When Duke Alessandro de’ Medici was murdered
+in 1537 by his cousin Lorenzino, Cardinal Niccolò Gaddi was one of
+the chief promoters of the efforts made by the exiled Florentines to
+restore the republic. Leaving Rome with the Cardinals Salviati and
+Ridolfi he hastened to Florence to collect troops and partisans. But
+the young Cosimo was too wily. Cardinal Salviati had to fly the city,
+Ridolfi hid in his own house, and “Gaddi,” writes old Varchi, “went
+like a plucked fowl to his brother’s villa at Camerata,” where he lay
+in hiding for some days and then left for Bologna.
+
+Sinibaldo Gaddi was forced by Cosimo I, to contribute large sums “for
+the needs of the state,” but in 1556 the Duke made him head of the
+_Monte_ or Government bank as a kind of compensation. He died in 1558
+and his son Niccolò inherited Font’ all’ Erta and made it what we now
+see. Scipione Ammirato mentioning him in a letter says: “he is now at
+his villa turning it into a palace more suited to the city than to the
+country.” Ammannati is believed to have designed the magnificent loggia
+and to have superintended the improvements and alterations of the villa.
+
+Niccolò Gaddi must have been a remarkable man. He was sent by the Duke
+Cosimo I, as ambassador to the Dukes of Ferrara and Mantua to announce
+his promotion by the Pope to be Grand Duke of Tuscany, and afterwards
+went to Rome to attend the ceremony of the coronation. In 1578 he was
+created a Senator and was one of those charged to reform the statutes
+of the guild of the merchants. A man of great learning and knowledge
+of art, his library, picture gallery and museum of antiquities were
+only second to those of the Medici. His garden, stocked with rare
+trees, shrubs and medicinal herbs, was beautiful and Florence owes
+the institution of her botanical garden chiefly to him. Niccolò was
+twice married, but his children died young, and the sons of his
+sister Maddalena, who had married a Pitti, became his heirs with the
+obligation of adding his name to their own. In 1755 the remnants of his
+fine library were bought by the Emperor Francis I, of Austria, Grand
+Duke of Tuscany, from Gaspero Pitti-Gaddi. 355 manuscripts were given
+to the Laurentian library, 727 manuscripts and 1451 rare editions of
+old books to the Magliabecchiana, and 28 manuscripts relating to public
+affairs to the Archives.
+
+                   [Illustration: (Drawing of Villa.)]
+
+That Niccolò Gaddi loved Font’ all’ Erta, generally called the
+“Paradise of the Gaddi,” and was proud of it, is shown by the following
+extracts from his will written five days before his death.
+
+“In the name of God, on the ninth day of June 1591 Indiction 4.
+Gregorio XIIII, the Holy Pontiff, and of His Serene Highness Ferdinando
+Medici Grand Duke of Tuscany, I Niccolò di Sinibaldo Gaddi Cavalier of
+San Jacopo make my testament as follows:—
+
+“Firstly I commend my soul to God and my body to be placed in Sta.
+Maria Novella, in my place of burial.”
+
+Chapter XL says: “And I also order that within two years of my death
+my heirs shall have finished the Hall and the Loggia of the Palace
+in Camerata and removed the well from the wall of the Hall, without
+however filling it up, and made another in the wall of the small
+courtyard of the kitchen, searching there for water, but should it not
+be found they are to go to the spring and find the old well. Maestro
+Lorenzo who builds organs, and Maestro Zanobi Grazia Dio mason, and
+Maestro Fanelli stone-cutter, are informed of my intentions, therefore
+let them be carried out according as they may direct. And in addition
+let the arms of Strozzi[66] and of Gaddi be placed at the corners of
+the said palace, and some memorial of him who made and restored them,
+and I will that the men shall not be taken, even for one day, off the
+work until all is finished....”
+
+Chapter LXIII says: “... I will that in the Hall of the Palace of
+Camerata an inscription shall be put up to my memory in such fashion
+and in such a position as shall be judged proper by the most excellent
+Signore Piero Angeli, whom I beg to do me the favour of visiting the
+said Palace, and my heirs shall receive him with the honour due to his
+most rare merits.”
+
+Either “the most excellent Signore Piero Angeli” never went to Font’
+all’ Erta or the heirs neglected to carry out the orders of Niccolò,
+for inscription there is none. It is said that in the carnival season
+faint sounds of old-fashioned dance music are heard there in the dead
+of night, and the rustling of silk robes and silvery laughter. But all
+attempts to see the ghostly dancers from the balcony running round the
+top of the lofty hall have failed.
+
+In 1770 the villa was bought by Marchese Ponticelli of Parma who sold
+it to Niccolò Gondi, and in the drawing-room still hangs a portrait
+of the fascinating Paule Françoise Marguerite de Gondi who married
+the Duc de Crequy, de Bonne, de Lesdiguieres, &c., &c. She is pretty
+in a _piquante_ French style, and wears coquettishly a blue robe
+trimmed with ermine. Round the top of the room are frescoes by Maso
+da San Friano (Tommaso di Antonio Manzuoli). The Loggia which gives
+access to the villa is magnificent; it looks due south, over Florence
+and the valley of the Arno. Two fine old date-palms growing against
+it have withstood many a hard winter and give grace and beauty even
+to Ammannati’s splendid building. Count Pasolini who bought the villa
+in 1850 put up a fine Venetian lantern out of an old Contarini galley
+under a Della Robbia Madonna in the Loggia.
+
+The villa stands high, about a mile from Florence, and a winding
+carriage road shaded by elms leads up from the plain ending in an
+avenue of tall cypresses. Thence the view of the hill of Fiesole is
+enchanting. Beautiful Doccia with its long line of arches lies bathed
+in sunshine, and just below is the villa where St Louis Gonzaga stayed
+with Pier Francesco del Turco to learn the Tuscan tongue. Landor’s old
+villa, now belonging to Professor Willard Fiske, faces us, with the
+valley of the Ladies below its garden wall, and the Affrico murmuring
+through its grounds. Visions of the fair Fiametta and her companions
+arise as one remembers how on the sixth day, after Elisa had crowned
+Dioneo king and laughingly told him it was time he should find out
+what a charge it was to rule over and guide women, the three youths
+sat down to play at draughts while she led the Ladies to an unknown
+valley. Leaving the “sumptuous palace” they walked about a mile, and
+“entering by a narrow path on a side where a crystal clear streamlet
+ran, they saw it to be as beautiful and delightful, especially at that
+season when the heat was so great, as can be imagined. And according
+to what some of them told me afterwards the level part of the valley
+was as circular as though drawn with compasses, yet it was an artifice
+of nature and not made by human labour. Little more than half a mile
+in circumference it was surrounded by six hills of no great height,
+and on the summit of each one was a palace built much in the shape of
+a small castle. The sides of the hills sloped towards the plain, as
+we see the seats in theatres from the top row descend in successive
+flights, always restricting their circles. And these hillsides, at
+least all those facing south, were clothed with vines, olive, almond,
+cherry and other fruit trees, and not a palm of ground was lost. Those
+looking to the north had copses of oak saplings, ash and other trees,
+green and straight as they could be. There was no other approach to the
+level plain than the one by which the Ladies had come; it was full of
+fir-trees, cypresses, bays and a few pines, so well placed and so well
+ordered as though planted by the greatest of artists. Little or no sun
+entered there, even when high in the Heavens it only just touched the
+earth clothed with sward of finest grass and rich in purple and other
+flowers. Besides this a rivulet, which was not a less delight, came
+from a valley dividing two of those small hills; it trickled down
+steep rocks of sandstone, and made in its fall a sound most delightful
+to hear, while the spray, from afar, seemed to be live silver broken
+into the lightest of showers. On reaching the level the rivulet
+gathered into a pleasant channel, rushed rapidly to the centre of the
+plain and there formed a lakelet, such as now and again townsfolk,
+who have the art, make in their gardens for fish-ponds. The depth of
+the lakelet was not more than up to the breast of a man, and so clear
+that not only the gravel bottom could be seen, but many fishes darting
+about here and there.... When the Ladies had observed everything they
+commended the place exceedingly and the heat being great, seeing the
+lake before them and having no fear of being seen, they decided to
+bathe ... and all seven disrobed and went down into the water, which
+hid their lovely white bodies no more than a thin glass would hide a
+crimson rose. Without causing the water to become turbid, they went
+hither and thither after the fish, which had scant hiding-places,
+trying to catch them with their hands. Having with great joy taken
+some, they remained some time in the water and then came forth and
+dressed.”
+
+Returning to the Palace the Ladies described the valley and its lake
+in such glowing terms that next morning another expedition was agreed
+upon: “the sun’s rays had hardly begun to show when they started;
+never had the nightingales and other birds seemed to sing so gaily as
+on that morning. Accompanied by the song of birds they went as far
+as the Valley of the Ladies where they were greeted by many more,
+who appeared to them to rejoice at their coming. Walking about the
+valley and examining it more minutely it seemed to them so much the
+more beautiful than on the day before as the hour of the day was the
+more suitable to its loveliness. And when they had broken their fast
+with good wine and sweetmeats, in order not to be behind the birds
+they began to sing, and the valley sang with them always repeating the
+same songs they uttered, to which all the birds, as though loth to be
+vanquished, added sweet and novel notes. But the hour for eating having
+arrived and tables, according to the King’s pleasure, being set under
+the tall and spreading trees near to the lovely lakelet, they seated
+themselves; and whilst eating watched the fish swimming in the lake in
+great shoals.”[67]
+
+Font’ all’ Erta is intimately connected with the making of the kingdom
+of Italy. Count Giuseppe Pasolini, who began public life in 1848 as
+minister of Commerce, Agriculture and the Fine Arts to Pius IX, a post
+he only occupied for a few months, bought it as already mentioned
+in 1850, when he frankly joined the party of “Young Italy.” There
+Ricasoli, Minghetti, La Marmora, Peruzzi, and all the liberal men of
+Italy often met together, and English well-wishers of Italy were
+frequent guests. In 1860 Count Pasolini became Governor of Milan for
+the King of Italy, and two years later he entered the Farini ministry
+for a short time as Minister for Foreign Affairs. Then he was named
+Prefect of Turin, a post he resigned after voting the transfer of the
+capital to Florence in 1864. His high character, undoubted ability
+and conciliatory manner caused him to be chosen for the difficult
+post of Commissary General of Venetia in 1866, and he entered Venice
+on the 20th October, two days before the plebiscite which was all but
+unanimous in favour of union with Italy—641,758 votes against 69. In
+1867 Count Pasolini retired into private life, but in obedience to
+the King’s express request he accepted the Presidency of the Senate
+in March 1876. In December the same year he died at his family place
+near Ravenna aged sixty-one, leaving Font’ all’ Erta to his daughter
+Angelica, Countess Rasponi della Testa.
+
+           [Illustration: (Sketch of house through orchards)]
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[64] _Ninfale Fiesolano._ Giov. Boccaccio. Firenze, 1834. Vol. XVII. p.
+9. Translated by R. C. Trevelyan.
+
+[65] _La villegiatura di Majano._ M.S. Roberto Gherardi, 1740.
+
+[66] The mother of Niccolò Gaddi was Lucrezia, daughter of the Senator
+Matteo Strozzi, and his second wife was Maria Strozzi.
+
+[67] _Il Decamerone._ Gio. Boccaccio. Firenze, 1827. Giornata Sesta,
+Novella X. p. 172, _et seq._
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: (Drawing of garden path with fountain, leading to Villa)]
+
+
+VILLA DI GAMBERAIA
+
+
+Nothing definite is known of the history of this charming villa
+which stands among giant cypresses and gnarled ilexes on a terrace
+high above Settignano and overlooks the Val d’ Arno. From the name
+Gamberaia some have attempted to connect it with the great sculptor
+Antonio Rossellino, who with his brother Bernardo, the architect, was
+born in Settignano and whose family name was Gamberelli. But Antonio
+who, writes Varchi, “was so refined and delicate in his works, their
+beauty and smoothness being so perfect that his manner can in truth
+be called natural and absolutely modern...” died about 1479, whereas
+Gamberaia cannot have been built much before 1600. Not far off a small
+house is still standing which has always been pointed out as the one
+inhabited by the two artist brothers. It is unlikely that any of their
+descendants should have made a fortune large enough to build such a
+villa as Gamberaia or to lay out such a garden, without some record
+being left. Popular tradition, which is all we have to depend on,
+declares that several rills and springs of water formed a small lake or
+pond near by where the country folk used to catch crayfish (Gamberi),
+hence the name Gamberaia, the abode of crayfish. It is true that
+over one of the doors is a coat of arms bearing three crayfish on
+the right side and two half moons on the left, but I am informed by a
+competent authority that it is a fancy shield of late times and that
+the arms of the Gamberelli have six crayfish and a badge with three
+fleur de lis, as may be seen in Vasari’s life of Rossellino. Over a
+door in the large entrance hall is the inscription _Zenobius Lapius
+Fundavit MDCX_, and by the courtesy of the present owner of Gamberaia
+I have been lent a legal document about water rights, which has been
+a disputed question for nearly three hundred years. In digging the
+foundation of an out-house this winter (1900), a broken shield with the
+Lapi arms has been discovered. From this fact it would appear to be
+most probable that the builder of the villa was Zanobi Lapi; the pity
+is that the name of his architect is not forthcoming. In the centre
+of the villa is a small courtyard with elegant columns sustaining an
+arcade out of which open vaulted rooms, and on the north and south
+side of the villa project very original flying balconies supported on
+three arches. A small spiral staircase, hidden in the square column
+furthest from the house on one side, leads down from the first floor
+into the terrace garden. Zanobi Lapi died in 1619, nine years after
+he had built his villa, and left it to his nephews Jacopo di Andrea
+Lapi, and Andrea di Cosimo Lapi, but failing heirs male he directed
+that his property was to be divided between the families of Capponi and
+Cerretani. Jacopo and Andrea evidently inherited their uncles’ love for
+Gamberaia, as they at once began to buy up rights to the water from
+neighbouring proprietors, and to make conduits and large reservoirs
+to conduct it to various fountains and grottoes. In 1623 they bought
+a house and a podere, or farm, called La Doccia, which was especially
+rich in springs. Jacopo died the following year leaving a young son;
+the lands and the houses in Florence were divided between the cousins,
+but the villa of Gamberaia remained in their joint possession. “The
+most illustrious Signore Cosimo Lapi, a noble Florentine” then began
+to lay out one of the most characteristic seventeenth century gardens
+in the neighbourhood of Florence, with grottoes inlaid with shells
+of different kinds and various coloured marbles, statues, vases,
+fountains and _jeux d’eaux_ of every description. In the archives of
+Florence are several contracts made by him, between 1624 and 1635,
+with his neighbours for the purchase of springs and rills of water
+belonging to them, and the right to make conduits through their lands
+for the conveyance of the water to Gamberaia. In 1636 he had a lawsuit
+with a certain Signora Aurelia, a widow, who complained that he had
+deprived her of necessary water by the deep trenches and reservoirs
+dug near the confines of her property. The result of this inordinate
+love of fountains and curious _jeux d’eaux_ was, that when “the most
+illustrious Florentine Andrea Lapi” died in 1688, his son was obliged
+to heavily mortgage the estate to pay off his father’s debts. Jacopo’s
+son Giovan Francesco died in 1717 without heirs male, and the Lapi
+property was divided between the Capponi and the Cerretani; the latter
+taking three _podere_, or farms, and some small houses in Florence, the
+Capponi the villa of Gamberaia and two _podere_.
+
+                  [Illustration: VILLA DI GAMBERAIA.]
+
+Remains of conduits, tanks and reservoirs in several properties near
+Gamberaia still remain to attest the considerable works made by Andrea
+Lapi for supplying water to his beloved villa. He no doubt planted the
+noble cypresses that tower like dark green steeples on either side of
+the long bowling alley that runs for some four hundred feet behind the
+house, ending to the north in one of those elaborate half grottoes,
+half fountains, inlaid with shells and decorated with stone figures of
+impossible animals and queer people in high relief of which Francesco
+de’Medici set the fashion at Pratolino and at Castello. To the south
+the long green walk ends in a delightful old stone balustrade with
+solemn grey stone figures, from whence the view over the fruitful,
+gently rolling hills crowned with villas or peasant houses is beautiful.
+
+The terrace garden looks down on Settignano, a little village that
+can boast of more famous children than most large towns. Desiderio da
+Settignano, whose every work shows, as Vasari says, “that grace and
+simplicity that pleases everywhere and is recognised by everyone,” was
+the son of a stone-cutter of Settignano. He was so popular that for
+months after his death sonnets and epigrams were laid on his tomb by
+admirers.
+
+Excellent architects were Meo Del Caprina and his brother Luca; the
+former worked at Ferrara and Rome, and designed the cathedral of Turin;
+the latter fortified Librafratta and other Pisan towns. Simone Mosca da
+Settignano was said to have been equal to Greek and Roman sculptors, he
+worked with Antonio da San Gallo in Sta. Maria della Pace at Rome and
+in the Farnese palace; also at Arezzo, Loreto, and at Orvieto, where
+he was induced to settle with his family and devote himself to the
+service of the cathedral. His son Francesco, called Moschino, “being
+born almost with the mallet in his hand,” sculptured some figures in
+the dome of Orvieto “to the wonder and astonishment of all beholders.”
+Simone Gioli, pupil of Andrea Sansovino, was another admirable
+sculptor, and his son Valerio carried on the family tradition. Antonio
+di Gino Lorenzi was also from Settignano, he helped his master Triboli
+to make the famous fountain at Castello and executed the monument of
+Matteo Corte in the Campo Santo of Pisa. Moreni, in his _Dintorni di
+Firenze_, gives a list of architects, sculptors and painters, too long
+to insert here, who were born in the little hill village. But all
+pale before the tremendous personality of Michelangelo Buonarroti,
+“the deathless artist,” as John Addington Symonds calls him. Brought
+to Settignano when but a few weeks old, his foster-mother was the
+wife as well as the daughter of a stone-cutter. “I drew the chisel
+and the mallet with which I carve statues in together with my nurse’s
+milk,” he told Vasari. His father’s small grey house with a loggia and
+a tower[68] lies below the terrace of Gamberaia, and forms a fitting
+foreground to the view of Florence backed by the chain of the Apennines.
+
+ [Illustration: (Drawing of orchard tress, with Villa in background.)]
+
+After various vicissitudes Gamberaia was bought a few years ago by
+Princess Ghyka, who is restoring the beautiful old-fashioned garden to
+its pristine splendour with infinite patience and taste.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[68] It now belongs to Signor Chiesa.
+
+
+
+
+ [Illustration: (Drawing of road leading to building with tower. Statue
+                       of lion next to roadway.)]
+
+
+VILLA DI MONTE GUFFONE
+
+
+Monte Guffone was built at a time when castles and watch-towers were
+needed on the Tuscan hills, and the Acciajuoli, rivals of the Peruzzi
+and Bardi, determined to have a fortress-villa that should be a visible
+sign of their power and magnificence. The site chosen for it was
+the hilly country near San Casciano, between the river Pesa and the
+streamlet Virginio, a little off the high road to Volterra, commanding
+a varied landscape of vast woods of pine and oak, farms surrounded by
+olive-groves and vineyards, and hill-set villages with winding roads
+overhung with rosemary bushes. The first glimpse of Monte Guffone seen
+across the misty waves of olives is of a grand and shapely massed group
+of building, resting like a citadel on the shoulder of the hills.
+From its midst rises a tall tower closely resembling that of Palazzo
+Vecchio—with the difference that it starts straight from the ground.
+Upon nearing the villa there is a delightful sense of variety, as
+successive generations of the Acciajuoli have given it a different
+character until finally it has become a beautiful but somewhat baroque
+seventeenth century villa. Still, when walking on the broad balcony
+which probably covers the ancient bastions, there is the feeling of a
+great house built for defence, and the tower has been left untouched in
+a courtyard into which look large Michelangelesque windows framed
+with dark stone and set at regular intervals one from another, forming
+a perfect piece of work of its kind, and contrasting pleasantly with
+the mediæval watch-tower. On the northern side of the villa a façade
+has been added giving it almost an ecclesiastical appearance, enhanced
+by the group of sedate and sombre cypresses and ilexes growing at one
+corner of this otherwise joyous looking building. To the same period
+belongs the grand stone staircase on the garden side, leading down
+to a grotto encrusted with shells and ornamented with statues of the
+seasons, which even in their present shattered condition recall the
+past almost Medicean splendour of the place. The wall slopes out with
+spreading bastions forming an entrance to the grotto as though the
+architect had remembered the gateway of some Etruscan city, and above
+the arch is set a shield, supported by cupids, with the lions of the
+Acciajuoli house.
+
+                [Illustration: VILLA DI MONTE GUFFONE.]
+
+This once magnificent villa, now let out in tenements to poor people,
+was built, or at all events enlarged, early in the fourteenth century
+by the Grand Seneschal Acciajuoli, whose family first appears in
+Florentine history in the thirteenth century as merchants, rivalling,
+if they did not surpass, the Bardi and the Peruzzi in wealth. One of
+them, Niccola, stands gibbeted to all time by Dante. He and Baldo
+d’Aguglione, aided by the Podestà, tore out a sheet of the public
+records of the city in order to destroy the proof of certain frauds
+committed. Ironically Dante refers to the “well-guided city,” praising
+the old days—
+
+                    “... when still
+    The registry and label rested safe.”
+
+Unlike the present Florentines, who are never happy away from the
+shadow of their Duomo, the Acciajuoli thought nothing of going to far
+distant lands or of taking service with foreign princes. Thus Dardano,
+son of Lotteringo, passed most of his youth at Tunis as treasurer to
+the Bey. In 1305 he was back in Florence leading his fellow-citizens
+against Pistoja, and soon afterwards went as ambassador to Naples
+to offer the Lordship of Florence to the King, Robert of Anjou; two
+years later he returned there to beg assistance against Uguccione
+della Faggiuola who threatened to make himself master of the city.
+A cousin of his, Niccola Acciajuoli, left Florence for Naples at
+the age of twenty-one to negotiate a loan, and by his extraordinary
+personal beauty, grace and intelligence, won the heart of Catherine,
+titular Empress of Constantinople, widow of the Prince of Taranto; her
+brother-in-law the King, who recognised his capacity and diplomatic
+talents, appointed him the guardian of her three children. In 1338
+Niccola accompanied Louis, the eldest of his wards, to Achaia in
+Greece, and for three years conducted the war against the Turks with
+great ability; but the death of King Robert, who left the kingdom of
+Naples to his niece Joan, proved the stepping-stone to his fortune.
+Married against her will to Andrew of Hungary, a coarse, uneducated man
+entirely under the dominion of his rude Hungarian followers, Joan had
+fallen passionately in love with her cousin Louis, Prince of Taranto;
+and when Andrew was strangled whilst asleep popular rumour connected
+Acciajuoli with the murder; the Queen married her cousin Louis, and
+Niccola became the trusted minister of the crown. The King of Hungary
+soon appeared on the scene to avenge the death of his brother, and
+finding he was too powerful to be opposed Acciajuoli persuaded Queen
+Joan and her young husband to take refuge in his splendid villa Monte
+Guffone near Florence. After passing some weeks with him they went to
+Avignon to implore the aid of Pope Clement VI, but the plague, which
+broke out in Naples soon afterwards, proved a more efficient ally;
+the King of Hungary fled from the stricken city and Niccola conducted
+Louis and Joan back to Naples where they were received with great
+demonstrations of delight. He was created Grand Seneschal of the
+Kingdom, Count of Melfi, etc., etc., and placing himself at the head
+of the army drove the Hungarians back to their own country. Peace was
+finally made through the intervention of the Pope, and then Acciajuoli
+set himself to free Sicily of the Spaniards; but during his absence
+the King was turned against him by the Neapolitan courtiers, and in
+dudgeon he threw up all his appointments and retired into private life.
+When, however, the Pope laid the kingdom under an interdict on account
+of unpaid taxes, he at once offered himself as mediator. Innocent VI,
+received him with extraordinary honours; raised the interdict at his
+request, gave him the Golden Rose (the first time a private person had
+been thus distinguished), named him a Senator of Rome, Count of the
+Campagna and Rector of the ecclesiastical Patrimony, and then sent him
+to Milan as envoy to Bernabo Visconti to obtain the restitution of
+Bologna. Finding diplomacy of no avail, Niccola put himself with the
+Papal Legate at the head of the papal troops and soon entered Bologna
+in triumph. Returning to Naples he lived in almost royal state until
+his death at the early age of fifty-six.
+
+Besides Monte Guffone, Niccola Acciajuoli built the magnificent Certosa
+near Florence after the design of Orcagna, and the first of the family
+to be buried there was his handsome, brilliant son Lorenzo, “a Knight
+and a great Baron” Matteo Villani calls him in his description of the
+funeral. The body was sent from Naples and on the 7th April 1354 was
+taken “on a knightly hearse, one great charger being in front and one
+behind covered with silken housings emblazoned with the Acciajuoli
+arms, while the hearse was covered with rich hangings and a baldaquin
+of silk and gold, and over the coffin was fine crimson velvet; the
+horses were ridden by squires dressed in black, and preceding the
+hearse were seven squires on great chargers, their draperies trailing
+on the ground, with the aforesaid arms on their breasts in beaten
+silver. The two first squires bore plumed helmets, the third carried a
+standard and the other four had each a large banner with the Acciajuoli
+arms.” In 1366 Niccola also was buried at the Certosa near his son with
+great pomp.
+
+Donato, a cousin of Niccola, had been sent to Corinth as governor, and
+in 1392 his brother Neri was created Duke of Athens, Lord of Megara,
+Platæa, Thebes and Corinth. Neri’s illegitimate son Antonio inherited
+only the Lordship of Bœotia and Thebes, while Athens returned to the
+crown of Naples. The Venetians immediately seized it, but Antonio,
+worthy scion of a splendid race, soon drove them out and held the
+place for himself. He was succeeded by his cousin Neri who, dethroned
+by his brother Antonio, only got back his estates after the death of
+the latter. Neri’s son was a child when his father died and Sultan
+Mahomet II, refusing to acknowledge his title to the throne, named
+Francesco, Antonio’s son, in his stead. His tyranny was so intolerable
+that the Sultan ordered him to be strangled and thus, after seventy
+years of sovereignty ended the Acciajuoli rulers of Greece. Demostene
+Tiribilli-Giuliani, from whose work _Le Famiglie Celebre Toscane_
+I have gathered the above facts remarks, with a fine disregard of
+history, “no one mentions Athens after this, indeed its existence was
+hardly known until our day, when it became the capital of Greece.”
+
+The Acciajuoli constantly figure in the history of Florence as
+Gonfaloniers, Vicars, Ambassadors, Envoys, Cardinals and Bishops;
+and one of the saddest and most romantic stories of the eighteenth
+century has an Acciajuoli as its hero. Roberto, eldest son of Donato
+Acciajuoli, handsome, clever, brave and fascinating, had long admired
+Elisabetta Mormorai, wife of Captain Giulio Berardi. On the death of
+her husband he declared his love and the beautiful widow accepted
+him. But he reckoned without his uncle Cardinal Acciajuoli, who had
+made up his mind that his handsome nephew should make an alliance in
+Rome which might help him in his designs on the papal chair. Prayers,
+admonitions and threats being of no avail, the Cardinal induced the
+Grand Duke Cosimo III, to imprison Elisabetta in a convent; upon which
+Roberto contracted a canonical marriage with her by letter and fled to
+Milan where he published it, demanding at the same time justice from
+the Grand Duke, the Archbishop, the Cardinal and his own father. In
+Lombardy the validity of the marriage was upheld, while in Florence
+it was declared to be a mere engagement. The lady was removed from
+her convent to a fortress, upon which Roberto, while the papal chair
+was vacant in 1691, wrote a circular to all the cardinals, imploring
+justice from them and from the future pope. All Italy was interested
+in the unhappy lovers and blamed the high-handed Cardinal and his
+slavish abettor Cosimo III. In vain Cardinal Acciajuoli tried to excuse
+himself by throwing all the blame on his relations, his conduct lost
+him the chance of being made pope, while the Grand Duke was accused of
+arbitrary and unjust conduct and of truckling to the private spite of
+a cardinal. Cosimo determined to revenge himself, but for the moment
+he set the fair prisoner free who immediately joined her husband in
+Venice, where everyone pitied them and blamed the Grand Duke, by whom
+formal application was made to the Republic to deliver up the lovers,
+accusing them of want of respect to their sovereign. They fled, but
+their steps were dogged, and at Trent they were arrested disguised
+as friars and taken back to Tuscany, where Roberto Acciajuoli was
+condemned to perpetual imprisonment in the fortress of Volterra and
+the loss of his patrimony, while Elisabetta was given the choice of
+repudiating her marriage or being immured in the same prison. In the
+hope of mitigating his sentence she chose the former and ended her days
+in tears and misery, while Roberto died in the most terrible prison of
+Tuscany, as anyone who has visited the _Mastio_ of Volterra will know.
+
+This is but one of the many instances of Cosimo’s tyranny. An insensate
+bigot, he was entirely under the dominion of priests and monks who
+ruined the country and destroyed its morality. Few princes have been
+more hated by their subjects and their own family, or with better
+reason.
+
+In the lovely Val di Pesa near Monte Guffone occurred the pretty
+scene so charmingly described in a long letter by that witty Tuscan,
+Ser Matteo Franco, chaplain to the Medici, who bandied sonnets and
+“strambotti” with Luigi Pulci. The austere, rather disagreeable
+Clarice, wife of Lorenzo the Magnificent, who had not been fitted by
+her education in the stately Orsini palace at Rome for the brilliant
+pleasure-loving life at Florence, was returning from some baths near
+Volterra when, as Matteo Franco writes, “... we met paradise full of
+festive and joyous angels, that is to say Messer Giovanni, Piero,
+Giuliano and Julio on pillions with their attendants. And when they
+saw their mother they threw themselves off their horses, some by
+themselves, some with the help of others; and all ran forward and were
+lifted into the arms of Madonna Clarice with such joy and kisses and
+delight that I could not describe in a hundred letters. Even I could
+not refrain from dismounting; and before they got on their horses
+again, I embraced them all and kissed them twice; once for myself and
+once for Lorenzo. Darling little Giulianino said with a long O, o, o,
+‘where is Lorenzo?’ We answered, ‘he has gone on before to Poggio to
+see you.’ Then he: ‘Oh no never,’ almost in tears. You never beheld
+so touching a sight. He and Piero, who has become a beautiful boy,
+the finest thing, by God, you ever saw, with such a profile he is
+like an angel, and rather long hair which stands out a little and is
+pretty to see. And Giuliano red and fresh as a rose, smooth, clean and
+bright as a mirror, joyous yet contemplative with those large eyes.
+Messer Giovanni also looks well, his colour is not so high but clear
+and natural; and Julio has a brown and healthy skin. All, in short, are
+happiness itself. And thus with great content a joyous party we went by
+Via Maggio, Ponte a Santa Trinita, San Michele Berteldi, Santa Maria
+Maggiore, Canto alla Paglia and Via de’ Martegli; and entered into the
+house _per infinita asecola asecolorum_ eselibera nos a malo amen.”[69]
+
+[Illustration: (Drawing of road leading uphill to building with tower)]
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[69] See _Florentia_. Isidoro Del Lungo. Firenze, 1897. P. 424.
+
+
+
+
+ [Illustration: (Drawing of lake through trees, Villa in background.)]
+
+
+VILLA DI CASTEL-PULCI
+
+
+About six miles from Florence on the high road to Pisa stands the fine
+villa of Castel-Pulci, now a lunatic asylum. In ancient times the Pulci
+owned large possessions in the Val d’Arno, but the first notice I have
+found of them is in 1278 when Jacopo di Rinaldo Pulci was denounced to
+the captain of the Guelph party in Florence for failing to keep a weir
+in the Arno near Ponte a Signa in proper repair. His son Mainetto sold
+this weir to the monks of the great Badia[70] a Settimo, who in 1313
+also bought an island in the river from Giovanni and Ponzardo, sons of
+Mainetto. Like so many of the great Florentine houses the Pulci failed
+in 1321 and villa and lands were seized by the cardinal Napoleone
+Orsini, one of the creditors. His heirs sold the estate to the Marquis
+Rinnucini who enlarged and beautified Castel-Pulci, which was bought by
+the government some fifty years ago.
+
+Luigi Pulci, born on the 3rd of December 1431, was the author of the
+_Morgante Maggiore_, the first burlesque romance in European literature
+and the prototype of that form of poetry which Ariosto brought to
+perfection. His two elder brothers were also poets; Luca wrote the
+_Ciriffo Calvaneo_ and the _Driadeo d’Amore_, and was considered by
+Varchi superior to Luigi, while Giovio calls him _poeta nobile_.
+Bernardo, the eldest, was among the first to write pastoral poetry
+in the vulgar tongue; he also made a good translation of the Eclogues
+of Virgil, and wrote a poem on the passion of Christ and many plays.
+His wife Antonia was a poetess of no mean fame in the same style.
+Verino celebrates the three brothers thus:
+
+                 [Illustration: VILLA DI CASTEL-PULCI.]
+
+    “Carminibus patriis notissima Pulcia proles.
+    Qui non hanc urbem Musarem dicat amicam,
+    Si tres prodicat frates domus una poetas?”
+
+Luigi Pulci was an intimate friend of the Medici and formed one of the
+brilliant company surrounding Lorenzo il Magnifico, who mentions him in
+his poem on hawking:
+
+    “Luigi Pulci ov’è, che non si sente?
+    Egli se n’andò dianzi in quel boschetto,
+    Che qualche fantasia ha per la mente,
+    Vorrà fantasticar forse un sonetto;”
+
+Many were the jokes made by Lorenzo’s witty chaplain, Ser Matteo di
+Franco, a canon of the cathedral of Florence, and a favourite of Pope
+Innocent VIII, on the name of his friend Pulci (Pulex, a flea). He used
+to say of Luigi, who was very thin, “famine is as naturally depicted
+on his countenance as though it were a work by Giotto.” They wrote
+facetious sonnets to each other which were published in the fifteenth
+century and immediately placed on the Index, but a reprint of this rare
+volume was made by Marchese De Rossi in 1759. Both were admirers and
+intimate friends of Angelo Poliziano (to whom, by the way, some have
+erroneously attributed the _Morgante Maggiore_).
+
+Luigi Pulci’s poem, which Lord Byron admired sufficiently to translate,
+tells of the hatred borne by the perfidious Ganellone to the chaste
+and generous Orlando and the other Christian Paladins. Charlemagne,
+deceived by Ganellone, whose envy, dissimulation, feigned humility and
+capacity for lying is admirably portrayed, sends him to Spain to treat
+for the cession of a kingdom for Orlando with King Marsilio. Instead
+of this he plots with the Spaniards for the destruction of Orlando,
+who is killed at Roncesvalle. Morgante the giant, after being baptised
+by Orlando becomes his faithful squire; the other giant Maggutte is a
+jovial pagan, laughing at everybody and everything, who ends his life
+in peals of loud laughter. The poem was composed for the amusement of
+Lucrezia Tornabuoni, the accomplished mother of Lorenzo de’ Medici,
+herself a poetess. “Luigi Pulci,” writes Symonds, “assumed the tone of
+a street-singer, opening each canto with the customary invocation to
+the Madonna or a paraphrase of some church collect, and dismissing his
+audience at the close with grateful thanks or brief good wishes.
+
+“But Pulci was no mere _Canta-storie_. The popular style served but
+as a cloak to cover his subtle-witted satire and his mocking levity.
+Tuscan humour keeps up an _obbligato_ accompaniment throughout the
+poem. Sometimes this humour is in harmony with the plebeian spirit of
+the old Italian romances; sometimes it turns aside and treats it as
+a theme of ridicule. In reading the _Morgante_ we must bear in mind
+that it was written canto by canto to be recited in the palace of
+the Via Larga, at the table where Poliziano and Ficino gathered with
+Michelangelo Buonarroti and Cristoforo Landino. Whatever topics may
+from time to time have occupied that brilliant circle, were reflected
+in its stanzas; and this alone suffices to account for its tender
+episodes and its burlesque extravagances, for the satiric picture
+of Margutte and the serious discourses of the devil Astarotte. The
+external looseness of construction and the intellectual unity of
+the poem, are both attributable to these circumstances. Passing by
+rapid transitions from grave to gay, from pathos to cynicism, from
+theological speculations to ribaldry, it is at one and the same time a
+mirror of the popular taste which suggested the form, and also of the
+courtly wits who listened to it laughing. The _Morgante_ is no _naïve_
+production of a simple age, but the artistic plaything of a cultivated
+and critical society, entertaining its leisure with old-world stories,
+accepting some for their beauty’s sake in seriousness, and turning
+others into nonsense for pure mirth.”[71]
+
+Close to Castel-Pulci, on the spur of a hill overlooking the Valle
+Morta (a name probably alluding to a battle fought there in 1113) on
+one side and the valley of the Arno on the other, is Monte Cascioli,
+now a farm-house, once the strong castle of the powerful Lords of
+Fucecchio. Here Count Lottario and his mother Countess Gemma held
+court in 1006 and gave large donations to the Badia a Settimo. Their
+descendant Ugo joined Ruberto Tedesco, Vicario of Tuscany under Henry
+III, against the Florentines, who marched out and fought a pitched
+battle in which Ruberto was killed and Monte Cascioli was stormed and
+destroyed.
+
+From the terrace of Castel-Pulci one looks down upon the broad
+and fertile plain of the Arno, whose course is marked by lines of
+shimmering poplars, and the fine mass of Mount Morello rises in the
+distance. Close to the river bank the beautiful campanile, attributed
+by Vasari to Niccolò Pisano, of the ancient Badia a Settimo stands out
+against the green background. The Pulci once owned a strong castle near
+by of which no vestige remains, but the Badia had been a dependency
+of the great Lords of Fucecchio since 940, and was inhabited by
+Cluniacense monks, whose behaviour became so scandalous that in 1063
+Count Gugliemo Bulgaro appealed to his friend St Giovan Gualberto for
+aid, and the saintly abbot of Vallombrosa introduced his own rule. Soon
+afterwards, by his order, St Peter Igneus went through the ordeal by
+fire at Settimo in the presence of a large concourse of people. The
+following inscriptions may still be read bearing witness to the fact:—
+
+    IGNEUS HIC PETRUS MEDIOS PERTRANSIIT IGNES,
+    FLAMMARUM VICTOR, SED MAGIS HAERESEOS.
+    HOC IN LOCO, MIRACULO S. JOHANNIS GUALBERTO,
+      QUIDAM FUERE CONFUTATI HAERETICI, MLXX.
+
+In 1236 Gregory IX, took the abbey and monastery under the immediate
+protection of the Holy See and gave it to the Cistercians, whose
+conduct was so exemplary that the Signoria of Florence entrusted them
+with the administration of the taxes, the maintenance of the city walls
+and bridges and finally gave the great seal into their keeping. The
+monks were made exempt from taxes and their revenue must have been
+large, as every abbot paid a thousand golden florins to the Pope on his
+investiture. The tall gatetower, once connected with the strong walls
+built round the monastery by the Republic of Florence, is very fine and
+a large and curious _alto-relievo_ built up of brick and mortar, of
+Our Lord and two saints, is above the closed-up door. Under the feet
+of the Christ is a slab with the lily of Florence and an illegible
+inscription. Below that again is written—
+
+“Anno Domini MCCXXXVI, S.S. Dmn. N. Gregorius IX dedit hoc Monasterium
+de Septimo Ordin. Cirterc. cum esset liberum et exemptum ab omni regio
+patronatu, quod in plena libertate a dicto Ordine pacifice possidetur.”
+
+Badia a Settimo must have been magnificent with its moat and three
+other towers, each of which had a drawbridge. Now much of the ancient
+structure lies under fifteen feet of mud deposited by the perpetual
+inundations of the Arno, the monks’ refectory has been divided
+into cellars, the fine old abbey-church with its solemn, almost
+Egyptian-looking, columns is a _tinaia_ where wine is made and the
+original height can only be seen by an excavation which has been dug
+round one of the columns. The monastery is a private villa, and the
+lovely cloister with its slender pillars, beautifully carved capitals
+and expanse of grass serves as a playground for the children. The
+present church was built in the thirteenth century at right angles to
+the ancient abbey-church and nearer to the campanile, on artificially
+raised ground. The steps which led up to the door are already deep
+under the earth and the bases of the columns supporting the loggia in
+front of the church are more than half buried. The high altar is a
+fine piece of _pietra dura_ work, and round the top of the choir is
+a pretty frieze by one of the Della Robbia, of four-winged heads of
+angels alternating with a kneeling lamb holding a banner, emblem of
+the guild of wool manufacturers. In the left hand chapel is a small
+ambrey, or receptacle for the holy oil, by Desiderio da Settignano,
+of most exquisite design and workmanship; the walls of the chapel are
+frescoed by Giovanni di San Giovanni, and above the altar is kept
+a silver casket containing the bones of St Quentin. The saint was
+beheaded at Paris a thousand or more years ago and transported his
+bones by some miracle to a church on the opposite side of the river;
+not liking his quarters he moved in 1187 to the high altar of the
+ancient abbey-church, but still dissatisfied he placed the silver
+casket every morning in this chapel, which was the greatest miracle of
+all as the chapel was only built late in the thirteenth century. “And
+here he still is,” said the sacristan, “but without his head, which he
+could not find when he left Paris.” A short corridor behind the high
+altar leads into the old chapel of Lapi des Spinis, built according
+to an inscription in 1315. Dim traces of frescoes by some follower of
+Giotto are still to be seen, but the chapel is so silted up with mud
+that the present floor very nearly touches the level of the spring of
+the groined arches of the roof.
+
+[Illustration: (Drawing of woman walking in front of building with tower.
+      Tower has statue in niche. Man riding ox cart at the side.)]
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[70] Abbey.
+
+[71] J. A. Symonds, _Renaissance in Italy._ _Italian Literature._ Part
+I. p. 440.
+
+
+                       [Illustration: BOCCACCIO,
+
+                              By ANONIMO.
+
+                     (_Villa di Poggio Gherardo_).]
+
+                     [Illustration: MICHEL ANGELO,
+
+                            By LEONE LEONI.
+
+                        (_Villa di Gamberaia_).]
+
+                [Illustration: DUKE FEDERIGO OF URBINO,
+
+                              By ANONIMO.
+
+                        (_Villa di Rusciano_).]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: (Drawing of roadway through garden, leading to Villa)]
+
+
+VILLA DI POGGIO GHERARDO
+
+
+Nearly two miles due east of Florence, above the Settignano road,
+stands the old castellated villa of Poggio Gherardo on an eminence
+which overlooks the valley of the Arno. In 1321 Meglino di Jacopo di
+Magaldo Magaldi died, leaving by will part of this ancient possession
+of his family, _i.e._ “the podere of Poggio and the buildings above
+the said podere where now are, and have been in times gone by, the
+Loggia, the Tower, the Well, the Water-channels, the Courtyard and
+all the Garden and Orchard, with the Fields and Pergole which are
+enclosed and surrounded in part with walls, &c.”, to the Congregation
+of the Visitation; with the obligation to build an oratorio or chapel
+in the said house in honour of St Zebedeus, and to support a resident
+priest to say mass every day for the repose of his soul. Also the
+priest on each anniversary of the death of Magaldo was to invite all
+the members of the house of Magaldi to dinner. They, however, brought
+a lawsuit against the Congregation of the Visitation, who appealed to
+the Cardinal Legate of Pope John XXII, (who was at Avignon) setting
+forth that by the time they had paid the expenses of the lawsuit with
+borrowed money nothing would be left, and asking permission to sell
+the estate which many would like to buy, _cum sit in loco carisimo
+situatum_. Thus they would be able to pay everything and to carry out
+the wishes of the pious Magaldo as far as the daily mass was concerned.
+So the villa and land was sold to Messer Bivigliano del già Manetto de’
+Baroncelli and his brother Messer Silvestro for 3100 golden florins
+on the 14th January 1331. The Baroncelli did not long enjoy their
+purchase. They, with the Buonaccorsi, were interested in the great
+banking house of Acciajuoli which was declared insolvent in 1345.
+Poggio must have belonged to the Albizzi for a few years, as Andrea
+di Sennino Baldesi bought the villa and one podere from them in 1354,
+his brother Baldese having already purchased other parts of the estate
+from the Baroncelli five years before. In 1400 the Zati became lords
+of Poggio and in 1433 they sold it to Gherardo di Bartolomeo Gherardi.
+He changed the name from Palagio del Poggio to Poggio Gherardi, or
+Gherardo (it is called both in the archives), and his descendants held
+the place for 455 years. Mr Henry James Ross bought it in 1888 and has
+made its name known as the home of a fine collection of orchids.
+
+Many illustrious men did the Gherardi give to the service of Florence.
+Gherardo was three times Gonfalonier of the city; his son Francesco was
+a brave soldier and led the troops of the Republic against the Siennese
+in 1495 when he stormed Montepulciano and took Giovanni Savelli, their
+Roman captain prisoner, whom he brought, with many nobles and captains
+of Siena, in triumph to Florence. His brother Bernardo Gherardi,
+Gonfalonier in 1434, was a strong partisan of the Medici, and his
+influence caused the exile of Cosimo de’ Medici to be cancelled. The
+Republic sent him as ambassador to Venice, Ferrara and Rome, and when
+he died in 1459 he was buried at the public expense. Seven different
+Gherardi were Gonfaloniers of Justice, and the name occurs frequently
+in the old history of Florence.[72]
+
+Tradition says the old castle stood many a siege and that Sir John
+Hawkwood was guilty of destroying the eastern wing, only partially
+rebuilt some two or three hundred years ago. It probably was one of
+the frontier castles which in ancient times defended Florence from the
+people of Arezzo and of the Casentino. The line of castles, with their
+towers, can still be traced, from Castel di Poggio perched high on the
+hill above past Vincigliata and Poggio Gherardo, across the valley and
+up the opposite bank of the Arno.
+
+Poggio Gherardo stands about 300 feet above the plain. From the gate,
+with its marble busts of the four seasons, a winding road flanked by
+roses on either side—a glory to behold in springtime—leads up through
+olive-groves and vineyards to the spinny which crowns the hill and
+protects the villa from the north wind. Over the door are the arms of
+the Gherardi and the entrance hall is the “Loggia” mentioned in the
+_Decameron_, the arches of which were built up two or three hundred
+years ago. In the courtyard the well, eighty feet deep, “of coldest
+water” still exists; but alas, the “jocund paintings” in the rooms have
+disappeared.
+
+From the southern terrace garden the view is wonderful, especially if
+you see a purple, orange and blood-red sunset away to the west, behind
+the mountains of Modena and the cloud-like white masses of Carrara.
+Florence lies mapped out at one’s feet, with Galileo’s tower, San
+Miniato, Monte Uliveto and Bellosguardo keeping watch over her. When
+the air is clear the point of Monte Nero above Leghorn can be seen in
+the far west, while to the east Vallombrosa forms a background for
+Settignano and the house of Michelangelo—ninety-three miles as the crow
+flies. The course of the Arno in the valley below is marked by rows of
+tall poplars, and hundreds of villas, shining brightly in the sun, are
+dotted about in the plain and on the hillsides, while line after line
+of opalesque hills fade away towards the fertile vale of the Chianti.
+Eastwards are Monte Pilli and the Incontro, so-called because St
+Francis and St Dominic are supposed to have met there, and beyond them
+again, as already said, is Vallombrosa.
+
+From the eastern terrace one looks down on the small streamlet Mensola,
+celebrated in Boccaccio’s Ninfale Fiesolane, rushing down to meet her
+lover Affrico, who comes from the Fiesole hills on the west to join his
+tears with hers. Near the banks of the Mensola stands one of the oldest
+churches in Tuscany, San Martino a Mensola. The _body_ of the Irish
+Saint Andrew, who founded a monastery here in the seventh century,
+lies under the high altar clothed in old brocaded robes, while his
+_ashes_ are supposed to be under a side altar in an exquisitely painted
+wooden box; through the small iron grating one can see, by the light
+of a taper, beautiful slim youths with curled hair walking in a garden
+of orange trees laden with big fruit. In the church are some fine
+pictures, one attributed to Orcagna was given by the Zati, once lords
+of Poggio Gherardo. The old, square, machicolated castle has always
+been identified by students with the first “palagio” in which the
+joyous company of seven ladies and three youths took refuge when they
+fled from the plague in Florence in 1348.
+
+    “Wandering in idleness, but not in folly,
+    Sate down in the high grass and in the shade
+    Of many a tree sun-proof—day after day,
+    When all was still and nothing to be heard
+    But the cicala’s voice among the olives,
+    Relating in a ring, to banish care,
+    Their hundred tales.
+                    Round the green hill they went,
+    Round underneath—first to a splendid house,
+    Gherardi, as an old tradition runs,
+    That on the left, just rising from the vale;
+    A place for luxury—the painted rooms,
+    The open galleries and middle court
+    Not unprepared, fragrant and gay with flowers.”[73]
+
+In 1740 Roberto Gherardi wrote a long-winded but curious account of
+his own villa and of many others on the Fiesolean hills called _La
+Villeggiatura di Majano_. It has never been printed, but if for nothing
+else his MS. is valuable as suggesting that Giovanni Boccaccio was
+born near the banks of the Mensola. He writes, “... our celebrated
+master of Tuscan eloquence, Messer Giovanni di Boccaccio di Chellino
+da Certaldo, who in his earliest days, and afterwards in the flower of
+his youth passed much time in a small villa with a podere belonging to
+his father but a few paces below the hamlet of Corbignano, which podere
+on account of the rill dividing it which runs into the Mensola, and of
+the specified frontiers, and the two parishes San Martino a Mensola
+and Santa Maria a Settignano, in whose jurisdiction it lies, can only
+be, when you study it well, the villa of Signor Berti at Corbignano at
+present in the possession of Signor Ottavio Ruggeri, as can be verified
+by the contract of sale existing in the archives of Florence of the
+18th May 1336 when our Boccaccio was twenty-three years old. I believe
+that under the guise of Ameto, Boccaccio tells us he was born among the
+neighbouring hills of Majano. In this forest Ameto, a wandering youth,
+used to visit the Fauns and Dryads who inhabited there; he, remembering
+that perhaps he was born in the neighbouring hills, was constrained
+thereto by a certain carnal love, and honoured them sometimes with
+pious offerings.” Villa Boccaccio was let out in small apartments to
+poor people for years; it now belongs to Mr Kenworthy Browne, and
+traces of ancient frescoes were found in some of the rooms when he
+restored it.
+
+  [Illustration: (Drawing showing orchards on a hill, Villa is at top
+                             of the hill.)]
+
+As before said Poggio Gherardo is generally identified as the place
+Boccaccio had in his mind when he describes how on a Wednesday
+morning “as the day was breaking, the ladies with various of their
+serving-maids, and the three youths with three of their followers, left
+the town and went on their way; they had not gone more than two short
+miles from the city when they arrived at the place they had already
+decided on.[74] This said place was on a small height, removed a little
+distance from our roads on every side, full of various trees and
+shrubs in full greenery and most pleasant to behold. On the brow of the
+hill was a palace with a fine and spacious courtyard in the middle, and
+with loggie and halls and rooms, all, and each one in itself beautiful,
+and ornamented tastefully with jocund paintings; surrounded with grass
+plots and marvellous gardens, and with wells of coldest water, and
+cellars of rare wines; a thing more suited to curious topers than to
+sober and virtuous women.”
+
+Here Pampinea was crowned queen with “an honourable and beautiful
+garland of bays,” and here she commanded Panfilo to begin the series
+of immortal tales known all the world over as the _Decameron_. At the
+end of the first day Pampinea ceded the garland, emblem of royalty, to
+“the discreet maiden Filomena” and the joyous company went slowly down
+to a stream (the Mensola) of clear water, “which descended from a hill
+and flowed through a valley shaded by many trees, amidst live rocks and
+green grass. Here bare-footed and with bare arms they went down into
+the water and disported themselves, then the hour of supper being at
+hand they returned to the palace and supped with great contentment.”
+Music, singing and dancing whiled away the hours until the queen was
+pleased to command the torches to be lit and that everyone should seek
+repose.
+
+The second day passed in like manner, and when the tenth and last tale
+came to an end, Filomena took the garland from off her own head and
+crowned Neifile queen, who said: “As you know to-morrow is Friday and
+the next day Saturday, days apt to be tedious to most people on account
+of the viands ordered to be eaten; besides Friday was the day on which
+He who died for our life suffered His passion, and it is therefore
+worthy of reverence. For this I consider it to be a proper and virtuous
+thing that we should rather say prayers to the honour of God than
+invent tales. And on Saturday it is the custom for women to wash their
+heads and remove any dust or dirt that may have settled there during
+the labours of the week; also they used to fast out of reverence for
+the Virgin Mother of God and then in honour of the coming Sunday rest
+from any and every work. Being therefore unable on that day to fully
+carry out our established order of life I think it would be well done
+to refrain from reciting tales also on that day. And as we shall then
+have been here four days, if we are desirous to avoid being joined by
+others, I conceive that it would be more opportune to quit this place
+and go elsewhere and I have already thought of a place and arranged
+everything.”
+
+All commended the words and the project of the queen, and so it was
+established, but they looked forward with longing to Sunday. On that
+morning “with slow steps the queen, accompanied and followed by her
+ladies and by the three youths, and led by the song of maybe twenty
+nightingales and other birds, took her way towards the west by an
+unfrequented lane full of green herbs and flowers just beginning
+to open to the rising sun. Gossiping, joking and laughing with her
+company, she led them, after proceeding some two thousand paces, to a
+beautiful and splendid palace before the half of the third hour had
+passed.” (One and a half hours after sunrise.)
+
+The “unfrequented lane” may yet be followed from Majano across the
+Affrico towards San Domenico. Here and there an old oak tree recalls
+the forest that once existed, and nearly every villa and village within
+sight is connected with some illustrious name. The joyous company
+probably passed—
+
+    “Where the hewn rocks of Fiesole impend
+    O’er Doccia’s dell, and fig and olive blend.
+    There the twin streams of Affrico unite,[75]
+    One dimly seen, the other out of sight,
+    But ever playing in his smoothen’d bed
+    Of polisht stone, and willing to be led
+    Where clustering vines protect him from the sun.
+    Here, by the lake, Boccaccio’s fair brigade
+    Beguiled the hours, and tale for tale repaid.”
+
+Thus sang Walter Savage Landor, whose villa “Il Frusino,”
+now belonging to Professor Willard Fiske, stands just above the small
+plain where once was the lake of the “Valle delle Donne,” already
+silted up in the sixteenth century.
+
+About that same time the remains of the strong castle of Majano were
+destroyed; the birthplace of the poet Dante da Majano whose poems in
+praise of his Nina (one of the first Italian poetesses) are well-known.
+She was a Sicilian, and although they never met she always called
+herself “la Nina di Dante.” He exchanged poems with Dante Alighieri,
+Chiari Davanzati, Guido Orlandi and others. Another poet, Meo di
+Majano, was born in the tiny hamlet, and “the not less prudent than
+virtuous sculptor,” Benedetto [da Majano] “the greatest master who ever
+held a chisel,” as Vasari calls him, and his brother the architect
+Giuliano. Macchiavelli had a house near by, and the Valori owned much
+property near Majano. The Villa Marmigliano is still standing, where
+the great platonist Marsilio Ficino was for so long the guest of
+Niccolò and Filippo Valori and where he finished his translation of
+Plato. Pico della Mirandola and Poliziano often came from the Medici
+Villa at Fiesole to visit their friends, and in one of his letters
+Ficino describes a walk on these hills with “our Pico” and their talk
+about a salubrious villa. The latter pointed out one as fulfilling
+all his desires and Ficino tells him “it is said to have been built
+by that wise man Leonardo Aretino, and just beyond was the abode of
+Giovanni Boccaccio.” Only divided by a small valley from the Valori
+lived the brothers Benivieni. Roberto Gherardo describes their villa,
+now belonging to Sir Willoughby Wade, as “the most ancient Villa
+della Querce, since 1272 in the possession of the Signori Baldovini
+Riccomanni, who bought it from Ciencio di Seminetto de’ Visdomini and
+sold it in 1483 to Michele Benivieni.” “Happy house of Benivieni,”
+exclaims Poliziano, “beloved of Apollo, favoured with all the celestial
+gifts. Of four brothers, you, Maestro Antonio, are a second Esculapius
+or Chiron; the second diligently studies the virtues of plants and
+herbs; the third, Girolamo, is a tender and learned poet; and Domenico,
+still a lad, gives himself with a gravity beyond his years, to poetry
+and the study of Aristotle.”
+
+Lower down, on the other side of the little valley is the Salviatino,
+once belonging to the Dukes Salviati, whose good wine is immortalized
+in that jocund poem _Bacco in Toscana_.
+
+    “Lovely Majano, lord of dells,
+    Where my gentle Salviati dwells.
+    Many a time and oft doth he
+    Crown me with bumpers full fervently,
+    And I, in return, preserve him still
+    From every crude and importunate ill.
+    I keep by my side,
+    For my joy and pride,
+    That gallant in chief of his royal cellar
+    Val di Marina, the blithe care-killer;
+    But with the wine yclept Val di Botte
+    Day and night I could flout me the gouty.”[76]
+
+      [Illustration: (Drawing of village seen through tall trees)]
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[72] _Familie Celebre Toscane._ D. Tiribilli-Giuliani, riveduto dal
+Cav. R. Passerini. Firenze, 1862.
+
+[73] Samuel Rogers. _Italy._ P. 136.
+
+[74] Pampinea in the Introduction to the _Decameron_, after
+describing the horrors of the plague and the licentious life of the
+few inhabitants left in the town, suggests going to “our estates in
+the country, of which we all have a great many.” She was probably a
+Baroncelli—if one may attempt to identify personages or places in the
+_Decameron_.
+
+[75] The Affrico and the Affricuzzo.
+
+[76] _Opus cit._ See note page 70.
+
+
+                   [Illustration: VILLA DELLE SELVE]
+
+
+
+
+     [Illustration: (Drawing of long colonnade in front of Villa)]
+
+
+VILLA DELLE SELVE
+
+
+The stately Villa delle Selve, built by Buontalenti, stands high on
+the crest of a hill overlooking the Arno below Signa about nine miles
+from Florence. The first mention of it is in the archives of the
+monastery of San Pier Maggiore where it is stated that the Commune of
+Florence, in the interest of the creditors of the Acciajuoli bank, sold
+“a podere with a hut, a brick kiln, etc., at a place called Le Selve
+in the parish of San Martino a Gangalandi for 270 golden florins.” It
+afterwards came into the possession of the Strozzi. And when Filippo
+Strozzi and his wife Clarice left Rome by stealth and sailed to Pisa,
+a messenger met them with letters from the Cardinal of Cortona and
+from Niccolò Capponi urging them to come to Florence, so Filippo, a
+prudent Florentine “decided,” writes old Varchi, “after much meditation
+not to be the one who, as the saying is, picks the chestnuts out of
+the fire, but determined to send Madonna Clarice on to feel the way;
+she being a woman and a Medici would, he conceived, not run the same
+risk as himself.... Clarice, as courageous as she was proud, accepted
+the commission without waiting to be entreated, and leaving Piero and
+Vincenzio her sons, in Empoli under the charge of their tutor Ser
+Francesco Zeffi, she went accompanied by only Antonio da Barberino and
+Maestro Marcantonio da San Gemignano to dine at Le Selve near Signa,
+a most favourite villa of Filippo’s and from thence the same evening
+proceeded to Florence.”
+
+Marchese Filippo di Averardo Salviati bought the villa from the Strozzi
+and in 1611 lent it to his friend Galileo Galilei, who unfortunately
+for himself had resigned his professorship at Padua to accept the
+appointment of court mathematician in Florence. It is a curious fact
+that two of the greatest of Italians, Giovanni Boccaccio and Galileo
+Galilei, had a common ancestor in Bonajuto, Lord of Pogna in the Val
+d’Elsa. Bonajuto’s son Chellino was grandfather to Boccaccio; another
+son, Giovanni, was the father of a celebrated doctor Maestro Galileo
+from whom descended Vincenzio Galilei, a musician of some repute
+and author of a dialogue on music printed in Florence in 1581, he
+married Giulia Ammanati, and their son—the famous Galileo—was born in
+Pisa in 1564. A descendant of a third son of old Maestro Galileo was
+governor of Pisa in 1837 and most bitterly resented any allusion to his
+relationship with a man who had been in the prisons of the Inquisition.
+The arms of the two families are identical, save that the red ladder
+of the Galilei is placed vertically on a gold ground while that of the
+Chellini is diagonal.[77]
+
+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.”
+
+During the war between Florence and Castruccio Castracane, the powerful
+tyrant of Lucca and Pistoja, Artimino had even more to suffer. Her
+castle being the key to the valley, the Florentines were not slow
+to assail it, and after a sharp fight it fell into their hands. Not
+content with taking two hundred prisoners, they threw down part
+of the castle walls and carried home in triumph the bell of the
+Commune which was “of great size and of most exquisite metal,” as the
+Florentine chronicler recounts with a certain amount of satisfaction.
+The evening on which Artimino fell a long streak of lurid smoke was
+seen above Florence, and on the previous night a great earthquake shook
+the city—thus did nature and war combine to cast terror in the minds
+of the mediæval Italians. After the battle of Altopascio Castracane
+gained back his castle, but no sooner did he leave it for some other
+military enterprise than the Florentines returned with renewed ardour
+to the attack. For three days the people of Artimino fought against
+their assailants, “but on the third,” says Villani, “the Florentines
+delivered the most terrible assault that ever castle sustained and
+the most renowned knights of the army were engaged; it lasted from
+midday until the first hour of the night and the pallisades and gates
+of the castle were set on fire. For which reason great fear fell upon
+the besieged and those who were badly wounded with darts, and they
+begged for mercy and offered to surrender if their lives were spared;
+and thus it was done. And on the morning of the 27th August they left
+and delivered up the castle. But in despite of all promises, when the
+knights who escorted them departed, many were killed.”
+
+After this the Florentines took firm possession of Artimino, rebuilt
+its walls and kept infantry and cavalry there, as they found it a good
+place from whence to harass the territory of Pistoja. For some time
+after Castruccio’s death it was a subject of perpetual skirmishes and
+many were the changes of master. How eagerly the two cities desired
+Artimino is shown by the clause in the agreement of the Pistojese who
+consented to acknowledge the suzerainty of Gualtieri for three years on
+condition that, together with other places, Artimino was to be added
+once more to their territory.
+
+Artimino fell finally to the dominion of Florence, and to the arms of
+her people—a sea-horse—was added the Lily of Florence as a seal to her
+submission to the mistress and tyrant of Tuscany.
+
+The time of war passed away and with the coming of peaceful years we
+read no more of Artimino’s villages and of her walled castle. Another
+building rose upon the hill whose story brings us at once to the
+Medicean Grand Dukes of Tuscany. It is related by that pleasant gossip
+Baldinucci that “His Majesty Ferdinando I, Grand Duke of Tuscany, being
+one day a-hunting on the hill of Artimino (on the side towards Florence
+where one looks upon a lovely and most extensive tract of country),
+seated himself on a chair and calling Buontalenti to his side said:
+Bernardo, just on this spot where thou seest me, I desire to have a
+palace sufficient to contain me and all my court; think about it and be
+quick.” And the work was immediately begun according to his patron’s
+desire, with the result that a royal villa soon rose upon the hill
+which had withstood so many sieges, “containing abundantly,” continues
+Baldinucci, “all those delights which a Grandee can desire in his
+country residence.”
+
+The Medici loved the beautiful villa which was called Ferdinanda
+after its builder, and much money was spent in buying more land and
+enclosing the property with a high wall, which divided the farms from
+the woods preserved for the Grand Ducal hunts. Pictures were brought
+in numbers to fill the vast halls and in the inventory we read of
+priceless objects, such as “a portrait of Lorenzo d’ Urbino de’ Medici
+by Raphael, a Madonna and Child by Cristofano Bronzino, and a picture
+by Titian.”
+
+When in 1782 Pietro Leopoldo I, (the Austrian Grand Duke) sold Artimino
+to Lorenzo Bartolommei, Marchese di Montegiove, the estate consisted,
+as it does to-day, of about two thousand acres. Later the fine old
+place passed by inheritance to the noble family of the Passerini of
+Cortona and the villa is now owned by Conte Silvio Passerini.
+
+The wine of Artimino was famous all over Tuscany even in the days when
+Redi, court physician to the Grand Duke Cosimo III, drank deeply of its
+vintage and sang enthusiastically of its perfections in his _Bacco in
+Toscana_:—
+
+    “Gods my life, what glorious claret!
+    Blessed be the ground that bare it!
+    ’Tis Avignon. Don’t say a flask of it,
+    Into my soul I pour a cask of it.
+    Artimino’s finer still,
+    Under a tun there’s no having one’s fill:”[81]
+
+The Villa Ferdinanda is less famous than it should be, for although
+some visit it and return to spread among their friends a description of
+its grandeur and beauty, few are tempted to climb the steep and winding
+road to the summit of the hill. Again—the house, although seen from a
+great distance, stands so high above the sea level (260 metres) that it
+gives only the impression of being very large and almost overbalanced
+by an enormous projecting roof, and but little idea is obtained of its
+architectural beauty. The lower part of the hill is scarred by quarries
+of _pietra serena_ and the landscape is a little bare and arid; but as
+we climb the narrow winding road we soon get into a delightfully cool
+and remote corner of the Arno valley, where the slopes are overgrown
+with thick masses of broom while ilexes and a few cypresses rise above
+the shimmering green of the young oaks. In parts stunted oaks form a
+hedge, broken in parts where rocks jut out covered with trailing ivy.
+Every step leads us to a fairer and more extensive view. A deep azure
+blue of sky and plain with paler blue of the Pistojan mountains rising
+to the west, seen across the Artimino fields of crimson clover as we
+stand within the light shade of a wood where no dark shadows lie, hold
+the very essence of a Tuscan morning in early May. This a place from
+which we can best see the limitless stretch of the valley from Florence
+down towards the sea, the windings of the calm river and the deepening
+glow of colour on the hills and about the white townlets of Sesto and
+Prato; and as the distant murmur of the workers in the valley rise
+up to us, behind in the trees “The nightingale with feathers new she
+sings.”
+
+Nearing the summit we see some picturesque peasant houses resembling
+Lombard farms, with long finely built arcades and a smaller row of
+arches above. A sudden turn in the road brings us in sight of the
+great Villa Ferdinanda. It would be difficult either in words, or by
+drawings, to give an adequate idea of the sense of size together with
+perfect proportion, of beauty with almost severe simplicity, which we
+receive on approaching; and it is with astonishment that we remember
+our first impression when looking up at it from the plain. Buontalenti
+would seem to have endeavoured to build a very characteristic Medicean
+villa; it has a beautiful staircase going up to the entrance in the
+manner of a suspended arch, there are the inevitable lions, and going
+into the great hall we pass through a charming arched recess. Yet the
+architect, by placing the villa above a wide grass slope and causing
+the walls to project at the base, and building the corners to resemble
+towers (two of which are only carried half-way up, forming terraces)
+recalled the feudal villa-castle of much earlier date. Unlike the
+usual Tuscan building, humble or pretentious, Artimino’s villa has no
+courtyard, but is built with long vaulted rooms running through at
+right angles which bear curious mediæval names. There is the saloon
+of “the Bodyguard,” that of “the Lion,” with three grated windows
+looking out over Poggio a Cajano, another of “the Bear,” with views
+over Montelupo and the Ambrogiana, while the entrance hall goes by the
+title of “the Wars.” The enormous size of the villa is perhaps its most
+striking feature—the rooms upstairs are all large and finely built with
+groined roofs and huge chimneypieces, some having no doors but only a
+round arch to separate them. Nothing mean is to be found in any part
+of the place—the banqueting halls and the servants’ rooms are equally
+fine and built on the same magnificent and simple scale. The architect
+had dreamed of a noble race of men who were to inhabit so sumptuous a
+palace.[82]
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[81] _Op. cit._ See note p. 70.
+
+[82] Most of the facts are taken from a pamphlet, _Artiminius_, G.
+L. Passerini, printed (for private circulation only) in 1888, and
+from Repetti’s admirable _Dizionario Geografico Fisico Storico della
+Toscana_. Firenze, 1835.
+
+
+          [Illustration: (Decorative wreath reading: FINIS.)]
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+
+  A
+
+  Acciajuoli, Cardinal, induces Cosimo III, to imprison his nephew, 123.
+
+  —— Dardano, 121.
+
+  —— Donato, Governor of Corinth, 123.
+
+  —— Francesco, strangled by order of the Sultan, 123.
+
+  —— Neri, Duke of Athens, &c., 123.
+
+  —— Niccola, gibbeted by Dante, 121.
+
+  —— —— Grand Seneschal, builds Monte Guffone, 121;
+    wins the heart of Catherine, widow of the Prince of Taranto, 121;
+    fights the Turks in Greece, 121;
+    trusted minister of Queen Joan of Naples, 122;
+    Papal envoy to Milan, 122;
+    death of, 122;
+    builds the Certosa near Florence, 122;
+    burial of, at the Certosa, 123, 143.
+
+  —— Roberto, sad love story of, 123, 124.
+
+  Alberti, Leo Battista, 27.
+
+  AMBROGIANA, VILLA dell’, 88–90.
+
+  —— built by Ferdinando I, 88;
+    marriage of Eleonora Orsini at, 88;
+    Don Antonio de’ Medici at, 89;
+    Maria de’ Medici at, 89;
+    decorated by Cosimo III, 89;
+    Ferdinando III, meets his bride at, 89;
+    now a prison, 89, 152.
+
+  Ammirato, Scipione, defence of Petraja described by, 54–55; 57, 109,
+        110.
+
+  Anjou, Robert of, 121.
+
+  Arcetri, Galileo at, 62, 63.
+
+  Arragona d’, Tullia, poetess and courtezan, 56–57.
+
+  Ariosto, Lodovico, lines on Florence by, 53; 62, 63, 126, 148.
+
+  ARTIMINO, VILLA FERDINANDA a, 148–152.
+
+  —— 141;
+    hill of Artimino mentioned by Cicero, 148;
+    given by Otto III, to the Bishop of Pistoja, 149;
+    old castle of Artimino taken and retaken by Florentines and
+        Pistojesi, 150;
+    built by Ferdinando I, 150;
+    pictures in, 151;
+    sold by Pietro Leopoldo I, 151;
+    present owner of, 151;
+    description of, 151–152;
+    wine of, praised by Redi, 151; 152.
+
+  Austria, Joan of, see Medici.
+
+  —— Margaret of, 20.
+
+  —— Maria Maddalena of, see Medici.
+
+
+  B
+
+  _Bacco in Toscana_, by Dr Francesco Redi, 70, 138, 151.
+
+  Baccini, G., quoted, 4.
+
+  Baldinucci, Filippo, quoted, 91, 150, 151.
+
+  Bandini, Giovanni, duel of, 42–44.
+
+  Baroncelli, Family of, 41.
+
+  —— Tommaso, favourite of Cosimo I, 41;
+    death of, 42.
+
+  —— The, buy Poggio, 132.
+
+  Bavaria, Violante of, see Medici.
+
+  Bella, Stefano Della, engravings of Pratolino by, 91.
+
+  BELLOSGUARDO, VILLA DI, 59–64.
+
+  —— owned by the Cavalcanti, 59;
+    sold to Tommaso Capponi, 61;
+    ruin of, 61;
+    confiscation of, by Cosimo I, 61;
+    bought by Girolamo Michelozzi, 61;
+    immortalised by Mrs Browning, 61;
+    view from, 61–62.
+
+  Benedict XIII, Pope, 78, 83.
+
+  Benivieni, The brothers, Villa of, 138;
+    praise of, by Poliziano, 138.
+
+  Berenson B., quoted, 9.
+
+  Boccaccio, Giovanni, life of, by Baldelli, 6;
+    description of Villa Palmieri by, 6–7; 57;
+    description of “limpid Fount” by, 108;
+    description of “Valley of the Ladies” by, 113; 114; 133;
+    youth of, described by Roberto Gherardi, 134;
+    description of youths and ladies leaving Florence by, 134;
+    description of the “Joyous Company” at Poggio Gherardo, 136; 137;
+        138.
+
+  Bologna, Giovanni da, statue of Apennines at Pratolino by, 92.
+
+  Bombicci-Pomi, Signor, present owner of I Collazzi, 143.
+
+  Bonajuto, Lord of Pogna, common ancestor of Boccaccio and Galileo,
+        140.
+
+  Bonaparte, Elise, Grand Duchess of Tuscany, 40.
+
+  —— Napoleon, 64; 142.
+
+  Borghese, Princess, Cafaggiuolo bought by, 17.
+
+  —— Prince, wife of, inherits Villa Salviati, 106.
+
+  Botticelli, Sandro, picture painted for Matteo Palmieri by, described
+        by Vasari, 3.
+
+  Botticini, Francesco, pictures by, note, 4.
+
+  Bracciolini, Poggio, 29.
+
+  Brocchi, Dr G., description of Cafaggiuolo by, 17.
+
+  Bronzino, A., portrait of Bianca Cappello by, 23.
+
+  Browne, Kenworthy, Mr, present owner of house of Boccaccio’s father,
+        134.
+
+  Browning, Mrs Barrett, quoted, 59, 61.
+
+  Brunnelleschi, Filippo, 28;
+    enlarges Rusciano for Luca Pitti, 37;
+    note, 57.
+
+  Brunnelleschi, family of, defence of Petraja by, 54–55.
+
+  Buonarroti, Michelangelo, 27; 95; 118; 143.
+
+  Buontalenti, Bernardo, architect of Pratolino, 91;
+    storage of ice invented by, 93;
+    architect of Villa Delle Selve, 139;
+    architect of Villa Ferdinanda a Artimino, 150, 152.
+
+  Byron, Lord, 127.
+
+
+  C
+
+  CAFAGGIUOLO, VILLA di, 16–25.
+
+  —— designed by Michelozzi for Cosimo de’ Medici, 17;
+    description of, by Vasari, 17;
+    description of, by Dr G. Brocchi, 17;
+    letter from, by Lorenzo and Giuliano de’ Medici, 18;
+    letter from, by factor, 18;
+    Donatello, a landed proprietor at, 19;
+    Lorenzo and Giuliano de’ Medici at, 19;
+    letter from, by A. Poliziano, 19–20;
+    Margaret of Austria at, 20;
+    Lorenzino de’ Medici flies to, 21;
+    murder of Donna Eleonora de’ Medici by her husband at, 22;
+    murder of Donna Eleonora de’ Medici at, described by Francesco I,
+        22;
+    Francesco I, and Bianca Cappello at, 23;
+    Cardinal Ferdinando de’ Medici at, 23–24;
+    majolica of, 25.
+
+  Canaccj, Caterina, tragic love story of, 103–106.
+
+  —— Bartolomeo, 104, 105;
+    beheaded for the murder of his step-mother, 106.
+
+  —— Francesco, 104, 105, 106.
+
+  —— Giustino, 103, 104, 105, 106.
+
+  Candia, Duke of, see Mario.
+
+  Capraja, original name, and first mention of, 90.
+
+  Caprina, Meo Del, and his brother Luca, 118.
+
+  Carlo Alberto, Prince of Carignano, 40.
+
+  Cappello, Bianca, see Medici.
+
+  CAREGGI, VILLA di, 26–36.
+
+  —— built by Cosimo de’ Medici, 26;
+    origin of name of, 26;
+    Michelozzi architect of, 27;
+    Cosimo de’ Medici at, 28;
+    Platonic Academy at, 28;
+    death of Cosimo de’ Medici at, described by his son, 29–30;
+    Piero de’ Medici meets Lucrezia Tornabuoni at, 30;
+    Piero de’ Medici dies at, 30;
+    death of Lorenzo de’ Medici at, described by A. Poliziano, 32–34;
+    Savonarola at, 34;
+    Piero de’ Medici accused of drowning Pier Leoni at, 35;
+    burning of, 36;
+    various sales of, 36.
+
+  Cascioli, Monte, 128.
+
+  CASTELLO, VILLA di, 65–70.
+
+  —— description of, 65;
+    fountain of, 66;
+    grotto of, 66;
+    origin of name of, 67;
+    Caterina Sforza lives at, 68;
+    reception of Duke of Urbino at, 68–69;
+    death of Maria Salviati at, 69;
+    Cosimo I, retires to, after his marriage with Camilla Martelli, 69;
+    vineyards of, praised by Redi, 70;
+    gardens of, beautified by Pietro Leopoldo I, 70.
+
+  CASTEL-PULCI, VILLA di, 126–130.
+
+  CASTEL-PULCI, VILLA di, seized by Cardinal N. Orsini for debt, 126;
+    sold to Marchese Rinnucini, 126;
+    sold to Government for a lunatic asylum, 126;
+    view from, 128.
+
+  Castracane, Castruccio, 149, 150.
+
+  Catherine, titular Empress of Constantinople, 121.
+
+  Cavalcanti, Guido, mention of, by Dino Compagni, 59;
+    a friend of Dante, 59;
+    banishment and death of, 60;
+    description of, by Lorenzo de’ Medici, 60;
+    praise of, by Dante, 60;
+    sonnets by, 60.
+
+  —— Masino, beheaded, 60.
+
+  —— Paffiero, murder of Pazzino de’ Pazzi by, 61.
+
+  —— The, 60, 61.
+
+  Charles III, King of Spain, 79.
+
+  Charles VIII, King of France, 77.
+
+  Charles Emanuel IV, 46.
+
+  Clemente VI, Pope, 122.
+
+  —— VII, Pope, 99, 109, 110.
+
+  —— VIII, Pope, 100.
+
+  —— XII, Pope, 78, 79.
+
+  COLLAZZI, VILLA I, 143–147.
+
+  —— Signor Bombicci-Pomi present owner of, 143;
+    built by Messer Agostino Dini, 143;
+    attributed to Michelangelo, 143;
+    Santi di Tito probable architect of, 144;
+    picture by Santi di Tito at, 144; description of, 144.
+
+  —— Compagni, Dino, quoted, 59.
+
+  Corsini, Amerigo, Bishop, 77.
+
+  —— Andrea, Saint, 77;
+    apparition of the Virgin to, 142.
+
+  —— Bartolomeo, 78.
+
+  —— Bartolomeo, created Prince of Sismano, &c., 79.
+
+  —— Bertholdo, beheaded in 1555, 78.
+
+  —— Filippo, 78.
+
+  —— Lorenzo, created Pope as Clement XII, 78; 79.
+
+  —— Luca, friend of Savonarola, 77.
+
+  —— Marietta, wife of Macchiavelli, 77.
+
+  —— Neri, Cardinal, 78, 79.
+
+  —— Neri, Don, Prime Minister of Tuscany, 80.
+
+  —— Tommaso di Duccio, jurist and statesman, 77.
+
+  —— Tommaso, Don, present Prince, 72, 80.
+
+  Corsini, Villa at Castello, 71–80.
+
+  —— first known as “La Lepre de’ Rinieri,” 71;
+    various sales of, 71;
+    description of, 71–72;
+    inhabited by Sir Robert Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, 72.
+
+  Cortesi, Jacopo (il Borgognone), 70.
+
+  Cowper, Earl, inhabits Villa Palmieri, 4;
+    created Prince of the Holy Roman Empire, 5.
+
+  Crawford, Earl of, buys Villa Palmieri, 1, 6.
+
+  Cybo, Veronica, daughter of Prince of Massa, 100;
+    marriage of, described by G. Beggi, 100–102;
+    imperious temper of, 102;
+    murder of Caterina Canaccj by, 103–106.
+
+
+  D
+
+  Dante, Alighieri, quoted, 60;
+    quoted, 81; 109;
+    quoted, 121; 137.
+
+  Decameron, The, 6, 57, 133; note, 134, 136.
+
+  Demidoff, Prince, buys Pratolino, 96.
+
+  Dini, Agostino, builds I Collazzi, 143;
+    Santi di Tito works for, 144;
+    spends too much on building, 144.
+
+  Donatello. Landed proprietor at Cafaggiuolo, 19; 28.
+
+  Dudley, Sir Robert, 72;
+    conquers Guiana and discovers Trinidad, 72;
+    description of voyage by, 73–74;
+    his marriages, 74;
+    enters the service of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, 75;
+    instrument for measuring tides invented by, 76;
+    created Duke of Northumberland, 76;
+    children of, 76.
+
+  Dupré, Prof. G., 51.
+
+  —— Signorina, present owner of Lappeggi, 51.
+
+
+  E
+
+  Eleonora of Toledo, see Medici.
+
+  Etruria, Kingdom of, 45, 46.
+
+  Evelyn, John, description of Pratolino by, 94.
+
+  Ewart, Dorothea, quoted, 56.
+
+
+  F
+
+  Fabriczy, Carl von, 37, 38.
+
+  Farhill, Miss, buys Villa Palmieri, 5.
+
+  Fagiuoli, Giovan Battista, facetious poem on Lappeggi by, 49;
+    Cardinal Francesco Maria’s wit described by, 49; note, 52.
+
+  Ferdinando III, (of Lorraine), 24;
+    lends Poggio Imperiale to King of Sardinia, 46;
+    lends Poggio Imperiale to Carlo Alberto, Prince of Carignano, 47;
+        89;
+    destroys villa at Pratolino, 96.
+
+  Ferri, Antonio, architect of Lappeggi, 49, 52;
+    enlarges Villa Corsini, 71.
+
+  Ficino, Marsilio, 27;
+    President of the Platonic Academy, 28, 52, 82, 86;
+    translation of Plato finished at Villa Marmigliano, 137.
+
+  Fiesole, Description of, by B. Varchi, 81;
+    traditions of, 81;
+    mentioned by Dante, 81, 82, 83;
+    poem by A. Poliziano on, 86.
+
+  Fiske, Prof. Willard, present owner of Villa Landor, 113, 137.
+
+  FONT’ ALL’ ERTA, VILLA di, 108–115.
+
+  —— description by Roberto Gherardi of, 108–109;
+    bought by Taddeo Gaddi, 109;
+    A. Bonsi, ambassador of Clemente VII, at, 109;
+    inherited by Sinibaldo Gaddi, 110;
+    Loggia of, built by Niccolò Gaddi, 110;
+    bought by Niccolò Gondi, 112;
+    bought by Count Pasolini, 113;
+    meeting-place of the “Young Italy” party, 114;
+    inherited by Countess Rasponi della Testa, 115.
+
+  Francavilla, Pietro, Pietà by, 61.
+
+  Franco, Ser Matteo, meeting of Clarice de’ Medici and her children,
+        described by, 124–125; 127.
+
+  Frederick IV, King of Denmark, 50.
+
+
+  G
+
+  Gaddi, Angelo, 109.
+
+  —— Niccolò, builds Loggia at Fout’ all’ Erta, 110;
+    character of, 110;
+    will of, 112.
+
+  —— Sinibaldo, inherits Font’ all’ Erta, 110.
+
+  Gaddi, Taddeo (the elder), 109.
+
+  —— Taddeo (the younger), buys Font’ all’ Erta, 109.
+
+  Galilei, Galileo, lives at Bellosguardo, 62;
+    lives at Arcetri, 62, 63;
+    lives at Villa Delle Selve, 140.
+
+  Galluzzi, Riguccio, death of Francesco I, and of Bianca Cappello
+        described by, 12–13;
+    financial genius of Cosimo de’ Medici described by, 55.
+
+  GAMBERAIA, VILLA di, 116–119.
+
+  —— probable origin of name of, 116;
+    description of, 117;
+    garden of, laid out by Cosimo Lapi, 117;
+    becomes the property of the Capponi, 118;
+    cypresses and grotto of, 118;
+    Princess Ghyka present owner of, 119.
+
+  Garibaldi, Giuseppe, visit to Mario of, 107.
+
+  Gherardi, Gherardo di Bartolomeo, buys Poggio and calls it by his
+        name, 132.
+
+  —— Roberto, description of the Font’ all’ Erta by, 108–109;
+    account of Boccaccio’s youth by, 134;
+    description of Villa della Querce by, 138.
+
+  Ghyka, Princess, present owner of Gamberaia, 119.
+
+  Gioli, Simone, 118.
+
+  Giraldi, Senator Vincenzio di Giovanni di Niccolò, 144;
+   letter deploring the extinction of simple old Florentine manners,
+        144–147.
+
+  Giuliani, D. Tiribilli-, 123, 132.
+
+  Gondi, Niccolò, buys Font’ all’ Erta, 112.
+
+  Gregory IX, Pope, 129.
+
+  —— XIII, Pope, 112.
+
+
+  H
+
+  Hawkwood, Sir John, note, 54; 132.
+
+  Hawthorne, Nathaniel, _Transformation_ written by, at Villa Montauto,
+        63.
+
+  Henry VII, Emperor, siege of Florence by, 42.
+
+
+  I
+
+  Innocent III, Pope, 23.
+
+  —— VI, Pope, 122.
+
+
+  J
+
+  Joan, of Austria, see Medici.
+
+  —— Queen of Naples, 122.
+
+  John XXII, Pope, 131.
+
+
+  L
+
+  Landino, Cristofano, 27, 28, 82.
+
+  Landor, Walter Savage, Villa of, 113;
+    description of the Affrico by, 137.
+
+  Lapi, Andrea, 117;
+    remains of works at Gamberaia, 118.
+
+  —— Cosimo, garden at Gamberaia laid out by, 117.
+
+  —— Jacopo, 117.
+
+  —— Zanobi, Gamberaia probably built by, 117.
+
+  —— The, property of the, divided, 118.
+
+  Lapini, A., quoted, 14.
+
+  LAPPEGGI, VILLA di, 48–52.
+
+  —— sold by the Ricasoli to Francesco de’ Medici, 48;
+    various owners of, 48;
+    favourite residence of Cardinal Francesco Maria de’ Medici, 49;
+    rebuilt by Ferri, 49;
+    celebrated by the poet G. B. Fagiuoli, 49;
+    Frederick IV, of Denmark at, 50, 51;
+    Violante of Bavaria at, 51;
+    present owner of, Signorina Dupré, 51;
+    description of, 52.
+
+  Leicester, Earl of, 72.
+
+  Leo X, Pope, 8, 20, 99.
+
+  Leoni, Pier, fresco of murder of, by G. F. Watts, 27; 35.
+
+  Leopoldo II, 15;
+    destruction of grottoes and statues at Pratolino by, 96.
+
+  Lodovico of Bourbon, created King of Etruria, 46.
+
+  Lorraine, Christine of, see Medici.
+
+  Lucrezia Tornabuoni, see Medici.
+
+
+  M
+
+  Macchiavelli, Niccolò, 77, 137.
+
+  Magaldi, Meglino di Jacopo di Magaldo, leaves Poggio to the
+        Congregation of the Visitation, 131.
+
+  —— The, appeal to the Cardinal-Legate against will of Meglino and
+        sell Poggio, 132.
+
+  Majano, Benedetto da, 137.
+
+  —— Dante da, 137.
+
+  —— Meo di, 137.
+
+  Mann, Sir Horace, on Lord Cowper, 5;
+    on Lady Orford, 87.
+
+  Manetti, G., 29.
+
+  Manni, Domenico, description of Roman remains near Florence, 67.
+
+  Mario (Duke of Candia) owner of Villa Salviati, 106;
+    visit of Garibaldi to, 107.
+
+  Martelli, Lodovico, duel of, 42–44.
+
+  Martinelli, V., quoted, 14.
+
+  Martino V, Pope, 77.
+
+  Martino, San, a Mensola, St Andrew buried in, 133;
+    pictures in, 133; 134.
+
+  Mecati, Abbate G. M., attempted murder of Lorenzo de’ Medici,
+        described by, 83–84.
+
+  Medici, Alessandro de’, 10, 36, 99, 100.
+
+  —— Antonio de, Don, supposititious child of Bianca Cappello, 12;
+        note, 48;
+    returns from wars in Hungary, 89.
+
+  —— Bianca de’ (Cappello) at Cafaggiuolo, 23;
+    at Pratolino, 92;
+    sonnets by Tasso to, 92, 93.
+
+  —— Caterina de’, 20.
+
+  —— —— (Sforza) description of, 67;
+    education of her son Giovanni by, 68.
+
+  —— Christine de’ (of Lorraine), bride of Ferdinando I, 13, 24, 45,
+        57;
+    death of, 70, 94, 106.
+
+  —— Clarice de’ at Cafaggiuolo, 19; 86;
+    meeting with her children, described by Ser Matteo Franco, 124.
+
+  —— Claudia de’, 45.
+
+  —— Contessina de’, 18.
+
+  —— Cosimo de’ (Pater Patriae) builds Cafaggiuolo, 17;
+    builds Careggi, 26; 27;
+    founds Platonic Academy, 28;
+    death of, 29–30;
+    wise words of, 38;
+    character of, by Galluzzi, 55;
+    admiration of Pius II, for, 56;
+    friends of, 56.
+
+  —— Cosimo I, de’, reception of Eleonora of Toledo by, 11;
+    as a child at Trebbio, 21, 22, 24;
+    created Grand Duke by Pius V, 41;
+    gives Villa Baroncelli (afterwards Poggio Imperiale) to his
+        daughter Isabella, 44;
+    at Petraja, 56, 57;
+    confiscation of Bellosguardo by, 61;
+    retires to Castello after his marriage with Camilla Martelli, 69;
+    letter from, about his marriage, 69, 99, 110, 148.
+
+  —— Cosimo II, de’, 45.
+
+  —— Cosimo III, de’, marriage of, to Marguerite Louise d’ Orleans,
+        13;
+    quarrels with his wife, 14–15, 45, 51, 58, 70, 72, 89, 95;
+    imprisons the wife of Roberto Acciajuoli, 123;
+    condemns Roberto Acciajuoli to perpetual imprisonment, 124; 151.
+
+  —— Eleonora de’, (of Toledo), marries Cosimo I, 11;
+    dislike of the Florentines to, 57.
+
+  —— Eleonora de’, Donna, (of Toledo), description of, 21;
+    murder of, by her husband Don Pietro, 22;
+    letter by Francesco I, about murder of, 22.
+
+  —— Ferdinando de’, Cardinal, goes to Poggio a Cajano, 11;
+    becomes Grand Duke of Tuscany, 23; 57.
+
+  —— Ferdinando I, de’ (late Cardinal), 13; 24;
+    grants Lappeggi to Don Antonio, 48;
+    Buontalenti commissioned to enlarge Petraja by, 57; 70;
+    Villa dell’ Ambrogiana built by, 88;
+    death of, 89; 94;
+    Villa Ferdinanda a Artimino built by, 150.
+
+  —— Ferdinando II, de’, attempt to resuscitate Platonic Academy by,
+        36;
+    marries Vittoria della Rovere, 45; 70;
+    takes Sir Robert Dudley into his service, 75; 78, 106.
+
+  —— Ferdinando de’, Prince, 45;
+    love of music of, 95;
+    letter from Scarlatti to, 95;
+    death of, 95.
+
+  —— Francesco I, de’, 11;
+    death of at Poggio a Cajano, described by Galluzzi, 12–13;
+    letters of, about murder of Donna Eleonora at Cafaggiulo, 22–23;
+    Lappeggi bought by, 48;
+    Pratolino built by, 91; 92; 141.
+
+  —— Francesco Maria de’, Cardinal, rebuilds Lappeggi, 49;
+    practical joke of, 49;
+    entertains King of Denmark at Lappeggi, 50;
+    marriage of, to Eleonora Gonzaga, 51;
+    death of, 51; 52.
+
+  —— Giancarlo de’, dies at Castello, 70.
+
+  —— Giangastone de’ (or Gastone), last of the Medici, 45; 50.
+
+  —— Giuliano de’, letter of as a child, 18; 19, 29, 30;
+    murder of, 84.
+
+  —— Giulio de’, see Clemente VII, Pope.
+
+  —— Giovanni de’, see Leo X, Pope.
+
+  —— ——, Villa at Fiesole built for, 82.
+
+  —— ——, husband of Maria Salviati, 68.
+
+  —— ——, (Delle Bande Nere) childhood of, 68.
+
+  —— Isabella de’, married to P. G. Orsini, Duke of Bracciano, 45;
+    murder of, by her husband, 45.
+
+  —— Ippolito de’, 69.
+
+  —— Joan de’ (of Austria), 11.
+
+  —— Lorenzino de’, 21, 36.
+
+  —— Lorenzo de’ (the Magnificent), builds Poggio a Cajano, 8;
+    _Ambra_, poem by, 9–10;
+    letter of, as a child, 18;
+    _Nencia da Barberino_, country idyll by, 19; 20;
+    room of, at Careggi, 27;
+    letter to, from his father, 29–30;
+    character of, by J. A. Symonds, 30–31;
+    death of, at Careggi, described by A. Poliziano, 32–34;
+    letter of, about Guido Cavalcanti, 60;
+    at Fiesole, 82;
+    sonnet on the violet by, 82;
+    dedication by Jacopo Poggio to, 83;
+    attempted murder of, described by Mecatti, 83–84;
+    gives hospitality to A. Poliziano at Fiesole, 86;
+    praise of, in Poliziano’s poem _Rusticus_, 86; 124;
+    Luigi Pulci mentioned by, 127.
+
+  —— Lorenzo de’, Duke of Urbino, 20.
+
+  —— Lucrezia de’, 18;
+    letter to from A. Poliziano, 19; 30; 127.
+
+  —— Marguerite Louise de’ (of Orleans), 13;
+    retires to Poggio a Cajano, 14.
+
+  —— Maria de’, leaves Florence as bride of Henry IV, of France, 89.
+
+  —— —— (Salviati) at Trebbio, 21;
+    death of, 69; 99.
+
+  —— Maria Maddalena de’ (of Austria), buys Villa Baroncelli and
+        changes its name to Poggio Imperiale, 45; 69.
+
+  —— Mattias de’, 48.
+
+  —— Pietro de’, Don, 21;
+    murders his wife Donna Eleonora at Cafaggiuolo, 22;
+    murder of Donna Eleonora by, described by Francesco I, 23;
+    accused of poisoning his little son, 23.
+
+  —— Pier Francesco de’, Castello built by, 65.
+
+  —— Piero de’, letter from, to his sons on death of Cosimo de’
+        Medici, 29–30.
+
+  —— The, exiled from Florence, 35, 36.
+
+  —— Violante de’ (of Bavaria) 45;
+    lives at Lappeggi, 51; 95.
+
+  —— Vittoria de’ (della Rovere), 15;
+    buys Poggio Imperiale of her husband, 45; 78.
+
+  MEDICI, VILLA, at Fiesole, 81–88.
+
+  MEDICI, VILLA, description by Vasari of, 82;
+    Lorenzo the Magnificent at, 82;
+    murder of Lorenzo and Giuliano de’ Medici planned to take place at,
+        82;
+    description by A. Poliziano of, 86;
+    Countess of Orford at, 87;
+    sales of, 87.
+
+  Mensola, The, celebrated in the _Ninfale Fiesolane_, 133.
+
+  —— San Martino a, one of the oldest churches in Tuscany, 133; 134.
+
+  Michelozzi, Michelozzo, architect of Cafaggiuolo, 17;
+    architect of Careggi, 27; 28;
+    architect of Medicean villa at Fiesole, 82; 97.
+
+  Mirandola, Pico della, description by A. Poliziano of, 31–32; 33, 34,
+        82, 86, 137.
+
+  Montaigne, M. de, description of Pratolino by, 93.
+
+  Montauto, Otto da, mission to Trebbio of, described by B. Varchi, 21.
+
+  —— Villa, tower of, described by N. Hawthorne in _Transformation_,
+        63.
+
+  Montefeltro, Federigo di, 38;
+    Republic of Florence gives Rusciano to, 39.
+
+  MONTE GUFFONE, VILLA di, 120–125.
+
+  —— description of, 120–121;
+    built by the Grand Seneschal Acciajuoli, 121;
+    Queen Joan of Naples at, 122;
+    meeting of Clarice de’ Medici and her children near, described by
+        Ser Matteo Franco, 124–125.
+
+  Montelupo, Plates and jugs of, 90; 118.
+
+  Moreni, D., quoted, 26, 57.
+
+  Mozzi, Cavaliere, Medici Villa at Fiesole left by Lady Orford to, 87.
+
+
+  N
+
+  Napoleon I, 59, 142.
+
+  Nicholas II, Pope, 37.
+
+
+  O
+
+  Ombrellino, Villa dell’, Galileo Galilei lives at, 62.
+
+  Orford, Countess of, buys Medicean Villa at Fiesole, 86, 87.
+
+  Orleans, Marguerite Louise of, life of described by Martinelli, 14.
+
+
+  P
+
+  Paget, Lady, restoration of Villa di Bellosguardo by, 61.
+
+  Palagi, G., quoted, 52.
+
+  PALMIERI, VILLA, 1–7.
+
+  —— old names of, 1;
+    bought by Matteo Palmieri, 1;
+    transformed by Palmiero Palmieri, 1;
+    bought by Earl of Crawford, 1;
+    inhabited by Earl Cowper, 4;
+    bought by Miss Farhill, 5;
+    left to the Grand Duchess of Tuscany, 6;
+    lent by Countess of Crawford to H. M. Queen Victoria, 6;
+    identified with the second villa described in the _Decameron_, 6;
+    described by Baldelli, 6;
+    described by Boccaccio, 6; 98.
+
+  Pasolini, Count Giuseppe, buys Font’ all’ Erta, 113;
+    joins the “Young Italy” party, 114;
+    political life of, 115;
+    death of, 115.
+
+  —— Count Pier Desiderio, quoted, 68.
+
+  Passerini, Count Silvio, present owner of Artimino, 151.
+
+  Pazzi, Jacopo de’, 83, 84.
+
+  —— Francesco de’, 83;
+    hung out of the window of Palazzo della Signoria, 84.
+
+  Peter Igneus, St., goes through ordeal by fire at Badia a Settimo,
+        128.
+
+  PETRAJA, VILLA della, 53–58.
+
+  —— tree of Victor Emanuel at, 53;
+    fountain at, described by Vasari, 54;
+    defence by the Brunelleschi of, described by S. Ammirato, 54;
+    owned by the Strozzi, 55;
+    Cosimo I, lives at, 56;
+    favourite villa of Ferdinando de’ Medici, 57;
+    Scipione Ammirato lives at, 57;
+    Victor Emanuel at, 58.
+
+  Petrucci, Cesare, Gonfalonier of Florence, orders the Archbishop of
+        Pisa and others to be hung, 84.
+
+  Pietro Leopoldo I, 46, 54, 70, 151.
+
+  Pitti, Luca, builds Rusciano, 37;
+    wise words of Cosimo de’ Medici to, 38;
+    character of, 39.
+
+  Pius II, Pope, 56.
+
+  —— V, Pope, 41.
+
+  —— IX, Pope, 79, 114.
+
+  Poccetti, Bernardino, ceiling by, at Careggi, 27.
+
+  POGGIO A CAJANO, VILLA di, 8–15.
+
+  —— built by Lorenzo de’ Medici, 8;
+    frescoes in, 8–9;
+    gardens of, 9;
+    mentioned by B. Varchi, 10;
+    Cosimo I, and his bride at, 11;
+    Francesco de’ Medici and Joan of Austria at, 11;
+    Cardinal de’ Medici at, 11;
+    death of Francesco I, and of Bianca Cappello at, 12–13;
+    Christine of Lorraine received at, 13;
+    Marguerite Louise of Orleans retires to, 14; 152.
+
+  POGGIO GHERARDO, VILLA di, 131–138.
+
+  —— owned by the Magaldi, 131;
+    various owners of, 132;
+    description of, 132–133;
+    mentioned by S. Rogers, 134;
+    identified with first villa mentioned in the Decameron, 134;
+    description of, by Boccaccio, 136.
+
+  POGGIO IMPERIALE, VILLA di, 41–47.
+
+  —— first name of, 41;
+    various owners of, 41;
+    duel between L. Martelli and G. Bandini at, 42–44;
+    given by Cosimo I, to his daughter Isabella, 44;
+    bought by the Grand Duchess Maria Maddalena and named Poggio
+        Imperiale, 45;
+    bought by the Grand Duchess Vittoria, 45;
+    Violante of Bavaria at, 45;
+    Pietro Leopoldo enlarges, 46;
+    Charles Emanuel IV, at, 46;
+    Queen of Etruria builds Loggia at, 46;
+    Elise Bonaparte at, 47;
+    Carlo Alberto, Prince of Carignano, at, 47;
+    Victor Emanuel narrowly escapes being burnt to death at, 47.
+
+  Poggio, Jacopo del, dedication to Lorenzo de’ Medici by, 83;
+    hanging of, for murder of Giuliano de’ Medici, 84.
+
+  Poliziano, Angelo, letter from, on Lorenzo de’ Medici’s pet horse, 10;
+    letter to Lucrezia de’ Medici from, 19;
+    dismissal of, by Clarice de’ Medici, 20; 27;
+    praise of Lorenzo de’ Medici by, 31;
+    description of Pico della Mirandola by, 31;
+    letter to Jacopo Antiquario on the death of Lorenzo de’ Medici by,
+        32–34; 35, 82;
+    letter to Marsilio Ficino by, 86;
+    praise of Lorenzo de’ Medici in _Rusticus_ by, 86; 137;
+    praise of the brothers Benivieni by, 138.
+
+  Pontormo, Jacopo da, fresco by, 9.
+
+  PRATOLINO, VILLA di, 90–96.
+
+  —— built by Francesco I, 91;
+    Bernardo Buontalenti, architect of, 91;
+    engravings by Stefano Della Bella of, 91;
+    description by Bernardo Sgrilli of, 92;
+    statue of the Apennines at, 92;
+    Bianca Cappello at, 92;
+    sonnet by Tasso on, 92;
+    described by Montaigne, 93;
+    mentioned by Sir Henry Wotton, 94;
+    ambassador of Prince of Transylvania goes to, 94;
+    described by John Evelyn, 94;
+    theatre built by Prince Ferdinando de’ Medici at, 95;
+    destroyed by Ferdinando of Lorraine, 96;
+    grottoes and statues of, destroyed by Leopoldo II, 96;
+    bought by Prince Demidoff, 96.
+
+  Pulci, Antonia, a poetess, wife of Bernardo Pulci, 127.
+
+  —— Bernardo, a pastoral poet, 127.
+
+  —— Jacopo di Rinaldo, his son and grandsons, 126.
+
+  —— Luca, author of the _Ciriffo Calvaneo_, &c., 126.
+
+  —— Luigi, 27;
+    author of the _Morgante Maggiore_, 126;
+    mentioned by Lorenzo de’ Medici in his poem on hawking, 127;
+    jokes on his name by Ser Matteo Franco, 127;
+    poem by, translated by Lord Byron, 127;
+    description of poem by, 127;
+    J. A. Symonds on poem by, 127–128.
+
+  —— The three brothers, celebrated by Verino, 127.
+
+
+  Q
+
+  Quentin, St., silver casket containing bones of, 129.
+
+
+  R
+
+  Rasponi della Testa, Countess Angelica, present owner of Font’ all’
+        Erta, 115.
+
+  Redi, Dr Francesco, 50;
+    praise of vineyards of Petraja and Castello by, 70; 89;
+    praise of Salviati’s wine by, 138;
+    praise of wine of Artimino by, 151.
+
+  Riario, Count Gugliemo, assists in planning murder of Lorenzo and
+        Giuliano de’ Medici, 83.
+
+  Ricca, G., quoted, 4.
+
+  Robbia, Della, frieze by one of the, 9;
+    Madonna by, 113;
+    frieze by one of the, 129.
+
+  Rogers, Samuel, on Florence, 40;
+    on Galileo, 62–63;
+    on Poggio Gherardo, 133–134.
+
+  Roscoe, W., quoted, 32.
+
+  Ross, Henry James, present owner of Poggio Gherardo, 132.
+
+  Rossellino, Antonio, 116, 117.
+
+  Rovere, Frederigo Ubaldo della, 45.
+
+  —— Vittoria della, see Medici.
+
+  RUSCIANO, VILLA di, 37–40.
+
+  —— first mention of, 37;
+    built by Luca Pitti, 37;
+    famous window at, 38;
+    bought by Republic of Florence and presented to Federigo of
+        Montefeltro, 39;
+    various sales of, 39;
+    view from, 40;
+    garden of, 40.
+
+
+  S
+
+  SALVIATI, Alemanno, 97.
+
+  —— Averardo, Villa Delle Selve lent to Galileo by, 140.
+
+  —— Francesco, Archbishop of Pisa, murder of Lorenzo and Giuliano
+        de’ Medici approved by, 83;
+    hanging of, 84.
+
+  —— Giuliano, insults Luisa Strozzi, 99.
+
+  —— Jacopo, brother of Archbishop, 83.
+
+  —— Jacopo, brother-in-law of Lorenzo de’ Medici, 99.
+
+  —— Jacopo, Duke of Giuliano, marriage of, to Veronica Cybo
+        described by G. Beggi, 100–102;
+    falls in love with Caterina Canaccj, 102;
+    tragic love story of, 103–106.
+
+  —— Maria, see Medici.
+
+  SALVIATI, VILLA, 97–107.
+
+  —— description of, 97–98;
+    left by Cardinal Gregorio Salviati to Princess Borghese, 106;
+    bought by Mario (Duca di Candia), 106;
+    Signor Turri, present owner of, 107.
+
+  Salviatino, Villa del, good wine of, praised by Redi, 138.
+
+  San Gallo, Giuliano da, architect of Poggio a Cajano, 8.
+
+  Santi di Tito, works for Agostino Dini at I Collazzi, 144.
+
+  Savonarola, Fra Girolamo, at deathbed of Lorenzo de’ Medici, 33–34.
+
+  Scarlatti, letter to Prince Ferdinando de’ Medici by, 95.
+
+  Segré, Comm., present owner of Careggi, 36.
+
+  Selve, Le, church of, 142;
+    apparition of the Virgin to Sant’ Andrea Corsini in, 142;
+    Feast of the Miraculous Crucifix at, 142.
+
+  SELVE, VILLA Delle, 139–142.
+
+  —— first mention of, 139;
+    bought by the Strozzi, 139;
+    bought by Averardo Salviati and lent to Galileo, 140;
+    room of Galileo in, 140;
+    view from, 140–141;
+    Countess Capelli, present owner of, 142.
+
+  Settignano, Desiderio da, 38, 118;
+    Ambrey by, 129.
+
+  —— Simone da, and his son Francesco, 118.
+
+  —— Village of, 116;
+    famous men of, 118.
+
+  Settimanni, 23.
+
+  Settimo, Badia a, 126;
+    campanile of, 128;
+    St Peter Igneus goes through ordeal by fire at, 128;
+    given to the Cistercians, 129;
+    alto-relievo at, 129;
+    description of, 129–130.
+
+  Sforza, Caterina, see Medici.
+
+  Sgrilli, B., quoted, 92.
+
+  Signa, Beata, Beata Giovanna of, 141;
+    _Festa degli Angeli_ at, 141.
+
+  —— Lastra a, walls built by Sir John Hawkwood, 141.
+
+  —— Ponte a, 142.
+
+  Sixtus IV, Pope, murder of Lorenzo and Giuliano de’ Medici planned
+        by, 82–83.
+
+  Stegmann, Dr Carl von, on window at Rusciano, 38.
+
+  Stumm, Baron von, present owner of Rusciano, 39.
+
+  Strozzi, Alexandra, character of Luca Pitti by, 39.
+
+  —— Clarice (de’ Medici), 139.
+
+  —— Filippo, exiled by Cosimo de’ Medici, 55.
+
+  —— Filippo, 99;
+    sends his wife Clarice de’ Medici to Florence, 139.
+
+  —— Lorenzo, 51.
+
+  —— Palla, 55.
+
+  Symonds, J. A., translation of Poliziano by, 9;
+    quoted, 19; 29;
+    character of Lorenzo de’ Medici by, 30–31; 32; 118;
+    criticism on Pulci’s Morgante Maggiore by, 128.
+
+
+  T
+
+  Tasso, Torquato, 62;
+    sonnets by, translated by R. C. Trevelyan, 92, 93.
+
+  Toledo, Eleonora of, see Medici.
+
+  Transylvania, Ambassador of Prince of, at Pratolino, 94.
+
+  Trebbio, Castle of, Otto da Montauto’s mission to, 21.
+
+  Trevelyan, R. C., Translation of Ariosto by, 53–54;
+    translation of sonnet by Lorenzo de’ Medici by, 82;
+    translation of A. Poliziano by, 86;
+    translations of sonnets by Tasso by, 92, 93.
+
+  Tribolo, Fountain at Petraja by, 54;
+    fountain at Castello attributed to, 66;
+    statue of Apennines by, 66; 118.
+
+  Turri, Signor, present owner of Villa Salviati, 107.
+
+
+  U
+
+  Urban VIII, Pope, 63, 77, 78, 100.
+
+  Urbino, Guidobaldo, Duke of, sells Rusciano, 39.
+
+
+  V
+
+  “Valley of the Ladies,” seen from Font’ all’ Erta, 113; 114;
+    situated under Prof. Fiske’s Villa, 137.
+
+  Valori, Villa of the, 137.
+
+  Varchi, Benedetto, departure of Cardinal, Ippolito and Alessandro de’
+        Medici for Poggio a Cajano described by, 10;
+    mission of Otto da Montauto to Trebbio described by, 21;
+    Montughi and Careggi mentioned by, 26;
+    burning of Careggi and Castello described by, 36;
+    duel between G. Bandini and L. Martelli described by, 42–44;
+    love of, for Tullia d’Arragona, 56;
+    reception of Duke of Urbino described by, 68–69;
+    Fiesole described by, 81;
+    scene between Filippo Strozzi and Jacopo Salviati described by, 99;
+        110, 126;
+    Clarice Strozzi’s journey to Florence described by, 139.
+
+  Vasari, Giorgio, description of Palmieri’s picture by, 3; 8; note, 4;
+        10;
+    Cafaggiuolo mentioned by, 17;
+    Rusciano mentioned by, 37;
+    description of fountain at Petraja by, 54; 65, 66;
+    description of Medicean villa at Fiesole by, 82; 97, 116, 117, 118,
+        119, 128, 137, 144.
+
+  Verino, The three brothers Pulci mentioned by, 127.
+
+  Victor Emanuel, King of Italy, narrow escape of being burnt alive as
+        a child, 47;
+    tree at Petraja of, 53;
+    Petraja favourite villa of, 58.
+
+  Villani, Matteo, 67; 108;
+    funeral of Lorenzo Acciajuoli, described by, 122;
+    siege of the castle of Artimino, described by, 150.
+
+  Villari, Pasquale, Prof., 34, 35.
+
+
+  W
+
+  Wade, Sir Willoughby, present owner of villa of the Benivieni, 138.
+
+  Walpole, Horace, criticism on Zoffany’s picture of the Tribune by, 5.
+
+  Watts, G. F., fresco by, at Careggi, 27.
+
+  Wotton, Sir Henry, letter from, 93.
+
+
+  Z
+
+  Zati, The, once Lords of Poggio, 132;
+    picture given to the Church of San Martino a Mensola by, 133.
+
+        [Illustration: (Drawing of Statue by stairs and bridge)]
+
+
+                TURNBULL AND SPEARS, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH
+
+
+
+
+  TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE
+
+
+  Illustrations in this eBook have been positioned between paragraphs
+  and outside quotations. In versions of this eBook that support
+  hyperlinks, the page references in the List of Illustrations lead to
+  the corresponding illustrations.
+
+  Illustrations without captions have had a description added, this is
+  denoted with parentheses.
+
+  The index was not checked for proper alphabetization or correct page
+  references.
+
+  Obvious typographical errors and punctuation errors have been
+  corrected after careful comparison with other occurrences within the
+  text and consultation of external sources. Otherwise misspellings in
+  the text, and inconsistent or archaic usage, have been retained.
+
+  Some hyphens in words have been silently removed, some added, when a
+  predominant preference was found in the original book.
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76926 ***
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+<body>
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76926 ***</div>
+
+
+<div class="transnote">
+<strong>TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE</strong>
+
+
+<p class="noindent">Some minor changes to the text are noted at the <a href="#ENDNOTE">end of the book</a>.</p>
+</div>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+</div>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp60" id="cover">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/cover.jpg" alt="(Cover)">
+</figure>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<h1>
+FLORENTINE<br>
+VILLAS
+</h1>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p class="center p6 fs75">
+<i>This Edition is limited to 200 copies for England</i><br>
+<i>and 100 copies for America</i><br>
+</p>
+<p class="center p6 fs75">
+<i>All rights reserved</i>
+</p>
+</div>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter"></div>
+<figure class="figcenter illowp50" id="i_004" >
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_004.jpg"
+alt="Cast of the face of Lorenzo The Magnificent,
+taken after death">
+</figure>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p class="center fs300 lsp1 red p2">
+FLORENTINE<br>
+VILLAS<br>
+</p>
+<p class="center">
+
+<span class="fs75">BY</span><br><br>
+<span class="lsp1 fs150">JANET ROSS</span><br>
+</p>
+<p class="center p2 fs120 pb4">
+<span class=allsmcap>WITH REPRODUCTIONS IN PHOTOGRAVURE</span><br>
+<span class=wsp3>FROM ZOCCHI’S ETCHINGS</span><br>
+<span class=allsmcap>AND MANY LINE DRAWINGS OF THE VILLAS</span><br>
+<span class=wsp3>BY NELLY ERICHSEN</span>
+</p>
+<figure class="figcenter illowp15" id="colophon" >
+  <img class="w100" src="images/colophon.jpg" alt="Colophon">
+</figure>
+<p class="center p4 wsp3 lh15">
+<span class=red>LONDON: J. M. DENT &amp; CO.</span><br>
+<span class=fs80>NEW YORK: DUTTON &amp; CO.</span><br>
+<span class=allsmcap>MDCCCCI</span>
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p class="center wsp3 p4">
+<span class=lh18><span class=gothic>To</span><br>
+<span class=lsp2>MARGARET</span><br>
+COUNTESS <span class="allsmcap">OF</span> CRAWFORD <span class="allsmcap">AND</span> BALCARRES<br>
+</span><span class="allsmcap lh15 wsp15">THE OWNER OF ONE OF THE MOST BEAUTIFUL OF THE<br>
+FLORENTINE VILLAS<br>
+THIS BOOK IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED<br>
+IN MEMORY OF<br>
+OLD FAMILY TIES AND FRIENDSHIPS<br>
+BY HER COUSIN</span><br>
+<span class=fs75>JANET ROSS</span>
+</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_ix">[Pg ix]</span></p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+  <h2 class="nobreak p4" id="PREFACE">
+    PREFACE
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+<img class="drop-capi" src="images/i_009.jpg" alt="Stylized V">
+<p class="drop-capi">
+<span class=uc>Visitors</span> 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 <cite>National Review</cite> (May 1894) called “A stroll
+in Boccaccio’s country,” dealing chiefly with the two villas described by him in
+the <cite>Decameron</cite> 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 <cite lang="it">Vedute delle Ville e d’altri luoghi della Toscana</cite> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.”</p>
+
+<p>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
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_x">[x]</span>
+the dust and heat of the town made life irksome. The <span lang="it">“villegiatura”</span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<span lang="it">Società Colombaria</span>, 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 <span lang="it">Font’ all ’Erta</span>; 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.</p>
+
+<p class="right pad1r">
+  JANET ROSS.
+</p>
+
+<p class="fs75">
+  <span class="smcap">Poggio Gherardo,</span><br>
+  <span class="smcap pad3">Florence.</span>
+</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_xi">[xi]</span></p>
+<div class="chapter">
+
+  <h2 class="nobreak p4" id="CONTENTS">
+    CONTENTS
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+
+<table class="autotable wd70">
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl hang1"><span lang="it">VILLA PALMIERI</span></td>
+<td class="tdc"><i>Page</i></td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl hang1"><span lang="it">VILLA DI POGGIO A CAJANO</span></td>
+<td class="tdcb">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_8">8</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl hang1"><span lang="it">CAFAGGIUOLO</span></td>
+<td class="tdcb">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_16">16</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl hang1"><span lang="it">VILLA DI CAREGGI</span></td>
+<td class="tdcb">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_26">26</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl hang1"><span lang="it">VILLA DI RUSCIANO</span></td>
+<td class="tdcb">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_37">37</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl hang1"><span lang="it">VILLA DI POGGIO IMPERIALE</span></td>
+<td class="tdcb">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_41">41</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl hang1"><span lang="it">VILLA DI LAPPEGGI</span></td>
+<td class="tdcb">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_48">48</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl hang1"><span lang="it">VILLA DELLA PETRAJA</span></td>
+<td class="tdcb">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_53">53</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl hang1"><span lang="it">VILLA DI BELLOSGUARDO</span></td>
+<td class="tdcb">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_59">59</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl hang1"><span lang="it">VILLA DI CASTELLO</span></td>
+<td class="tdcb">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_65">65</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl hang1"><span lang="it">VILLA CORSINI AT CASTELLO</span></td>
+<td class="tdcb">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_71">71</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl hang1"><span lang="it">VILLA MEDICI AT FIESOLE</span></td>
+<td class="tdcb">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_81">81</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl hang1"><span lang="it">VILLA DELL’ AMBROGIANA</span></td>
+<td class="tdcb">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_88">88</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl hang1"><span lang="it">VILLA DI PRATOLINO</span></td>
+<td class="tdcb">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_91">91</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl hang1"><span lang="it">VILLA SALVIATI</span></td>
+<td class="tdcb">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_97">97</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl hang1"><span lang="it">VILLA DI FONT’ ALL’ ERTA</span></td>
+<td class="tdcb">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_108">108</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl hang1"><span lang="it">VILLA DI GAMBERAIA</span></td>
+<td class="tdcb">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_116">116</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl hang1"><span lang="it">VILLA DI MONTE GUFFONE</span></td>
+<td class="tdcb">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_120">120</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl hang1"><span lang="it">VILLA DI CASTEL-PULCI</span></td>
+<td class="tdcb">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_126">126</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl hang1"><span lang="it">VILLA DI POGGIO GHERARDO</span></td>
+<td class="tdcb">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_131">131</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl hang1"><span lang="it">VILLA DELLE SELVE</span></td>
+<td class="tdcb">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_139">139</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl hang1"><span lang="it">VILLA I COLLAZZI</span></td>
+<td class="tdcb">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_143">143</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl hang1"><span lang="it">VILLA FERDINANDA A ARTIMINO</span></td>
+<td class="tdcb">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_148">148</a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_xiii">[xiii]</span></p>
+
+  <h2 class="nobreak p4" id="LIST_OF_ILLUSTRATIONS">
+    LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+
+ <h3> PHOTOGRAVURES</h3>
+
+<table class="autotable wd70">
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl hang1">CAST OF THE FACE OF LORENZO THE MAGNIFICENT, TAKEN AFTER DEATH</td>
+<td class="tdc" colspan="2"><i><a href="#i_004">Frontispiece</a></i></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl hang1"><span lang="it">VILLA PALMIERI</span></td>
+<td class="tdc" ><i>Facing page</i> </td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#i_018">1</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+
+<td class="tdl hang1"><span lang="it">VILLA DI POGGIO A CAJANO</span></td>
+<td class="tdc wd6e">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#i_031">8</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+
+<td class="tdl hang1"><span lang="it">CAFAGGIUOLO</span></td>
+<td class="tdcb">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#i_043">16</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+
+<td class="tdl hang1"><span lang="it">VILLA DI CAREGGI</span></td>
+<td class="tdcb">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#i_057">26</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+
+<td class="tdl hang1">MEDALS OF <span lang="it">COSIMO PATER PATRIAE</span>, <span lang="it">LORENZO DE’ MEDICI</span> AND <span lang="it">MARSILIO FICINO</span></td>
+<td class="tdcb">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#i_070">37</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+
+<td class="tdl hang1"><span lang="it">VILLA DI POGGIO IMPERIALE</span></td>
+<td class="tdcb">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#i_080">41</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+
+<td class="tdl hang1"><span lang="it">VILLA DI LAPPEGGI</span></td>
+<td class="tdcb">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#i_093">48</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+
+<td class="tdl hang1"><span lang="it">VILLA DELLA PETRAJA</span></td>
+<td class="tdcb">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#i_100">53</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+
+<td class="tdl hang1">MEDALS OF COSIMO II, <span lang="it">BIANCA CAPPELLO</span> AND <span lang="it">MARIA MADDALENA D’AUSTRIA</span></td>
+<td class="tdcb">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#i_110">59</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+
+<td class="tdl hang1"><span lang="it">VILLA DI CASTELLO</span></td>
+<td class="tdcb">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#i_122">65</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+
+<td class="tdl hang1"><span lang="it">VILLA CORSINI AT CASTELLO</span></td>
+<td class="tdcb">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#i_132">71</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+
+<td class="tdl hang1">MEDALS OF <span lang="it">CATERINA SFORZA</span>, <span lang="it">SAVONAROLA</span> AND <span lang="it">PICO DELLA MIRANDOLA</span></td>
+<td class="tdcb">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#i_146">81</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+
+<td class="tdl hang1"><span lang="it">VILLA DELL’ AMBROGIANA</span></td>
+<td class="tdcb">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#i_159">88</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+
+<td class="tdl hang1"><span lang="it">VILLA DI PRATOLINO</span></td>
+<td class="tdcb">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#i_164">91</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+
+<td class="tdl hang1"><span lang="it">VILLA SALVIATI</span></td>
+<td class="tdcb">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#i_174">97</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+
+<td class="tdl hang1">MEDALS OF <span lang="it">COSIMO I, DE’ MEDICI</span>, <span lang="it">ALESSANDRO DE’ MEDICI</span>, FERDINANDO I AND CHRISTINE OF LORRAINE</td>
+<td class="tdcb">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#i_191">108</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+
+<td class="tdl hang1"><span lang="it">VILLA DI GAMBERAIA</span></td>
+<td class="tdcb">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#i_203">116</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+
+<td class="tdl hang1"><span lang="it">VILLA DI MONTE GUFFONE</span></td>
+<td class="tdcb">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#i_211">120</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+
+<td class="tdl hang1"><span lang="it">VILLA DI CASTEL-PULCI</span></td>
+<td class="tdcb">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#i_221">126</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+
+<td class="tdl hang1">MEDALS OF BOCCACCIO, MICHELANGELO AND DUKE FEDERIGO OF URBINO</td>
+<td class="tdcb">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#i_228">131</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+
+<td class="tdl hang1"><span lang="it">VILLA DELLE SELVE</span></td>
+<td class="tdcb">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#i_240">139</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+
+<td class="tdl hang1"><span lang="it">VILLA I COLLAZZI</span></td>
+<td class="tdcb">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#i_248">143</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+
+<td class="tdl hang1"><span lang="it">VILLA FERDINANDA A ARTIMINO</span></td>
+<td class="tdcb">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#i_259">148</a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_xiv">[xiv]</span></p>
+
+
+<h3>  ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT</h3>
+
+
+<table class="autotable wd70">
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlt hang1" colspan="4"><span lang="it">VILLA PALMIERI</span>:</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc wd5"></td>
+<td class="tdl hang1">THE TERRACE</td>
+<td class="tdc wd6e"><i>Page</i></td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#i_021a">1</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc"></td>
+<td class="tdl hang1">THE VILLA AND TERRACE FROM THE LOWER GARDEN</td>
+<td class="tdcb">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#i_027">7</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlt hang1" colspan="4"><span lang="it">VILLA DI POGGIO A CAJANO</span>:</td></tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc"></td>
+<td class="tdl hang1">THE FACADE</td>
+<td class="tdcb">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#i_028a">8</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlt hang1" colspan="4"><span lang="it">CAFAGGIUOLO</span>:</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc"></td>
+<td class="tdl hang1">THE FACADE</td>
+<td class="tdcb">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#i_040a">16</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc"></td>
+<td class="tdl hang1">CASTLE OF TREBBIO</td>
+<td class="tdcb">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#i_053">25</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlt hang1" colspan="4"><span lang="it">VILLA DI CAREGGI</span>:</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc"></td>
+<td class="tdl hang1">THE GARDEN FRONT WITH <span lang="it">LORENZO DE’ MEDICI’S</span> <span lang="it">LOGGIA</span></td>
+<td class="tdcb">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#i_054a">26</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc"></td>
+<td class="tdl hang1">ANOTHER VIEW OF THE VILLA</td>
+<td class="tdcb">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#i_067">35</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlt hang1" colspan="4"><span lang="it">VILLA DI RUSCIANO</span>:</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc"></td>
+<td class="tdl hang1">THE NORTH FACADE</td>
+<td class="tdcb">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#i_073a">37</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc"></td>
+<td class="tdl hang1">BRUNELLESCHI’S WINDOW</td>
+<td class="tdcb">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#i_074">38</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc"></td>
+<td class="tdl hang1">VIEW OF FLORENCE FROM THE VILLA</td>
+<td class="tdcb"><i>facing page</i></td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#i_075">38</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlt hang1" colspan="4"><span lang="it">VILLA DI POGGIO IMPERIALE</span>:</td></tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc"></td>
+<td class="tdl hang1">THE FORMAL GARDEN</td>
+<td class="tdcb"><i>page</i></td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#i_083a">41</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc"></td>
+<td class="tdl hang1">THE GREAT ENTRANCE</td>
+<td class="tdcb">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#i_088">46</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlt hang1" colspan="4"><span lang="it">VILLA DI LAPPEGGI</span>:</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc"></td>
+<td class="tdl hang1">THE TERRACE AND VILLA</td>
+<td class="tdcb">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#i_090a">48</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlt hang1" colspan="4"><span lang="it">VILLA DELLA PETRAJA</span>:</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc"></td>
+<td class="tdl hang1">THE VILLA, WITH VICTOR EMANUEL’S ILEX</td>
+<td class="tdcb">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#i_103a">53</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc"></td>
+<td class="tdl hang1">THE FOUNTAIN OF VENUS, BY TRIBOLO AND GIOVANNI DA BOLOGNA</td>
+<td class="tdcb">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#i_108">58</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlt hang1" colspan="4"><span lang="it">VILLA DI BELLOSGUARDO</span>:</td></tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc"></td>
+<td class="tdl hang1">THE NORTH FACADE AND TOWER</td>
+<td class="tdcb">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#i_113a">59</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc"> </td>
+<td class="tdl hang1">DISTANT VIEW OF THE VILLA FROM THE <span lang="it">PODERE</span> OF THE VILLA DELL’ OMBRELLINO</td>
+<td class="tdcb"><i>facing page</i></td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#i_117">62</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc"> </td>
+<td class="tdl hang1"><span lang="it">MONTAUTO</span>, WITH THE TOWER OF BELLOSGUARDO IN THE DISTANCE</td>
+<td class="tdcb"><i>page</i></td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#i_120">64</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlt hang1" colspan="4">VILLA DI CASTELLO:</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc"> </td>
+<td class="tdl hang1">THE GARDEN AND FOUNTAIN OF HERCULES, BY TRIBOLO AND AMMANNATI</td>
+<td class="tdcb">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#i_125a">65</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc"></td>
+<td class="tdl hang1">THE “APENNINES” FOUNTAIN</td>
+<td class="tdcb">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#i_130">70</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlt hang1" colspan="4"><span lang="it">VILLA CORSINI AT CASTELLO</span>:</td></tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc"></td>
+<td class="tdl hang1">THE BOSCO AND FOUNTAIN</td>
+<td class="tdcb">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#i_135">71</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc"> </td>
+<td class="tdl hang1">SIR ROBERT DUDLEY’S INSTRUMENT FOR FINDING THE EBB AND
+FLOW OF THE TIDES <br>
+<i><span class="fs80 pad1">(By Permission of Mr Temple Leader)</span></i></td>
+<td class="tdcb">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#i_139">75</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc"></td>
+<td class="tdl hang1">THE ROCOCO FACADE</td>
+<td class="tdcb">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#i_144">80</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlt hang1" colspan="4"><span lang="it">VILLA MEDICI AT FIESOLE</span>:</td></tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc"> </td>
+<td class="tdl hang1">DISTANT VIEW OF THE VILLA AND MONASTERY OF SAN FRANCESCO AT FIESOLE, FROM SAN DOMENICO</td>
+<td class="tdcb">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#i_149a">81</a><span class="pagenum" id="Page_xv">[xv]</span></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc"></td>
+<td class="tdl hang1">GENERAL VIEW OF THE VILLA</td>
+<td class="tdcb">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#i_153">85</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc"></td>
+<td class="tdl hang1">THE TERRACE WITH FIESOLE IN THE BACKGROUND</td>
+<td class="tdcb">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#i_155">87</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlt hang1" colspan="4"><span lang="it">VILLA DELL’ AMBROGIANA</span>:</td></tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc"></td>
+<td class="tdl hang1">THE VILLA FROM THE COURTYARD</td>
+<td class="tdcb">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#i_156a">88</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc"></td>
+<td class="tdl hang1">THE TOWN OF MONTELUPO</td>
+<td class="tdcb">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#i_162">90</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlt hang1" colspan="4"><span lang="it">VILLA DI PRATOLINO</span>:</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc"></td>
+<td class="tdl hang1">THE SERVITE MONASTERY AT MONTE SENARIO</td>
+<td class="tdcb">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#i_167a">91</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc"></td>
+<td class="tdl hang1"><span lang="it">L’APPENNINO</span>, GIGANTIC STATUE BY GIOVANNI DA BOLOGNA</td>
+<td class="tdcb">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#i_172">96</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlt hang1" colspan="4"><span lang="it">VILLA SALVIATI</span>:</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc"></td>
+<td class="tdl hang1">GENERAL VIEW OF THE VILLA</td>
+<td class="tdcb">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#i_177a">97</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc"></td>
+<td class="tdl hang1">THE VILLA FROM THE TERRACE</td>
+<td class="tdcb">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#i_187">107</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlt hang1" colspan="4"><span lang="it">VILLA DI FONT’ ALL’ ERTA</span>:</td></tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc"> </td>
+<td class="tdl hang1">BOCCACCIO’S “<span lang="it">VALLE DELLE DONNE</span>” WITH VILLA LANDOR IN THE DISTANCE</td>
+<td class="tdcb">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#i_188a">108</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc"></td>
+<td class="tdl hang1">AMMANNATI’S <span lang="it">LOGGIA</span></td>
+<td class="tdcb">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#i_195">111</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc"></td>
+<td class="tdl hang1">VIEW OF THE VILLA BY COL. GOFF</td>
+<td class="tdcb">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#i_199">115</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlt hang1" colspan="4"><span lang="it">VILLA DI GAMBERAIA</span>:</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc"></td>
+<td class="tdl hang1">THE WATER GARDEN</td>
+<td class="tdcb">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#i_200a">116</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc"></td>
+<td class="tdl hang1">DISTANT VIEW OF THE VILLA</td>
+<td class="tdcb">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#i_207">119</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlt hang1" colspan="4"><span lang="it">VILLA DI MONTE GUFFONE</span>:</td></tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc"></td>
+<td class="tdl hang1">GENERAL VIEW OF THE VILLA</td>
+<td class="tdcb">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#i_208a">120</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc"></td>
+<td class="tdl hang1">THE VILLA AND TOWER</td>
+<td class="tdcb">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#i_217">125</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlt hang1" colspan="4"><span lang="it">VILLA DI CASTEL-PULCI</span>:</td></tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc"></td>
+<td class="tdl hang1">DISTANT VIEW OF THE VILLA FROM A PODERE</td>
+<td class="tdcb">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#i_218a">126</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc"></td>
+<td class="tdl hang1">THE GATEWAY OF THE BADIA A SETTIMO</td>
+<td class="tdcb">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#i_226">130</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlt hang1" colspan="4"><span lang="it">VILLA DI POGGIO GHERARDO</span>:</td></tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc"></td>
+<td class="tdl hang1">GENERAL VIEW OF THE VILLA FROM THE PODERE</td>
+<td class="tdcb">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#i_231a">131</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc"></td>
+<td class="tdl hang1">DISTANT VIEW OF THE VILLA</td>
+<td class="tdcb">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#i_235">135</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc"> </td>
+<td class="tdl hang1">VIEW OF FLORENCE FROM THE CYPRESS TREES OF POGGIO GHERARDO</td>
+<td class="tdcb">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#i_238">138</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlt hang1" colspan="4"><span lang="it">VILLA DELLE SELVE</span>:</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc"></td>
+<td class="tdl hang1">SIR JOHN HAWKWOOD’S WALLS AT <span lang="it">LASTRA A SIGNA</span></td>
+<td class="tdcb">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#i_243a">139</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc"></td>
+<td class="tdl hang1">THE VILLA, WITH GALILEO’S TERRACE</td>
+<td class="tdcb">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#i_246">142</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlt hang1" colspan="4"><span lang="it">VILLA I COLLAZZI</span>:</td></tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc"></td>
+<td class="tdl hang1">THE LOGGIA</td>
+<td class="tdcb">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#i_251a">143</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc"></td>
+<td class="tdl hang1">ON THE TERRACE</td>
+<td class="tdcb">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#i_255">147</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlt hang1" colspan="4"><span lang="it">VILLA FERDINANDA A ARTIMINO</span>:</td></tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc"></td>
+<td class="tdl hang1">GENERAL VIEW OF THE VILLA</td>
+<td class="tdcb">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#i_256a">148</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc"></td>
+<td class="tdl hang1">THE MEDICI SHIELD</td>
+<td class="tdcb">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#i_265">153</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlt hang1" colspan="4"><span lang="it">VILLA DI LAPPEGGI</span>:</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc"></td>
+<td class="tdl hang1">THE VIEW FROM THE TERRACE</td>
+<td class="tdcb">”</td>
+<td class="tdrb"><a href="#i_274">162</a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter"></div>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="i_018" >
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_018.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption>
+      <span lang="it">VILLA PALMIERI</span>
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_1">[1]</span></p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp90" id="i_021a" >
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_021a.jpg" alt="The Terrace">
+</figure>
+
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="VILLA_PALMIERI">
+    <span lang="it">VILLA PALMIERI</span>
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+<img class="drop-capi" src="images/i_021b.jpg" alt="Stylized S">
+<p class="drop-capi"><span class=uc lang="it">Schifanoja</span>
+(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
+<span lang="it">Schifanoja</span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_2">[2]</span></p>
+
+<p>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 <i lang="it">il Palmiero</i> (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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>His book <cite lang="it">Della Vita Civile</cite> was translated into French by de Rosiers;
+<cite lang="fr">De Captivitate Pisarum</cite>, and the Life of the Grand Seneschal Acciajuoli,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">[3]</span>written in Latin, were translated into Italian and published in a more or less
+mutilated form. But <cite lang="it">Città di Vita</cite>, 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
+<i lang="it">terza rima</i>, 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 <i lang="la">Poeta Theologicus</i>.
+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 <cite lang="it">Città di Vita</cite> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_4">[4]</span>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.”&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_1_1" href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> 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 <cite lang="it">Città di
+Vita</cite>. “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.”&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_2_2" href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></p>
+
+<p>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
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">[5]</span>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&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_3_3" href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a>
+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.”</p>
+
+<p>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.”</p>
+
+<p>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
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">[6]</span>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
+<cite>Decameron</cite>. 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.</p>
+
+<p>Villa Palmieri has always been identified with the second villa visited by
+the seven maidens and the three youths in the <cite>Decameron</cite>. 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.”</p>
+
+<p>Villa Palmieri will live for ever in Boccaccio’s exquisite and untranslatable
+<cite>Decameron</cite>. “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 <i lang="it">pergole</i>
+of vines laden with bunches of grapes, the hedges of jasmine and crimson
+roses, the carved marble fountains, whose overflow of water was conducted
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">[7]</span>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.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp90" id="i_027" >
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_027.jpg" alt="The Villa and Terrace from the Lower Garden">
+</figure>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_1_1" href="#FNanchor_1_1" class="label">[1]</a> 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 <i lang="it">Botticelli</i> for
+<i lang="it">Botticini</i>, just as he confused the name <i lang="it">Benozzo</i> with <i lang="it">Melozzo</i>. Vide ed. Sansoni, III. 51-2. I am indebted to
+Mr Herbert P. Horne for the above information.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_2_2" href="#FNanchor_2_2" class="label">[2]</a> Notizie Istoriche delle Chiese Fiorentine. G. Ricca. Tom. I. p. 155. Firenze, 1754.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_3_3" href="#FNanchor_3_3" class="label">[3]</a> 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.</p></div></div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">[8]</span></p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp90" id="i_028a" >
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_028a.jpg" alt="The Facade">
+</figure>
+
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="VILLA_DI_POGGIO_A_CAJANO">
+    <span lang="it">VILLA DI POGGIO A CAJANO</span>
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+<img class="drop-capi" src="images/t.jpg" alt="Stylized T">
+<p class="drop-capi">
+<span class=uc>There</span> 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.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="i_031" >
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_031.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption>
+      <span lang="it">VILLA <span class="allsmcap">DI</span> POGGIA <span class="allsmcap">A</span> CAJANO</span>.
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p>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
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[9]</span>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 <em>himself</em>, 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.”&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_4_4" href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.”&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_5_5" href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a></p>
+
+<p>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 <cite lang="it">Ambra</cite> in which
+the Florentine love of, and delight in, the country is vividly portrayed
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">[10]</span>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.”</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.”</p>
+
+<p>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
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[11]</span>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.”</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[12]</span>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.”</p>
+
+<p>“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,&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_6_6" href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> 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.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[13]</span>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.”&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_7_7" href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[14]</span>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.</p>
+
+<p>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....&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_8_8" href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> 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
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[15]</span>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp30" >
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_039.jpg" alt="Decorative emblum">
+</figure>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_4_4" href="#FNanchor_4_4" class="label">[4]</a> Bernhard Berenson, <cite>The Florentine Painters.</cite></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_5_5" href="#FNanchor_5_5" class="label">[5]</a> <cite lang="it">Carmina</cite>, etc., p. 224. Translated by J. A. Symonds.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_6_6" href="#FNanchor_6_6" class="label">[6]</a> 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_7_7" href="#FNanchor_7_7" class="label">[7]</a> Galuzzi. <cite lang="it">Istoria del Granducato di Toscana.</cite> Vol. IV. p. 54 <i lang="la">et seq.</i></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_8_8" href="#FNanchor_8_8" class="label">[8]</a> <cite lang="it">Lettere Familiare e Critiche di Vincenzio Martinelli.</cite>
+    Londra. Presso G. Nourse, Libraio nello Strand. 1758.</p></div></div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[16]</span></p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp90" id="i_040a" >
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_040a.jpg" alt="The Facade">
+</figure>
+
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="CAFAGGIUOLO">
+    <span lang="it">CAFAGGIUOLO</span>
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+<img class="drop-capi" src="images/s.jpg" alt="Stylized S">
+<p class="drop-capi">
+<span class=uc>Strictly</span> 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.&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_9_9" href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a></p>
+
+<p>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
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[17]</span>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.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="i_043" >
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_043.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption>
+      <span lang="it">CAFAGGIUOLO</span>.
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p>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.”&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_10_10" href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a></p>
+
+<p>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
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[18]</span>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 <i lang="la">per diem</i> in the
+town, but should they leave it the plague is indeed severe.”</p>
+
+<p>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,&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_11_11" href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> 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&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_12_12" href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> Lucrezia. Your sons Laurentius et Giulianus
+de’ Medicis.”</p>
+
+<p>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
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[19]</span>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.”</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Lorenzo and Giuliano de’ Medici often returned to Cafaggiuolo as young
+men, and with their friends the Pulci frequented the fairs and weekly
+markets of the Mugello. At one of these, Lorenzo met the heroine of that
+delightful country idyll <cite lang="it">Nencia da Barberino</cite>, “a masterpiece of true genius
+and humour. It can scarcely be called a parody of village life and feeling,
+although we cannot fail to see that the town is laughing at the country all
+through the exuberant stanzas, so rich in fancy, so incomparably vivid in
+description.”&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_13_13" href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> Luigi Pulci imitated it in <cite lang="it">La Istoria della Beca da Dicomano</cite>,
+while his brother Luca in the <cite lang="it">Driadeo d’Amore</cite> praises the rivers Sieve,
+Lora, Sturo and Tavaiano, and under feigned names describes the places
+where Lorenzo and Giuliano and the three brothers Pulci went hawking and
+fishing.</p>
+
+<p>After the Pazzi conspiracy and the murder of Giuliano in 1476, Lorenzo
+sent his wife Clarice with the children and their tutor Angelo Poliziano to
+Cafaggiuolo for safety. Poliziano wrote to Lucrezia, who had remained in
+Florence with her son: “Magnifica Domina mea. The news I can send from
+here is that we are all well, that we have so much and such continual rain
+that we cannot quit the house, and that we have exchanged hunting for
+playing at ball, so that the children may not want for exercise.... I remain
+in the house by the fireside in my slippers and greatcoat, and you would take
+me for melancholy in person could you see me; but perhaps I am but myself
+after all, for I neither do nor see nor hear anything that amuses me, so much
+have I taken to heart our calamities; sleeping and waking they haunt me.
+Two days since we began to spread our wings as we heard the plague had
+ceased, now we are again depressed on learning that things are not yet quite
+settled with you. When at Florence we have some consolation—if nought
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[20]</span>else that of seeing Lorenzo return home safe. Here we are always anxious
+about everything; and as for myself, I declare to you I am drowned in weary
+laziness for the solitude in which I find myself. I say solitude, because
+Monsignore [probably the Bishop of Arezzo] shuts himself up in his room,
+where I find him sorrowful and full of thought, so that being with him
+increases my own melancholy; Ser Alberto del Malherba mumbles offices all
+day long with the children; I remain alone, and when tired of studying ring
+the changes on plague and war, on sorrow for the past and fear for the
+future, and have no one with whom to air these my phantasies. I do not
+find my Madonna Lucrezia here to whom I can unbosom myself and I am
+dying of weariness.... I commend myself unto you. Ex Cafasolo, die 18
+dicembris 1478. Your servant Angelus.”</p>
+
+<p>Poliziano was no favourite with the proud and unlettered Clarice, and
+he complained to Lorenzo about Giovanni (afterwards Pope Leo X): “His
+mother sets him to read the Psalter, of which I do not approve. When she
+does not interfere with him he makes most wonderful progress.” It ended
+by Clarice sending away Poliziano and engaging a priest to superintend her
+son’s studies. Before his birth she dreamed that she was delivered of a huge
+but docile lion, and his father always destined him for the Church. Soon
+after he was seven he received the tonsure and was declared capable of
+ecclesiastical preferment; whereupon the King of France made him abbot of
+Fonte-dolce, an appointment rapidly followed by so many others that, after
+enumerating them all, old Fabroni in his life of Leo X exclaims: “<span lang="la">Bone
+Deus, quot in uno juvene cumulata sacerdotia</span>.”</p>
+
+<p>In April 1533, the stern old villa echoed to the laughter of a bevy of
+young girls who went with Caterina de’ Medici, the only daughter of Lorenzo,
+Duke of Urbino,&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_14_14" href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> then only fourteen years of age, to receive Margaret of
+Austria, the illegitimate daughter of Charles V. The poor child was but nine
+when she arrived in Tuscany as the affianced bride of Alessandro, Duke of
+Florence, whose mother was a negress, or some say a peasant woman from
+Collevecchio, the wife of a groom in the service of the Duke of Urbino. He
+was supposed to be the son either of Lorenzo himself or of the Cardinal Giulio
+de’ Medici (afterwards Clemente VII); and the interest taken in him by Pope
+Clemente, who warmly supported his election as Duke of Florence, rather
+points to the latter supposition. He is inscribed in the family tree as “of
+uncertain parentage.” Alessandro’s cruelty and licentiousness are matters of
+history; he left his mother to suffer dire poverty, and she is said to have
+died of poison administered by his orders, so that his murder by Lorenzino
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[21]</span>de’ Medici delivered the poor little Princess from a brutal husband. Lorenzino
+fled to Cafaggiuolo after murdering his cousin, and waited to know how the
+news was received in Florence. When he heard that messengers had arrived
+at Trebbio, another Medicean villa close to Cafaggiuolo, where Maria Salviati,
+widow of Giovanni de’ Medici (<span lang="it">delle Bande Nere</span>), and her son Cosimo lived,
+he left in hot haste for Venice. “It only needed that someone should begin
+a tumult,” writes Varchi, “when Signor Cosimo, who had been secretly warned
+by friends and summoned by many citizens, arrived in Florence with a small
+company; he being the son of Signor Giovanni, and of comely aspect, and
+having always shown himself of a pacific and kindly nature, it cannot be said,
+described, or imagined with what delight he was looked on by the people or
+how ardently they desired and hoped to see him Prince.”</p>
+
+<p>His father’s memory probably preserved his life a few years before, for
+Varchi tells us, “Signor Otto da Montauto was taken up for killing Bernardo
+Arrighi at Prato and condemned to lose his head, but the punishment was
+commuted to a fine of 1000 ducats and a year’s imprisonment. But it is
+supposed that these rigorous measures were not taken against Signor Otto
+for the murder committed, but because on his return from succouring Lastra
+when sent on a secret mission to Trebbio to fetch Madonna Maria de’ Medici
+and Cosimino her son, he failed to do so; some say that having asked a peasant
+who was coming down from Trebbio: ‘Who is up there and what are they
+doing?’ The man, being intelligent and quick-witted, understood what manner
+of man he was, and answered with intent to frighten him: ‘Up there are the
+Lady Maria and the Lord Cosimo with many soldiers and all the peasants
+of the country round, and they are making good cheer and keep watch day
+and night.’ So Signor Otto would not tempt fortune. Others say he did not
+go because, not only do good soldiers dislike doing the work of policemen,
+but having begun life under the Lord Giovanni and gained his spurs with
+him, like all who had fought under the Lord Giovanni he worshipped his
+memory in a way not to be believed, and therefore was attached to his wife
+and his son.”</p>
+
+<p>The “kindly nature” of Cosimo was only skin-deep if all the tales told
+of him are true, and his youngest son Don Pietro de’ Medici was distinguished
+for immorality. Married against his will to Eleonora, daughter of
+his mother’s brother Don Garcia di Toledo, he systematically neglected the
+young and lovely Spaniard, described as “beautiful, elegant, gracious, kindly,
+charming and affable; and above all with two eyes rivalling the stars in
+brilliancy.”&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_15_15" href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> Evil tongues whispered that the Grand Duke’s admiration for
+his wife’s niece was the principal motive for her marriage with Don Pietro
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[22]</span>which ended so tragically at Cafaggiuolo. After the death of Cosimo I the
+name of Alessandro Gaci, a handsome youth from Castiglion Florentino, was
+coupled with that of Donna Eleonora, but the threats of the Grand Duke
+Francesco forced him to leave Florence and enter a Capuchin monastery. His
+successor was a Florentine, Bernardino Antinori, whose passionate admiration
+for the lovely princess soon became known. The lovers were imprudent; a
+letter fell into the hands of the Grand Duke, whose scandalous ill-treatment
+of his wife Joan of Austria and subserviency to every whim of the dissolute
+Venetian, Bianca Cappello, were the talk of Florence. He asserted that the
+honour of his family demanded an example and ordered Antinori to be taken
+to the Bargello and strangled, and his sister-in-law to be sent to rejoin her
+husband at Cafaggiuolo. Bidding a tearful farewell to her little son, Eleonora
+left Florence on the morning of the 11th July 1576 and reached the stern old
+villa at nightfall, where Don Pietro received her with unwonted demonstrations
+of affection and at supper was very merry. He insisted on accompanying
+her to her room, and before she could summon her women threw her
+on to the bed and plunged his dagger several times into her breast. She died
+in a few minutes imploring God to show her more mercy than she had
+received at the hands of men, and kneeling by the lifeless body, Don Pietro
+prayed to his patron saints for forgiveness and vowed he would never
+marry again—a vow he did not keep. Then he sat down and wrote a few
+lines to his brother the Grand Duke announcing the sudden death of Donna
+Eleonora.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor’s certificate that Donna Eleonora de’ Medici had died of
+failure of the heart, was received in Florence with the incredulity
+vouchsafed to most of the sudden deaths in the Medici family.
+Francesco I pretended to believe it when he wrote to his brother,
+Cardinal Ferdinando, at Rome: “Yesternight at the fifth hour Donna
+Eleonora, being in bed, had so violent a stroke that she was suffocated
+before Don Pietro or others could apply any remedies; this has sore
+disturbed me, and will, I know, afflict Your Eminence. But as whatever
+comes from the hand of God must be borne with patience, I pray you may
+accept quietly the will of the Divine Majesty. This night the body will
+be brought from Cafaggiuolo for proper interment, of which I hereby desire
+to give you notice, taking advantage of the courier who has come from
+Spain.”</p>
+
+<p>But the Grand Duke told the real story in a letter dated 16 of July,
+and sent to the Florentine ambassador at Madrid with orders to read it to
+the King of Spain. “Although in a former letter it was stated that Donna
+Eleonora died of failure of the heart, you are, nevertheless, to inform
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[23]</span>His Catholic Majesty that the Lord Don Pietro, our brother, took her
+life with his own hands for her betrayal of him in ways unbecoming a
+lady of high birth. This he had communicated to Don Pedro her brother,
+through a secretary, begging him to come here; not only did he refuse
+to come, but he prevented the secretary from having speech with Don Garcia
+(Donna Eleonora’s father). We desire that H.M. should know the
+truth, being determined H.M. shall be informed of all the doings of
+Our house, and especially of this; for if We did not lift the veil from
+H.M.’s eyes, it would seem to Us not to serve H.M. well and
+honourably. All facts shall be sent on the first opportunity so that
+H.M. may know with what good reason the Lord Don Pietro thus acted.”</p>
+
+<p>Settimanni accuses Don Pietro of the further crime of poisoning his
+little son who was odious to him on account of his likeness to his mother.
+He also records that when, thirty-eight years after death, Donna Eleonora’s
+body was moved from one vault to another in San Lorenzo it was found to
+be perfectly preserved, and the beautiful young princess (she was but twenty-one
+when so foully murdered) lay as though asleep, clothed all in white with
+her hands crossed over the wounds in her breast.&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_16_16" href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> Murders and sudden
+deaths were too common in the Medici family to deter the Grand Duke
+Francesco I from taking his second wife Bianca Cappello to Cafaggiuolo in
+1585 with a great following of courtiers. Hearing that their favourite
+painter Sandrino Bronzino was painting an altarpiece for the church of
+Santa Maria a Olmi near Borgo San Lorenzo, they mounted their horses
+and went to pay a visit to the prior, Don Quintilio Rinieri. He was an old
+acquaintance of Bianca’s, and entreated them to do him the honour of dining
+with him. Don Quintilio had a fine taste in wine and some reputation as
+a sayer of good things, he was moreover a courtier, and before dinner was
+over he obtained the consent of the Grand Duchess Bianca to allow
+Bronzino to paint her portrait on the wall of his room. In 1871 the fresco
+was transferred to canvas and placed in the Uffizzi gallery. Bianca, who
+was then thirty-seven, sits resplendent in crimson velvet, and this, Signor
+Baccini thinks, is probably the only authentic portrait that exists of the
+“daughter of Venice.”&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_17_17" href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a></p>
+
+<p>When Cardinal Ferdinando succeeded his brother Francesco as Grand
+Duke, he used to spend the autumn months at Cafaggiuolo, where he could
+enjoy complete liberty and indulge in his passion for the chase. From an
+unpublished diary in three large volumes by Cesare Tinghi, one of his
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[24]</span>secretaries, and found in the National Library by Signor Baccini, we
+learn that Ferdinando I was very strict as to preserving his game, and
+punished poachers severely. He rose early and went out shooting or fishing
+with his gentlemen, and in the afternoon gave audiences to princes and
+ambassadors who were received with great magnificence. Often the
+peasants would be summoned to dance for the amusement of the Grand
+Duchess Christine and her children, and sent home rejoicing with presents
+of ribbons, scarves and nick-nacks; or the soldiers from San Martino, the
+fortress begun by Cosimo I, and finished by Ferdinando, which guarded
+the entrance to the Mugello, would execute military games and sham
+battles.</p>
+
+<p>Cafaggiuolo was not much frequented by the Medici after the time of
+Ferdinando I, and only occasional references to it are found in the archives.
+The family of Lorraine preferred the villas nearer Florence, though they
+sometimes passed a night there on their way to Austria, but when
+Ferdinando III returned to Tuscany in 1814 after the fall of Napoleon,
+the Florentine nobility rode out to Cafaggiuolo to meet him and the whole
+of the Mugello was illuminated in his honour.</p>
+
+<p>Before leaving “the old den among the hills” its majolica ware must be
+mentioned, over which such bitter controversy has raged; some writers, like
+the late M. Jacquemart, over-estimating its antiquity and importance, others,
+like Dr Malagola and Professor Argnani, asserting that it never existed and
+that the pieces signed <i lang="it">Cafaggiuolo</i> (more or less ill-spelt) were made by a
+family of Faenza, the Cà Fagioli (House of Fagioli). Some documents,
+printed also in the <cite>Athenæum</cite> (Dec. 1899, p. 872) prove that as early as
+1485 several kilns for common pottery, <i lang="it">stoviglie</i>, and for bricks were in
+existence near and at Cafaggiuolo itself. Signor Baccini&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_18_18" href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> cites others in a
+list of the possessions of Cosimo I, drawn up in 1566, which show that
+either some of these <i lang="it">stovigliai</i> had become <i lang="it">vasellai</i>, <i>i.e.</i> makers of vases and
+decorative ware, or that the kilns were then tenanted by artistic potters.
+Two of the kilns, with a house and <i lang="it">botega</i>, stood near the villa, where now
+are the stables, and both were rented by a Jacopo di Stefano. Mr Drury E.
+Fortnum, in his magnificent work on majolica published by the Clarendon
+Press, gives a long list of Cafaggiuolo ware from the earliest dated piece
+known of 1507, and the marks on the most characteristic pieces, such as the
+letters P. and S. with a paraph, or a plain or barred P., while others have a
+monogram of J. P. C. These marks have apparently not been explained,
+but Signor Baccini gives good reasons for supposing them to be the initials
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[25]</span>of a family who went from Montelupo to Cafaggiuolo to manufacture the
+famous <i lang="it">bocali</i> or measuring jugs, beginning with a certain Piero; his son was
+Stefano di Piero and his grandson the Jacopo di Stefano who in 1566
+tenanted the house, shop and kilns of Cafaggiuolo.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp80" id="i_053" >
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_053.jpg" alt="Castle of Trebbio">
+</figure>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_9_9" href="#FNanchor_9_9" class="label">[9]</a> The name Cafaggio, or Cafaggiuolo (Cafagium), meaning a wooded estate surrounded with a fence or
+ditch, is often met with in Tuscany, and dates from old Lombard times.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_10_10" href="#FNanchor_10_10" class="label">[10]</a> Bosco a’ Frati is a monastery said to have been founded in the time of St Francis of Assisi by the
+Ubaldini family. It was here that St Bonaventura received the cardinal’s hat sent to him by Gregory X. in 1273.
+The messengers found him with his sleeves rolled up washing dishes in the scullery; turning round he pointed
+to a tree near by and bid them hang the hat on a bough until he had finished his work.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_11_11" href="#FNanchor_11_11" class="label">[11]</a> The Pulci owned a villa “Il Palagio” at Cavallina a few miles from Cafaggiuolo.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_12_12" href="#FNanchor_12_12" class="label">[12]</a> Mona or Monna is an abbreviation of Madonna, Mia Donna, and all well-born women were thus addressed.
+It corresponds to the French Madame.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_13_13" href="#FNanchor_13_13" class="label">[13]</a> J. A. Symonds. <cite>Renaissance in Italy.</cite> <cite>Italian Literature</cite>, p. 381.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_14_14" href="#FNanchor_14_14" class="label">[14]</a> Leo X deprived the adopted son of Guidobaldo di Montefeltro, Francesco Maria Della Rovere, of the
+Dukedom of Urbino in favour of his nephew Lorenzo de’ Medici in 1516.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_15_15" href="#FNanchor_15_15" class="label">[15]</a> <cite lang="it">Diario di Firenze.</cite> A. Lapini.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_16_16" href="#FNanchor_16_16" class="label">[16]</a> See Settimanni. Cronaca M.S. all’ anno 1608.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_17_17" href="#FNanchor_17_17" class="label">[17]</a> See <cite lang="it">Le Ville Medicee in Mugello</cite>. Guiseppe Baccini. Firenze, 1897.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_18_18" href="#FNanchor_18_18" class="label">[18]</a> <i>Opus cit.</i></p></div></div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[26]</span></p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp90" id="i_054a" >
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_054a.jpg" alt="The Garden Front With Lorenzo De’ Medici’S Loggia">
+</figure>
+
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="VILLA_DI_CAREGGI">
+    VILLA DI CAREGGI
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+<img class="drop-capi" src="images/t.jpg" alt="Stylized T">
+<p class="drop-capi">
+<span class=uc>The</span> three great Medicean villas, Careggi, Cafaggiuolo and
+Poggio Cajano, have been so often sung by poets and
+celebrated by historians, that to all who love Italy their
+names are household words.</p>
+
+<p>Careggi lies about two miles north-west of Florence,
+on what old Varchi calls “the most delightful hill named
+Montughi, after the ancient and noble family of the Ughi, whereon are
+innumerable villas of splendid construction; and most splendid of them all,
+the new Careggi built by Cosimo the elder.”&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_19_19" href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> The name Careggi is derived
+from the Latin <i lang="la">Campus Regis</i>, and Roman remains abound in the neighbourhood.
+Near by was the Via Cassia, leading from Rome to Pistoja and Lucca,
+and some of the inscriptions found relating to it have been placed in the courtyard
+of the church, San Stefano in Pane de Arcora.&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_20_20" href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a></p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="i_057" >
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_057.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption>
+      VILLA <span class="allsmcap">DI</span> CAREGGI.
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p>On the 17th June 1417, Cosimo de’ Medici bought a country house at
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[27]</span>Careggi from Tommaso Lippi for 800 florins. “A palace with a courtyard,
+a loggia, a well, archways, dove-cotes, a tower, a walled kitchen-garden,
+two peasant houses and arable land, vineyards, olive-groves, and spinnies,
+in the parish of Careggi.” Thus runs the contract.</p>
+
+<p>Cosimo called in his friend and favourite architect, Michelozzo Michelozzi,
+to rebuild the villa, and no doubt remembering the place of his birth—the
+strong castle of Trebbio in the Mugello—he ordered that Careggi should
+become a castle with battlements, covered galleries round the upper part, a
+tower, a drawbridge, and high walls all round the pleasure grounds.</p>
+
+<p>The huge pile of Careggi lies embosomed among fine cedars, pines and
+firs; unfortunately the villa has been painted a dirty chocolate brown, which
+detracts considerably from its beauty. But the entrance hall is fine, and the
+great straight staircase leading from the open courtyard up to the first floor
+is most imposing.</p>
+
+<p>The first room at the top of the staircase is a large hall with a huge
+grey stone fireplace. How one would like to conjure up the magnificent
+Lorenzo and his friends; to listen entranced while Luigi Pulci declaimed a
+Canto of Morgante, or Messer Angelo Poliziano recited a Ballata; or hear the
+learned Greek Argyropoulos discuss philosophy with Marsilio Ficino and Pico
+della Mirandola, Bernardo Rucellai, Leo Battista Alberti and Cristofano
+Landino, while Michelangelo Buonarroti sat by listening, his head resting
+on one hand like one of his own prophets.</p>
+
+<p>Out of the big hall one goes through three or four rooms on to a loggia
+facing west, with a brilliantly gay ceiling painted by Poccetti. Here, no
+doubt, the Academicians sat in the long summer evenings looking down on
+the garden with its fountains, and on the oak woods crowning the neighbouring
+hills.</p>
+
+<p>The last room on the south side of the house (on the first floor) was
+probably where Lorenzo de’ Medici died, and not the one generally pointed
+out to strangers. On an ancient plan of the villa the end room is found
+marked “the room of Messer Lorenzo,” and the small closet opening out of
+it, with a spiral staircase in the thickness of the wall leading down into the
+courtyard, is indicated as “the study of Messer Lorenzo.”</p>
+
+<p>From the courtyard one enters a fine vaulted and frescoed room leading
+into a loggia under the one painted by Poccetti. This has been closed in by
+glass windows, and here Mr Watts, while staying with Lord Holland, who
+rented Careggi when he was minister to the Tuscan court in 1845, painted
+a large fresco of the murder of Piero Leoni, doctor to Lorenzo. It is a fine
+work with daring and successful foreshortening.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">[28]</span></p>
+
+<p>From the covered gallery round the top of the villa the view is splendid.
+To the south is “the delightful hill Montughi,” dotted with villas, to most of
+which is attached some story of love or bloodshed; then the towers and
+palaces of fair Florence backed with line upon line of blue and violet
+mountains. Looking westward we can follow the track of the Arno flowing
+down to the sea, until lost behind the hill on which stands Artimino, another
+Medici villa. The little town of Prato shines white in the sun, and if the day
+be at all clear Pistoja can be seen, with the rugged Apennines and the
+white peaks of the Carrara mountains in the distance. To the north, shielding
+Careggi from the harsh north wind, rises Monte de’ Vecchi, so-called
+because the great family of Vecchi, or Vecchietti, whose palaces stood on the
+site of the Campidoglio in the centre of Florence and were destroyed by the
+Ghibellines after the battle of Monteaperti, possessed villas and estates on its
+slopes.</p>
+
+<p>At Careggi, Cosimo the elder passed what time he could spare from the
+affairs of state, surrounded by a galaxy of artists and men of letters such as
+the world has seldom seen. Among the former were Brunelleschi, Donatello,
+Michelozzo Michelozzi, Ghiberti, Verrocchio, Paolo Uccello, Luca della Robbia,
+Fra Angelico, Fra Filippo Lippi and Masaccio. Among the latter, Marsilio
+Ficino, Niccolò de’ Niccoli, Cristofano Landino, Lionardo Aretino (Bruni),
+Carlo Aretino (Marsuppini), Poggio Bracciolini, Ambrogio Traversari and
+Giannozzo Manetti.</p>
+
+<p>To Ficino Cosimo gave a villa (la Fontanella)&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_21_21" href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> close to Careggi, and
+named him President of the Platonic Academy which he founded, having been
+convinced of the importance of Platonic studies by Giorgius Gemistus, a
+native of Byzantium, who came to Florence in 1438 in the train of the
+Emperor Palaelogus. Niccolò de’ Niccoli “censor of the Latin tongue,” as
+Lionardo Aretino called him, was one of the Academicians. He spent his
+whole fortune in buying MSS., and his house, stored with treasures, was
+open to all strangers, students and artists. Cristofano Landino, known for his
+commentary on Dante, and Lionardo Aretino (Bruni), Chancellor of the
+Republic of Florence, were also Academicians. The translations of the latter
+from Greek were celebrated for their sound scholarship and pure latinity,
+while his diplomatic letters were regarded as models, and his public speeches
+were compared to those of Pericles. When he walked abroad a train of
+scholars and foreigners attended him, and when he died the Priors of
+Florence decreed him a public funeral in Santa Croce, “after the manner of
+the ancients.” Carlo Aretino (Marsuppini), another member of the Platonic
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[29]</span>Academy, succeeded Bruni as Chancellor; an omnivorous reader and
+possessed of an extraordinary memory, he formed a great contrast to Niccoli,
+who had introduced him to Cosimo. Vespasiano describes Niccoli as “of a
+most fair presence, lively, with a smile ever on his lips, and very pleasant in
+his talk”; whereas Marsuppini was grave in manner, taciturn, and given to
+melancholy.</p>
+
+<p>Poggio Bracciolini was another of the great scholars attracted to Florence
+by the fame of Cosimo’s liberality. He was a friend of Ambrogio Traversari,
+whose cell in the convent of the Angeli was the meeting-place of learned
+men. Giannozzo Manetti, the Hebrew scholar, had studied Greek under
+Traversari, and his Latin was so perfect that Bruni is said to have been
+jealous of him. The Republic sent him as her ambassador to various
+Italian courts, and there is a good story in the Commentario, that “when
+he was speaking at Naples the King was so entranced he did not even brush
+the flies from his face.” At last Manetti roused the jealousy of the Medicean
+party and ended his life in exile. “These men,” writes Symonds, “formed
+the literary oligarchy who surrounded Cosimo de’ Medici, and through their
+industry and influence restored the studies of antiquity at Florence.” Cosimo
+was a Mæcenas worth serving. For his own family he built the great palace
+in Via Larga (afterwards Riccardi, now the Prefecture), he restored or
+rebuilt the villas of Cafaggiuolo, Trebbio and Careggi, while he expended
+500,000 golden florins on public buildings. During the last years of his life
+he seldom moved from Careggi, and the following letter, written by his
+son Piero to Lorenzo and Giuliano about their grandfather four days before
+his death, gives a pleasant picture of the private life of the Medici family:—</p>
+
+<p>“I wrote to you the day before yesterday how much worse Cosimo was;
+it appears to me that he is gradually sinking, and he thinks the same himself.
+On Tuesday evening he would have no one in his room save only Mona
+Contessina [Cosimo’s wife] and myself. He began by recounting all his past
+life, then he touched upon the government of the city, and then on its
+commerce, and at last spoke of the management of the private possessions
+of our family and of what concerns you two; taking comfort that you had
+good wits, and bidding me educate you well so that you might be of help
+to me. Two things he deplored. Firstly, that he had not done as much as
+he had wished or could have done; secondly, that he left me in such poor
+health and with much irksome business. Then he said he would make no
+will, not having made one whilst Giovanni&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_22_22" href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> was alive seeing us always
+united in true love, amity and esteem; and that when it pleased God to so
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[30]</span>order it he desired to be buried without pomp or show, and reminded me of
+his often expressed wish to be interred in San Lorenzo. All this he said with
+much method and prudence, and with a courage that was marvellous to
+behold; adding that his life had been a long one and that he was ready and
+content to depart whensoever it pleased God. Yestermorn he left his bed,
+and caused himself to be carefully dressed. The Priors of San Marco, of San
+Lorenzo and of the Badia were present, and he spoke the responses as
+though in perfect health. Then being asked the articles of faith, he repeated
+them word by word, made his confession, and took the Holy Sacrament with
+more devotion than can be described, having first asked pardon of all present.
+These things have raised my courage and my hope in God Almighty, and
+although according to the flesh I am sorrowful, yet, seeing the greatness of
+his soul and how well disposed, I am in part content that his end should
+be thus. Yesterday he was pretty well and also during the night, but on
+account of his great age I have small hope of his recovery. Cause prayers to
+be said for him by the Monks of the Wood, and bestow alms as seems good
+to you, praying God to leave him to us for a while, if such be for the best.
+And you, who are young, take example and take your share of care and
+trouble as God has ordained, and make up your minds to be men, your
+condition and the present case demanding that of you lads. And above all
+take heed to everything that can add to your honour and be of use to you,
+because the time has come when it is necessary that you should rely on
+yourselves, and live in the fear of God, and hope all will go well. Of what
+happens to Cosimo I will advise you. We are expecting a doctor from Milan,
+but I have more hope in Almighty God than in aught else. No more at
+present. Careggi, the 26 July 1464.”</p>
+
+<p>Cosimo died on the 1st August 1464; he was buried with sovereign
+honours in the sacristy he had built in San Lorenzo, and on his tomb was
+inscribed, by public desire, “Cosimo Pater Patriae.” Piero, his son,
+succeeded quietly to the honours and power of his father. He had met
+and loved Lucrezia Tornabuoni at Careggi, her father having a villa close
+by,&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_23_23" href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> and Cosimo sanctioned the marriage and regarded Lucrezia as a
+daughter. She was a gifted woman, handsome and virtuous, a poetess,
+and at the same time devoted to all her household cares. Piero de’ Medici
+died only five years after his father of a fit of the gout at Careggi on the
+3rd December 1469, and was succeeded by his brilliant son Lorenzo the
+Magnificent.</p>
+
+<p>“Lorenzo,” writes John Addington Symonds, “was a man of marvellous
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[31]</span>variety and range of mental power. He possessed one of those rare natures,
+fitted to comprehend all knowledge and to sympathise with the most diverse
+forms of life. While he never for one moment relaxed his grasp on politics,
+among philosophers he passed for a sage; among men of letters for an
+original and graceful poet; among scholars for a Grecian, sensitive to every
+nicety of Attic idiom; among artists for an amateur gifted with refined
+discernment and consummate taste. Pleasure-seekers knew in him the
+libertine, who jousted with the boldest, danced and masqueraded with the
+merriest, sought adventures in the streets at night, and joined the people in
+their May-day games and Carnival festivities. The pious extolled him as
+an author of devotional lauds and mystery plays, a profound theologian, a
+critic of sermons. He was no less famous for his jokes and repartees than
+for his pithy apothegms and maxims; as good a judge of cattle as of
+statues; as much at home in the bosom of his family as in the riot of an
+orgy; as ready to discourse on Plato as to plan a campaign or to plot the
+death of a dangerous citizen.”&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_24_24" href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a></p>
+
+<p>“What other men call study and hard toil, for thee shall be pastime;”
+sings Poliziano, “wearied with deeds of state, to this thou hast recourse,
+and dost address the vigour of thy well-worn powers to song; blest in thy
+mental gifts, blest to be able thus to play so many parts, to vary thus the
+great cares of thy all-embracing mind, and weave so many divers duties
+into one.”&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_25_25" href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> Angelo Poliziano, “honour and glory of Montepulciano” as
+Pulci calls him, who thus sounds the praises of Lorenzo, was born in 1454.
+His name, famous in Italian literature, is a latinised version of his birthplace,
+Montepulciano. As a boy of ten he entered the University of Florence,
+and studied under Landino, Argyropoulos, Andronicus Kallistos and Ficino.
+At thirteen he published Latin letters, at seventeen Greek poems, and
+edited Catullus when he was eighteen. Lorenzo de’ Medici received the
+young student into his own household, and made him tutor to his children.
+Ugly and misshapen, he squinted and had an enormous nose, but his voice
+was wonderfully sweet and melodious, and his eloquence great. Men of
+learning visited Florence on purpose to see him, and he complains (in a
+letter to Hieronymus Donatus, May 1480), “does a man want a motto
+for a ring, an inscription for his bedroom or a device for his plate, or even
+for his pots and pans, he runs like all the world to Poliziano.”</p>
+
+<p>Another famous frequenter of Careggi, Pico della Mirandola, is thus
+described by Poliziano:—</p>
+
+<p>“Nature seemed to have showered on this man, or hero, all her gifts.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[32]</span>He was tall and finely moulded, from his face a something of divinity shone
+forth. Acute, and gifted with prodigious memory, in his studies he was
+indefatigable, in his style perspicuous and eloquent. You could not say
+whether his talents or his moral qualities conferred on him the greater lustre.
+Familiar with all branches of philosophy and the master of many languages,
+he stood on high above the reach of praise.” Pico della Mirandola
+showed remarkable abilities at a very early age. His mother, a niece of
+Boiardo the knightly poet of <span lang="la">“Orlando Innamorato,”</span> sent him at the age
+of fourteen to Bologna. There he mastered the humanities and what was
+taught of mathematics, logic, philosophy and oriental languages, and then
+went to Paris, the headquarters of scholastic theology. His memory was
+wonderful, a single reading served to fix the language and the matter of the
+text on his mind for ever. Pico was about twenty when he came to Florence,
+and his beauty, noble manners and great learning made him the idol of
+society. But every year he inclined more and more to grave and abstruse
+studies, and as Symonds notes: “at last the Prince was merged in the
+philosopher, the man of letters in the mystic.”&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_26_26" href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a></p>
+
+<p>In a letter to Jacopo Antiquario Poliziano, after describing the malady
+from which Lorenzo had been suffering for some time, continues: “The day
+before his death, being at his villa of Careggi, he grew so weak that all hope
+of saving him vanished. Perceiving this, like a wise man, he called before all
+else for the confessor to purge himself of his past sins. This same confessor
+told me afterwards that he marvelled to see with what courage and constancy
+Lorenzo prepared himself for death; how well he ordered all things pertaining
+thereunto, and with what prudence and religious feeling he thought on the
+life to come. Towards midnight, while he was quietly meditating, he was
+informed that the priest, bearing the Holy Sacrament, had arrived. Rousing
+himself, he exclaimed, ‘It shall never be said that my Lord, who created and
+saved me, shall come to me—in my room—raise me I beg of you, raise me
+quickly, so that I may go and meet Him.’ Saying this he raised himself as
+well as he could, and supported by his servants advanced to meet the priest
+in the outer room, there crying he knelt.” Poliziano here gives the text of a
+long prayer which Lorenzo recited and then continues: “these and other
+things he said sobbing, while all around cried bitterly. At length the priest
+ordered that he should be raised from the ground and carried to bed, so as
+to receive the Viaticum in more comfort. For some time he resisted, but at
+last out of respect to the priest he obeyed. In bed, repeating almost the
+same prayer and with much gravity and devotion, he received the body and
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[33]</span>blood of Christ. Then he devoted himself to consoling his son Pietro, for
+the others were away, and exhorted him to bear this law of necessity with
+constancy; feeling sure the aid of Heaven would be vouchsafed to him, as
+it had been to himself in many and divers occasions, if he only acted wisely.
+Meanwhile your Lorenzo, the doctor from Pavia, arrived; most learned as it
+seemed to me, but summoned too late to be of any use; yet to do something
+he ordered various precious stones to be pounded together in a mortar,
+for I know not what kind of medicine. Lorenzo thereupon asked the
+servants what that doctor was doing in his room and what he was preparing;
+and when I answered that he was composing a remedy to comfort his
+intestines he recognised my voice and looking kindly, as was his wont, ‘Oh
+Angiolo,’ he said, ‘art thou here?’ and raising his languid arms took both
+my hands and pressed them tightly. I could not stifle my sobs or stay my
+tears, though I tried hard to hide them by turning my face away. But he
+showed no emotion and continued to press my hands between his. When
+he saw that I could not speak for crying, quite naturally he loosed my
+hands and I ran into the adjoining room where I could give free vent to
+my grief and to my tears. Then drying my eyes I returned, and as soon
+as he saw me he called me to him and asked what Pico della Mirandola
+was doing. I replied that Pico had remained in town, fearing to molest him
+with his presence. ‘And I,’ said Lorenzo, ‘but for the fear that the journey
+here might be irksome to him, would be most glad to see him and speak
+to him for the last time before I leave you all.’ I asked if I should send
+for him. ‘Certainly, and with all speed,’ answered he. This I did, and
+Pico came and sat near the bed, while I leaned against it by his knees in
+order to hear the languid voice of my lord for the last time. With what
+goodness, with what courtesy, I may say with what caresses, Lorenzo received
+him. First he asked his pardon for thus disturbing him, begging him to
+look upon it as a sign of the friendship—the love—he bore him; assuring
+him that he died more willingly after seeing so dear a friend. Then introducing,
+as was his wont, pleasant and familiar sayings, he joked also with
+us. ‘I wish,’ he said to Pico, ‘that death had spared me until your library
+had been complete.’ Pico had hardly left the room when Fra Girolamo
+(Savonarola) of Ferrara, a man celebrated for his doctrine and his sanctity
+and an excellent preacher, came in. To his exhortations to remain firm in
+his faith, and to live in future, if Heaven granted him life, free from
+crime; or if God so willed it, to receive death willingly; Lorenzo replied that
+he was firm in his religion, that his life would always be guided by it, and
+that nothing could be sweeter to him than death if such was the divine will.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[34]</span>Fra Girolamo then turned to go, when Lorenzo said, ‘Oh, father, before going
+deign to give me thy benediction.’ Then bowing his head, immersed in piety
+and religion, he repeated the words and the prayers of the friar, without
+attending to the grief, now openly shown, of his familiars. It seemed as
+though all save Lorenzo were going to die, so calm was he. He gave no
+signs of anxiety or of sorrow; even in that extreme moment he showed his
+usual strength of mind and fortitude. The doctors who stood round him,
+not to seem idle, worried him with their remedies and assistance: he
+accepted and submitted to everything they suggested, not because he thought
+it would save him, but in order not to offend anyone, even in death. To
+the last he had such mastery over himself that he joked about his own
+death. Thus when given something to eat and asked how he liked it he
+answered, ‘As well as a dying man can like anything.’ He embraced us all
+tenderly and humbly asked pardon if, during his illness, he had caused
+annoyance to anyone. Then disposing himself to receive extreme unction he
+recommended his soul to God. The gospel containing the passion of Christ
+was then read, and he showed that he understood by moving his lips, or
+raising his languid eyes, or sometimes moving his fingers. Gazing upon a
+silver crucifix inlaid with precious stones and kissing it from time to time,
+he expired....”</p>
+
+<p>The other accounts of the last interview of Lorenzo with Savonarola by
+various authors—Pico della Mirandola, Cinozzi, Burlamacchi, Barsanti, Razzi,
+Fra Marco della Casa, etc.—give the more generally accepted story that
+Lorenzo sent for Savonarola, and said he wished to confess to him. He
+deplored three great sins: the sack of Volterra; the dowry monies taken from
+the Monte delle Fanciulle, whereby so many girls were driven to a life of
+shame; and the blood shed after the Pazzi conspiracy. The friar told him
+that three things were required of him. “Firstly, a lively faith in the mercy
+of God.” “I have that,” said Lorenzo. “Secondly, to restore what you have
+unjustly taken, and to bid your sons make restitution.” This, after some
+moments of hesitation, Lorenzo also acceded to. Then Savonarola drew
+himself up to his full height and said, “Lastly, to restore to Florence her
+liberty.” Lorenzo turned his head away and Savonarola departed without
+hearing his confession and without giving him absolution. Professor Villari,
+who may be supposed to understand the manners and motives of his countrymen
+better than foreigners, does not believe that Savonarola would have gone
+to Careggi save at the express desire of Lorenzo, who sent for him in order
+to confess his sins and receive absolution from a man he knew to be honest.
+Cinozzi gives the words of Savonarola, stating that the conversation was a
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[35]</span>preliminary to the confession which was never made. He adds: “These
+words were repeated to me by Fra Silvestro, who died with his superior Fra
+Ieronimo, and who, as I well believe, had them and heard them from Fra
+Ieronimo’s own lips.” Professor Villari considers that Poliziano would not
+have dared to make a genuine report of the scene (supposing he saw it), in
+order not to cast a slur on the memory of his patron and benefactor, and to
+avoid giving offence to the Medicean party.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp90" id="i_067" >
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_067.jpg" alt="Another View of the Villa">
+</figure>
+
+<p>Various versions also exist of the death of Pier Leoni, who evidently was
+what we should call the trusted family doctor of the Medici; for when
+Lorenzo’s daughter Magdalena, married to Francesco Cybo, son of Innocent
+III, was so ill at Rome, she sent an express messenger to her father to beg
+him to send Maestro Leoni to see her. Poliziano declares that Piero Leoni
+killed himself in despair at not being able to save Lorenzo; Piero Ricci
+(Petrus Crinitus), a contemporary author, also records that he drowned himself
+in a well near Florence, but other accounts say that he was murdered by
+some of Lorenzo’s people, who suspected him, unjustly, of poisoning their
+master. Enemies of the Medici went so far as to accuse Piero de’ Medici of
+inducing him to administer poison to his father, and then of drowning him in
+the well of the courtyard at Careggi.</p>
+
+<p>In 1494 the Medici were expelled from Florence and an attempt was
+made to reconstitute a commonwealth upon the model of Venice. But the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[36]</span>internal elements of discord were too potent. The Medici were recalled, again
+to be expelled in 1527. “Two years later Dante and Lorenzo da Castiglione
+and a number of youths went in hot haste,” writes Varchi, “and set fire to
+the villas of Careggi and Castello; the latter, however, did not burn easily, and
+fearing lest the enemy’s forces should cut off their retreat they fell back. So
+one of Signor Cosimo’s labourers was enabled to saw some beams in half and
+put out the fire. They also set fire to the palace of Jacopo Salviati, which
+was burnt, as well as Careggi.”</p>
+
+<p>Luckily the thick walls of the fine old villa defied the flames, and the
+first care of Alessandro de’ Medici was to restore it to its pristine splendour;
+but he was murdered by his cousin Lorenzino before he had time to finish
+the work. The Grand Duke Ferdinando II, had an especial affection for
+Careggi, and attempted to resuscitate the Platonic Academy which once
+flourished there, but in vain. All he could do was to commemorate it in a
+fresco in the Pitti palace, which represents Plato surrounded by the illustrious
+men who had formed part of it—</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container" lang="it">
+  <div class="poetry">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <div class="verse indent0">“Mira qui di Careggi all’ aure amene</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Marsilio, e il Pico, e cento egregj spirti,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">E di, s’ all’ ombre degli Elisj mirti</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Tanti n’ ebber giammai Tebe, o Atene.”</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">(Behold here in the soft air of Careggi, Marsilio, and Pico, and a hundred
+men of learning, and say whether at Thebes or Athens there were as many
+in the shade of the Elysian myrtles) is the inscription.</p>
+
+<p>In 1779 Careggi was sold to Vincenzo Orsi for 31,000 scudi. In 1848 it
+again changed hands and was bought by Mr Sloane, who left it to Count
+Boutourline, from whose family the present owner, M. Segré, bought the
+villa a few years ago.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_19_19" href="#FNanchor_19_19" class="label">[19]</a> Benedetto Varchi. <i lang="it">Storia Florentina.</i>
+    Lib. IX. p. 251 F. Mazzei in a pamphlet, <i lang="it">La Macine a Montughi</i>,
+gives another derivation; he says that in 1100 the Marchioness Villa left large estates to her son Ugone in this
+district, and thence the hill was called <i lang="it">Montem Hugonis</i>, corrupted into Montui by the common people and into
+Montughi by writers.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_20_20" href="#FNanchor_20_20" class="label">[20]</a> Moreni. <i lang="it">Contorni di Firense.</i> Vol. I. p. 45, <i lang="la">et seq.</i></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_21_21" href="#FNanchor_21_21" class="label">[21]</a> Now belonging to Mr Mason.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_22_22" href="#FNanchor_22_22" class="label">[22]</a> Cosimo’s favourite son, who died 1463.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_23_23" href="#FNanchor_23_23" class="label">[23]</a> Villa Lemmi. The frescoes by Botticelli, now in the Louvre, were discovered there.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_24_24" href="#FNanchor_24_24" class="label">[24]</a> John Addington Symonds. <cite>Renaissance in Italy.</cite> <cite>The Revival of Learning</cite>, p. 320.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_25_25" href="#FNanchor_25_25" class="label">[25]</a> Angelo Poliziano. <cite lang="it">Carmina</cite>, etc., p. 179.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_26_26" href="#FNanchor_26_26" class="label">[26]</a> J. A. Symonds. <cite>Renaissance in Italy.</cite> <cite>The Revival of Learning</cite>, p. 331.</p></div></div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[37]</span></p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter"></div>
+<figure class="figcenter illowp50" id="i_070" >
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_070a.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption>
+      COSIMO PATER PATRIAE,
+<br>
+    By <span class="smcap">Michelozzi</span>.
+<br>
+    (<i lang="it">Villa di Cafaggiuolo</i>).
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+<figure class="figcenter illowp50"  >
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_070b.jpg" alt="">
+    <figcaption>
+   LORENZO DE’ MEDICI,
+<br>
+    By <span class="smcap">Niccolò Fiorentino</span>.
+<br>
+    (<i lang="it">Villa di Coreggi</i>).
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+<figure class="figcenter illowp50"  >
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_070c.jpg" alt="">
+    <figcaption>
+   MARSILIO FICINO,
+<br>
+    By <span class="smcap">Anonimo</span>.
+<br>
+    (<i lang="it">Villa Medici</i>).
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp90" id="i_073a" >
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_073a.jpg" alt="The North Facade">
+</figure>
+
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="VILLA_DI_RUSCIANO">
+    VILLA DI RUSCIANO
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+<img class="drop-capi" src="images/a.jpg" alt="Stylized A">
+<p class="drop-capi">
+<span class=uc>About</span> a mile outside the great three-storied gateway of San
+Niccolò stands the old brown villa of Rusciano, which even in the
+days of Sacchetti had the reputation of changing masters more
+frequently than any other in Tuscany. It is first mentioned
+in 785, when Charlemagne is said to have granted the estate
+to the church of San Miniato a Monte; three centuries later
+Pope Nicholas II, gave it to the hospital of St Eusebius, popularly known
+as San Sebbo; then it belonged to two sisters, Buoninsegna and Princia,
+who in 1267 sold the house and lands to the nuns of San Jacopo in Pian di
+Ripoli. After passing through several other hands it was bought by Luca
+Pitti, who crowned the beautiful hill with what Vasari calls “a luxurious
+and superb palace,” built, or rather adapted and enlarged for him in 1434
+by Brunelleschi, to render it a fitting residence for one who was Gonfalonier
+of Florence and at the height of his prosperity.</p>
+
+<figure class="figleft illowp50" id="i_074" >
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_074.jpg" alt="Brunelleschi’S Window">
+</figure>
+
+<p>Herr Cornel von Fabriczy&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_27_27" href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a>
+considers that only
+the eastern side of the <span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">[Pg
+38]</span>villa is Brunelleschi’s work, the western being the
+original building, while the southern façade dates from late in the
+sixteenth century. One of the glories of Rusciano, much written about
+by critics, is a most beautiful window looking into the courtyard,
+but lately covered in. It is said by some to be by Brunelleschi, but
+the exaggerated consoles ornamented with acanthus leaves, and the
+pillars at the sides with Corinthian capitals, are not like the work
+of the great master. The garlands of flowers at the sides, tied in
+here and there, remind one of those on the monument to Marsuppini by
+Desiderio da Settignano, as does the delicate frieze at the top. Herr
+von Fabriczy suggests that this lovely window, which recalls those of
+the palaces at Urbino and at Gubbio, may perhaps have been designed
+by Luciano da Laurana, architect to Federigo di Montefeltre, to whom,
+as we shall see, the villa belonged for a short time. Anyhow this one
+richly ornamented piece of architecture contrasts strangely with the
+absolute simplicity, almost amounting to bareness, of everything else
+in the courtyard. Dr Carl von Stegmann, in his <i lang="de">Architekten der
+Renaissance</i> thinks the frieze and the shape of the capitals are in
+the style of Desiderio da Settignano, while the garlands of flowers
+remind him more of the work of Benedetto da Majano. The rooms of the
+villa are of huge size, and many still retain their fine old wooden
+ceilings, gigantic beams resting on simply-shaped consoles with curved
+outlines.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp90" id="i_075" >
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_075.jpg" alt="View of Florence from the Villa">
+</figure>
+
+<p>Luca Pitti would have been a happier man had he taken to heart the
+wise words of Cosimo de’ Medici. “You,” said Cosimo, “strive towards the
+indefinite, I towards the definite; you aspire to reach the heavens with your
+ladder, I place mine on the earth so that I may not climb so high as to fall:
+and if I desire that the honour and reputation of my house should surpass
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[39]</span>yours, it seems to me but just and natural that I should favour rather mine
+own than what belongs to you. Nevertheless let us do as big dogs, which
+meeting, sniff one at the other and then, both having teeth, separate and go
+their ways: you to attend to your concerns, I to see after mine own.” But
+the character of Luca was correctly gauged by that acute and charming lady,
+Alessandra Macinghi, married to a Strozzi, who calls him, in her letters to her
+exiled sons after their father’s death which give so vivid a picture of what
+wives and mothers endured in the good old times, “a vain ambitious man
+and a weathercock, moreover badly surrounded.” After intriguing against the
+Medici, and even plotting to assassinate Cosimo’s son Piero, Luca Pitti
+abandoned the anti-Medicean faction and accepted pardon at the hands of
+Piero, after which his old friends scorned him and avoided meeting him in
+the streets.</p>
+
+<p>In the summer of 1472 the Gonfalonier of Florence, Tanai de’ Nerli, received
+the Captain-General of the Florentine army, Count Federigo di Montefeltre,
+outside the city gates and escorted him, amid the acclamations of the
+citizens, to the Piazza, where the magistrates thanked him for his services
+in conquering rebellious Volterra, and presented him with a richly
+caparisoned charger and a silver helmet studded with jewels and chased
+in gold by Pollajuolo, with Hercules trampling on a griffin (the device
+of Volterra) as its crest. The grateful Republic also bought Rusciano of
+Luca Pitti and bestowed it on their victorious general together with the
+freedom of the city. But he does not seem to have inhabited his Florentine
+villa long, for in the following year it was let to Giuliano Gondi,
+and towards the end of the fifteenth century Federigo’s successor,
+Guidobaldo, Duke of Urbino, sold it to the Frescobaldi. After this
+Rusciano changed hands every few years and was owned by the Covoni,
+Usimbardi, Capponi, Gerini and many other less illustrious Florentine
+families, until in 1825 it came into the possession of an Englishman, Mr
+Baring, and after three more sales the noble old villa now belongs to
+Baron von Stumm.</p>
+
+<p>The Baron is a master in the art of landscape gardening, and with a
+northerner’s love for trees has transformed the grounds into a veritable
+earthly paradise, whence lovely views of Florence, framed by rare conifers
+and bays, are like so many glimpses of a fairy city. When seen
+on a morning with deep snow lying on every mountain, while a pale tinge
+of colour among the vineyards tells of coming spring in the valley of the
+Arno, and the city, usually so brown and strongly defined upon the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">[40]</span>river banks, shines white as though reflecting the dazzling snow peaks around,
+one is tempted to exclaim with Rogers,</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+  <div class="poetry">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <div class="verse indent0">“Of all the fairest cities of the Earth</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">None is so fair as Florence. ’Tis a gem</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Of purest ray.”</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p>All the town lies below us, but unlike the vast unbroken bird’s-eye view
+from Bellosguardo or San Miniato, here we only feel her presence, and while
+listening to the midday bells we see, between two clumps of slender bamboo,
+Palazzo Vecchio looming like some enchanter’s castle out of the thick
+atmosphere and suffused with rosy hues. The mysterious feeling of the building
+is enhanced, for the bay and olive trees hide the houses around it and
+nothing of the modern town is visible.</p>
+
+<p>Such a city, seen from a terrace where a column of purest marble makes
+the rose tints of the sky more clearly felt, may well inspire her people to
+weave legends, even in this century of ours, as to her having been built
+by angels in the night. Between the cypresses the Duomo, sometimes so
+russet brown above the city it is guarding, to-day is toned and mellowed
+in the winter sunlight, and the downward markings of its cupola shine
+like ribs of alabaster. Whiter still and fairer rises the campanile “coloured
+like a morning cloud, and chased like a sea shell.”</p>
+
+<p>The terraced garden of Rusciano, where granite columns with capitals
+encircled by dolphins rise amidst palms and magnolias, lies on the southern
+side of the villa facing the heights of Monticci.</p>
+
+<p>A watch-tower on the slopes, a little village in the plain with pointed
+bell-tower rising above the jutting roofs of peasant houses low-lying among
+the fruit trees, hills palely outlined, their cypress-covered summits seen
+against still paler distance, pine trees along the valley wreathed in mist
+and nearer, olive trees reflecting, like so many mirrors, the radiant hues of
+the morning sunlight on each of their small pointed leaves—all these things
+and many more we see from the garden of Rusciano.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_27_27" href="#FNanchor_27_27" class="label">[27]</a> <i lang="de">Filippo Brunelleschi, sein Leben und seine Werke</i>,
+    von Cornel von Fabriczy. Stuttgard, 1892.</p></div></div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">[41]</span></p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="i_080" >
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_080.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption>
+      <span class="smcap">VILLA di POGGIO IMPERIALE.</span>
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp90" id="i_083a" >
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_083a.jpg" alt="The Formal Garden">
+</figure>
+
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="VILLA_DI_POGGIO_IMPERIALE">
+    VILLA DI POGGIO IMPERIALE
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+<img class="drop-capi" src="images/a.jpg" alt="Stylized A">
+<p class="drop-capi">
+<span class=uc>About</span> a mile outside Porta Romana on the heights of Arcetri
+stands the fine Villa Poggio Imperiale, now a school for
+girls. Formerly it was called Poggio Baroncelli, from the
+rich and powerful family of that name who owned large
+possessions on this side of Florence, and turned an old
+castle into a dwelling-house; but they failed in 1487, when
+the villa and much of the land belonging to it became the property of
+Agnolo Pandolfini, whose descendants sold it to Piero d’Alamanno Salviati.
+In 1548 the Salviati were declared rebels and Cosimo I seized all their
+possessions.</p>
+
+<p>Cosimo had such an affection for Tommaso, one of the descendants of
+the Baroncelli, that he insisted on his living in the Medici palace in Via
+Larga (now palazzo Riccardi, Via Cavour). When in 1569 Pius V gave the
+Duke Cosimo I, in spite of strenuous opposition on the part of the Emperor
+Maximilian, the title of Grand Duke of Tuscany, Tommaso Baroncelli rode
+out to meet him on his return from the coronation at Rome. “Such was
+his joy,” writes Cosimo Baroncelli (son of Tommaso) in a manuscript history
+of his family, “on seeing that great Prince his most gracious Lord, that he
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">[42]</span>
+fainted and would have fallen from his horse if the attendants had not quickly
+supported him and lifted him from the saddle. They placed him on a low
+wall near the fountain of San Gaggio where he died, to the very great grief
+of H.H. and of the whole court; he being singularly beloved for his kind
+and courteous manners. He died in the year 1569 on the 21st March, the
+day of St Benedict the Abbot.”</p>
+
+<p>There is a tradition that a duel took place close to the villa in 1312
+between four Florentines and four Germans during the siege of Florence by
+the Emperor Henry VII, but the one between Lodovico Martelli and Giovanni
+Bandini is historical and has been minutely described by Varchi. “Lodovico
+di Giovan Francesco Martelli, a youth of great courage, having a secret
+enmity against Giovanni Bandini, seized a favourable occasion of fighting
+and if necessary dying, for the love of his city; he sent him a challenge,
+written by Messer Salvestro Aldobrandini, setting forth that he (Bandini)
+and all Florentines serving in the enemy’s ranks were traitors to their
+country, and that he was ready to prove this in the lists fighting hand to
+hand, leaving the choice of place, of arms and whether on foot or on horseback
+to him.... Giovanni, who lacked not courage and abounded in wit,
+tried to evade fighting in so bad a cause, and replied with more prudence
+than truth, that he was in the enemy’s camp to visit certain friends and not
+to fight against his country which he loved as well as anyone. This, whether
+true or false, ought to have sufficed Lodovico; but he being desirous at all
+costs to cross swords with Giovanni replied in such manner, that not to
+fail in the honour of a gentleman, on which he particularly prided himself,
+Giovanni was obliged to accept; it was arranged that each should choose
+a companion. Giovanni ... chose Bertino di Carlo Aldobrandini, a youth
+whose beard had but just begun to sprout ... Lodovico chose Dante di
+Guido da Castiglione, who accepted the risk solely for love of his country.</p>
+
+<p>“Lodovico and Dante quitted Florence on the 2nd day of March (1530)
+leaving the Piazza San Michele Berteldi in the following order—to recount
+everything in minute fashion. In front of them were two pages clothed in
+red and white, on horses whose caparisons were of white leather, and then
+two other pages mounted on great chargers and dressed in the like manner;
+followed by two trumpeters blowing continuously. After these came Captain
+Giovanni da Vinci, a youth of extraordinary stature, the second of Dante,
+and Pagolo Spinelli, a citizen and an old soldier of great experience, second
+of Lodovico, and Messer Vitello Vitelli, umpire of both.... Then followed
+the two champions on fine Turkish horses of marvellous beauty and value.
+They wore tunics of red satin with sleeves of the same slashed with lace,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">[43]</span>their breeches were of red satin laced with white and lined with cloth of
+silver; on their heads were skull-caps of red satin and hats of red silk
+with white plumes. Six servants dressed in the same fashion as the pages
+on horseback walked by the stirrups of the knights ... and in their wake
+were several captains and brave soldiers with many of the Florentine militia,
+who having eaten with them that morning bore them company as far as
+the gate.... They followed the Via di Piazza, by Borgo Santo Apostolo,
+down Parione, crossing the Carraja bridge to the San Friano gate where
+was their baggage; twenty-one mules laden with all and every sort of thing
+they might want in the way of food or arms for man and horse. Not to
+be beholden to the enemy for anything, they carried with them bread, wine,
+oats, straw, wood, meat of all kinds, every sort of bird and of fish and of
+pastry, tents fitted with every convenience and furniture they could need
+even to water. They took a priest, a doctor, a barber, a butler, a cook
+and a scullion with them. Going out of the gate with all this baggage
+they went along under the walls, until close to the gate of San Pier Gattolini
+[now Porta Romana] they turned to the right ... where was the last of
+the enemy’s trenches, and then proceeded to Baroncelli [Poggio Imperiale], the
+whole camp running to see them, it having been agreed that until they
+stood before the Prince of Orange no shot should be fired from any artillery,
+either large or small on either side, and this was faithfully observed.</p>
+
+<p>“At twelve on the day of St Gregory, which fell on a Saturday, they
+fought in two stockades.&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_28_28" href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> ... They fought in their shirts, that is breeches
+and no jackets, with the right sleeve cut off at the elbow, a sword and a
+short mailed glove on the sword hand and nothing on their heads....
+Thus it was chosen by Giovanni to gainsay the opinion held of him in
+Florence, that he had more prudence than valour and behaved with more
+cunning than courage.</p>
+
+<p>“Dante having caused his red beard which descended nearly to his waist
+to be shaved, attacked Bertino, and in the first round received a wound in his
+right arm and a slight touch on the mouth; he was then assailed with
+such fury by his adversary that without being able to shield himself he got
+three wounds on his left arm, one severe, and two slashes, so that if Bertino
+had continued to press him as he should have done, he was in such condition
+that he would have been forced to yield; being unable to hold his sword
+in only one hand he took it with both, and keenly watching the movements
+of his adversary saw how he rushed towards him with the utmost fury and
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">[44]</span>inconsiderateness ... so advancing and extending both arms he drove his
+sword into Bertino’s mouth between the tongue and the uvula in such fashion
+that his right eye swelled forthwith; thus he who just before had boastingly
+promised to die a thousand times sooner than yield once, either vanquished
+by the extreme pain ... or else out of his senses, asked for quarter, to
+the very great displeasure of the Prince [of Orange] ... and died the following
+night at the sixth hour. Then Dante, to encourage his companion, shouted
+twice aloud ‘Victory, Victory,’ not being able, by reason of the laws agreed
+upon between them to otherwise help him.</p>
+
+<p>“Lodovico at the first trumpet blast attacked Giovanni with incredible
+fury; but Giovanni, who was a master of fence and did not allow himself
+to be carried away by anger or any other passion, gave him a cut above the
+eyebrow, the blood from which began to impede his sight; therefore he with
+increased rage tried three times to seize his opponent’s sword with his left
+hand and wrest it from him, but Giovanni turning it quickly and drawing
+it hard towards him, always pulled it out of his hand and wounded him
+in three places in the said left hand; so that the more Lodovico tried to
+clear his eye from blood with his left hand in order to see light, the more
+he besmeared himself; nevertheless with his right hand he made a ferocious
+pass at Giovanni which passed more than a span beyond him, but did him
+no other harm than a slight scratch beneath the left breast. Then did
+Giovanni deal him a right-handed blow on the head, which he not being
+able to ward off in other fashion parried with his wounded left hand and
+tried once more to seize the sword. Failing in this and being severely
+wounded, he placed both hands to the hilt of his sword and resting it against
+his breast rushed at Giovanni to run him through; but the latter, agile as
+he was strong, sprang back, and at the same moment dealt him a blow on
+the head saying: ‘If thou wouldst not die yield thyself to me.’ Lodovico,
+unable to see and wounded in several places, answered: ‘I yield myself to
+the Marquis del Guasto,’&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_29_29" href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a>
+but Giovanni insisting he yielded unto him.”&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_30_30" href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a></p>
+
+<p>Lodovico Martelli died of his wounds twenty-four days after the duel,
+and it was solemnly decreed that his portrait should be placed in the Uffizi
+gallery among those of men famous for their patriotic virtues. Patriotism
+had, however, little to do with the duel, which was fought for love of Marietta
+Ricci, wife of Niccolò Benintendi.&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_31_31" href="#Footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a></p>
+
+<p>In 1565 Cosimo I gave the villa to his favourite daughter Isabella,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">[45]</span>married to Paolo Giordano Orsini, Duke of Bracciano, with faculty to leave
+it by will to her children; if she died intestate it was to revert to the crown.
+Eleven years later she was strangled one summer’s night by her husband
+at their villa Cerreti Guidi, and in the following October her brother, the
+Grand Duke Francesco I, confirmed his brother-in-law in the possession of
+Poggio Baroncelli.</p>
+
+<p>In 1619 it became the property of the Grand Duchess Maria Maddalena
+of Austria, wife to Cosimo II. She bought it from Paolo Giordano Orsini,
+who was in want of money to pay the dower of his sister Camilla, engaged
+to Marcantonio Borghese, Prince of Sulmona. At the same time the Grand
+Duchess bought several farms to enlarge the grounds and make the broad
+carriage road leading up to the villa. She also planted the ilexes and
+cypresses which are now such a feature in the landscape. It became her
+favourite residence, and here Claudia de’ Medici, her sister-in-law, was
+married to Federigo Ubaldo della Rovere, eldest son to the Duke of Urbino,
+with less pomp than was usually displayed by the Medici owing to the
+recent death of the Grand Duke Cosimo II.</p>
+
+<p>Maria Maddalena determined to enlarge and beautify her villa, and chose
+Giulio Parigi as her architect, changing its name from Poggio Baroncelli
+to Poggio Imperiale. She and Christine of Lorraine (mother, grandmother
+and guardians of the young Grand Duke Ferdinando II) entertained Prince
+Stanislao of Poland there in 1625 with the tragedy of St Ursula, a ball,
+and a ballet on horseback performed in an amphitheatre built for the purpose
+in front of the villa.</p>
+
+<p>Ferdinando II married his cousin Vittoria, only child of Claudia de’
+Medici and Federigo della Rovere, who died soon after the birth of his
+daughter. Brought up at Poggio Imperiale by her aunt Maria Maddalena,
+Vittoria bought the villa from her husband after his mother’s death for 62,500
+scudi and spent large sums in enlarging and embellishing the place; several
+of the rooms added by her were frescoed by Volterrano (Baldassare Franceschini).
+When her half-brothers (by her mother’s second marriage with the
+Arch Duke Leopold of Austria) came to Florence she gave a magnificent
+entertainment there, including the favourite Florentine pastime of the
+<i lang="it">Buratto</i> or Saracen. Loud laughter greeted the unhappy wight whose
+lance missed the proper spot on the breast of Buratto and was then knocked
+off his horse by the staff unerringly wielded by the wooden statue.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp90" id="i_088" >
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_088.jpg" alt="The Great Entrance">
+</figure>
+
+<p>Violante of Bavaria, wife of Prince Ferdinando, son of Cosimo III,
+lived occasionally at Poggio Imperiale, and it was frequently visited by her
+brother-in-law Gastone, the last of the Medicean Grand Dukes, who inherited
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">[46]</span>all the vices but none of the talent of his house. Pietro Leopoldo of
+Lorraine, his successor, had a particular predilection for the imperial villa
+and spent 1,300,000 francs on enlarging it and building immense stables
+(now cavalry barracks). When he, on the death of his brother in 1790,
+became Emperor of Austria, his second son Ferdinando III succeeded to
+the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, and gave hospitality at Poggio Imperiale to
+the King of Sardinia and his wife, who had been compelled to quit Piedmont
+by the revolution. Charles Emanuel IV and Marie Clotilde arrived on
+the 19th January 1799, only to be driven out after a month of quiet and
+repose. They fled to Sardinia, and Napoleon having abolished Tuscany
+with a stroke of a pen, the Grand Duke took refuge with his brother in
+Vienna. A new kingdom—Etruria—was then created, with Lodovico of
+Bourbon, son of the Duke of Parma, as king. He died in 1803, leaving
+his young widow as regent for his little son, and Poggio Imperiale became
+her favourite residence. She added the rustic loggia and was beginning
+other improvements when Napoleon, unmoved by her tears and entreaties,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">[47]</span>swept Etruria off the map of nations and the poor Queen Regent and her
+small boy were driven into exile. A new mistress now ruled in the great
+villa—Napoleon’s sister, the brilliant Elise Bonaparte married to Captain
+Felice Baciocchi, who had been created Prince of Lucca and Piombino;
+and she gave balls and festivals to celebrate her brother’s victories in the
+villa which owed most of its splendour to Austrian princesses. Her
+grandeur was, however, short-lived; in 1814 she left Poggio Imperiale at
+dead of night, and Ferdinando III returned to Tuscany.</p>
+
+<p>Three years later a royal company assembled in the “Villa of five
+hundred rooms,” as Poggio Imperiale was commonly called, to say farewell to
+the Arch Duchess Leopoldine of Austria who was to embark at Leghorn as the
+bride of the Crown Prince of Portugal and the Brazils. Her two sisters,
+one married to Prince Leopold of Naples the other to Napoleon, then a
+prisoner at St Helena, met her there together with the Princess of the Brazils
+who had come to receive her son’s future wife at the hands of Prince
+Metternich.</p>
+
+<p>In the autumn of 1822, when Carlo Alberto, Prince of Carignano, that strange
+compound of hesitation and daring, religion and mysticism, came as an exile
+to Florence, his father-in-law Ferdinando III lent him Poggio Imperiale, and
+here his son Victor Emanuel, the future King of United Italy, narrowly
+escaped being burnt to death as a baby. His nurse, driven distracted by the
+mosquitoes tried to burn them on the mosquito-net and set fire to the bed.
+Snatching up the child she clasped him to her breast and saved his life at the
+sacrifice of her own. When the “Re Galant’ Uomo” entered Florence on the
+15th April 1860, his first visit was to Poggio Imperiale to see the room he
+had inhabited as a child, and the apartments occupied by his parents.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_28_28" href="#FNanchor_28_28" class="label">[28]</a> Lodovico Martelli and Giovanni Bandini in one, Dante da Castiglione and Bertino Aldobrandini in
+the other.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_29_29" href="#FNanchor_29_29" class="label">[29]</a> Colonel in command of the Spanish infantry.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_30_30" href="#FNanchor_30_30" class="label">[30]</a> Varchi. <i lang="it">Storia Fiorentina.</i> Firenze, 1836-1841. Vol. II. p. 302.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_31_31" href="#FNanchor_31_31" class="label">[31]</a> See Letter XVIII. Busini.</p></div></div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">[48]</span></p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+<figure class="figcenter illowp90" id="i_090a" >
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_090a.jpg" alt="The Terrace and Villa">
+</figure>
+
+
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="VILLA_DI_LAPPEGGI">
+    VILLA DI LAPPEGGI
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+<img class="drop-capi" src="images/t.jpg" alt="Stylized T">
+<p class="drop-capi">
+<span class=uc>The</span> hamlet of Lappeggi lies some six miles south-east of
+Florence in the picturesque valley of the Ema, and here the
+Ricasoli had a villa which in 1569 they sold to Francesco
+de’ Medici, son of Cosimo I. Francesco I was succeeded
+by his brother Ferdinando I, who, in order to avoid any
+controversy with Don Antonio de’ Medici, the supposed
+illegitimate son of the Grand Duke Francesco and Bianca Cappello,&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_32_32" href="#Footnote_32_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> gave him
+a life interest in a considerable share of the family property, Lappeggi among
+the rest. On the death of Don Antonio in 1604 the Grand Duke again came
+into possession and bestowed it on the Orsini family. Alessandro, last of the
+Orsini, died about thirty years later, and once more Lappeggi reverted to the
+crown when Don Mattias de’ Medici had it for his life, but seldom lived
+there, as he was governor of Siena. Finally the villa became the property
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">[49]</span>of Cardinal Francesco Maria de’ Medici, whose favourite place of residence
+it was.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="i_093" >
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_093.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption>
+      VILLA <span class="allsmcap">DI</span> LAPPEGGI.
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p>Antonio Ferri, the court architect, was then ordered to prepare designs
+for a villa, and choosing the most magnificent the Cardinal asked what the
+cost would be; after a few moments of reflection Ferri answered forty
+thousand scudi for solid good building. “And if I only desire to spend
+thirty thousand, and yet have my villa built according to this design, how
+long would it last?” said the Cardinal. On the architect replying that he
+would guarantee it for eighteen years, the Cardinal exclaimed, “Eighteen
+years? That is enough; that will serve my time.”</p>
+
+<p>Lappeggi is celebrated in the <cite lang="it">Rime Piacevole</cite> of Giovan Battista
+Fagiuoli, a poet who was one of the chief boon companions of the
+pleasure-loving Cardinal, and seems to have been consulted as to the
+planting of the grounds. He strongly recommended bay trees: “they are
+evergreen, but not funereal like cypresses, so noble that kings make crowns
+of their leaves; and above all they avert thunderbolts, which are frequent
+at Lappeggi. But,” he continues in his facetious poem, “plant what you
+will, everyone is sure to praise your work, for a Prince can do no wrong.
+Should he by chance commit some gross error, liars and courtiers will make
+it out a miracle; so that if you plant a pumpkin to-morrow they will all
+exclaim, ‘What a beautiful outlandish fruit.’ Or if you sow a bean—a
+common enough thing—you will hear, ‘What a glorious plant, what a show
+it makes, what taste the Cardinal has.’”</p>
+
+<p>Francesco Maria de’ Medici was very fond of practical jokes. Once
+he saw an ass go pass the villa with her foal, and calling his French
+cook Monsù Niccolò and his two aids bade them buy the foal and serve
+it dressed in various ways at dinner. After the guests had eaten their fill,
+particularly of an excellent pasty, the bleeding legs and head of the little
+donkey with the hair on, were solemnly placed on the centre of the table.
+Some of the party had to leave the room, but most of them praised the
+good dinner and laughed, or pretended to laugh, at the Cardinal’s wonderful
+wit. Fagiuoli writes a long description of the scene in verse, saying that
+for his part, he preferred the long ears. He also describes the game of
+<i lang="it">pallone</i>, in high favour at Lappeggi, and various games of cards over
+which large sums of money were lost. Comedies written by him were learned
+and acted by the courtiers within six hours, in obedience to a master
+whose every whim had to be gratified at once. On the Cardinal’s birthday
+there was a fair on the sward near the villa; all Florence, and the
+inhabitants of the neighbouring villages, flocked to see the fun and danced
+till late in the night. Marionettes, musicians, astrologers, conjurors “who,”
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[50]</span>says our satirical poet, “did not much astonish me, because the talent of
+changing cards by sleight of hand is by no means uncommon in these
+days.”</p>
+
+<p>There were great doings at Lappeggi in 1709; Frederick IV, King
+of Denmark,&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_33_33" href="#Footnote_33_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a> was in Florence, and the Cardinal de’ Medici begged him
+to honour his villa with his presence, and asked ten ladies of the aristocracy,
+chosen for their knowledge of French, to meet him. Prince Giovan
+Gastone waited betimes upon the King with all the court dignitaries to
+accompany him to his uncle’s villa where the ladies received His Majesty
+at the door with much reverence and courtesying, and at dinner they and
+Prince Giovan Gastone sat at the King’s table and were served by the
+pages of the court; the Cardinal having a bad fit of the gout being
+unable to do the honours himself. The dinner consisted of four complete
+changes: one cloth after another was removed and towards the end came
+a course of sweet dishes of various kinds; after these had been tasted,
+sugar-plums disposed in pyramids and many kinds of liqueur were placed
+on the table. In front of the King was put a large coffee-pot in the shape
+of a fountain with four jets, and at the sides of the table were four
+golden dishes, two containing three cups of chocolate each, the others cups
+of water. Between the golden dishes the space was covered with Savoy
+and other biscuits, and when the coffee-pot was removed, <span lang="it">“trionfi”</span> of
+bottles of San Lorenzo and other rare wines took its place, and all the
+glasses used were of the finest engraved Bohemian glass. During dinner
+there was a concert, and the same musicians followed the King about
+during the whole day, and managed so well as to be ready to receive him
+with dulcet tunes at every halting-place. After the banquet the King
+withdrew with the ladies and cavaliers into another room and played
+games until four o’clock, when they drove about the grounds and visited
+the home farm. Then going into the orange garden they found a
+sumptuous cold repast, preparations of milk, capons in jelly, iced fruit
+and sweetmeats of divers kinds. The iced fruit, a dish new to the King
+and to all his people, delighted them so much that His Majesty asked
+permission to make a present of a dish to his dwarf, who was of noble
+birth and a great favourite and trusted counsellor. On a table apart
+stood small flasks of the most costly Tuscan wines, chiefly those made
+on the surrounding hills praised so highly by Redi in his <i lang="it">Bacco in
+Toscana</i><span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">[51]</span>. The King and all the company sat down and ate heartily of
+the good things, and then, to crown so royal a day, it was proposed to
+dance; the King set the example, but as night was approaching and dew
+began to fall it was considered prudent to retreat indoors. More liberty
+and jollity being permitted in the country than in town, French dances
+were abandoned and peasant dances, such as the <i lang="it">Spalmata</i>, the <i lang="it">Mestola</i>
+and the <i lang="it">Scarpettaccia</i> were indulged in, to the great satisfaction and
+delight of His Majesty. Thus they amused themselves until three in
+the morning, when all returned to Florence.”&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_34_34" href="#Footnote_34_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a></p>
+
+<p>In July of the same year the Cardinal was, for family reasons, induced
+to obtain dispensation from Holy Orders and marry the Princess Eleonora
+Gonzaga of Guastalla, twenty-five years his junior, and the bachelor amusements
+at Lappeggi came to an end. The young Princess openly manifested
+her dislike and contempt for her worn-out, gouty and corpulent husband, and
+he, they say, took this so much to heart that he died after only eight
+months of married life.</p>
+
+<p>Lappeggi was then abandoned and shut up for four years when
+Cosimo III lent it to Princess Violante of Bavaria, widow of his eldest
+son. She loved the society of literary men and poets and had a particular
+admiration for <i lang="it">improvisatori</i>. Cavaliere Bernadino of Siena, famous for
+his talent in improvising, often visited her at Lappeggi, where he met
+the burlesque poet Ghivizzani, and a peasant girl who lived near by called
+Domenica Maria Mazzetti, surnamed la Menica di Legnaja, who had a
+great reputation for improvising in <span lang="it">“terza rima.”</span> So delighted was Princess
+Violante with the girl’s talent that she had her taught reading, writing,
+Latin and music, all which she learnt with ease. After the death of Cosimo,
+Princess Violante had to give up Lappeggi and went to live in Rome;
+she took the peasant girl with her and caused her to be crowned with
+bays on the Campidoglio.</p>
+
+<p>In 1816 Lappeggi was sold by public auction to Signor Capacci; he
+soon resold it to Captain Cambiagi, who was obliged to take down the
+second story, which was causing the walls to bulge and threatened to
+destroy the whole house, and at his death the Gheradesca family bought it
+and turned the royal villa into a lodging-house for poor people. In 1876
+it came into the possession of the well-known sculptor Giovanni Dupré,
+whose daughter, also a sculptress, still owns it. In May 1895 the villa,
+like so many in the neighbourhood of Florence, suffered severely from
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">[52]</span>an earthquake; but time, neglect and earthquakes have been unable to
+quite destroy the beauty of the place, and as we stand on the wide broad
+terrace in front of the villa looking out across the valley of the Chianti
+towards Siena, the talent of Antonio Ferri the architect is realised, who so
+happily placed the villa of Lappeggi and its gardens in sight of so fine a
+scene. The lines of the balustrade, projecting above the garden in a
+bold half circle, are seen against the hills where they slope down towards
+the valley, thus forming a scene as austerely beautiful as a drawing by
+some great Tuscan Master. A wide staircase leads swiftly down on either
+side of the terrace to the lower level of the garden, which is raised
+above the vineyards by strong bastions and confined by a low rampart
+wall. The outline of the beds remain as in Zocchi’s print, but where
+the pleasure-loving Cardinal once walked with a gay company of Florentines
+among the brightness of his flowers now are seen only artichokes and
+potatoes, and the statues and vases are no longer standing to recall the
+pageantry of those days. At the top of the garden a big grotto has been
+scooped out beneath the upper terrace, which Francesco Maria, no doubt
+remembering for a brief moment his title of Cardinal, caused to be ornamented
+with terra-cotta bas-reliefs illustrating such scenes as Moses before
+the burning bush, while a huge statue of St Mark with his lion seated
+above a pool of water, might easily be mistaken by a casual observer
+for a Neptune rising from the sea with his dolphin.</p>
+
+<p>From the loggia of the house one enters a finely proportioned room,
+decorated with charming frescoes of landscapes seen through arches, where
+pheasants strut on terraced walks, while a statue of Venus looks down
+upon a lake, all faintly painted and with a dim distance which gives to
+the room that great idea of space which the Italians of the eighteenth century
+so well knew how to render. We sat here one rainy day reading of the
+gay doings of Cardinal Francesco Maria, and as we saw the rents in the
+walls made by the earthquake, and recalled the bargain between the
+Cardinal and his architect, we wondered that the villa should have stood
+so long.&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_35_35" href="#Footnote_35_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a></p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_32_32" href="#FNanchor_32_32" class="label">[32]</a> A new-born babe was smuggled into the Pitti Palace in a lute and presented to the Grand Duke by
+Bianca Cappello as his child; Francesco I bought for him the estate of Capistrano in the Abruzzi which
+carried the title of Prince with it, and left him also large property by will. The real mother was murdered,
+as soon as she had given up her child, by the orders of Bianca.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_33_33" href="#FNanchor_33_33" class="label">[33]</a> When travelling in Italy as crown prince in 1691, Frederick fell in love with Maddalena Trenta,
+daughter of a gentleman at Lucca; and being at Venice for the carnival in 1709 he could not resist going
+to Florence in order to see once more the woman he had loved so passionately. After his departure she
+had sought refuge and consolation in the convent of Santa Maria Maddalena de’ Pazzi, and he obtained a
+special dispensation to pay visits to the still beautiful nun, who they say tried to convert him.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_34_34" href="#FNanchor_34_34" class="label">[34]</a> Taken from a manuscript (No 893 in the MSS. Moreniani). “Relazione di tutti le Cerimonie,
+Trattamenti, Feste e Trattenimenti seguiti in Firenze l’anno 1708 in 1709, nella venuta di Federigo IV,
+Re di Danimarca e Norvegia.”</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_35_35" href="#FNanchor_35_35" class="label">[35]</a> For the account of Lappeggi in the days of the Cardinal Francesco Maria de’ Medici, I am chiefly
+indebted to a rare pamphlet by Signor G. Palagi, <cite lang="it">La Villa di Lappeggi e il Poeta Gio. Batt. Fagiuoli</cite>.
+Firenze, Succ. Le Monnier 1876.</p></div></div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter"></div>
+
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="i_100" >
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_100.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption>
+      VILLA <span class="allsmcap">DELLA</span> PETRAJA
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">[53]</span></p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp90" id="i_103a" >
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_103a.jpg" alt="The Villa, With Victor Emanuel’S Ilex">
+</figure>
+
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="VILLA_DELLA_PETRAJA">
+    VILLA DELLA PETRAJA
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+<img class="drop-capi" src="images/t.jpg" alt="Stylized T">
+<p class="drop-capi">
+<span class=uc>The</span> number of beautiful homes owned by the Medici strikes
+one with fresh surprise when visiting the villas of Petraja
+and Castello, which lie close together with a shady ilex
+wood between them, about three miles from Florence. Something
+of the old charm still lingers about them although
+the life of that time has departed, and few now pace the
+terraced walks, or sit in the shade of the quiet ilex woods, where once all
+the gay world of Florence thronged to hold court round their Medicean
+rulers. The charm of both villas now lies in their gardens and surroundings,
+and though so essentially Florentine each has its individual character—Petraja,
+within sight of the city, peaceful, amidst a garden of roses and
+carnations, its terraces sinking gradually down to the plain, with an enormous
+marble reservoir of clear green water, in which colossal carp disport themselves
+under the first one, on which the villa and a few huge ilexes stand.
+A rustic staircase twines round the trunk of the largest of these trees leading
+up to a platform among the branches, where Victor Emanuel used to dine.
+The view of Florence at one’s feet, surrounded by villa-crowned hills, is
+lovely, and Ariosto is said to have written his well-known lines while
+standing on the terrace of Petraja—</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+  <div class="poetry">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <div class="verse indent0">“To see the hills with villas sprinkled o’er</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Would make one think that, even as flowers and trees,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Here earth tall towers in rich abundance bore.</div>
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">[54]</span>    </div>
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <div class="verse indent0">“If gathered were thy scattered palaces</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Within a single wall, beneath one name,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Two Romes would scarce appear so great as these.”&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_36_36" href="#Footnote_36_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a></div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p>The beautiful fountain on the east side of the villa was removed from
+Castello and brought here by the Grand Duke Pietro Leopoldo. It is one
+of Tribolo’s masterpieces, and Vasari tells us “he carved on the marble
+base a mass of marine monsters, all plump and under-cut, with tails so
+curiously twisted together that nothing better can be done in that style;
+having finished it, he took a marble basin, brought to Castello long
+before ... and in the throat, near to the edge of the said basin, he
+made a circle of dancing boys holding certain festoons of marine creatures
+carved with excellent imagination out of the marble; also the stem to go
+above the said basin he executed with much grace, with boys, and masks
+for spouting out water of great beauty, and on the top of this stem Tribolo
+placed a bronze female figure a yard and a half high to represent
+Florence ... of which figure he had made a most beautiful model,
+wringing the water out of her hair with her hands.”&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_37_37" href="#Footnote_37_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a></p>
+
+<p>Petraja is first celebrated in Florentine history for a gallant defence
+made by its owners the Brunelleschi, against the Pisans and their English
+and German allies in 1364. It was the time of the fierce feud between
+Pisa and Florence, when the Pisans were smarting under the loss of the
+great iron chain used for closing the entrance of their port, which the
+Florentines had carried off in triumph and hung over the western door of
+San Giovanni. Piero de’ Farnese, commander of the Florentine army, had
+also taunted the Pisans by striking a commemorative coinage under their
+very walls; Piero, however, died of the plague, and the fortune of war
+changed. The Pisans not only coined money under the walls of Florence,
+but they ravaged the whole country. “The Germans,” writes Scipione
+Ammirato, “the Pisan despoilers and the English, encamped at Sesto and
+Colonnato on their way back from the Mugello, and spreading over the
+slopes of Monte Morello took San Stefano in Pane, where they remained
+some days devastating the villas, which they burned down over a radius of
+three miles. The sons of Boccaccio Brunelleschi, most valorous youths,
+then owned Petraja.... The villa being therefore well defended by the
+young Brunelleschi, who showed no sign of surrendering, the enemy
+determined to take it by force, with the intention of cutting the defenders
+to pieces and razing the building to the ground. The English&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_38_38" href="#Footnote_38_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a> first
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">[55]</span>undertook the work and advanced in fine order with the greatest ferocity,
+carrying ladders and catapults as though they had to storm the walls of
+Florence itself. But all was in vain. Some were killed, many others were
+bruised and wounded. The Germans then determined to try their luck and made
+a second assault as furious as any castle ever underwent. Neither more nor less
+happened to them than what had befallen the English. So they determined with
+combined forces to assault the villa a third time, and to their shame and the
+everlasting glory of the Brunelleschi they were once more repulsed.”&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_39_39" href="#Footnote_39_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a></p>
+
+<p>The Brunelleschi were on the winning side, and had the joy of witnessing
+the triumphal entry of Galeotto Malatesta and his army into Florence; when,
+by way of insulting a fallen foe, the Pisan prisoners were compelled to kiss
+the tail of the Marzocco, the stone lion beloved of all Florentines.</p>
+
+<p>The Strozzi were the next owners of Petraja, and we can fancy the
+pleasure Palla Strozzi took in spending some of his wealth on laying out
+terraces and beautiful gardens and filling his villa with costly works of art
+and valuable manuscripts. He occupied several high offices in Florence and
+took a leading part in the affairs of the city; unfortunately he joined the
+Albizzi against the Medici and was exiled in 1435. His son Messer Lorenzo
+di Palla Strozzi seems however to have still owned Petraja in 1438, as is
+shown by a deed executed by him before a public notary dated “from my
+villa of Petraja.” Whether it came into the possession of the Medici when
+the estates of Palla were confiscated by the Republic of Florence after the
+return of Cosimo the Elder from exile, or whether it was confiscated in consequence
+of the rebellion of Filippo Strozzi against the government of Cosimo,
+is not ascertained. Palla Strozzi was sixty-six years old when he was driven
+into exile, and although he carefully avoided the society of other Florentine
+malcontents and lived entirely with learned men, his sentence of banishment
+was renewed. He lost one son after another, and died in 1462 without seeing
+his beloved Florence again.</p>
+
+<p>Cosimo de’ Medici died two years later at the age of seventy-six, the
+Republic inscribed the glorious title of “Pater Patriae” on his tomb, and he
+was universally mourned as the most sagacious man in Italy. “His financial
+genius,” says Galluzzi, “was such that when Alfonso, King of Naples, joined
+the Venetians against the Republic of Florence, he caused so great a dearth of
+coin by drawing bills as to compel them to come to terms. There are few
+examples in history of a citizen who, without arms, and solely by the admiration
+excited by his virtues, became the master of his fatherland.”&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_40_40" href="#Footnote_40_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a> “Nothing is
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">[56]</span>denied to him,” exclaimed Pius II, “he is a judge of war and peace, a
+moderator of the laws; not so much a citizen as the lord of the country.
+The policy of the Republic is settled in his house, he gives commands to the
+magistrates.” “Write in private to Cosimo,” was the advice Sforza’s envoy
+gave to his master, “if you want anything particularly.... Cosimo does
+everything.... Without him nothing is done.”&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_41_41" href="#Footnote_41_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a> The most eminent men in
+Florence were among his intimate friends: Antonino the saintly archbishop,
+Fra Angelico the holy painter, and the learned monk Ambrogio Traversari,
+who set aside one of the cells of St Marco for his use. Cosimo invited
+Argyropulos the Greek to Florence, and made him one of the teachers of his
+son Piero and of his grandson Lorenzo. Marsilio Ficino was brought up in
+his house, and the last year of his life he spent in studying the translation
+made by his protegé of Plato’s <cite>On the highest good</cite>.</p>
+
+<p>Cosimo I, his collateral descendant, was like all his house a patron of
+men of letters; he lived much at Petraja, and wishing to have Varchi near
+him “to enjoy his sweet converse,” lent him “La Topaja,” a small villa on
+the hillside above Petraja. Poets, artists and strangers of note who came to
+Florence, toiled up the steep road to visit the great historian, and Varchi must
+often have entertained there the celebrated courtezan Tullia d’ Arragona, whose
+portrait at Brescia by Bonvicino fully justifies the passionate verses addressed
+to her by so many poets of that time.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container" lang="it">
+  <div class="poetry">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <div class="verse indent20">... “occhi belli.</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Occhi leggiadri, occhi amorosi e cari,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Piu che le stelle belle e piu che il sole.”</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">writes Muzio; while Ercole Bentivoglo indited sonnets to her celestial
+brow. Tasso called her <span lang="it">“la mia Signora,”</span> and Alessandro Arrighi praised
+her wise conversation, her most rare beauty, and her singing, which could
+turn a marble statue into flesh and blood. Tullia was the daughter of
+Cardinal Luigi d’ Arragona (son of the Marquis of Gerace, a natural
+son of Francis I of Arragon, King of Naples, and of Diana Guardato).
+Born in Rome and educated in Siena and Florence, she aspired to be
+a second Sappho. Varchi, in spite of the silvered hair he talks so much
+about, evidently succumbed to the charms of the beautiful woman, and
+even when love had cooled into a platonic friendship he continued to
+polish and sometimes re-write, in his elegant scholarly language, the sonnets
+and verses of the lovely Tullia. Her reputation as a poetess induced
+Cosimo to excuse her from wearing the yellow veil, odious sign of her
+profession. The sonnet sent with her petition, which is still in the state
+archives of Florence, bears <i lang="it">Fasseli gratia per poetessa</i> in his handwriting
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">[57]</span>on the margin. In her old age she became devout and was a protegée
+of the pious Duchess Eleonora of Toledo, wife of Cosimo. Tullia’s poem
+<cite lang="it">Guerrino il Meschino</cite>, which she declared to be the versification of a
+Spanish story, was written about this time; it is no doubt an old popular
+tale, and some critics hold that from it Dante took the conception of his
+Divine Comedy. In the preface she rates Boccaccio soundly for “the
+improper, indecent and truly abominable things” in his book, and wonders
+how people calling themselves Christians can hear his name mentioned without
+making the sign of the Holy Cross. “Yet,” she goes on, “so corrupt
+is our nature, that the book is not avoided as an abomination, but run after
+by all.” Poor Tullia, when young and beautiful she no doubt read the
+<cite>Decameron</cite> with as much zest as other people, and one cannot help thinking
+she must occasionally have been rather bored in her new rôle of a well-conducted
+woman. Her patroness Eleonora, disliked in spite of many
+virtues by the Florentines on account of her <span lang="it">“insopportabile gravità,”</span> died
+in 1562, and Tullia did not long survive her.</p>
+
+<p>After the death of Cosimo I, Petraja was the favourite residence of his
+son, Cardinal Ferdinando de’ Medici, on his rare visits to Florence. He
+commissioned Bernardo Buontalenti to enlarge and improve the villa, “but,”
+says Ammirato, “I am persuaded that the tower we see to-day, which
+Cardinal Ferdinando certainly did not touch when he altered the rest of
+the building, is the same that was assaulted by the Pisan army.&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_42_42" href="#Footnote_42_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a> When
+the Cardinal left the church and married Christine of Lorraine, Petraja
+was their favourite residence; and here in May 1598 they received the
+<i lang="it">Chiaus</i> of the <i lang="it">Gran Signore</i>, as old Settimanni calls the Sultan’s ambassador,
+who came to treat about Levantine commerce, a very important thing for
+Leghorn. The Turk evidently enjoyed himself at Florence, as he spent
+seventy-four days there, and “although he had a large company with him
+he was a cheap and frugal guest,” remarks the old chronicler.</p>
+
+<p>Ferdinando, one of the best of the Medici, was fond of gathering
+literary society about him. He gave Scipione Ammirato, “the modern
+Livy,” rooms in his palace in Florence, and offered him La Topaja as a
+country residence. But the steepness of the road alarmed the southern
+Italian, accustomed to the dead flat of the country about Lecce; so the
+Grand Duke gave him an apartment in Petraja, where the history of Florence
+was chiefly written. In front of La Topaja is an orchard garden with a
+marble statue of St Fiacrio, whom Moreni calls a son of Eugenius IV,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">[58]</span>King of Scotland (he really was I am told an Irish Chief), who devoted all
+the hours he could spare from his orations to the culture of medicinal
+plants. A laudatory inscription was put on the base of the statue by
+Cosimo III, in 1696.&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_43_43" href="#Footnote_43_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a></p>
+
+<p>When Victor Emanuel came to Florence (as a stepping-stone to Rome)
+Petraja and Castello were his two favourite villas, and enormous aviaries
+were erected on the upper terrace of Petraja for his fine collection of
+pheasants. His wife <span lang="it">“la bella Rosina”</span> lived there, and her beauty is
+still talked of by the people about the place. For the King’s convenience
+the great inner courtyard, with frescoes by Volterrano—or what little was
+left of them after having been white-washed and then “restored”—was
+glazed over, which though perhaps convenient has entirely spoiled the look
+of the villa.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp50" id="i_108" >
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_108.jpg" alt="The Fountain of Venus, by Tribolo and Giovanni Da Bologna">
+</figure>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_36_36" href="#FNanchor_36_36" class="label">[36]</a> Translated by R. C. Trevelyan.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_37_37" href="#FNanchor_37_37" class="label">[37]</a> Critics declare the “Florence” to be by Giovanni Bologna.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_38_38" href="#FNanchor_38_38" class="label">[38]</a> Under the command of Sir John Hawkwood, “Giovanni Aguto, who for a surname in his own country,”
+says Ammirato, “had the appellation <i lang="it">Falcone di Bosco</i> (Hawk of the wood), because his mother being taken
+with the pains of labour on an estate belonging to her, had herself carried into a wood and there gave birth to
+a son.”</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_39_39" href="#FNanchor_39_39" class="label">[39]</a> Scipione Ammirato. <cite lang="it">Istoria di Firenze</cite>, p. 638.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_40_40" href="#FNanchor_40_40" class="label">[40]</a> Galluzzi. <cite lang="it">Istoria del Granducato di Toscana.</cite> Vol. I. p. 22.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_41_41" href="#FNanchor_41_41" class="label">[41]</a> <i lang="it">Cosimo de’ Medici.</i> Dorothea Ewart. P. 184.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_42_42" href="#FNanchor_42_42" class="label">[42]</a> The tower is commonly called <cite lang="it">La Torre de’ Brunelleschi</cite> from the name of the former owners of
+Petraja, and not because it was built by the great architect Filippo Brunellesco as is often said. Filippo was
+of a different family. See <cite lang="it">Notizie Storiche dei Palazzi e Villa appartente alla I.E.R. Corona di Toscana.</cite>
+G. Anguillesi. Pisa, 1815.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_43_43" href="#FNanchor_43_43" class="label">[43]</a> See Moreni. <cite lang="it">Contorni di Firenze.</cite> Vol. I, p. 101.</p></div></div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">[59]</span></p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter"></div>
+<figure class="figcenter illowp50" id="i_110" >
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_110a.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption>
+      COSIMO II,
+<br>
+    By <span class="smcap">Duprè</span>.
+<br>
+    (<i lang="it">Villa di Poggio Imperiale</i>).
+ </figcaption>
+</figure>
+<figure class="figcenter illowp50"  >
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_110b.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption>
+      BIANCA CAPPELLO,
+<br>
+    By <span class="smcap">Selvi</span>.
+<br>
+    (<i lang="it">Villa di Poggio a Caiano</i>).
+ </figcaption>
+</figure><figure class="figcenter illowp50">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_110c.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption>
+      <span class="smcap">MARIA MADDALENA d’AUSTRIA</span>,
+<br>
+    By <span class="smcap">Duprè</span>.
+<br>
+    (<i lang="it">Villa di Poggio Imperiale</i>).
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+<figure class="figcenter illowp90" id="i_113a" >
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_113a.jpg" alt="The North Facade and Tower">
+</figure>
+
+
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="VILLA_DI_BELLOSGUARDO">
+    VILLA DI BELLOSGUARDO
+  </h2>
+
+</div>
+<div class="poetry-container">
+  <div class="poetry">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <div class="verse indent0">“... Tuscan Bellosguardo,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Where Galileo stood at night to take</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">The vision of the stars....”</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+<img class="drop-capi" src="images/b.jpg" alt="Stylized B">
+<p class="drop-capi">
+<span class=uc>Bellosguardo</span> near Florence is mentioned as a favourable
+spot for erecting villas as early as 1427. But the great
+Villa Bellosguardo was in existence long before, as it belonged
+to the noble knight Messer Cavalcante Cavalcanti, father of the
+poet Guido, and lord of the castle of Le Stinche, of Montecalvo
+in Val di Pesa, of Luco, of Ostina in the Upper Val d’ Arno, and
+of other places. Some say his ancestors came from Cologne in 806 with the
+Emperor Charlemagne, others declare them to have come from Fiesole. Dino
+Compagni mentions Guido, who died about 1301, as “a gracious youth, courteous
+and brave, but of a quick and solitary temper and much given to study.” He
+was an intimate friend of Dante, and no doubt the two poets often stood on
+the terrace of the fine old villa gazing on the fair city below while discussing
+poetry and philosophy. Both were Guelphs; and Guido’s hatred of Messer
+Corso Donati, the head of the Ghibelline party, who had tried to assassinate
+him while on a pilgrimage, was so intense that he tried one day to kill him
+in the streets of Florence, and in consequence had to fly the country. Villani
+tells us that when the two rival factions were reconciled in 1267 a marriage
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">[60]</span>was arranged between Guido Cavalcanti and a daughter of the staunch Ghibelline
+Farinata degli Uberti; but discord again broke out, the Priors of
+Florence exiled the chief leaders, and Dante was one of the Priori who voted in
+favour of the banishment of his friend. The Ghibellines were sent to Castello
+della Pieve; the Guelphs, Guido among them, to Sarzana. He was, however,
+almost immediately released as the bad air made him ill, and he died soon
+after reaching Florence.</p>
+
+<p>Lorenzo de’ Medici in a letter to Don Federigo d’ Arragona, son of the
+King of Naples, writes about “the delicate Florentine Guido Cavalcanti, a
+subtle logician, and for his century a profound philosopher. Even as he was
+handsome, winning and of gentle blood, so was he above nearly all the others
+in the grace and charm of his writings: accurate and admirable in conception,
+dignified in his sentences, copious and elevated, wise and far-seeing in his
+composition. All these gifts are adorned, as though with an embroidered
+vest, by an enchanting, sweet and ever-youthful style, which, had it been used
+in a wider field, would indubitably have set him in the first rank.” Dante
+did place him in the first rank, even above Guido Guinicelli then considered
+the greatest of Italian poets, when he wrote—</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+  <div class="poetry">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <div class="verse indent0">“Thus hath one Guido from the other snatch’d</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">The letter’d prize....”</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p>He dedicated the <cite lang="it">Vita Nuova</cite> to Guido Cavalcanti, whom he calls <span lang="it">“primo
+de’ miei amici,”</span> and they wrote many sonnets to each other; but Guido’s
+<cite lang="it">Ballate</cite> are by far the most natural and charming of his productions; “Here,”
+says Symonds, “we find the first full blossom of genuine Italian verse. Their
+beauty is that of popular song, starting flower-like from the soil and fragrant
+in its first expansion beneath the sun of courtesy and culture.” His poem,
+<cite lang="it">Donna mi prega perch’ io voglia dire</cite>, has had volumes of commentaries
+written on its beauties, and is one of the poems cited by Petrarch as among
+the finest in the Italian language.</p>
+
+<p>Soon after Guido’s death new dissensions broke out between the rival
+factions: Masino Cavalcanti was beheaded by the advice of Pazzino de’ Pazzi,
+the palaces of the Cavalcanti in Florence were burnt and they fled to their
+castles, from whence they harried the territory of the Republic. The Florentines
+marched out to attack the strong castle of Le Stinche which after a desperate
+struggle fell into their hands, and the defenders were immured in a new
+prison the Signoria had just built on the site of some houses belonging
+to the Uberti in the parish of San Simone. From these first inmates
+the prison came to be called Le Stinche—dreaded name in the later annals
+of the city. Montecalvo was also taken, and the Cavalcanti were only
+permitted to return to Florence three years later, to be again driven out
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">[61]</span>in 1311 when Paffiero Cavalcanti murdered Pazzino de’ Pazzi to revenge
+the decapitation of his brother Masino. Several of the family then emigrated
+to Naples, where their descendants filled some of the highest posts in the
+kingdom.</p>
+
+<p>In 1447 the Cavalcanti sold Villa Bellosguardo to Tommaso, son of
+Gino Nerii de’ Capponi, for 1500 golden florins. After in vain trying on
+a hill lacking both springs and wells to make lakes and build brick kilns,
+“which have not turned out what I wished and have cost me fifty florins
+more than I encashed,” as Tommaso writes to his brother, he soon sold
+the place again to its old owners the Cavalcanti. Whether they destroyed
+the villa of their own free will in 1530 when Florence was besieged, or
+whether the Prince of Orange, or the German commander, Felix von
+Werdenberg, wilfully made a target of it, is unknown, but in some of the
+chronicles of that time it is mentioned as being in ruins.</p>
+
+<p>Cosimo I confiscated Bellosguardo with other property of the Cavalcanti
+in 1559 and gave it to one of his servants for life. Eight years afterwards
+it reverted to the Medici and was bought from them by Lionardo Marinozzi,
+another of Cosimo’s favourites. His son sold it in 1583 to Girolamo di
+Antonio Michelozzi, whose descendants still own it. It was then described
+as <span lang="it">“una torre ad uso di palazzo,”</span> which would seem as though Lionardo
+had added the magnificent tower on to an already existing villa instead of
+building, as was usually done, a dwelling-house round an old tower. It
+has been immortalised by Mrs Browning as—</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+  <div class="poetry">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <div class="verse indent0">“... a tower that keeps</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">A post of double observation o’er</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">The valley of the Arno (holding as a hand</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">The outspread city) straight toward Fiesole</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">And Mount Morello and the setting sun.”</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p>The front of the villa is ornamented with <i lang="it">grafite</i>, and over the front door
+is a <span lang="it">Pietà</span> by Francavilla, a Dutch pupil of Giovan Bologna, while the large
+entrance hall contains damaged frescoes said to be by Poccetti. The fine
+old place is now inhabited by Lady Paget, who has converted an orangery
+into a most picturesque and delightful sitting-room, and restored Villa
+Bellosguardo to its pristine splendour. All parts of the town can be seen
+from the terrace; only the Arno lies hidden between two endless rows of
+palaces, until it reaches the long line of trees in the Cascine, whence its
+course can be traced for many miles along the valley. From here Florence
+seems to be closely set between olive-clothed hills, with villas spreading
+like endless chains as far as the eye can reach, up to the summits above
+Fiesole, on to the slopes beyond Prato, and behind us towards the Val
+di Pesa, where the pine woods stand like sentinels against the sky. Straight
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">[62]</span>in front, towards the north, are the heights of Monte Senario, three serrated
+peaks black even in the sunlight, with the Servite convent lying like a
+streak of snow among the fir woods. On clear days the point of the
+Falterona, where the Arno takes its rise, can be seen to the right of the
+long hill of Vallombrosa on the east.</p>
+
+<p>This view has been celebrated by more than one poet and has given
+the world-known name—Bellosguardo—to this side of Florence. But only
+at twilight does the whole beauty of the scene appear. Strange white
+gleams touch the hills, and in the uncertain light of the closing day there
+is a confused sense of colour as though the wind were driving great masses
+of autumn leaves before it through the valley. Then the clearer evening
+glow succeeds the twilight, and Florence and her russet-coloured roofs stand
+out clear again in a setting of shadowed hills.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Adjoining Villa Bellosguardo is the Villa dell’ Ombrellino, now belonging
+to M. Zouboff. Here lived for sixteen years one of the greatest of Italians—Galileo
+Galilei; and here he composed the dialogue discussing the Ptolemaic
+and the Copernican systems. All learned Florentines and every foreigner
+of distinction breasted the steep hill of Bellosguardo to listen to the wonderful
+conversation of Galileo. Eloquent, sarcastic, brimming over with fun
+and humour yet full of learning, he was a delightful companion. Virgil,
+Horace and Seneca he knew by heart and often quoted, as he did the
+poetry of Petrarch, of Berni, and especially of Ariosto, for whom he had
+a great admiration. He never permitted Tasso to be compared to Ariosto,
+saying there was the same difference between them as though a man tried
+to eat a cucumber after a good melon. Galileo was only happy in the
+country, declaring cities to be the prisons of human intellect, “whereas
+the country is the book of nature, always open to him who cares to read
+and study it with intelligence, for the writing and the alphabet in which
+it is written are so many propositions, problems and geometrical corollaries,
+by whose help some of the infinite mysteries of nature may be penetrated.”</p>
+
+<p>In 1633, after the second bitter persecution suffered at Rome by Galileo,
+he was allowed to return to Florence and live on</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+  <div class="poetry">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <div class="verse indent0">“Thy sunny slope, Arcetri, sung of old</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">For its green wine; dearer to me, to most,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">As dwelt on by that great Astronomer,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Seven years a prisoner at the city gate,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Let in but in his grave-clothes. Sacred be</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">His villa (justly was it called the Gem).</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Sacred the lawn, where many a cypress threw</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Its length of shadow, while he watched the stars.</div>
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">[63]</span>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Sacred the vineyard, where, while yet his sight</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Glimmered, at blush of morn he dressed his vines,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Chanting aloud in gaiety of heart</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Some verse of Ariosto.—There unseen,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">In manly beauty Milton stood before him,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Gazing with reverent awe—Milton, his guest,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Just then come forth, all life and enterprise;</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0"><i>He</i> in his old age and extremity,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Blind, at noonday exploring with his staff;</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">His eyes upturned as to the golden sun,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">His eyeballs idly rolling.”&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_44_44" href="#Footnote_44_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a></div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp50" id="i_117" >
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_117.jpg" alt="Distant View of the Villa from the Podere of the Villa Dell’ Ombrellino">
+</figure>
+
+<p>At Arcetri, Galileo rented a villa from his pupil Esau Martellini, called
+<span lang="it">“Il Gioiello”</span> (the Gem). This was practically his prison, as the Inquisition
+forbade him to hold meetings, give lectures, receive friends to dinner, or
+“commit any action showing a want of reverence.” In 1634 his favourite
+daughter, a nun in the convent of San Matteo in Arcetri died, and the sick
+man was inconsolable, but Urban VIII, and his worthy advisers the Jesuits,
+continued their persecution, ordering that he was not to converse with anyone
+“not even the most wise and respectable person.” Through the Grand Duke
+he petitioned the Pope to grant him some mitigation of his rigorous
+imprisonment, whereupon the Inquisition commanded him to desist from
+further supplications on pain of instant punishment. In 1638 Galileo became
+blind and died four years later. Viviani describes him in his old age as
+“strongly built, of middle height, full-blooded, phlegmatic and very strong,
+but hard work and pain, both of body and mind, had debilitated his frame, so
+that he often fell into a languid condition.” He was a good musician and
+played well on the lute, a clever draughtsman, and so able an architect that
+the government consulted him on the new front they desired to build for the
+Cathedral of Florence. After 1633 all his letters are dated “from my prison
+at Arcetri.”</p>
+
+<p>Not far from the Bellosguardo villa, but on the other slope of the hill,
+overlooking the lower valley of the Arno, stands the old Villa Montauto, once
+belonging to the Bonciani, who owned large possessions about there. In the
+tower of this villa Hawthorne wrote <cite>Transformation</cite>, and the peasants still
+remember the foreign gentleman who “sat like an owl up in the tower and
+refused to come down to talk to visitors.” He describes it accurately in the
+twenty-fourth chapter of his novel.</p>
+
+<p>“About thirty yards within the gateway rose a square tower, lofty
+enough to be a very prominent object in the landscape, and more than
+sufficiently massive in proportion to its height. Its antiquity was evidently
+such that, in a climate of more than abundant moisture, the ivy would
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">[64]</span>have mantled it from head to foot in a garment that might by this time
+have been centuries old, though ever new. In the dry Italian air, however,
+Nature had only so far adopted this old pile of stonework as to cover
+almost every hand’s-breadth of it with close-clinging lichens and yellow
+moss; and the immemorial growth of these kindly productions rendered
+the general hue of the tower soft and venerable, and took away the
+aspect of nakedness which would have made its age drearier than now.</p>
+
+<p>“Up and down the height of the tower were scattered three or four
+windows, the lower ones grated with iron bars, the upper ones vacant both
+of window-frames and glass. Besides these larger openings, there were
+several loopholes and little square apertures which might be supposed to
+light the staircase that doubtless climbed the interior towards the battlemented
+and machicolated summit. With this last-mentioned war-like garniture upon
+its stern old head and brow, the tower seemed evidently a stronghold of
+times long past. Many a crossbowman had shot his shafts from those
+windows and loopholes, and from the vantage height of those grey battlements;
+many a flight of arrows, too, had hit all round about the embrasures
+above, or the apertures below, where the helmet of a defender had momentarily
+glimmered.... Connected with the tower, and extending behind it, there
+seemed to be a very spacious residence, chiefly of more modern date. It
+perhaps owed much of its fresher appearance, however, to a coat of stucco
+and yellow wash, which is a sort of renovation very much in vogue with
+the Italians.”</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp50" id="i_120" >
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_120.jpg" alt="Montauto, With the Tower of Bellosguardo in the Distance">
+</figure>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">[65]</span></p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_44_44" href="#FNanchor_44_44" class="label">[44]</a>
+<i>Italy.</i> Samuel Rogers. P. 140.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="i_122" >
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_122.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption>
+      <span class="smcap">VILLA di CASTELLO</span>
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+<figure class="figcenter illowp90" id="i_125a" >
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_125a.jpg"
+   alt="The Garden and Fountain of Hercules, by Tribolo and Ammannati">
+</figure>
+
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="VILLA_DI_CASTELLO">VILLA DI CASTELLO</h2>
+</div>
+
+<img class="drop-capi" src="images/t.jpg" alt="Stylized T">
+<p class="drop-capi">
+<span class=uc>The</span> villa of Castello, “built by Pier Francesco de’ Medici
+with much judgment,” as Vasari remarks, belonged to
+the Medici family before they became Grand Dukes of
+Tuscany, and was always one of their favourite residences.
+Unlike Petraja, which towers above the plain, Castello is a
+long low villa on a gentle incline above the high road, with
+no extensive view, and the eye feasts only on the garden behind. And
+what a charming scene it is on a windless summer’s day! The magnolia
+trees, the pride of the place, are in flower, copper beeches and oleanders
+mingle their glorious colours in marvellous variety above the green lawns
+and give a luxuriant look to what is really a formal garden; for on the
+terraces which rise from the back of the villa, lemon trees in big terra-cotta
+pots edge the gravel walks, and the Florentine gardener has not forgotten
+to tie the carnations to canes so that they stand stiffly up from their pots
+on the low walls. Then there is the fountain in the centre of a terrace
+of its own, divided from the others by steps, and surrounded with statues
+of ladies and gentlemen of the Medici family; but their drapery is so
+tightly drawn round them in stiff straight folds that they resemble far
+more one’s idea of Roman senators and their wives.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">[66]</span></p>
+
+<p>The fountain, generally referred to as a work of Giovanni Bologna,
+Vasari attributes to Tribolo, and the mixture of bronze and marble is
+fine. It is divided into various basins; on the larger one are four little
+bronze <span lang="it">“putti”</span> lying on the edge of the marble basin playing with the
+water. Below them, in the centre of the fountain, seven marble “putti”
+are seated upon lions’ claws; four rams’ heads look over the edge of the
+upper and smaller basin, and marble figures of children hold wild geese
+by the necks which spout water from their bills. Four other <span lang="it">“putti”</span> are
+seated below the pedestal on which Hercules is wrestling with Antæus,
+a group by Ammanati, so curiously like figures by Pollaiuolo that it
+might have been suggested by one of his drawings. Breasting the hill
+and crossing another terrace we come to a large cool grotto scooped out of
+the hillside, its roof decorated with masks, scrolls, baskets of flowers and
+arabesques done in different coloured shells. Queer, nearly life-size animals
+fill the three recesses in the grotto, a camel with a monkey on its back,
+a unicorn, a wild boar, a ram, a lion, a bear, hounds, and smaller creatures
+carved out of various marbles and stone to correspond to the colours of
+the animals portrayed, stand on rocks in happy confusion. Animals from
+every quarter of the globe are united here by the fanciful artist whose one
+idea was not zoology but the amusement of the members of a Florentine
+ducal house during long summer days. In order to enhance illusion he
+has given the stag and the ram real horns, and the boar has real tusks
+in his ferocious mouth. The large sarcophagii, or baths, under these groups,
+of white and pink marble, are very fine. One has all sorts of sea fish
+sculptured on its side; the others, a tangle of shells, crabs, lobsters and
+crayfish; all three rest on large dolphins.</p>
+
+<p>On the terrace above this grotto are remains of the labyrinth described by
+Vasari in his life of Tribolo, some fine trees and a large round reservoir full
+of emerald green water with an island in the centre on which crouches a
+colossal bronze figure of the Apennines surrounded with lilies and ferns. The
+statue is said to be by Tribolo, and one asks oneself how the same man who
+designed the lovely fountain in the garden could perpetrate such a hideous
+monster.</p>
+
+<p>The walk (about a mile) from Castello to Petraja through the ilex wood
+is very charming, and passes close by a small church—or rather one may call
+it a campanile with a chapel attached, for the exquisite beauty of the bell-tower
+is the first thing to attract one as it rises from the hillside so evenly
+balanced by a group of cypresses. The whole forms a perfect jewel of
+architectural effect. No wonder the people of the country round are proud of
+their campanile and call it <span lang="it">“la meraviglia di Castello.”</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">[67]</span></p>
+
+<p>The name of the villa does not come from <i>castle</i> as is often said, but from
+the roman <i lang="la">castellum</i>, a receptacle for water. Villani tells us that Marcrinus,
+a Roman senator, made a conduit on arches and brought the water seven
+miles, in order that the citizens of Florentia might have abundance of good
+water to drink. The aqueduct started from the streamlet Marina at the foot
+of Monte Morello, and collected all the springs above Sesto, Quinto, Colonnato,
+etc., on its way. That worthy old academician, Domenico Manni, in his book
+<cite lang="it">Le Terme Fiorentine</cite>, describes various arches, pilasters, and great pieces of
+masonry still existing in his time (1750) near Doccia, near the torrent
+Mugnone, near the Villa Corsini, close to Castello, and at Ponte a Rifredi.
+He gives drawings of two arches which soon afterwards fell down, and copies
+of many inscriptions found while digging foundations for houses or ploughing
+the fields. The aqueduct is still commemorated in the name of a church near
+Montughi, San Stefano in Pane de Arcora.</p>
+
+<p>Caterina Sforza, widow of Giovanni de’ Medici, the celebrated mother of a
+still more celebrated son, inhabited Castello during the last seven years of her
+chequered existence. An illegitimate daughter of the Duke of Milan, she was
+affianced at eleven years of age to Girolamo Riario, a favourite nephew of
+Sixtus, and married to him after the murder of her father. Her beauty, grace
+of manner, wit and intelligence gained the heart, not only of the Pope but of
+all who knew her, to judge by the impassioned description given by Fabio
+Oliva when she was about twenty. “As she issued from her litter, it seemed
+as if the sun had emerged, so gorgeously beautiful did she appear, laden with
+silver and gold and jewels, but still more striking from her natural charms.
+Her hair, wreathed in the manner of a coronet, was brighter than the gold
+with which it was entwined. Her forehead of burnished ivory almost reflected
+the beholders. Her eyes sparkled behind the mantling crimson of her cheeks,
+as morning stars amid those many-tinted lilies which returning dawn scatters
+along the horizon.”</p>
+
+<p>After the murder of her first husband in 1488, avenged by her without
+mercy, she proclaimed her son Ottaviano, Count of Forli; and soon afterwards
+married Giacomo Fea, the handsome, loyal and brave captain who kept the
+citadel of Forli so well against the insurgents who had killed Count Girolamo
+Riario. Ratti, the biographer of the Sforzas says: “It would be difficult to
+find in history any woman who so far surpassed her sex, who was so much the
+amazement of her contemporaries and the marvel of posterity. Endowed with a
+lofty and masculine spirit, she was born to command; great in peace, valiant in
+war, beloved by her subjects, dreaded by her foes, admired by foreigners.”
+Likenesses of Caterina, of her first husband and her two eldest sons, are to be
+seen in the altarpiece of the Torelli chapel in the church of San Girolamo at Forli.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">[68]</span></p>
+
+<p>In 1496 she was once more a widow, Giacomo Fea having been murdered
+by some of her own subjects, whom she punished as she had done the
+assassins of her first husband. Giovanni de’ Medici, envoy of Florence to the
+court of her son, married her the following year and died soon after, leaving
+her with an infant boy. After vainly trying to stem the invasion of her eldest
+son’s territories by Duke Valentino, who entered the citadel of Forli by
+treachery, she was made prisoner and sent to Rome; but after a short
+imprisonment was allowed to retire to Florence, where she dedicated herself to
+the education of her little son, Giovanni de’ Medici. Her letters, full of family
+troubles, complaining bitterly that she was left without sheets for her bed,
+forks or tablecloths, are sad reading. Pierfrancesco and Lorenzo de’ Medici
+attempted to contest her right to the villa and to the little that was left of
+the heritage of her third husband “the Magnificent Joanne de’ Medici”; and
+she lived in constant fear that Lorenzo, who had unlawfully assumed the tutelage
+of her son, would make away with him in order to dissipate the patrimony
+of his dead father. After a law suit she rescued the boy from the clutches of
+his uncle and smuggled him, with some waiting-women, into the nunnery
+of Anna-Lena. Here, dressed as a girl and jealously guarded by the
+faithful nuns, the future soldier Giovanni delle Bande Nere—the last of the
+great condottiere—passed eight months. It was only after the death of
+Lorenzo, in 1504, that he joined his mother at Castello, when she devoted
+all her remarkable energy to his education. Tutor succeeded tutor, for
+Madonna Caterina wished the boy to be an accomplished and learned
+gentleman; but he despised book-learning, and only cared for athletic
+exercises and out-door sports. “So you have your boy back,” wrote an
+old follower of her husband whom she commissioned to procure “a small
+and handsome horse” for the seven year old Giovanni. “If my father
+had come to life again I could not be more glad; and so it is with all
+the condottieri here in camp. The day your letter arrived the commissary
+was so overjoyed he could not eat. As to the horse, we will search among
+the condottieri here, and whosoever has one will be only too proud to give
+it. We shall, without fail, find what you want.”&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_45_45" href="#Footnote_45_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a></p>
+
+<p>In 1527 there were grand doings at Castello, when, as is described by
+old Varchi, two armies came, “one to attack and pillage Florence as an
+enemy—which was the army of the Bourbons; while the other under the
+guise of a friend and defender pillaged and spoiled her—which was the
+army of the League; and it happened that on the last Friday of April,
+which was on the twenty-sixth day of the year 1527, the Cardinal of Cortona
+[Silvio Passerini], although he knew all the intrigues and confabulations
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">[69]</span>of both old and young against the State, either not believing or wishing
+to show he feared them not, left Florence most imprudently with the other
+two Cardinals, the Magnificent, Count Piero Noferi and the whole court,
+and went a little over two miles outside the Faenza gate to Castello, the
+villa of Signor Cosimo, to meet and receive the Duke of Urbino and the
+other heads of the League. Meanwhile the citizens rose and took possession
+of the palace of the Signoria, and the Cardinals with Ippolito had to return
+in all haste to quell the insurrection. Thereupon the citizens sadly and
+sorrowfully went back to their houses without injury but in great fear.”</p>
+
+<p>Maria Salviati, the mother of Cosimo I, died at Castello; and they say
+he was with difficulty persuaded to quit a hunting party and return to
+receive her last blessing. He enlarged the villa considerably on the eastern
+side after the designs of Tribolo, and charged Pontormo to decorate the
+Loggia, but all the frescoes have perished. Cosimo retired to Castello
+after his secret marriage with Camilla Martelli, a marriage so distasteful
+to his Austrian daughter-in-law that she wrote to her brother the Emperor
+to complain. He answered in the following arrogant lines which she
+was silly enough to send to her father-in-law: “I cannot conceive what
+the Grand Duke was thinking of when he made so shameful and odious
+an alliance, ridiculed by all; it is thought the good Duke must be out
+of his mind. I beg Your Highness not to permit this impudent woman
+to be exalted, and to hold no communication with her; for if in this
+matter you fail to show the greatness of Your soul and Your magnanimity,
+everyone will be angered.”</p>
+
+<p>The reply given by Cosimo de’ Medici was far more dignified: “As
+to my having taken a wife, H.I.H. remarks that perhaps I had taken leave
+of my senses.... One might have rather said I was off my head when
+I ceded the reins of government to the Prince (Francesco, his eldest son,
+husband of the Arch-Duchess) with seven hundred thousand ducats of
+income. I did it with pleasure and I have no intention to cancel my act,
+although it depends on my own will and pleasure, because I had to do
+with men; but with regard to my marriage, wherein I had to do with God,
+one cannot speak thus. I am not the first Prince who has taken a vassal
+to wife, and shall probably not be the last; my wife is of gentle birth,
+and is to be respected as such. I do not seek for quarrels, but I shall
+not avoid them if they are forced upon me by my own family. When I
+make up my mind to do a thing, I do it, regardless of the consequences,
+trusting in God and my own right hand.”</p>
+
+<p>In October 1608 Castello was the scene of much rejoicing for the
+reception of Maria Maddalena of Austria, who passed some days there
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">[70]</span>
+before her solemn entry into Florence as the bride of Cosimo, eldest son
+of Ferdinando I. The pomp and magnificence then displayed surpassed
+anything yet seen; Ferdinando himself crowned his daughter-in-law at the
+gate of the town, and then the Arch-Duchess, mounting a splendid white
+palfrey, rode to the cathedral door amidst the acclamations of the crowd.
+Christine of Lorraine, widow of Ferdinando I, whose favourite villa Castello
+was, died there in December 1636 after two days’ illness; and twenty-seven
+years afterwards her grandson Giancarlo, brother of the Grand Duke
+Ferdinando II, who was first a soldier in the service of the King of Spain
+and then a Cardinal, closed his unworthy life in the same villa. Described
+as “a man of little worth and of evil morals,” he yet has a claim to the
+gratitude of posterity as the builder of the charming theatre of the Pergola.</p>
+
+<p>The gardens of both Petraja and Castello have been celebrated by many
+writers in poetry and prose. Among others Redi, the jovial doctor, sings
+the praises of the vineyards in his <cite lang="it">Bacco in Toscana</cite>, and takes the
+opportunity to pay a compliment to that poor creature Cosimo III, his patron.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+  <div class="poetry">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <div class="verse indent0">“But lauded</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Applauded,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">With laurels rewarded,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Be the hero who first in the vineyards divine</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Of Petraja and Castello</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Planted first the Moscadello.”&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_46_46" href="#Footnote_46_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a></div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp50" id="i_130" >
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_130.jpg" alt="The “Apennines” Fountain">
+</figure>
+
+<p>Jacopo Cortesi, the Jesuit painter, better known as <i lang="it">Il Borgognone</i>, lived
+as the guest of Cosimo III for some months at Castello, and painted his
+own portrait there for the Uffizzi gallery in the habit of his Order. Vast
+sums were spent by Pietro Leopoldo, the beloved Grand Duke of Tuscany
+who became Emperor of Austria, on beautifying the gardens of the two
+villas, and they still bear some faint traces of his love for rare trees and shrubs.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_45_45" href="#FNanchor_45_45" class="label">[45]</a> <cite lang="it">Caterina Sforza.</cite> By Pier Desiderio Pasolini. Vol. II. p. 321. Firenze, 1893.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_46_46" href="#FNanchor_46_46" class="label">[46]</a> <cite>Bacchus in Tuscany.</cite> A dithyrambic poem, from the Italian of Francesco Redi, with notes original
+and select. By Leigh Hunt. London, 1828.</p></div></div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="i_132" >
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_132.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption>
+      VILLA CORSINI <span class="allsmcap">AT</span> CASTELLO.
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+</div>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">[71]</span></p>
+<figure class="figcenter illowp90" id="i_135" >
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_135.jpg" alt="The Bosco and Fountain">
+</figure>
+
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="VILLA_CORSINI_AT_CASTELLO">
+    VILLA CORSINI AT CASTELLO
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+<img class="drop-capi" src="images/t.jpg" alt="Stylized T">
+<p class="drop-capi">
+<span class=uc>This</span> villa first belonged to the Strozzi, who sold it to the
+Rinieri in 1460, when it was called <span lang="it">“La Lepre dei Rinieri.”</span>
+About a century later it was bought by Francesco di Jacopo
+Sangalletti, whose estates were confiscated by the Medici,
+and sold to Pagolo Donati in 1597. It again changed
+hands and at last became the property of Cosimo de’ Medici,
+son of the Grand Duke Ferdinando I, but finding it useless to have three
+villas—Petraja, Castello and Rinieri—so close together, he sold the last in
+1650 to Piero Cervieri, who died without heirs and left all he possessed
+to the Jesuits. On the suppression of their Order the villa was bought by
+the Lanfredini, from whom it passed into the possession of the great
+house of Corsini, who enlarged and altered it, probably from the designs
+of Antonio Ferri, the same architect who built the large saloon, the fine
+staircase and the façade of the Corsini palace on the Lung’ Arno in Florence.</p>
+
+<p>Villa Corsini stands at the foot of the royal villa La Petraja. It
+is a rather stately baroque edifice, with a large square courtyard in the
+centre; and though but little raised above the plain, the view of Florence
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">[72]</span>from the south side of the garden is lovely. On the north is a typical
+Italian pleasaunce, where narrow paths meander under the deep shade of
+tall ilexes, oaks and fir trees; grey stone columns and balustrades surround
+small squares and circles of ground, as though it had been once parcelled
+out among the children of the house. A fountain represents a prancing
+seahorse who is unceasingly occupied in keeping a huge sarcophagus,
+entirely overgrown with maiden-hair fern, always brimful of water. Standing
+by the splashing fountain we get a beautiful glimpse of Petraja through
+the trees, standing high up on the hill behind. Prince Corsini told me
+the fine ilexes at Narford Hall were raised from acorns off these trees;
+the much-travelled Sir Andrew Fountaine, who resided for some time in
+Florence, and probably bought a good deal of his celebrated collection of
+Italian pottery from the Grand Duke Cosimo III,&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_47_47" href="#Footnote_47_47" class="fnanchor">[47]</a> was an intimate
+friend of Prince Corsini who sent a bagful of acorns to Narford. A
+present feature of the garden of the Villa Corsini is a shady avenue of
+ilexes which leads to the stable and was planted only fifty years ago.</p>
+
+<p>To English people the villa is interesting as it was inhabited by Sir
+Robert Dudley, to whom it was lent by the Grand Duke of Tuscany.
+Robert Dudley (born 1573) was the son of the Earl of Leicester by his
+second wife Douglas Howard, widow of Lord Sheffield; but the marriage,
+for various private and political reasons, was secretly solemnised and never
+acknowledged by Leicester, who a few years later married Lettice, widow
+of the Earl of Essex. Leicester calls Robert Dudley “my base son” in
+his will, yet he left him “the lordships of Denbighe and Chirke, etc., the
+castle of Kenilworth with all the Parkes, Chases and Lands after the
+death of my dear brother Ambrose the Earl of Warwick,” and other estates
+too numerous to mention here.</p>
+
+<p>The Earl of Leicester died in 1588, and his brother a year later, when
+Robert Dudley succeeded to Kenilworth. In 1591 he was affianced to Frances
+Vavasour, maid of honour to Queen Elizabeth, who however forbade the
+celebration of the marriage on account of Dudley’s youth.</p>
+
+<p>Dudley was educated at Christ Church, Oxford; where, under the date
+7th May 1588, he was entered as <i lang="la">Comitis Filius</i>. But his love of travel and
+adventure drove him to study navigation; he built some warships, engaged
+the best pilots he could find and started for the West Indies. After conquering
+the Island of Trinidad he discovered Guiana (of which he made a map
+published in his work, <i lang="fr">L’Arcano del Mare</i>), and after taking several galleons
+from the enemy returned to England with much booty. Entering the navy, he,
+in the absence of his uncle the Earl of Nottingham, took command of the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">[73]</span>
+English fleet in 1596; the following year he led the van-guard in the battle
+of Cadiz; then he besieged Faro in Algarve in Portugal; and when Calais
+was taken by Mendoza, he commanded the English ships sent to the rescue.</p>
+
+<p>In a letter to the Rev. Mr Hakluyt, a well-known writer on sea-voyages
+and travels in the time of Elizabeth and James I, Dudley gives
+a curious account of his first voyage at the age of twenty-one. “... I weighed
+ancker from Southampton road the 6th of November 1594. Upon this day
+my selfe in the ‘Beare,’ a ship of 200 tunnes, as Admirall; and Captaine
+Munck in the ‘Beare’s Whelpe,’ Vice-Admirall; with two small pinnesses,
+called the ‘Frisking’ and the ‘Earwig,’ I passed through the Needles, and
+within two dayes after bare in with Plimmouth. But I was enforced to
+returne backe. Having parted company with my Vice-Admirall, I went
+wandering alone on my voyage, sailing along the coast of Spaine, within
+view of Cape Finisterre and Cape St Vincent, the north and south capes
+of Spaine. In which space, having many chases, I could meet with none
+but my countreymen or countrey’s friends. Leaving these Spanish shores,
+I directed my course, the 14th December, towards the Isles of the Canaries.
+Here I lingered twelve dayes for two reasons; the one, in hope to meete my
+Vice-Admirall; the other, to get some vessel to remove my pestered men
+into, who being 140 almost in a ship of 200 tunnes, there grew many sicke.
+I tooke two very fine caravels under the calmes of Tenerif and Palma, which
+both refreshed and amended my company, and made me a fleet of three sailes....
+Thus cheered as a desolate traveller, with the company of my small
+and newe erected Fleete, I continued my purpose for the West Indies.</p>
+
+<p>“Riding under this White Cape two daies, and walking on shore to view
+the countrey, I found it a waste, desolate, barren and sandie place, the sand
+running in drifts like snow, and very stony; for so is all the countrey
+sand upon stone (like Arabia Deserta and Petrea), and full of blacke
+venemous lizards, with some wild beasts and people which be tawny Moores,
+so wilde, as they would but call to my caravels from the shore who road
+very neare it. I now caused my master Abraham Kendall to shape his
+course directly for the Isle of Trinidad in the West Indies; which after
+twenty-two dayes we descried, and the 1st Feb. came to anker under a point
+thereof, called Curiapan, in a bay which was very full of pelicans, and I
+called it Pelican Bay. About three leagues to the eastward of this place
+we found a mine of Mercazites, which glister like golde (but all is not golde
+that glistereth), for so we found the same nothing worth, though the Indians
+did assure us it was Calvori, which signifieth golde with them. These Indians
+are a fine shaped and a gentle people, all naked and painted red, their
+commanders wearing crowns of feathers. These people did often resort unto
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">[74]</span>
+my ship, and brought us hennes, hogs, plantans, potatos, pines, tobacco, and
+many other pretie commodities, which they exchanged with us for hatchets,
+knives, hookes, belles and glasse buttons. The countrey is fertile, and ful
+of fruits, strange beasts and foules, whereof munkies, babions and parats
+were in great abundance.</p>
+
+<p>“Right against the northernmost part of Trinidad, the maine was called
+the high land of Paria, the rest a very lowe land. Morucca I learned to be
+ful of a greenestone called Taracao, which is good for the stone. Caribes
+I learned to be man-eiters or canibals and great enemies to the Islanders
+of Trinidad. In the high land of Paria I was informed by divers of these
+Indians, that there was some Perota, which with them is silver, and great
+store of most excellent cane tobacco.... I was told of a rich nation, that
+sprinkled their bodies with the powder of golde, and seemed to be guilt,
+and that farre beyond them was a great towne called El Dorado, with many
+other things.... And after carefully doubling the shouldes of Abreojos,
+I now caused the Master (hearing by a pilote that the Spanish Fleete ment
+to put out of Havana) to beare for the Meridian of the yle of Bermuda,
+hoping there to finde the Fleete. The Fleete I found not, but foule
+weather enough to scatter many Fleetes which companies left me not, till
+I came to the yles of Flores and Cuervo; whither I made the more haste,
+hoping to meete some greate Fleete of Her Majestie my Sovereigne, as I
+had intelligence, and to give them advise of this rich Spanish Fleete; but
+findinge none, and my victuals almost spent, I directed my course for
+England.”</p>
+
+<p>Here he fell in love with, and married, a sister of Thomas Cavendish,
+who died without children in 1596. Soon afterwards he married Alice,
+daughter of Sir Thomas Leigh of Stoneleigh, Warwickshire, by whom he
+had four daughters. His one desire after coming into possession of Kenilworth
+was to clear his own and his mother’s reputation and honour, and
+for this purpose he instituted proceedings at law to prove his legitimacy.
+At first in the Ecclesiastical Court he had hopes of success, but the influence
+of the Essexs and Sydneys proved too strong; the case was transferred to
+the Star Chamber, which ordered that all “depositions should be sealed up
+and no copies taken,” and only admitted the evidence of Lady Essex.</p>
+
+<p>Irritated by such injustice Dudley left England, and with him went
+his beautiful young cousin Elisabeth, eldest daughter of Sir Robert Southwell.
+At Lyons they entered the Roman Catholic Church, obtained the Pope’s
+dispensation from the laws of consanguinity, and were married, Lady Alice
+Dudley having in vain offered to join him with their four girls and to become
+a Catholic.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">[75]</span></p>
+
+<p>From Lyons Sir Robert and his new wife went to Florence and
+Dudley wrote to the Grand Duke asking for his protection and offering his
+services. In quaint French he set forth his noble birth and high lineage,
+claimed by virtue of descent to be Duke of Northumberland, Earl of Warwick,
+and Earl of Leicester, and declared himself second to none in the science
+of navigation and the art of ship-building; he also promised to make the
+Grand Duke absolute master in the seas
+of the Levant in spite of all Spanish,
+infidel and other galleys.</p>
+
+<figure class="figright illowp50" id="i_139" >
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_139.jpg" alt="Sir Robert Dudley’s instrument for finding the ebb and
+flow of the tides">
+</figure>
+
+<p>Ferdinando II, made inquiries of Lotti,
+his Minister in London, about the <span lang="it">“Conte
+di Varuich”</span> before taking him into his
+service. After expatiating upon the “exquisite
+stature, fair beard and noble appearance”
+of Sir Robert Dudley, Lotti added
+that King James was very angry at his
+marriage and his assumption of the title
+of Earl of Warwick, and then writes in
+cipher, “the chief reason is that His
+Majesty does not want Catholic subjects,
+especially when they are brave and
+worthy men.” This brought the matter
+to a conclusion, and Dudley immediately began building ships for the
+Grand Duke. He wrote proudly of the galleon <i lang="it">San Giovanni</i>, “she was
+a rare and strong sailer, of great repute, and the terror of the Turks
+in these seas”; and his designs seem to have attracted notice in England,
+as Lotti wrote to the Grand Duke in March 1607, “H. E. (Sir Thomas
+Challoner, tutor to Prince Henry) showed me the design of a ship made
+in Leghorn by the Earl of Warwick, and he also showed me another which
+he said was more perfect than any.” This may account for James I,
+sending Dudley an order to return to England, promising him an earldom
+and the title of Earl of Warwick. But all offers that left his own and his
+mother’s name under a slur were refused by Dudley, who remained in
+Tuscany where, thanks to him, Leghorn became a great commercial port.
+He induced the Grand Duke to build fortifications, to declare it a free port
+and to allow an English factory to be set up. The draining of the marshes
+between Leghorn and Pisa was also suggested by him.</p>
+
+<p>In the <i lang="it">Specola</i>, or Natural History Museum, in Florence, are three large
+manuscript volumes in Dudley’s writing on ship-building. The two first
+are in English, the third in Italian, and his orthography, to say the least,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">[76]</span>is in both languages peculiar. In the same museum is a curious instrument
+of his invention for finding the ebb and flow of the tides, of which I give,
+through the kindness of Mr Temple Leader, an engraving taken from his
+interesting <cite>Life of Sir Robert Dudley</cite>, from which most of my facts are
+taken.</p>
+
+<p>In Florence, Dudley and his wife (mentioned by Lord Herbert of
+Cherbury as “the handsome <i>Mrs Sudel</i> whom he carried away with him out
+of England and is here taken for his wife”) were known as Earl and Countess
+of Warwick, until the Emperor Ferdinand II, to please his sister the Grand
+Duchess Maria Maddalena, whose grand chamberlain Dudley was, created
+him Duke of Northumberland in 1620.</p>
+
+<p>Dudley was undoubtedly a remarkable man. He had been carefully
+educated, was a brave and scientific seaman and well versed in military
+and naval architecture; he excelled in all knightly exercises and was cited
+for his courtly and polished manners. A man of letters and a good
+mathematician, he also busied himself with medicine and invented a powder
+known as <i lang="la">Pulvis Comitis Warvicensis</i>, much praised by Mario Cornacchini,
+professor of medicine at Pisa, who declares that “clearing the Italian seas
+of barbarous and evil pirates was not a greater benefit to mankind than his
+fighting and exterminating the evil humours which molest humanity and
+cause disease.”</p>
+
+<p>Of Dudley’s twelve children the eldest, Maria, married the Prince of
+Piombino; Maria Maddalena became the wife of Malaspina Marchese d’Olivola,
+High Steward to Queen Christina of Sweden; and Teresa married the Duke
+della Cornia. Robert, the eldest son, died a few days before he attained his
+majority, and his mother was so affected by his loss that she followed him
+to the grave within a few weeks, to the intense grief of her husband. The
+second son, Charles, was an unmannerly scapegrace who gave his father
+infinite trouble. He married a Frenchwoman, Marie Madeleine, daughter of
+Charles Antoine Gouffier, Marquis de Braseux and Seigneur de Crevecœur.
+His daughter was the beautiful, witty and wild Christina Dudley married to
+the Marchese Paleotti of Bologna, whose adventurous and romantic life has
+been so well described by Signor Corrado Ricci,&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_48_48" href="#Footnote_48_48" class="fnanchor">[48]</a> and whose daughter Adelaide,
+after various adventures, turned Protestant, married the Duke of Shrewsbury,
+became a leader of fashion in London and Lady-in-Waiting to the Princess
+of Wales; her son Ferdinand, after giving endless annoyance to the
+Shrewsburys, ended his ill-spent life on the gallows. He was hung at
+Tyburn on March 28th, 1718, for the murder of his Italian servant, and
+curiously enough the Tuscan Minister present at his execution was Don
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">[77]</span>Neri Corsini, whose family now own the villa where Sir Robert Dudley,
+Duke of Northumberland and Earl of Warwick, lived for so many years
+and died in Sept. 1649.</p>
+
+<p>Since 1230, when the Corsini came from Poggibonsi, their name fills
+many a page of the history of Florence as Priors and Gonfaloniers of the
+city. Andrea, the beloved and revered bishop of Fiesole, left such a
+reputation for goodness and sanctity that he was beatified in 1440 and
+canonised by Urban VIII, in 1629. He restored the cathedral of his diocese
+and the façade we now see was built by him. His brother Neri succeeded
+him as bishop of Fiesole, while another brother, Matteo, went to England,
+where his uncle was Master of the Mint, and made a large fortune in trade.
+He is known as the author of interesting family records and of the <cite lang="it">Rosaia
+della Vita</cite>, often quoted in the dictionary of the Crusca as a model of pure
+and elegant Italian. Tommaso di Duccio, their uncle, a learned jurist and
+a great statesman, was one of the chief citizens of Florence in the fourteenth
+century, and to his prudent counsels and wise administration the Republic
+owed much of her prosperity and power. After long negotiations he induced
+the Visconti to make peace with Florence, and when this was at length
+signed in 1353 he withdrew from public life, entered the Order of the
+<i lang="it">Gaudenti</i> (instituted for the protection of widows and orphans) and jointly
+with the Rossi and Manieri erected a monastery outside the Porta Romana.
+For himself he built a small house hard by the monastery and passed the
+rest of his days almost as a hermit, occupied in prayer and good works.
+Notwithstanding the large amount given in charity he left a very considerable
+fortune to his sons; the eldest, Amerigo, was bishop of Florence at the time
+of the Council of Constance, which put an end to the schism of the Church
+and elected Martino V, Pope. In order to conciliate the citizens Martino
+raised Florence to the rank of an archbishopric and bestowed the privilege
+of wearing the crimson robes of a cardinal on her archbishop.</p>
+
+<p>Luca Corsini was the popular Prior of Florence who shut the door of
+the Palazzo della Signoria in the face of Piero de’ Medici after his cession of
+Pisa, Leghorn, Pietrasanta and Sarzana to Charles VIII, of France. As
+ardent a republican and as great an enemy of the Medici as he was a friend
+of Savonarola, it is related that in 1498 the grave magistrate was seen throwing
+stones and fighting in the streets in defence of Fra Girolamo like any young
+lad. A daughter of the house of Corsini, Marietta, married the celebrated
+Niccolò Macchiavelli and is said to be depicted in his novel <cite>Belfegor</cite>; this may
+be—but he mentions her in his will with affection and esteem. Bertholdo
+Corsini, who was elected a Prior of Florence in 1531 after the fall of the
+Republic, must have been a weak man. He paid court to Duke Alessandro
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">[78]</span>de’ Medici, who made him custodian of the fortress of San Giovan Battista;
+but when Alessandro was murdered by his cousin Lorenzino, Corsini repented
+and offered to give up the arms and ammunition in the fortress to the
+citizens, who fearing a snare refused to listen to him. When Cosimo II,
+entered the city, Bertholdo fled and joined the standard of Piero Strozzi.
+He escaped with his life from the battle of Montemurlo and after fighting
+in Piedmont and in France, returned to Italy when the Siennese revolted
+and was appointed custodian of the castle of Sienna. In the battle of
+Orbetello Bertholdo was taken prisoner by the Spaniards, sold to Cosimo for
+600 scudi, and beheaded on the 2nd March 1555 in the Piazza S. Apollinari.</p>
+
+<p>Not many years passed before the Corsini and the Medici became
+partners in a great banking firm in Rome, chiefly managed by Filippo
+Corsini who had been created Marchese of Sismano, Casigliano and Civitella
+by the Grand Duke Ferdinando II. Filippo was an intimate friend of Pope
+Urban VIII, with whom he was connected by his marriage with Maria
+Macchiavelli, a considerable heiress. Their eldest son Bartolomeo, brought
+up at the Tuscan court, was after the death of Ferdinando made Master
+of the Household to his widow Vittoria della Rovere. The second son Neri
+was a cardinal, and his moderation, prudence and good sense was of infinite
+service to the Holy See on two different occasions—when Avignon and when
+Ferrara revolted against the priestly rule. Filippo their nephew, was the
+companion and friend of Cosimo, son of the Grand Duke Ferdinando II,
+and the interesting account, now in the Laurentian Library, of the Prince’s
+visits to Oxford, Cambridge and many towns and country houses in
+England, was written by him and illustrated by P. M. Baldi. A member
+of most of the Academies of that day, he contributed largely to the cost of
+publishing the fourth edition of the Della Crusca dictionary. Lorenzo, his
+younger brother, became a cardinal in 1706 and twenty-four years later,
+when seventy-eight years of age and nearly blind, was elected Pope. It is
+related that when hailed as Clemente XII, he knelt down and begged the
+Consistory to allow an old blind man to die in peace; but they insisted,
+and Lorenzo Corsini unwillingly accepted. His first care was to put the
+finances in order and to dismiss Cardinal Coscia, the venal favourite of his
+predecessor Benedict XIII. He reformed the administration of justice, and
+ordered an emission of new coinage to replace the debased currency of
+former Popes. The magnificent gallery of the Campidoglio was founded
+by him; he built the fountain of Trevi, several churches, the façades of San
+Giovanni dei Fiorentini and of San Giovanni in Laterano, and restored the
+Vatican. But much of this was done with money derived from the abominable
+<i lang="it">Giuoco del Lotto</i>—<span lang="it">“esterminio e ruina de’ popoli,”</span>
+ as the Venetian Ambassador
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">[79]</span>
+Mocenigo calls it—which had been prohibited by Benedict XIII, and was
+restored by Clemente under the specious pretext that his subjects would
+spend their money in gambling outside the papal dominions if they were
+debarred from gambling at home. On his accession to the Papacy he
+summoned his two nephews, Bartolomeo and Neri, to Rome. The former
+was created Prince of Sismano, Duke of Casigliano and Captain-General of
+the Papal Guards. Tempted by Charles III, who held out hopes that Spain
+would renounce her claims on Parma and Tuscany in his favour if he aided
+her to secure the kingdom of Naples, he identified himself entirely with the
+Spanish party, only to find his ambitious plans absolutely ignored by the
+Congress of Vienna. As some consolation he was appointed Viceroy of
+Sicily in 1737 and a Grandee of Spain two years later. Neri was made a
+cardinal and practically ruled the Papal States not only under his uncle,
+who trusted him implicitly, but under three successive Popes. He built the
+great Corsini palace at Rome and formed magnificent collections of pictures,
+engravings, manuscripts and books. Intensely hostile to the Jesuits, he
+used all his influence to obtain the suppression of the Order, but died in
+1770 before the promulgation of the decree against them.</p>
+
+<p>Pope Clemente would have left a greater name had he abstained from
+showering gifts and honours on members of his own family. One great-great-nephew
+he made a Knight of Malta while still in swaddling clothes
+and Prior of Pisa at the age of four, in spite of the indignant protests of
+the Grand Master of the Order; another was domestic prelate and Apostolic
+pro-notary almost before he could read and a cardinal at twenty-four;
+while Bartolomeo, their brother, became Captain-General of the Papal Guard.
+His son Tommaso began life as Chamberlain to the Grand Duke Pietro
+Leopoldo, but when Florence was occupied by the troops of the French
+Republic and “death to the aristocrats” was the popular cry, he fled to
+Sicily, and when he returned he found Tuscany transformed into the
+Kingdom of Etruria. Queen Maria Louisa made Tommaso Corsini master
+of her household and sent him to Bologna to receive Napoleon I, on whom
+he made so favourable an impression that when Tuscany was incorporated
+with the Empire he summoned him to Paris, made him a Senator, a Count
+of the Empire and a Chamberlain, in which capacity he escorted the Arch
+Duchess Marie Louise to France. On the fall of the Emperor Corsini
+returned to Italy, and was Senator of Rome during the exciting days of
+1848, when the first dawn of Italian Unity was fostered for a time by
+Pio IX. After the Pope abandoned the popular party Corsini in vain
+attempted to stem the tide of republicanism; he had to fly for his life and
+only returned to Rome after the Papal Government had been re-established
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">[80]</span>
+by French troops. He was a man of considerable culture and added largely
+to the Corsini galleries at Florence and Rome. His brother Neri was
+deservedly beloved in Tuscany, for he advocated her independence at the
+Congress of Vienna, and obtained the restitution of the art treasures which
+had been carried off to Paris. As Prime Minister he devoted himself to
+the amelioration of the condition of the people, made new roads, gave a
+fresh impulse to the great work of the bonification of the Val di Chiana,
+and, a strong free-trader, successfully withstood his retrograde colleagues who,
+during a period of scarcity, desired to impose a heavy tax on corn. Imbued,
+like all his forebears, with a great dislike and distrust of the Jesuits he
+resolutely set his face against their re-admittance into the country. Don
+Tommaso, the present representative of the princely house of Corsini, by his
+kindly hospitality, learning and charm of manner has endeared himself to all
+his fellow-citizens and worthily continues the liberal traditions of his family.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp90" id="i_144" >
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_144.jpg" alt="The Rococo Facade">
+</figure>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_47_47" href="#FNanchor_47_47" class="label">[47]</a> See <cite lang="it">Maiolica</cite>. By C. Drury E. Fortnum. P. 76. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1896.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_48_48" href="#FNanchor_48_48" class="label">[48]</a> <cite lang="it">Una illustre Avventuriera.</cite> Corrado Ricci. Fratelli Treves. Milano.</p></div></div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">[81]</span></p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter"></div>
+<figure class="figcenter illowp50" id="i_146" >
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_146a.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption>
+      CATERINA SFORZA,
+<br>
+    By <span class="smcap">Niccolò Fiorentino</span>.
+<br>
+    (<i lang="it">Villa di Castello</i>).
+ </figcaption>
+</figure>
+<figure class="figcenter illowp50"  >
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_146b.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption>SAVONAROLA,
+<br>
+
+    By <span class="smcap">Fra Luca, or Fra Ambrogio della Robbia</span>.
+<br>
+
+    (<i lang="it">Villa di Cafeggi</i>).
+ </figcaption>
+</figure>
+<figure class="figcenter illowp50"  >
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_146c.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption>
+      PICO DELLA MIRANDOLA,
+<br>
+
+    By <span class="smcap">Niccolò Fiorentino</span>.
+<br>
+
+    (<i lang="it">Villa Medici a Fiesole</i>).
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+<figure class="figcenter illowp90" id="i_149a" >
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_149a.jpg" alt="Distant View of the Villa and Monastery of San Francesco at Fiesole, from San Domenico">
+</figure>
+
+
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="VILLA_MEDICI_A_FIESOLE">
+    VILLA MEDICI A FIESOLE
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+<img class="drop-capi" src="images/n.jpg" alt="Stylized N">
+<p class="drop-capi">
+<span class=uc>“Not</span> more than two miles distant from Florence,”
+writes old Varchi, “shines Fiesole, once a city, now a fruitful hill;
+yet is she still a city.... I say still a city, because she always had
+and still has, her bishop.... Of a truth the position on this charming
+hill is so pleasant and delightful that the fable about its having been
+built by Atlantus under a constellation which bestows peace of mind,
+repose of body and gaiety of heart seems to be true.” Another tradition
+says it was founded by Comero Gallo, son of Japhet, in the tenth year
+of the Assyrian empire; he surrounded it with great walls, built high
+towers and erected two castles, one to the east the other to the west,
+for defence; others again attribute it to Jason, brother of Dardanus;
+while some say Hercules of Egypt laid the first stone. Hesiod affirms
+that Fiesole was one of the nymphs from whom sprang the constellation
+of the Pleiads which forms a half moon, still the emblem of the city;
+<span lang="la">“Faesulas ex una Pleaidum ferunt esse dictum,”</span>
+says also Volterrano. But Dante considers all these to be old women’s
+tales:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+  <div class="poetry">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <div class="verse indent6">“Another with her maidens, drawing off</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">The tresses from the distaff, lectured them</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Old tales of Troy, and Fiesole, and Rome.”&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_49_49" href="#Footnote_49_49" class="fnanchor">[49]</a></div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">[82]</span></p>
+<p>Borghini in his history of Fiesole cautiously remarks: “From the divers
+opinions of so many and such various authors I can only conclude that the
+city is so ancient that her history can only be guessed at, not known or
+discovered; and as she is beyond all memory so is she beyond all other
+cities in renown. The more mysterious her origin, the more attractive
+she is.”</p>
+
+<p>Vasari tells us that Michelozzo Michelozzi built for Giovanni, son of Cosimo
+de’ Medici, a “magnificent and noble palace at Fiesole; the foundations of
+the lower part on the steep slope of the hill cost an enormous sum, but
+it was not thrown away, as there he made vaults, cellars, stables, places for
+the making of wine and oil, and other good and commodious habitations; and
+above them, besides the bed-chambers, drawing-rooms and other apartments,
+he arranged rooms for containing books and for music: in short Michelozzo
+showed in this edifice how valiant an architect he was, for it was so well
+built that although high up on that hill, no crack has ever started.”</p>
+
+<p>Here, beneath the Etruscan city of Fiesole, with all Florence in the
+valley far below, Lorenzo the Magnificent passed his happiest hours in the
+company of Landino, Scala, Ficino, Poliziano, Pico della Mirandola and other
+literary friends, at one moment discussing Plato, at another writing sonnets
+and songs in idiomatic Tuscan. A true Florentine in his love of the
+country, his poetry abounds in descriptions of woods and rivers, of the song
+of birds and the joys of the chase. The following sonnet on the violet
+will show how well he merited the praise bestowed on his poetry by his
+contemporaries.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+  <div class="poetry">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <div class="verse indent0">“Not from bright cultured gardens, where sweet airs</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Steal softly round the rose’s terraced home,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Into thy white hand Lady have we come;</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Deep in dark dingles are our wild-wood lairs.</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Here once came Venus racked with aching cares,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Seeking Adonis through our leafy gloam:</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Hither and thither vainly doth she roam,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Till her bare foot a felon bramble tears.</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">To catch the sacred blood that from above</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Dripped off the leaves, our small white flowers we spread:</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Whence came that purple hue which now is ours.</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Not summer airs, nor rills from far springs led</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Have nursed our beauty; but by tears of love</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Our roots were watered; love-sighs fanned our flowers.”&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_50_50" href="#Footnote_50_50" class="fnanchor">[50]</a></div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p>The villa at Fiesole was nigh being the scene of a double murder, when,
+as Roscoe writes, “a pope, a cardinal, an archbishop, and several other
+ecclesiastics associated themselves with a band of ruffians to destroy two
+men who were an honour to their age and country; and purposed to
+perpetrate their crime at a season of hospitality....” The two men were
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">[83]</span>
+Lorenzo the Magnificent and his brother Giuliano, one of the best of the
+Medici; the conspirators were Sixtus IV, and his nephew Girolamo Riario,
+Francesco de’ Pazzi, whom jealousy of the Medici had led to settle at Rome,
+his uncle Jacopo de’ Pazzi, a gambler and a libertine, and all his ten
+nephews save two; Gugliemo, married to Lorenzo’s sister Bianca before
+their father’s death, and Renato, a man of letters. The Pope’s chief agent
+was the archbishop of Pisa, Francesco Salviati, a man of notoriously bad
+character, whose preferment to the see of Pisa Lorenzo had strenuously
+opposed, seconded by his brother Jacopo Salviati and by the son of
+Poggio Bracciolini the great scholar. Jacopo Poggio was of some repute
+in the world of letters and dedicated a commentary on Petrarch’s <cite lang="it">Trionfo
+della Fama</cite> to Lorenzo. “I am aware,” he writes, “that what little I know
+is due to the help and valiant encouragement given to me in my youth by
+Cosimo thy grandfather.... I consider myself obliged and constrained
+out of gratitude to dedicate unto thee, his true and worthy heir, whatever
+fruit is born of his grave and weighty admonitions and exhortations; as
+a recognition that whatever virtues I possess derive from thy house.” The
+underlings were Bernardo Bandini, a man of ill-fame, Giovan Battista
+Montesicco, a condottiere engaged in the service of the Pope, Antonio Maffei,
+a priest from Volterra and Stefano da Bagnone, an apostolic scribe.</p>
+
+<p>Mecatti gives a vivid account of the attempted murder of Lorenzo, who
+seems to have behaved with admirable coolness, in his <cite lang="it">Storia Chronologica
+di Firenze</cite>. “When Cesare Petrucci was Gonfalonier of Florence in 1478,
+the Pazzi, brothers-in-law of the Medici, for Guglielmo had a sister of
+Lorenzo and Giuliano to wife, proposed, together with the Salviati, to
+murder Lorenzo and Giuliano; they knew that the Pope would give them
+a free hand in this undertaking because Francesco Pazzi, treasurer to the
+Pope, wrote that on account of the aid given to Vitelli the Pontiff was
+exceeding wroth with him, and also that the King of Naples approved of it.
+On communicating this their idea to Salviati, archbishop of Pisa, he immediately
+joined them, accounting himself offended by Cosimo for having outlawed
+Jacopo Salviati his relation, and by Lorenzo for not having been able to take
+possession of his archbishopric; moreover he promised to bring with him
+many of his relations and friends. Matters being thus arranged they
+thought of how to execute their design. Now there was in Florence at the
+Loggia de’ Pazzi&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_51_51" href="#Footnote_51_51" class="fnanchor">[51]</a>
+ a nephew of Count Girolamo Riario lately created a
+cardinal, who was studying at Pisa and considered as an archbishop; so they
+thought their design might be effected when they went to dine at the villa
+of Lorenzo at Fiesole. But this came to nought because Giuliano did not
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">[84]</span>come; then they determined to do the deed in the Medici house, for they
+made sure that when the archbishop came to Florence to attend High Mass
+Lorenzo, according to his custom, would invite him to dinner. Thus was it
+therefore settled, and on the 26th April, the day fixed for the function, the
+cardinal went with a large following to the house of Lorenzo, who received
+him with every mark of extreme benevolence and courtesy and invited him
+and all his company to dinner. But on the conspirators hearing that
+Giuliano would not be present, they determined to do that in church which
+they had thought to accomplish at table, and settled among themselves that
+the signal was to be the elevation of the Body of Christ. Therefore when
+all had gone into the cathedral and the mass had begun, the archbishop of
+Pisa went with thirty of his companions to the Palace of the Signoria to kill
+the Gonfaloniere and take possession of the Palace. But on entering to speak
+with the Gonfaloniere his confusion was such that Petrucci, calling his
+people ordered them to arm and take prisoner the archbishop, his brother,
+his nephew Jacopo del Poggio, secretary of the cardinal Riario and the five
+brothers Perugini with the rest of their company. A short while after
+securing them a great noise was heard in the street, and Jacopo de’ Pazzi
+appeared on horseback, galloping hither and thither and shouting aloud
+Liberty, Liberty. Then the Priors and their familiars threw several stones
+from the windows: and meanwhile came the news that in Santa Maria del
+Fiore at the elevation of the Host Giuliano de’ Medici had been murdered,
+and Lorenzo wounded in the neck by Stefano Bagnone, rector of Montemurlo
+and chancellor of Jacopo de’ Pazzi, and Antonio Maffei of Volterra an
+apostolic scribe: that Francesco Nori had fallen by his side, and that
+Lorenzo, all streaming with blood, had been carried to his own house.
+When the Gonfaloniere heard this he commanded cords to be put round the
+necks of the archbishop, of his brother, of his nephew and of Jacopo del
+Poggio, and that they should be thrown out of the windows, the cords being
+attached to the columns; the other wounded he caused to be either driven
+out of the doors on to the Piazza or thrown also out of the windows. Then
+the people rose in fury, and rushing to the house of the Pazzi found
+Francesco in bed, he having wounded himself on the leg when he struck
+Giuliano, and naked as he was they took him to the Palace and hung him
+at once by the side of the archbishop. They would have done yet more
+ferocious things, but that on going to the Medici house Lorenzo showed
+himself, and begged them to let vengeance be taken by the magistrate. In
+a short time Giovanni and Galeotto de’ Pazzi Riario himself and his brother
+were brought in, when Lorenzo entreated of the Signoria that no proceedings
+should on any account be taken against the cardinal or his brother. Meanwhile
+from the Mugello arrived Renato, Giovanni and Niccolò de’ Pazzi with many
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_85"></a><a id="Page_86"></a>[86]</span>
+men from Montesicco as prisoners, and soon after Jacopo and Renato his
+nephew were hung, the latter somewhat unjustly, because, being a man of
+letters, when he heard of the plot he disapproved and hastened away to his
+villa in order not to be present.”&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_52_52" href="#Footnote_52_52" class="fnanchor">[52]</a></p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp80" id="i_153" >
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_153.jpg" alt="General View of the Villa">
+</figure>
+
+<p>It was after this attempt on his life that Lorenzo sent his wife and
+children and their tutor Angelo Poliziano to Cafaggiuolo for safety. Madonna
+Clarice had always disliked Poliziano and he was bored to death in such
+uncongenial company, so after a little while Clarice dismissed him, and
+was very irate when Lorenzo gave him hospitality in his Fiesole villa. A
+delightful description of the life led by the Platonists is to be found in
+a letter from Poliziano to Marsilio Ficino: “When your retreat at Careggi
+becomes too hot in the month of August, I hope you may think this our
+rustic dwelling of Fiesole not beneath your notice. We have plenty of
+water here and, as we are in a valley, but little sun, and are never without
+a cooling breeze. The villa itself, lying off the road and almost hidden in
+the midst of a wood, yet commands a view of the whole of Florence; and
+although in a densely populated district yet have I perfect solitude, such as
+is loved by him who leaves the town. I have a double attraction to offer you,
+for Pico often comes from his oak wood to see me, stealing in unexpectedly he
+drags me out of my den to share his supper, which as you know is frugal, yet
+well served and sufficient, and seasoned with most pleasant talk and jests. But
+come to me, you shall not sup worse and perchance you shall drink better;
+for the palm of good wine I am ready to contend even with Pico himself.”&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_53_53" href="#Footnote_53_53" class="fnanchor">[53]</a></p>
+
+<p>It was in this “perfect peace” that Poliziano wrote his famous Latin
+poem <i lang="la">Rusticus</i>, full of the same love of woods and fields that animated
+Lorenzo the Magnificent, to whom he affectionately refers towards the end
+of the poem:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+  <div class="poetry">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <div class="verse indent0">“Such was my song, with idle thought</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">In Fiesole’s cool grottoes wrought,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Where from the Medici’s retreat</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">On that famed mount, beneath my feet</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">The Tuscan city I survey,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">And Arno winding far away.</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Here sometime at happy leisure</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Bounteous Lorenzo takes his pleasure</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">His friends to entertain and feast,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">(Of Phœbus’ sons himself not least)</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Offering a haven safe and free</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">To stormtossed ships of Poesy.”&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_54_54" href="#Footnote_54_54" class="fnanchor">[54]</a></div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Little is heard of the Fiesole villa after the death of Lorenzo the
+Magnificent; eventually it was sold to the Marchese del Serre, who let it
+to that eccentric Englishwoman the Countess of Orford, about whom Sir
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">[87]</span>Horace Mann tells Walpole: “she has been detained by the purchase of
+her own Villa, at Fiesole, which, about a year ago, had been bought over
+her own head.... Cavaliere Mozzi, her messenger told me that she had
+commissioned him to desire that I would inform you that, if her age and
+ill-health permitted, she would hasten to England, though she does not see
+in what shape she could be useful to her son.... She set out yesterday
+for Naples, I believe to bring away all her furniture, in order to fix in
+Tuscany.... She has bought the villa at Fiesole.” Later in the same
+year he mentions her again as riding for some hours every morning and
+maintaining “a vivacity not common at her age.” In Jan. 1781, Mann
+informs Walpole: “Lady Orford died at Pisa on the 13th.... She has
+left everything she was possessed of to Mozzi. The whole inheritance will
+be very considerable, reckoning only what she had here and at Naples.”
+Three years later he notes, “Lady Orford’s old Cicisbeo, Cavaliere Mozzi
+married.” He sold the Medicean villa to the Buoninsegni family of Siena,
+from whom Mr Spence bought it in 1862, and for many years it was the
+meeting-place of all English visitors to Florence, attracted by the genial
+hospitality of its versatile owner. In 1897 it passed into the possession of Col.
+Harry Macalmont, whose mother now lives there. But little remains of the
+original design of Michelozzi as Mozzi unfortunately restored and altered the
+building considerably, turning it into a villa of the eighteenth century.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">[88]</span></p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp90" id="i_155" >
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_155.jpg" alt="The Terrace With Fiesole in the Background">
+</figure>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_49_49" href="#FNanchor_49_49" class="label">[49]</a> Dante. <i>Paradise</i>, Canto XV. Cary’s translation.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_50_50" href="#FNanchor_50_50" class="label">[50]</a> Translated by R. C. Trevelyan.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_51_51" href="#FNanchor_51_51" class="label">[51]</a> A villa then belonging to the Pazzi family, bought afterwards by the Panciaticchi and eventually by
+the great singer Catalani; near the village of La Lastra some two miles outside Porta San Gallo.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_52_52" href="#FNanchor_52_52" class="label">[52]</a> <cite lang="it">Storia Chronologica della Città di Firenze.</cite> Dell’ Abbate Guiseppe Maria Mecatti. Vol. II. p. 450.
+Napoli, 1755.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_53_53" href="#FNanchor_53_53" class="label">[53]</a> Politian. <i>Ep.</i> Lib. X. Ep. 14.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_54_54" href="#FNanchor_54_54" class="label">[54]</a> Translated by R. C. Trevelyan.</p></div></div>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter"></div>
+<figure class="figcenter illowp90" id="i_156a" >
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_156a.jpg" alt="The Villa from the Courtyard">
+</figure>
+
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="VILLA_DELL_AMBROGIANA">
+    VILLA DELL’ AMBROGIANA
+  </h2>
+
+
+<img class="drop-capi" src="images/t.jpg" alt="Stylized T">
+<p class="drop-capi">
+<span class=uc>The</span>
+ villa of the Ambrogiana, near the junction of the Pesa
+and the Arno, was built by the Grand Duke Ferdinando I,
+on the ruins of a more ancient villa belonging to the extinct
+family of the Ardinghelli. Going from Florence to Pisa by
+the railway none can fail to admire the villa—a huge cube
+with a tower at each corner—close to Montelupo. Near by
+is the small parish church of San Quirico, where, probably the preliminaries
+of the peace between the Republic of Florence, the Commune of Pistoja
+and the Counts of Capraja, were signed in 1204.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="i_159" >
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_159.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption>
+      VILLA <span class="allsmcap">DELL’</span> AMBROGIANA.
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p>The Ambrogiana was a favourite hunting-lodge of Ferdinando de’ Medici,
+and the court spent a week or ten days there several times a year. In
+October 1592 the marriage of Donna Eleonora Orsini, his niece, to the Duke
+of Segni, son of Count of Federigo Sforza, was celebrated with great
+magnificence in the private chapel of the villa. After the ceremony a
+banquet was given in the large hall, when the Grand Ducal table was served
+by pages dressed in white satin, with Spanish cloaks of red velvet embroidered
+in gold with the Medici arms and collars of fine lace; four negroes in rich
+oriental costume handed them the dishes and the servants who waited on
+the other guests, seated at small tables round the hall, wore sky-blue liveries
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">[89]</span>trimmed with gold lace and a short sword at their sides. In the evening
+the terrace was illuminated, fireworks were let off and a cantata was sung.
+For four days the court remained at the beautiful river-side villa and much
+game was shot in the well stocked preserves, and then the Duke and Duchess
+of Segni left for Florence and stayed at the Casino di San Marco, lent to
+them by Don Antonio de’ Medici, until they returned to the Ambrogiana in
+December to assist the Grand Duke and Duchess to receive Cardinal de Retz.</p>
+
+<p>In November 1594 Don Antonio returned from Hungary, where he had
+been fighting the Turks with the Tuscan contingent sent to the aid of the
+Emperor of Austria by Ferdinando, and joined the court at the Ambrogiana.
+His descriptions of battles and sieges amused the Princesses, and if he spoke
+as well as he wrote to his uncle during the campaign the young ladies were
+right to linger over their sweetmeats. In the summer of the following year
+Don Antonio left for Transylvania to join the Austrian army, and some of
+the best names of Florence appear on the roll of the killed and wounded in
+battle. When he returned in January he again went to the Ambrogiana to
+report himself to the Grand Duke who was shooting in the woods of Mount
+Vettolini.&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_55_55" href="#Footnote_55_55" class="fnanchor">[55]</a></p>
+
+<p>In October 1600 when Maria de’ Medici left Florence for France as the
+bride of Henry IV, she rested awhile at the Ambrogiana on her way to Pisa.
+She must have had enough of triumphal arches, addresses, offerings of flowers
+and madrigals by the time she stepped on board the chief galley of the
+Knights of San Stefano, where a raised dais had been prepared on the poop
+for the future Queen of France, with a gilt chair having the fleur de lis of
+France and the balls of the Medici embroidered on the back in jacinths,
+topazes and other precious stones. Nine years later the Grand Duke Ferdinando
+died, and the court retired to the Ambrogiana for the first weeks of deep
+mourning.</p>
+
+<p>Cosimo III, decorated the villa with numerous paintings of animals and
+flowers by the two Scacciati and by Bartolomeo Bimbi of Settignano, which
+no longer exist. He seldom went there, perhaps on account of its proximity
+to the high road, or else because of the wind “which blows there, and will
+blow to all eternity,” as his doctor, the well-known poet Redi, wrote to a friend.</p>
+
+<p>The last record of court festivities I can find in connection with the
+Ambrogiana is on April 1791, when Ferdinando III, second son of the Grand
+Duke Pietro Leopoldo, who succeeded his brother as Emperor of Austria after
+governing Tuscany with wisdom and liberality for twenty-five years, met his
+bride Louisa Maria of Bourbon at the villa and escorted her to Florence.</p>
+
+<p>Now the fine old villa has fallen from its high estate and is used as a
+prison. The forests where Ferdinando I, shot and hunted have long since
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">[90]</span>been destroyed, and the picturesque little hill-village of Capraja has forgotten
+that her name was really <i lang="it">Cerbaria</i>, from the thick and wild woods surrounding
+the hill whence she frowns defiance at her enemy Montelupo on the opposite
+side of the river. Cerbaria is first mentioned in a concession by the Emperor
+Otho III, to the Bishop of Pistoja in 998, and again in 1155 in a diploma of
+Frederic II. It must have been well nigh impregnable in those days, and the
+narrow, steep tortuous streets, which are only practicable to mules in single
+file, are most picturesque. Gradually the name was changed to Capraria, then
+to Capraja (Capra, a goat), and when the Republic of Florence built the castle
+of Montelupo on the heights opposite, the proverb arose: <span lang="it">“Per distrugger
+questa Capra, non vi vuol altro che un Lupo.”</span> (To destroy this Goat, a Wolf
+is necessary.)</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp90" id="i_162" >
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_162.jpg" alt="The Town of Montelupo">
+</figure>
+
+<p>The ruined church and castle of Montelupo on the opposite side of the
+river is well worth a visit, and the view thence is very fine. Down by the
+Arno the potteries still exist where those quaint plates with straddling men at
+arms and wonderful purple horses, and the <i lang="it">bocale</i> or wide-mouthed jugs
+inscribed with pithy sentences, were once made. These jugs were in such
+common use that they gave rise to the proverb: <span lang="it">“E scritta nei bocale di
+Montelupo”</span> (It is written on the jugs of Montelupo), to indicate that a thing
+is of public notoriety.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_55_55" href="#FNanchor_55_55" class="label">[55]</a> See <i lang="it">Don Antonio de’ Medici al Casino di San Marco</i>,
+    by Count P. F. Covoni. Firenze, 1892.</p></div></div>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter"><figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="i_164" >
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_164.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption>
+      VILLA <span class="allsmcap">DI</span> PRATOLINO.
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+</div>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">[91]</span></p>
+
+
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp90" id="i_167a" >
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_167a.jpg" alt="The Servite Monastery at Monte Senario">
+</figure>
+
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="VILLA_DI_PRATOLINO">
+    VILLA DI PRATOLINO
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+<img class="drop-capi" src="images/t.jpg" alt="Stylized T">
+<p class="drop-capi">
+<span class=uc>The</span>
+villa of Pratolino, about six miles from Florence on the
+high road to Bologna, lies on the eastern slope of Mount
+Uccellatojo and owes its existence to the Grand Duke
+Francesco I, who bought the estate of Benedetto di
+Buonaccorso Uguccione in 1569 and squandered enormous
+sums upon the villa and the garden, which he filled with
+statues, grottoes, fountains and <i lang="fr">jeux d’eaux</i> of every description. The
+peasantry around were reduced to misery by the large amount of ground he
+threw out of cultivation to make the park, and by the destruction of their
+cattle in hauling marble, stone and sand up the long steep hill from Florence.
+Bernardo Buontalento was the architect, and Baldinucci tells us that “all the
+architects of that day declared that never had so simple, yet so elegant a
+building been seen.” The rooms were frescoed by Crescenzio Onofrio Romano,
+Francesco Petrucci, Pier Dandini and Giovanni da San Giovanni, while the
+best landscape gardeners of the day were employed to lay out the beautiful
+gardens and park. Stefano Della Bella has left some delightfully fantastic
+engravings of the grottoes wherein graceful ladies and tall cavaliers are
+disporting themselves; of a gigantic tree with a platform high up in its
+branches on which a gay company is supping; of various fountains; of a
+long alley, shaded, not by trees but by arches of water under which stately
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">[92]</span>lords and ladies are walking; and of several statues. A rare pamphlet, by
+Bernardo Sgrilli, gives elaborate plans of the villa and describes the marble
+statues standing in niches cut out of evergreen hedges; the wonderful
+animals lurking in caves which suddenly spouted water over the unwary
+admirer; and the cunningly devised grottoes containing life-like figures or
+groups. In one a shepherd piped to his flock, in another a knife-grinder
+sharpened a scythe; then there was a fortress whose walls suddenly became
+alive with soldiers firing volleys at an imaginary enemy whilst cannon
+boomed from the embrasures and the rattle of drums was heard; in others
+a pretty shepherdess tripped daintily along and filled her pails with water at
+a well, disdaining to look at a lovesick swain who played plaintive airs on
+his bagpipes; Vulcan made sparks fly from his anvil; a miller ground corn
+at his mill; a huntsman encouraged his hounds, “baying as though they were
+alive”; birds sang sweetly in the boughs of fairy-like trees; gliding serpents,
+hooting owls and “other most beautiful and stupendous inventions too many
+to enumerate were set in motion by diverse hidden machines driven by water.”
+But if any unwary spectator sat down on an inviting bench, or took refuge
+from the sun in a cool grotto, streams of water would pour on him from every
+side and he was drenched to the skin in an instant.&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_56_56" href="#Footnote_56_56" class="fnanchor">[56]</a></p>
+
+<p>Of all these marvels nothing remains but the beautiful park with its
+magnificent trees, and a few of the rare shrubs planted by Francesco, a
+passionate collector of curious plants and animals, who was in correspondence
+with all the famous botanists of the day; and the huge statue of the Apennines,
+cunningly built of large blocks of stone by Giovanni da Bologna. (?)</p>
+
+<p>Bianca Cappello, the second wife of Francesco I, was fond of Pratolino,
+where she passed the summer months to escape the heat in Florence. No less a
+person than Torquato Tasso has sung its beauties in many charming sonnets,
+mingling praises of the place with adulation of the all-powerful Venetian:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+  <div class="poetry">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <div class="verse indent0">“Pleasant and stately grove,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Your scented foliage spread forth cool and green,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">For here beneath your screen</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">This noble maid to couch on grass doth love.</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Together join your boughs, beeches and firs;</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Ye too link yours together, pine and oak,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Thou, sacred laurel, and thou myrtle bright:</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Guard from all harm those fairest locks of hers</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">And keep her from fierce noonday’s fiery stroke;</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Mingle your green with golden glancing light.</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Shades gentle and serene,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Nobler is this your victory o’er the sun</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Than that each night by pale Astræa won.”&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_57_57" href="#Footnote_57_57" class="fnanchor">[57]</a></div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">[93]</span></p>
+
+<p>Bianca was helpful to the unhappy poet, who in return indited madrigals in
+her honour. “Had Your Royal Highness not experienced both good and evil
+fortune, you would not so well understand the misfortunes of others,” he writes
+to her in 1586. People who wished to make presents to the Grand Duchess
+occasionally asked Tasso to write a madrigal to be sent with the gift, thus
+enhancing its value. Among others, a Florentine lady, Caterina Frescobaldi,
+sent Bianca a magnificent dress embroidered with eight different designs, and to
+each was pinned an appropriate poem. In the collection of fifty madrigals, privately
+printed in 1871 from the copy given by Tasso to the fair Venetian, he plays
+fancifully with her name Bianca, turning it into Alba, Candida, Bianca Luna, etc.;
+this play upon words renders it difficult to translate them into English.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+  <div class="poetry">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <div class="verse indent0">“Behold Love’s miracle,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">That my White Dawn should shed</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Glory, which doth the light by Day’s Dawn spread</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">In radiance far excell.</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Dawn’s glory is not her own, the Sun knows well;</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">For that himself doth lend her;</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">But from herself hath my White Dawn her splendour.”</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p>When on his way from Bologna to Florence in 1580 Montaigne visited
+Pratolino and quaintly remarks, “the Grand Duke has used all his five senses to
+beautify it.... The house is contemptible as seen from afar, but very fine when
+you come near, though not so handsome as some of ours in France.... But
+marvellous is a grotto with several chambers; this surpasses anything we have
+seen elsewhere. It is all encrusted with certain stuff they say was brought from
+the mountains which is fastened on with invisible nails. Not only does the
+movement of water make music and harmony, but it causes various statues to
+move and doors to shut, animals also plunge in to drink, and other such devices.
+In one moment the whole grotto is filled with water, every chair squirts it over
+your thighs, and fleeing therefrom up the steps to the villa, if they choose they can
+start a thousand jets and drench you to the skin.” Montaigne goes on to describe
+the statues and the gardens, and particularly notices the ingenious manner of
+storing ice and snow, much as is done at the present time, invented by that
+universal genius Bernardo Buontalento, and the building of the huge statue of the
+Apennines, then nearly finished. Twelve years later Sir Henry Wotton writing
+to Lord Zouch in June about the feast day of St John says: “it was somewhat
+more than ordinary upon the arrival of the Count di Santa Fiore in the court
+here, who is espoused unto Leonora Ursina, but of the marriage day no speech;
+for the Grand Duke hath desire to celebrate the marriage of his Niece, and the
+other, both in one day, because they have been jointly brought up together and
+(for congruity sake) aparall’d all days alike. The fore-named Earl is nephew of
+the lively Cardinal Sforza.... In person not tall nor low, and one of the worst
+faces a man shall ordinarily see, so that some think Leonora Ursina would be
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">[94]</span>contented to revoke the match, and take her first offer.” In August he writes
+again, “since my last unto your honour (contrary to the expectation of all) is the
+marriage of Leonora Ursina accomplished at Pratolino, where the Cardinal Sforza
+arrived on the 16 of August, and gave the ring on Sunday last. I hear the
+Gentlewoman to be in some pensiveness of mind and to have abandoned her
+Cythern, on which she was wont to play; having rather been the wife of the
+Prince of Transylvania than of the Count of Santa Fiore, but that, since she saw
+him, or rather (as some say) since she tried him. To grace her husband the
+better, they style him Duke Sforza, which here we laugh at.” The court, he
+notes in a later letter, “is still at Pratolino attending unto the fresh air.”&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_58_58" href="#Footnote_58_58" class="fnanchor">[58]</a></p>
+
+<p>It must have been this same Prince of Transylvania who in the summer of
+1597 sent an ambassador to Florence called Sigismondo Sarmorago with gifts
+for the Grand Duke Ferdinando I, (who had succeeded his brother Francesco) and
+his wife Christine of Lorraine. They were at Pratolino, and the ambassador
+climbed the long hill from Florence followed by a pair of magnificent iron-grey
+Turkish horses and two very large dogs with collars <i lang="it">alla Turca</i> set with precious
+stones for the Grand Duke, and a wonderful Indian naked spotted dog for the
+Grand Duchess, whose collar was resplendent with pearls and diamonds.</p>
+
+<p>Pratolino, or rather its garden, seems to have astonished all beholders; John
+Evelyn stopped there on his way to Bologna from Florence in 1645 and notes in
+his Diary:—</p>
+
+<p>“The house is a square of four pavilions, with a fair platform about
+it, balustred with stone, situate in a large meadow, ascending like an amphitheatre,
+having at the bottom a huge rock, with water running in a small
+channel, like a cascade; on the other side are the gardens. The whole
+place seems consecrated to pleasure and summer retirement. The inside
+of the Palace may compare with any in Italy for furniture of tapestry, beds,
+etc., and the gardens are delicious, and full of fountains. In the grove sits
+Pan feeding his flock, the water making a melodious sound through his pipe;
+and a Hercules, whose club yields a shower of water, which, falling into a
+great shell, has a naked woman riding on the backs of dolphins. In another
+grotto, is Vulcan and his family, the walls richly composed of corals, shells,
+copper, and marble figures, with the hunting of several beasts moving by the
+force of water. Here, having been well washed for our curiosity, we went
+down a large walk, at the sides whereof several slender streams of water gush
+out of pipes concealed underneath, that interchangeably fall into each other’s
+channels, making a lofty and perfect arch, so that a man on horseback may
+ride under it, and not receive one drop of wet. This canopy, or arch of water,
+I thought one of the most surprising magnificences I had ever seen, and very
+refreshing in the heat of the summer. At the end of this very long walk, stands
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">[95]</span>a woman in white marble, in posture of a laundress wringing water out of a
+piece of linen, very naturally formed into a vast laver, the work and invention
+of M. Angelo Buonarotti. Hence we ascended Mount Parnassus, where the
+Muses played to us on hydraulic organs. Near this is a great aviary. All
+these waters came from the rock in the garden, on which is the statue of a
+giant representing the Apennines, at the foot of which stands this villa.”&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_59_59" href="#Footnote_59_59" class="fnanchor">[59]</a></p>
+
+<p>Cosimo III does not seem to have frequented Pratolino, but his son Prince
+Ferdinando, who even as a child showed an extraordinary talent for music,
+had a special love for the place. He sang well and played various instruments,
+and to his father’s anger often spent the carnival in Venice when no less than
+six theatres were open, four for opera, two for prose. An old writer tells us
+“he was such a master of counterpoint that a most difficult sonata being put
+before him at Venice, not only did he read it off at sight, but to the astonishment
+of all played it through from memory afterwards.”</p>
+
+<p>After his marriage with Violante of Bavaria he decided to build a theatre
+at Pratolino, the big room there being unfit for the operas he wished to give.
+He called in the architect who rebuilt the cathedral at Pescia, Antonio Ferri,
+and an admirable theatre was erected on the third floor of the villa, the Prince
+himself directed the painting of the scenery and the making of the stage
+machinery. He corresponded with composers, singers and poets, and often
+suggested changes in the <i lang="it">libretti</i>, or the addition of a song for the reigning
+favourite of the hour. An army of singers and musicians were in his pay
+and several musical critics, whose duty it was to travel from city to city in search
+of fresh talent. Every year saw the birth of at least one new opera, and
+Scarlatti composed no less than five for Pratolino. In a long letter to Prince
+Ferdinando about one called Lucio Manlio, he explains: “where it is marked
+<i lang="it">grave</i> I do not mean <i lang="it">melancolico</i>, where <i lang="it">andante</i> not <i lang="it">presto</i> but <i lang="it">arioso</i>, where
+<i lang="it">allegro</i> not <i lang="it">precipitoso</i>, where <i lang="it">allegrissimo</i> not so fast as to exhaust the singers
+and drown the words, where <i lang="it">andante lento</i>, I exclude the pathetic, but desire
+a charming vagueness which should not lose the <i lang="it">arioso</i>; and none of the airs
+are to be melancholy. In my theatrical compositions I have always attempted
+to make the first act as it were, a child beginning to learn how to walk, the
+second, a youth already sure of himself, the third, a young man who gallantly
+attempts, and by his ardour succeeds, in every undertaking. Thus have I done
+in Lucio Manlio, the eighty-eighth opera composed by me in less than thirty-three
+years, which I should like to crown as the Queen of all the others. If I
+have failed to succeed, at least I have had the courage to attempt this; let Your
+Highness deign to accept it as Your vassal; as a maiden forlorn and homeless,
+to be guarded from the shocks and tricks of fortune....”</p>
+
+<p>Prince Ferdinando de’ Medici died in 1713 before his father and the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">[96]</span>theatre was closed for ever. A hundred years later another Ferdinand, but
+of the family of Lorraine, called in a Bohemian engineer of the name of Frichs,
+who made new roads, threw many farms out of cultivation, planted trees and
+finally persuaded the Austrian Grand Duke to destroy the Medici villa built
+by Buontalento. Ferdinand died in 1824, before the new villa designed by
+Frichs had been begun, and Pratolino became the private property of his
+successor, Leopold II, as compensation for large sums advanced from his
+privy purse for the bonification of the Maremme of Massa and Grosseto. Not
+only were the foundations of the old villa blown up, but all the water-works
+and grottoes, save one, were destroyed; some of the statues were removed to
+Florence, many were stolen, others broken up and used to fill in cisterns and
+under-ground grottoes.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp90" id="i_172" >
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_172.jpg" alt="L’Appennino, Gigantic Statue by Giovanni Da Bologna">
+</figure>
+
+<p>When in 1872 Prince Paul Demidoff bought Pratolino from the house of
+Lorraine he added to the old <i lang="it">Paggeria</i> or villa of the pages, and restored other
+smaller villas in the magnificent park; but his death in 1885 put a stop to
+further work, and the present villa is not worthy of its beautiful surroundings
+or of the memories of bygone splendour.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_56_56" href="#FNanchor_56_56" class="label">[56]</a> <i lang="it">Descrizione Della Regia Villa, Fontane, e Fabbriche di Pratolino.</i>
+    Bernadone Sgrilli. Architetto Fiorentino.
+Nella Stamperia Ducale. Firenze, 1742.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_57_57" href="#FNanchor_57_57" class="label">[57]</a> The translations are by R. C. Trevelyan, from <cite lang="it">Cinquanta Madrigalli Inediti</cite>,
+    del Signor Torquato Tasso, alla
+Gran Duchessa Bianca Cappello nei Medici. Firenze, M. Ricci, 1871. Ediz. di CCL Esemplari non venale.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_58_58" href="#FNanchor_58_58" class="label">[58]</a> <cite lang="it">Reliquæ Wottonianæ</cite>, pp. 672, 690.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_59_59" href="#FNanchor_59_59" class="label">[59]</a> <cite>Diary of John Evelyn.</cite> Vol. I. p. 190.</p></div></div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="i_174" >
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_174.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption>
+      VILLA SALVIATI.
+  </figcaption>
+</figure></div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">[97]</span></p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+<figure class="figcenter illowp90" id="i_177a" >
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_177a.jpg" alt="General View of the Villa">
+</figure>
+
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="VILLA_SALVIATI">
+    VILLA SALVIATI
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+<img class="drop-capi" src="images/i.jpg" alt="Stylized I">
+<p class="drop-capi">
+<span class=uc>It</span> is strange no records remain about either the building or the
+builder of Villa Salviati, one of the finest and most widely
+known villas round Florence. But a search among archives
+and chronicles has only elicited the meagre facts that in 1100
+a fastness stood on the site of the present villa and was owned
+by the Montegonzi, who about the year 1450 sold it to Messer
+Alemanno Salviati. It was then described as “a strong castle with towers and
+battlements,” which suggests the idea that the last members of the Montegonzi
+may have transformed their twelfth century fastness into a fortress-villa, and the
+rich and powerful Salviati no doubt added to its splendour and magnificence.
+One is tempted to think the great architect Michelozzi must have been called in,
+so strong is the resemblance of Villa Salviati to his known works Cafaggiuolo and
+Careggi. Certainly it belongs to his epoch, 1396-1472, and the bastion-like walls,
+the towers and machicolations give the impression that he who commissioned the
+villa lived at a time when a dwelling-house in town or on the hills within sight of
+the city, had also to be a fortress and serve as a place of refuge during civil strife.
+The only positive information about the villa we have from Vasari, who tells us
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">[98]</span>that in 1529 it was besieged and burnt during the siege by the Florentine mob,
+when all the fine sculptures by Giovan Francesco Rustici were destroyed; but like
+Careggi its massive walls must have withstood the fire. In more modern times a
+pent-roof, as at Careggi and Cafaggiuolo, was placed above its battlements in the
+vain endeavour to hide its war-like aspect, and layers of pink and chocolate
+coloured paint now give a somewhat artificial and mean appearance to what really
+is a magnificently proportioned and boldly conceived fortress-villa. The principal
+block of building rises in the form of a massive tower, crenelated and with
+bastioned walls sloping out on to the grass terrace, while the remainder rises
+round a courtyard with elegant Renaissance arches and capitals of grey Fiesole
+stone, and then broadens out at each corner into a tall tower whence, in days of
+trouble between noble and citizen, the retainers of the Salviati must have often
+watched for the sign of coming danger.</p>
+
+<p>Certainly as we walk round the villa, especially on its north side where it
+looks towards the double-peaked hill of Fiesole, seen somewhat bleak on a winter’s
+day, our mind is full of mediæval Florence, of a time before the nobles built such
+peaceful dwelling-houses with terraced gardens as the Villa Palmieri for instance,
+just in sight across the narrow valley of the Mugnone. Viewed only from this
+its austerest aspect the Salviati villa would be beautiful indeed, but unlike any
+other we know of it possesses a very different side of which Zocchi shows us
+something. An eighteenth century owner, feeling perhaps that the somewhat
+menacing look of his ancestral villa ill coincided with the more joyous tastes of
+his day, laid out the enchanting rococo orange houses with graceful balustrade
+ornamented with vases and a clock tower. Joined on to the villa at right angles
+and built in so opposite a style, it yet fascinates by very contrast, leading the eye
+gradually to feast with delight upon the terraced gardens laid out with such taste
+by Jacopo Salviati in 1510. From under the heavy foliage of the ilexes, trimmed
+and trained so closely as to let no glimpse of sky be seen between their branches,
+we look out across the city of Florence to the hill of San Miniato, a view, it is
+true, familiar to everyone who has walked on these slopes, but what a different
+foreground we have here! Where in Italy can one see not only so fair a city,
+bell-towers, domes and palaces, the late afternoon sun playing soft lights about
+them so that they seem distant, ethereal and shrouded in a thin faint film of
+golden mist; but between us and this fairy city lie two small lakelets, one below the
+other, their shining limpid water catching every glint of light till the sun shall
+have dropt behind the Signa hills. All the winds are hushed in this dell. They
+move the leaves and sway the branches of the narrow wood above, but here reigns
+a peace such as one finds in northern valleys, even the thin sharp shadows
+across the pools, from the clumps of white plumes of the pampas grass and
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">[99]</span>the aloes in flower upon the banks, lie still on the unruffled surface of their
+waters.</p>
+
+<p>The rich and powerful family of Salviati descended from a doctor, Messer
+Salvi di Maestro Guglielmo di Forese di Gottifredo, of great reputation in
+Florence towards the end of the thirteenth century. His two sons, Cambio and
+Lotto, both became Priors of the city, and altogether the Salviati had sixty-three
+Priors and twenty-one Gonfaloniers in their family. A grandson of Lotto, named
+Forese, was extremely popular, and distinguished himself first as a diplomatist
+and afterwards as Captain-General of the Tuscan Romagna in 1397; and his
+descendants served the Republic with honour as soldiers or as envoys and
+ambassadors. The only one of the family whose name is still a by-word in
+Florence was Giuliano, son of Francesco Salviati and Laudomia de’ Medici. One
+of the first to incite the mob to plunder the Medici palaces and deface their arms
+when driven from Florence in 1527, he afterwards became the boon companion of
+the dissolute Duke Alessandro, and he it was who insulted Luisa Strozzi at a
+masked ball and paid for it by being maimed for life by her brother; whilst his
+wife was always supposed to have been instrumental in poisoning the beautiful
+and virtuous woman who had resented the infamous behaviour of the Duke and
+of Salviati. Fortunately that branch of the family ended with his daughter. A
+very different man was his cousin Jacopo Salviati, married to Lucrezia, daughter
+to Lorenzo the Magnificent and sister to Leo X, with whom Jacopo was a
+favourite. He was the one man amongst the envoys from Florence who dared
+to raise his voice at the court of Clement VII, against creating the bastard
+Alessandro de’ Medici absolute Lord of Florence, and against building the great
+fortress of San Giovanni, now called Fortezza da Basso, to dominate the town.
+Setting forth how at the death of Leo X, the citizens of Florence had preserved
+the State for the Medici, he contended that the best and surest fortress was
+the love of the people, who are content when food is abundant and justice
+properly administered. And when Filippo Strozzi argued against him Jacopo
+turned round saying, “Filippo, either you speak not your thoughts, or if you
+think as you speak you think amiss”; then as though gifted with the spirit of
+prophecy he continued, “God grant that in advocating the building of this
+fortress Filippo is not preparing his own grave.” “For these words,” as Varchi
+who describes the scene writes, “the Pope called him no more to council, and
+those citizens who once bore him on the palms of their hands avoided him ...
+and his dependants who had received favours from him turned away when they
+saw him in the distance.”</p>
+
+<p>Maria, daughter of Jacopo Salviati, married Giovanni de’ Medici surnamed
+Delle Bande Nere, and was the mother of Cosimo I, to whom she in vain
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">[100]</span>
+preached moderation and respect for the law. Three of her brothers joined
+the anti-Medicean faction and were implicated in every attempt to dethrone
+their nephew; but Messer Alamanno, the youngest, was one of the most
+trusted counsellors of the two Dukes Alessandro and Cosimo and left enormous
+wealth to his son Jacopo. Clement VIII, created Lorenzo Salviati, Jacopo’s
+son, a Marquis after he had bought the castles and lands of Giuliano and
+Rocca Massima, and Urban VIII, made his grandson Jacopo, who married
+Donna Veronica Cybo, daughter of the Prince of Massa, Duke of Giuliano.
+The following account of the marriage by a contemporary was, according to
+that excellent Italian fashion, privately printed in honour of a marriage some
+thirty years ago. I have translated the whole letter for the curious insight
+it gives into the manners of that day.</p>
+
+<p>“Being sure of giving Your Excellency agreeable tidings, I send a detailed
+account of the marriage of my Lord the Duke of Salviati and of my Lady
+Donna Veronica, which causes the people the more joy that my Lords the
+Prince and the Princess are so gratified thereat.</p>
+
+<p>“My Lord the Duke was to be in Massa on the 27th and sent one of his
+gentlemen on the day before to announce his arrival; he sent to the Duchess
+his wife four most beautiful dresses with jewels to match; one was white, one
+of flax-flower blue, one turquoise and one crimson, all enriched with gold
+and as yet uncut. At the same time I was sent by Their Excellencies to
+meet the Lord Duke and kiss his hands. We arrived at sundown at Massa,
+and at Salto della Cervia the Lord Marquis of Carrara,&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_60_60" href="#Footnote_60_60" class="fnanchor">[60]</a> accompanied by
+many gentlemen and 100 archibusiers of Massa on horseback, met H.E.,
+and soon afterwards the Prince himself with many gentlemen and 80 archibusiers
+of Carrara and his usual bodyguard came in sight. When we reached Nostra
+Signora del Monte the salvos of artillery from the castle began which made
+a fine effect, as besides the heavy artillery, which Y.E. knows of, and the
+200 spingards, the Prince had placed 500 musketeers, who repeated the salvos,
+and thus the castle seemed no less terrific than pleasing.</p>
+
+<p>“When we reached the palace the Duke retired to his apartments and sent
+to ask permission of the Prince, my master, to present some flowers he had
+brought from Florence to his bride; these were enclosed in a gilt enamelled
+glove box, and in other velvet cases were a ring with a splendid diamond, a
+necklace of very large diamonds, a jewel of large diamonds with a feather
+also of diamonds and a large pearl at the tip; these, with the chain of
+diamonds which the Duke had already sent with his portrait in a jewelled box,
+certainly were worth more than 15000 scudi. That same evening my comedy
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">[101]</span>
+was acted and proved a success. The wedding was on Monday morning,
+and when the bride and bridegroom left the palace and entered the Piazza
+a squadron of 1000 musketeers fired a salute, which was repeated at the
+bestowal of the ring and when they returned to the palace. The ring was
+splendid, my Lord Duke not permitting that the one sent before the marriage
+should be used, but this other special one. The Duchess was attired most
+richly in white, adorned with the jewels given to her the day before. My
+Lord Duke was habited in blue, but the extreme richness of the suit rendered
+it useless and of such weight that it could only be worn for a few hours and
+he was begged by all to change. If the first was rich the second was not less
+elegant, and every day H.E. wore a new suit each one more beautiful than
+the last; and he bestowed one on that silly buffoon of a doctor, who was present
+at all the marriage feasts, of cloth of gold embroidered also in gold, and the
+said doctor made a good meal one morning, filling himself with doubloons
+and zecchins given him by all the Seigneury who were at table.</p>
+
+<p>“On the night of the marriage there was a splendid entertainment;
+seventy-four ladies were there unmasked and forty-eight came masked, divided
+in companies of six, variously costumed in appropriate and pleasing dresses.
+Although the room was large four rows of seats were none too many and all
+passed with great order and contentment. Next day at a game my Lord
+Duke gave, with a pretty pretext, a bottle containing 500 zecchins to the bride.
+That and the following days were spent in feasting and festivity, and for an
+improvised masquerade the Duke caused a hat to be made for my Lady
+Duchess with a rich garland of diamonds and under the brim he placed a
+very large diamond worth 14000 scudi. The Duke asked to see the castle
+and was received with much honour, and left a good present to each soldier
+and bombardier and a chain worth 100 scudi to the Castellan.</p>
+
+<p>“The charitable gifts to convents and other institutions are also worthy of
+note, amounting to some hundreds of scudi. On the palace guard and the
+company of archibusiers which accompanied him to the confines of Tuscany
+with my Lord the Prince, he also bestowed largesse. Not only has he given
+to all but he also caused his bride to give to many; among others to her
+sister-in-law Princess Fulvia&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_61_61" href="#Footnote_61_61" class="fnanchor">[61]</a> she gave two of those dress-lengths sent to
+her by the Duke and the others she left to Donna Placidia, her sister. The
+Duke has bestowed many chains, besides presents in money, to the officers and
+to many others; and the Prince, my master, has at his request condoned
+many punishments, pardoned many exiles and released all the prisoners who
+were in the castle when he visited it. The Prince also insisted on giving a
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">[102]</span>horse which once belonged to the Duke, and has been cured of vicious tricks
+so as now to be most pleasant to ride, back to him, and with it another which
+he thought the Duke admired. Also knowing his love of pictures my master
+gave him one by Raffaelle d’Urbino, besides hounds and a body-slave who
+waited on him here. The Princess, my mistress, gave him most finely worked
+linen shirts, and Don Alessandro an archibuse of perfect workmanship and
+great beauty.</p>
+
+<p>“To sum up, my Lord the Duke has been pleased with Massa and Massa
+pleased with my Lord Duke, as he is open-handed and of exquisite tact in all
+his dealings. All thought the Duchess very handsome as is but natural, she
+being of this house and sister to Princess Maria;&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_62_62" href="#Footnote_62_62" class="fnanchor">[62]</a> and I hope Tuscany will
+be no less satisfied with the Duchess Salviati than is Lombardy with the
+Princess della Mirandola. God preserve them both in the prosperity which
+he has granted them.</p>
+
+<p>“Bride and bridegroom took their departure on Friday morning in the
+Duke’s travelling carriage, which is so splendid that it would be sumptuous
+in a city; and were followed also by the lettiga (litter carried by mules), with
+velvet lining and golden fringes, columns of silver and beautiful carving; on
+a par with the magnificence of all else. Twelve grooms there were in livery
+and many gentlemen of goodly presence. Having thus satisfied my desire to
+serve Y.E. in a way that I know to be pleasing unto you, I kiss your hands,
+wishing you every felicity.</p>
+
+<p>
+  “<span class="smcap">Giulio Beggio.</span> Massa, 5th March 1628.”&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_63_63" href="#Footnote_63_63" class="fnanchor">[63]</a>
+</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>The glowing description of Donna Veronica given by the obsequious
+courtier of the house of Massa was not ratified by Florentine opinion. One
+old writer declares: “Donna Veronica was endowed with but small beauty,
+but <i lang="la">per contra</i> with a most violent and imperious temper and a jealous
+disposition. Her husband, poor man, had small joy with her.” Duke Jacopo
+Salviata, handsome, gallant and accomplished, a brave soldier and an elegant
+poet, soon found his loveless life hard to bear, and some eight years after his
+marriage met (for her misfortune) the beautiful woman popularly called “the
+fair Cherubim” from her silken, wavy, golden hair and her exquisite colouring.
+The following account by an anonymous writer of the time, existing in manuscript
+in the Marucelliana library at Florence, tells the tragic tale graphically,
+and has, I believe, never been published.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">[103]</span></p>
+
+<p>“All know of how much perfidy and cruelty a woman is capable when
+moved by a spirit of vengeance, particularly when roused thereto by offended
+love. I have often heard recounted a case which happened in the city of
+Florence, and will describe it as far as my feeble memory permits. There
+was in Florence a gentleman of the old and honourable family of the Canaccj
+named Giustino, well-known to me and to many still alive. He was considered
+a man of but small sense because, having several grown-up children by a first
+wife and being near seventy years of age, he took as his second wife a young
+girl called Caterina, inferior to himself in rank but endowed with marvellous
+beauty, daughter to a dyer from the Casentino. Now Giustino was also the
+ugliest, the most tiresome and the dirtiest man then in Florence, which encouraged
+many to solicit the good graces of Caterina who, though apparently
+leading a modest life, at length they said listened to Lorenzo da Jacopo Serzelli
+and to Vincenzio Carlini, a young Florentine who has now changed his habit
+and way of life, being the head of that hospital commonly called Bonifazio.
+There were also two youths, familiars of Jacopo Salviati Duke of Giuliano
+the greatest personage for birth, enormous wealth and other admirable qualities
+in the city of Florence, always excepting the Princes of the ruling house, who
+a few years before had taken to wife Donna Veronica daughter to Don Carlo
+Cybo, Prince of Massa and Carrara. This lady had not much beauty, but such
+pride and conceit that the Duke was driven to seek for comfort elsewhere.
+Once introduced to Caterina, the Duke, not to excite the suspicions of his wife,
+excused his occasional absences by an obligation to attend one of those Confraternities
+which meet only at night, and in Florence are called <i lang="it">Bucche</i> (Holes),
+this one was named after St Anthony and situated in Pinti near Santa Maria
+Maddalena; and leaving it at a late hour he went to Caterina’s house in Via
+de’ Pilastri near S. Ambrogio. But he could not prevent this reaching the
+ears of the Duchess, who with other qualities possessed that of jealousy in
+a superlative degree.</p>
+
+<p>“It was rumoured, but I do not know if it be true, that the Duchess entered
+San Pier Maggiore one morning where was Caterina whom she knew well by
+sight, and as though by chance Donna Veronica placed herself by her side and
+in a few words bade her never again speak to her husband under pain of her
+dire displeasure. And Caterina replied, perchance with more arrogance and
+spirit than became her condition, thus increasing the ire of the Duchess and
+ensuring her own ruin. The Duke’s love grew every day and the Duchess
+determined to cut the thread; rumour has it that she tried to poison Caterina,
+but failing, determined to take vengeance in another way; and she did it with
+such cruelty and barbarity that one may rightly say it was done according to
+Genoese fashion, and it was as follows:—</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">[104]</span></p>
+
+<p>“She contrived, according to what was said at the time and it seems to be
+truth, to get hold of the brothers Bartolomeo and Francesco, sons of Giustino
+Canaccj, youths of about twenty-four or twenty-five, who though they did not
+inhabit, yet frequented their step-mother’s house; and after much talk representing
+to them how her licentious life brought ignominy on themselves and their
+posterity and that as persons of birth and consideration it behoved them to
+free themselves of her presence, she promised if they would do this not only to
+give them every help but such protection as would save them from any peril,
+and as they were poor she also promised to grant them a life-long allowance.
+I am by no means certain that the Duchess spake thus to both, or only to
+Bartolomeo the elder brother, who as we shall see was present at the misdeed
+and paid the penalty. It was said that the brothers, or the one, as it may have
+been, at first refused, but the offers being at length accompanied by threats
+they agreed to introduce into their step-mother’s house those persons chosen by
+the Duchess to work their vengeance (which was in truth her own) on poor
+Caterina. Some imagined that one of the reasons which led Bartolomeo to
+assist in the murder of his step-mother was her rejection of his love. Now as
+such things have occurred I do not absolutely deny that it may have been so,
+but it seems unlikely to me that Bartolomeo would have been received in his
+father’s house, also people would have talked much about it and I never remember
+to have heard it mentioned. Anyhow the Duchess got four assassins from Massa,
+and they entered one by one into the city so as to avoid observation and suspicion
+and were kept by her until the time was ripe for effecting her abominable project,
+which was not until the night of 31st December 1638, and was in this guise.
+At about three hours of the night Bartolomeo Canaccj, accompanied by the
+aforesaid bandits who stood at the opposite side of the street in the shade,
+knocked at his step-mother’s door; her maid looked out of the window and
+asked who was there, and on his answering <em>friends</em> she recognised his voice
+and drew the cord of the latch; when Bartolomeo and the assassins rushed up
+the stairs with such fury that Lorenzo Serzelli and Messer Vincenzio Carlini,
+who were talking with Caterina, suspected some evil thing and springing to
+their feet had hardly time to fly by another staircase on to the roof, whence
+they escaped to a neighbouring house, before the ruffians with naked swords in
+their hands appeared at the door. Poor Caterina was then murdered by these
+infamous executors of the barbarous cruelty of the Duchess, together with her
+maid probably to prevent her from giving evidence. After which the bodies of
+these two most unfortunate women were cut into pieces, carried silently out of
+the house and put into a carriage; parts of the bodies were thrown down a well
+at the corner of Via de’ Pentolini and Piazza Sant’ Ambrogio, others were thrown
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">[105]</span>into the Arno and found next day, all save the head of poor Caterina which
+those murderers carried to the Duchess for the full execution of this Tragedy
+as shall be hereafter set forth.</p>
+
+<p>“All these particulars were seen by Carlini and Serzelli, who with hot
+haste had left the house where they had taken refuge and knocked at one
+opposite to Caterina’s where lived a well-known woman commonly called
+Aunt Nannina, because three of the most famous courtezans of our day were
+her nieces. The door was at once opened to them, and from a slit in the
+window of an upstairs room they saw and heard what I have related.</p>
+
+<p>“Now the Duchess, by one of her waiting-women, was used to send to
+the Duke’s room on Sundays and other holidays a silver basin covered with
+a fair cloth, containing collars, cuffs and such-like things which the Duke
+was wont to change on those days. But on this the 1st of January, a day
+sacred to Christians because on it is celebrated the circumcision of Our Lord
+and also because according to the rites of the Roman Church it is the beginning
+of the year, the present sent was of a different nature. Taking the head
+of poor Caterina, which though bloodless and cold yet preserved the beauty
+which had been the cause of her death, the Duchess placed it in the basin,
+covered it with the usual cloth and sent it by her waiting-woman, who knew
+nought of the business, into the Duke’s room. When he rose and lifted the
+cloth to take his clean linen, let his horror be pictured when he saw such
+a pitiful sight. It is not my intention to describe here the lamentations, the
+sorrow, the anguish and the tears shed over the lifeless head of his love; they
+can be better imagined than writ with a pen. Knowing full well that his
+wife had done this deed he would have no more of her, and for many a long
+year refused to be where she was. When she came to Florence, he left for
+one of his villas, or for Rome where he had large estates; and if she went to
+a villa or to Rome, incontinently he returned to Florence.</p>
+
+<p>“But to return to our lamentable story. When the murder was known
+next day and the bodies of the unfortunate women were recognised, Giustino
+Canaccj, the husband of Caterina, and Bartolomeo and Francesco his sons
+were seized and imprisoned together with another son, whose name I forget,
+with his wife and an unmarried daughter of the said Giustino and one married
+to Luigi Tedaldi as well as Luigi himself. But against those scoundrels
+who committed the murder, either because the court had no knowledge of
+them, or because they had taken refuge in flight, or for some other occult
+reason, no steps were taken, nor against their principal; so true is the
+common saying that justice acts only against the poor, and that laws are
+like cobwebs, which catch flies and such small creatures while large ones
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">[106]</span>
+tear and break them. Of the above-named prisoners, Giustino, his daughters,
+his step-son and the other son with his wife were liberated after a time as
+innocent; but Bartolomeo and Francesco were kept in prison and subjected
+to torture. Francesco, either really innocent and not present at the murder,
+or more prudent, or perchance more fortunate, confessed nothing and after
+many months was set free; but Bartolomeo, they say, whether truly or not
+will never be known, confessed to have aided in this terrible affair and on the
+... of 1639 was beheaded in the doorway of the Bargello. Small applause did
+justice get for this execution, good citizens being scandalized that the less
+guilty one who had been, as we say, dragged into the business by the hair
+of his head and was known to have been a poor wretch of small wit, and
+thought to have been tortured into saying more than he knew, should suffer
+capital punishment; while the real delinquent, the principal and head of it all,
+received no punishment save perchance from her own conscience and sense of
+shame. It is true, and it was said at the time, that Madame Christine of
+Lorraine, grandmother to the Grand Duke Ferdinando II, a princess of great
+learning, good and pious, and very zealous in the cause of justice, horrified
+by so atrocious a deed wished to have the Duchess arrested; but as soon as
+the murder had been committed she fled to her villa of S. Cerbone, and
+warned of her danger left for Rome; so justice contented itself with exiling
+her, but the sentence was soon commuted.</p>
+
+<p>“Such was the end of the barbarity and cruelty of Duchess Veronica which
+I have described at length, not from any love of evil-speaking, but from
+the desire to enlighten posterity. The more so that it was said that justice,
+if it merits the name, in order to save the great bore heavy on the weak and,
+as we say, to throw dust in the eyes of the public, drew up two statements,
+one true which remained hid, one false which was published to the world.
+Let those who read these my recollections remember that our proverbs are
+always apt, and that whoso forgathers with great people is the last at table and
+the first at the gallows.”</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Cardinal Gregorio, the last of this branch of the Salviati, left his villa
+in 1794 to his niece Anna, married to Prince Borghese. Her two sons Prince
+Cammillo Borghese and Prince Don Francesco Aldobrandino inherited it at
+her death in 1809, and the three sons of the latter, Prince Marc’ Antonio
+Borghese, Prince Cammillo Aldobrandini and Duke Scipione Salviati sold
+it to Mr Vansittart in 1844. Later the old place once more changed hands
+and became the property of the Duke of Candia, better known as Mario,
+whose glorious voice, charming and courtly manners and great personal
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">[107]</span>
+beauty will be remembered by many of my readers. When Garibaldi was in
+Florence he paid a visit to Mario and Grisi, and a remarkably ill-painted picture
+still hanging in the corridor of Villa Salviati commemorates the scene. M.
+Hagermann, a Swede, bought the villa from Mario, and his heirs have lately
+sold it to Signor Turri.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp90" id="i_187" >
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_187.jpg" alt="The Villa from the Terrace">
+</figure>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_60_60" href="#FNanchor_60_60" class="label">[60]</a> Eldest son of the Prince of Massa, of whom Donna Veronica was the fourteenth child.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_61_61" href="#FNanchor_61_61" class="label">[61]</a> Daughter of Alessandro I, Duke of Mirandola, married to Alberico, brother to Veronica.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_62_62" href="#FNanchor_62_62" class="label">[62]</a> Married in 1626 to Galeotto, son of Alessandro I, Duke of Mirandola.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_63_63" href="#FNanchor_63_63" class="label">[63]</a> Le Nozze di Jacopo Salviati con Veronica Cybo, descritte da un contemporaneo, MDCXXVII. In Lucca
+co’ Torchi di B. Canovetti, 1871.</p>
+
+<p>Al Conte Ottavio Sardi nel Giorno delle sue Nozze con la Nobile Donzella Olimpia Fatinelli offre congratulandosi
+Giovanni Sforza, VII Settembre MDCCCLXXI.</p></div></div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">[108]</span></p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp90" id="i_188a" >
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_188a.jpg" alt="Boccaccio’S “Valle Delle Donne” With Villa Landor in the Distance">
+</figure>
+
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="VILLA_DI_FONT_ALL_ERTA">
+    VILLA DI FONT’ ALL’ ERTA
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+<img class="drop-capi" src="images/t.jpg" alt="Stylized T">
+<p class="drop-capi">
+<span class=uc>The</span>
+name of this whole district is Camerata, derived, says Salvini,
+from “camere” or deposits for water-conduits. Villani thinks
+Fiesole had two suburbs—Villa Arpina and Villa Camarti—the
+latter being the scattered village now called Camerata;
+but Boccaccio recounts that long before Fiesole was built
+or thought of, the forests which clothed the hills around
+were the favourite hunting-grounds of the fair goddess Diana. He describes
+her crinkly golden hair, tall, lithe figure, beautiful eyes and face “shining
+like the sun,” when in the month of May she met her nymphs—</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+  <div class="poetry">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <div class="verse indent0">“By the fair waters of a limpid Fount</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">With flowers and grasses ever freshly decked,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Still welling from the foot of Cecer’s mount,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Just where from midday Throne with rays direct</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">The Sun looks down....”&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_64_64" href="#Footnote_64_64" class="fnanchor">[64]</a></div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p>“This,” writes Roberto Gherardi, “is the fountain now called Font’ all’
+Erta, at the foot of Monte Ceceri looking due south, below the villa of
+the Signori Pitti-Gaddi; of which one can only now see some pieces of wall,
+and some ruins and vestiges in the public road at the beginning of the slope;
+but the people are still alive who assure me that about the year 1710 the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">[109]</span>course of the water which came from a tank a little above and from other
+springs near by, was deviated because it chilled the land below and
+damaged the crops of the podere. At the time of our Boccaccio I find
+that this podere with Houses, Tanks, &amp;c., extending to the end of the
+plain of San Gervasio, was sold on the 5th June 1370 by Giovanni di
+Agostino degli Asini to Messer Bonifazio Lupo, Marquis of Soragona and
+a Knight of Parma, who at that time was admitted a citizen of Florence.
+Being moved by a spirit of much-to-be-praised piety and a feeling of
+gratitude towards the Florentine Republic, he obtained from the same on
+the 20th December 1377, as is stated by Ammirato in his XIII. book,
+permission to found the hospital in Via San Gallo of the said city, called
+precisely Bonifazio from the name of so pious a benefactor.”&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_65_65" href="#Footnote_65_65" class="fnanchor">[65]</a></p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter"></div>
+<figure class="figcenter illowp45" id="i_191" >
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_191a.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption>
+      COSIMO I, DE’ MEDICI.
+<br>
+    By <span class="smcap">Pietro Polo Galeotti</span>.
+<br>
+    (<i lang="it">Villa di Pelraja</i>).
+
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+<figure class="figcenter illowp45" >
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_191b.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption>
+
+      ALESSANDRO DE’ MEDICI.
+<br>
+    By <span class="smcap">Domenico di Polo</span>.
+<br>
+    (<i lang="it">Villa di Cafagginolo</i>).
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+<figure class="figcenter illowp45"  >
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_191c.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption>
+      FERDINANDO I, <span class="allsmcap">AND</span> CHRISTINE <span class="allsmcap">OF</span> LORRAINE.
+<br>
+    By <span class="smcap">Mazzaferri</span>.
+<br>
+    (<i lang="it">Villa di Pratolino</i>).
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p>When Florence became the capital of Italy the old Via di Font’ all’ Erta
+was done away with and a broad boulevard took its place. Remains of an
+old water-conduit and cistern of Roman work were unearthed below the
+tank mentioned by Roberto Gherardi; a rusty sacrificial knife, some human
+bones and a few bits of Roman pottery were also found near by. On
+moonlight nights “the White Spectre,” as the peasants call it, a dim form—a
+cloud of white mist—floated hither and thither over the spot, but the
+uneasy spirit has not been seen since the new road was made.</p>
+
+<p>Font’ all’ Erta then came into the possession of the Nuti, and Bernadino
+Nuti sold it in 1506 to Taddeo Gaddi, a grandson of the great painter
+Taddeo who was an intimate friend of Dante. Taddeo the elder made a
+large collection of manuscripts of the Divine Comedy which he afterwards
+left to his son Angelo who, discarding the brush for trade, established a
+banking-house at Venice with some of his brothers and at last persuaded
+his father also to join him. Thenceforward, remarks Litta, Taddeo only
+painted occasionally, from habit. Angelo died at Venice in 1378 (or 1387),
+leaving his riches and manuscripts to his nephew Angelo, who increased
+the collection by purchase and by copies made with his own hand. Taddeo,
+Angelo’s son, as already said bought Font’ all’ Erta in 1506. He was three
+times elected a Prior of the Republic of Florence, and in 1496 was one of
+the Ten Magistrates of Liberty and Peace at the time of the war with
+Pisa. In 1527 he received Antonio Bonsi, the ambassador sent by Pope
+Clemente VII, (who declared that unless he returned to Florence he would
+not be buried in consecrated ground) “to try to reason and treat with the
+city. But no sooner did he (Bonsi) arrive at Camerata in the villa of the
+Gaddi, than the Signoria, declining to hear him or to listen to any
+explanations, sent Messer Bartolomeo Gualterotti to tell him to depart
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">[110]</span>immediately, and Andrea Giugni to accompany him out of the state and to
+see their orders were obeyed.”</p>
+
+<p>Clemente paid for the reception of his ambassador by creating Taddeo’s
+son Niccolò a cardinal in May 1527; but at Bologna two years later Niccolò
+lost the favour of the Pope by warmly pleading the cause of the Florentine
+envoys, and became an avowed enemy of the house of Medici. In 1532
+Taddeo Gaddi died and Font’ all’ Erta went to his son Sinibaldo, one of
+the richest citizens of Florence and allied by marriage with the Strozzi.
+When Duke Alessandro de’ Medici was murdered in 1537 by his cousin
+Lorenzino, Cardinal Niccolò Gaddi was one of the chief promoters of the
+efforts made by the exiled Florentines to restore the republic. Leaving Rome
+with the Cardinals Salviati and Ridolfi he hastened to Florence to collect
+troops and partisans. But the young Cosimo was too wily. Cardinal Salviati
+had to fly the city, Ridolfi hid in his own house, and “Gaddi,” writes old
+Varchi, “went like a plucked fowl to his brother’s villa at Camerata,” where
+he lay in hiding for some days and then left for Bologna.</p>
+
+<p>Sinibaldo Gaddi was forced by Cosimo I, to contribute large sums “for
+the needs of the state,” but in 1556 the Duke made him head of the <i lang="it">Monte</i>
+or Government bank as a kind of compensation. He died in 1558 and his
+son Niccolò inherited Font’ all’ Erta and made it what we now see.
+Scipione Ammirato mentioning him in a letter says: “he is now at his
+villa turning it into a palace more suited to the city than to the country.”
+Ammannati is believed to have designed the magnificent loggia and to
+have superintended the improvements and alterations of the villa.</p>
+
+<p>Niccolò Gaddi must have been a remarkable man. He was sent by
+the Duke Cosimo I, as ambassador to the Dukes of Ferrara and Mantua to
+announce his promotion by the Pope to be Grand Duke of Tuscany, and
+afterwards went to Rome to attend the ceremony of the coronation. In
+1578 he was created a Senator and was one of those charged to reform the
+statutes of the guild of the merchants. A man of great learning and knowledge
+of art, his library, picture gallery and museum of antiquities were only
+second to those of the Medici. His garden, stocked with rare trees, shrubs
+and medicinal herbs, was beautiful and Florence owes the institution of her
+botanical garden chiefly to him. Niccolò was twice married, but his children
+died young, and the sons of his sister Maddalena, who had married a Pitti,
+became his heirs with the obligation of adding his name to their own.
+In 1755 the remnants of his fine library were bought by the Emperor
+Francis I, of Austria, Grand Duke of Tuscany, from Gaspero Pitti-Gaddi.
+355 manuscripts were given to the Laurentian library, 727 manuscripts and
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_111"></a><a id="Page_112"></a>[112]</span>1451 rare editions of old books to the Magliabecchiana, and 28 manuscripts
+relating to public affairs to the Archives.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="i_195" >
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_195.jpg" alt="Ammannati’s Loggia">
+</figure>
+
+<p>That Niccolò Gaddi loved Font’ all’ Erta, generally called the “Paradise
+of the Gaddi,” and was proud of it, is shown by the following extracts from
+his will written five days before his death.</p>
+
+<p>“In the name of God, on the ninth day of June 1591 Indiction 4.
+Gregorio XIIII, the Holy Pontiff, and of His Serene Highness Ferdinando
+Medici Grand Duke of Tuscany, I Niccolò di Sinibaldo Gaddi Cavalier of
+San Jacopo make my testament as follows:—</p>
+
+<p>“Firstly I commend my soul to God and my body to be placed in Sta.
+Maria Novella, in my place of burial.”</p>
+
+<p>Chapter XL says: “And I also order that within two years of my death
+my heirs shall have finished the Hall and the Loggia of the Palace in Camerata
+and removed the well from the wall of the Hall, without however filling it up,
+and made another in the wall of the small courtyard of the kitchen, searching
+there for water, but should it not be found they are to go to the spring and
+find the old well. Maestro Lorenzo who builds organs, and Maestro Zanobi
+Grazia Dio mason, and Maestro Fanelli stone-cutter, are informed of my intentions,
+therefore let them be carried out according as they may direct. And
+in addition let the arms of Strozzi&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_66_66" href="#Footnote_66_66" class="fnanchor">[66]</a> and of Gaddi be placed at the corners of
+the said palace, and some memorial of him who made and restored them, and
+I will that the men shall not be taken, even for one day, off the work until
+all is finished....”</p>
+
+<p>Chapter LXIII says: “... I will that in the Hall of the Palace of
+Camerata an inscription shall be put up to my memory in such fashion and in
+such a position as shall be judged proper by the most excellent Signore Piero
+Angeli, whom I beg to do me the favour of visiting the said Palace, and my
+heirs shall receive him with the honour due to his most rare merits.”</p>
+
+<p>Either “the most excellent Signore Piero Angeli” never went to Font’ all’
+Erta or the heirs neglected to carry out the orders of Niccolò, for inscription
+there is none. It is said that in the carnival season faint sounds of old-fashioned
+dance music are heard there in the dead of night, and the rustling of silk robes
+and silvery laughter. But all attempts to see the ghostly dancers from the
+balcony running round the top of the lofty hall have failed.</p>
+
+<p>In 1770 the villa was bought by Marchese Ponticelli of Parma who sold
+it to Niccolò Gondi, and in the drawing-room still hangs a portrait of the
+fascinating Paule Françoise Marguerite de Gondi who married the Duc de
+Crequy, de Bonne, de Lesdiguieres, &amp;c., &amp;c. She is pretty in a
+<i lang="fr">piquante</i>
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">[113]</span>
+French style, and wears coquettishly a blue robe trimmed with ermine. Round
+the top of the room are frescoes by Maso da San Friano (Tommaso di
+Antonio Manzuoli). The Loggia which gives access to the villa is magnificent;
+it looks due south, over Florence and the valley of the Arno. Two
+fine old date-palms growing against it have withstood many a hard winter
+and give grace and beauty even to Ammannati’s splendid building. Count
+Pasolini who bought the villa in 1850 put up a fine Venetian lantern out
+of an old Contarini galley under a Della Robbia Madonna in the Loggia.</p>
+
+<p>The villa stands high, about a mile from Florence, and a winding carriage road
+shaded by elms leads up from the plain ending in an avenue of tall
+cypresses. Thence the view of the hill of Fiesole is enchanting. Beautiful
+Doccia with its long line of arches lies bathed in sunshine, and just below is
+the villa where St Louis Gonzaga stayed with Pier Francesco del Turco to
+learn the Tuscan tongue. Landor’s old villa, now belonging to Professor
+Willard Fiske, faces us, with the valley of the Ladies below its garden wall,
+and the Affrico murmuring through its grounds. Visions of the fair Fiametta
+and her companions arise as one remembers how on the sixth day, after Elisa
+had crowned Dioneo king and laughingly told him it was time he should find
+out what a charge it was to rule over and guide women, the three youths sat
+down to play at draughts while she led the Ladies to an unknown valley.
+Leaving the “sumptuous palace” they walked about a mile, and “entering
+by a narrow path on a side where a crystal clear streamlet ran, they saw it to
+be as beautiful and delightful, especially at that season when the heat was so
+great, as can be imagined. And according to what some of them told me
+afterwards the level part of the valley was as circular as though drawn with
+compasses, yet it was an artifice of nature and not made by human labour.
+Little more than half a mile in circumference it was surrounded by six hills
+of no great height, and on the summit of each one was a palace built much
+in the shape of a small castle. The sides of the hills sloped towards the plain,
+as we see the seats in theatres from the top row descend in successive flights,
+always restricting their circles. And these hillsides, at least all those facing
+south, were clothed with vines, olive, almond, cherry and other fruit trees,
+and not a palm of ground was lost. Those looking to the north had copses
+of oak saplings, ash and other trees, green and straight as they could be.
+There was no other approach to the level plain than the one by which the
+Ladies had come; it was full of fir-trees, cypresses, bays and a few pines,
+so well placed and so well ordered as though planted by the greatest of artists.
+Little or no sun entered there, even when high in the Heavens it only just
+touched the earth clothed with sward of finest grass and rich in purple and
+other flowers. Besides this a rivulet, which was not a less delight, came from
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">[114]</span>
+a valley dividing two of those small hills; it trickled down steep rocks of sandstone,
+and made in its fall a sound most delightful to hear, while the spray,
+from afar, seemed to be live silver broken into the lightest of showers. On
+reaching the level the rivulet gathered into a pleasant channel, rushed rapidly
+to the centre of the plain and there formed a lakelet, such as now and again
+townsfolk, who have the art, make in their gardens for fish-ponds. The depth
+of the lakelet was not more than up to the breast of a man, and so clear that
+not only the gravel bottom could be seen, but many fishes darting about here
+and there.... When the Ladies had observed everything they commended
+the place exceedingly and the heat being great, seeing the lake before them
+and having no fear of being seen, they decided to bathe ... and all seven
+disrobed and went down into the water, which hid their lovely white bodies
+no more than a thin glass would hide a crimson rose. Without causing the
+water to become turbid, they went hither and thither after the fish, which had
+scant hiding-places, trying to catch them with their hands. Having with great
+joy taken some, they remained some time in the water and then came forth
+and dressed.”</p>
+
+<p>Returning to the Palace the Ladies described the valley and its lake in such
+glowing terms that next morning another expedition was agreed upon: “the sun’s
+rays had hardly begun to show when they started; never had the nightingales and
+other birds seemed to sing so gaily as on that morning. Accompanied by the song
+of birds they went as far as the Valley of the Ladies where they were greeted by
+many more, who appeared to them to rejoice at their coming. Walking about the
+valley and examining it more minutely it seemed to them so much the more
+beautiful than on the day before as the hour of the day was the more suitable to its
+loveliness. And when they had broken their fast with good wine and sweetmeats,
+in order not to be behind the birds they began to sing, and the valley sang with
+them always repeating the same songs they uttered, to which all the birds, as
+though loth to be vanquished, added sweet and novel notes. But the hour for
+eating having arrived and tables, according to the King’s pleasure, being set
+under the tall and spreading trees near to the lovely lakelet, they seated
+themselves; and whilst eating watched the fish swimming in the lake in great
+shoals.”&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_67_67" href="#Footnote_67_67" class="fnanchor">[67]</a></p>
+
+<p>Font’ all’ Erta is intimately connected with the making of the kingdom of
+Italy. Count Giuseppe Pasolini, who began public life in 1848 as minister of
+Commerce, Agriculture and the Fine Arts to Pius IX, a post he only occupied
+for a few months, bought it as already mentioned in 1850, when he frankly joined
+the party of “Young Italy.” There Ricasoli, Minghetti, La Marmora, Peruzzi,
+and all the liberal men of Italy often met together, and English well-wishers of
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">[115]</span>Italy were frequent guests. In 1860 Count Pasolini became Governor of Milan
+for the King of Italy, and two years later he entered the Farini ministry for a
+short time as Minister for Foreign Affairs. Then he was named Prefect of Turin,
+a post he resigned after voting the transfer of the capital to Florence in 1864.
+His high character, undoubted ability and conciliatory manner caused him to be
+chosen for the difficult post of Commissary General of Venetia in 1866, and he
+entered Venice on the 20th October, two days before the plebiscite which was all
+but unanimous in favour of union with Italy—641,758 votes against 69. In 1867
+Count Pasolini retired into private life, but in obedience to the King’s express
+request he accepted the Presidency of the Senate in March 1876. In December
+the same year he died at his family place near Ravenna aged sixty-one, leaving
+Font’ all’ Erta to his daughter Angelica, Countess Rasponi della Testa.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">[116]</span></p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp90" id="i_199" >
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_199.jpg" alt="View of the Villa by Col. Goff">
+</figure>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_64_64" href="#FNanchor_64_64" class="label">[64]</a> <i lang="it">Ninfale Fiesolano.</i>
+    Giov. Boccaccio. Firenze, 1834. Vol. XVII. p. 9. Translated by R. C. Trevelyan.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_65_65" href="#FNanchor_65_65" class="label">[65]</a> <cite lang="it">La villegiatura di Majano.</cite> M.S. Roberto Gherardi, 1740.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_66_66" href="#FNanchor_66_66" class="label">[66]</a> The mother of Niccolò Gaddi was Lucrezia, daughter of the Senator Matteo Strozzi, and his second wife was
+Maria Strozzi.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_67_67" href="#FNanchor_67_67" class="label">[67]</a> <cite lang="it">Il Decamerone.</cite>
+    Gio. Boccaccio. Firenze, 1827. Giornata Sesta, Novella X. p. 172, <i lang="la">et seq.</i></p></div></div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+<figure class="figcenter illowp90" id="i_200a" >
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_200a.jpg" alt="The Water Garden">
+</figure>
+
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="VILLA_DI_GAMBERAIA">
+    VILLA DI GAMBERAIA
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+<img class="drop-capi" src="images/n.jpg" alt="Stylized N">
+<p class="drop-capi">
+<span class=uc>Nothing</span> definite is known of the history of this charming
+villa which stands among giant cypresses and gnarled ilexes
+on a terrace high above Settignano and overlooks the Val
+d’ Arno. From the name Gamberaia some have attempted
+to connect it with the great sculptor Antonio Rossellino,
+who with his brother Bernardo, the architect, was born in
+Settignano and whose family name was Gamberelli. But Antonio who,
+writes Varchi, “was so refined and delicate in his works, their beauty and
+smoothness being so perfect that his manner can in truth be called natural
+and absolutely modern...” died about 1479, whereas Gamberaia cannot
+have been built much before 1600. Not far off a small house is still standing
+which has always been pointed out as the one inhabited by the two artist
+brothers. It is unlikely that any of their descendants should have made a
+fortune large enough to build such a villa as Gamberaia or to lay out such
+a garden, without some record being left. Popular tradition, which is all
+we have to depend on, declares that several rills and springs of water formed
+a small lake or pond near by where the country folk used to catch crayfish
+(Gamberi), hence the name Gamberaia, the abode of crayfish. It is true that
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">[117]</span>
+over one of the doors is a coat of arms bearing three crayfish on the right side
+and two half moons on the left, but I am informed by a competent authority
+that it is a fancy shield of late times and that the arms of the Gamberelli
+have six crayfish and a badge with three <span lang="fr">fleur de lis</span>, as may be seen in
+Vasari’s life of Rossellino. Over a door in the large entrance hall is the
+inscription <i lang="la">Zenobius Lapius Fundavit MDCX</i>, and by the courtesy of the
+present owner of Gamberaia I have been lent a legal document about water
+rights, which has been a disputed question for nearly three hundred years.
+In digging the foundation of an out-house this winter (1900), a broken shield
+with the Lapi arms has been discovered. From this fact it would appear
+to be most probable that the builder of the villa was Zanobi Lapi; the pity
+is that the name of his architect is not forthcoming. In the centre of the
+villa is a small courtyard with elegant columns sustaining an arcade out of
+which open vaulted rooms, and on the north and south side of the villa
+project very original flying balconies supported on three arches. A small
+spiral staircase, hidden in the square column furthest from the house on one
+side, leads down from the first floor into the terrace garden. Zanobi Lapi
+died in 1619, nine years after he had built his villa, and left it to his nephews
+Jacopo di Andrea Lapi, and Andrea di Cosimo Lapi, but failing heirs male
+he directed that his property was to be divided between the families of
+Capponi and Cerretani. Jacopo and Andrea evidently inherited their uncles’
+love for Gamberaia, as they at once began to buy up rights to the water from
+neighbouring proprietors, and to make conduits and large reservoirs to conduct
+it to various fountains and grottoes. In 1623 they bought a house and a
+<span lang="it">podere</span>, or farm, called La Doccia, which was especially rich in springs. Jacopo
+died the following year leaving a young son; the lands and the houses in
+Florence were divided between the cousins, but the villa of Gamberaia remained
+in their joint possession. “The most illustrious Signore Cosimo Lapi, a noble
+Florentine” then began to lay out one of the most characteristic seventeenth
+century gardens in the neighbourhood of Florence, with grottoes inlaid with
+shells of different kinds and various coloured marbles, statues, vases, fountains
+and <i lang="fr">jeux d’eaux</i> of every description. In the archives of Florence are several
+contracts made by him, between 1624 and 1635, with his neighbours for the
+purchase of springs and rills of water belonging to them, and the right to
+make conduits through their lands for the conveyance of the water to
+Gamberaia. In 1636 he had a lawsuit with a certain Signora Aurelia, a
+widow, who complained that he had deprived her of necessary water by the
+deep trenches and reservoirs dug near the confines of her property. The
+result of this inordinate love of fountains and curious <i lang="fr">jeux d’eaux</i> was, that
+when “the most illustrious Florentine Andrea Lapi” died in 1688, his son
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">[118]</span>was obliged to heavily mortgage the estate to pay off his father’s debts.
+Jacopo’s son Giovan Francesco died in 1717 without heirs male, and the Lapi
+property was divided between the Capponi and the Cerretani; the latter taking
+three <i lang="it">podere</i>, or farms, and some small houses in Florence, the Capponi the
+villa of Gamberaia and two <i lang="it">podere</i>.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="i_203" >
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_203.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption>
+      VILLA <span class="allsmcap">DI</span> GAMBERAIA.
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p>Remains of conduits, tanks and reservoirs in several properties near
+Gamberaia still remain to attest the considerable works made by Andrea Lapi for
+supplying water to his beloved villa. He no doubt planted the noble cypresses
+that tower like dark green steeples on either side of the long bowling alley that
+runs for some four hundred feet behind the house, ending to the north in one of
+those elaborate half grottoes, half fountains, inlaid with shells and decorated with
+stone figures of impossible animals and queer people in high relief of which
+Francesco de’Medici set the fashion at Pratolino and at Castello. To the south
+the long green walk ends in a delightful old stone balustrade with solemn grey
+stone figures, from whence the view over the fruitful, gently rolling hills crowned
+with villas or peasant houses is beautiful.</p>
+
+<p>The terrace garden looks down on Settignano, a little village that can boast
+of more famous children than most large towns. Desiderio da Settignano, whose
+every work shows, as Vasari says, “that grace and simplicity that pleases everywhere
+and is recognised by everyone,” was the son of a stone-cutter of Settignano.
+He was so popular that for months after his death sonnets and epigrams were laid
+on his tomb by admirers.</p>
+
+<p>Excellent architects were Meo Del Caprina and his brother Luca; the former
+worked at Ferrara and Rome, and designed the cathedral of Turin; the latter
+fortified Librafratta and other Pisan towns. Simone Mosca da Settignano was
+said to have been equal to Greek and Roman sculptors, he worked with Antonio
+da San Gallo in Sta. Maria della Pace at Rome and in the Farnese palace; also at
+Arezzo, Loreto, and at Orvieto, where he was induced to settle with his family and
+devote himself to the service of the cathedral. His son Francesco, called
+Moschino, “being born almost with the mallet in his hand,” sculptured some
+figures in the dome of Orvieto “to the wonder and astonishment of all beholders.”
+Simone Gioli, pupil of Andrea Sansovino, was another admirable sculptor, and
+his son Valerio carried on the family tradition. Antonio di Gino Lorenzi was also
+from Settignano, he helped his master Triboli to make the famous fountain at
+Castello and executed the monument of Matteo Corte in the Campo Santo of Pisa.
+Moreni, in his <cite lang="it">Dintorni di Firenze</cite>, gives a list of architects, sculptors and
+painters, too long to insert here, who were born in the little hill village. But all
+pale before the tremendous personality of Michelangelo Buonarroti, “the deathless
+artist,” as John Addington Symonds calls him. Brought to Settignano when but
+a few weeks old, his foster-mother was the wife as well as the daughter of a
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">[119]</span>stone-cutter. “I drew the chisel and the mallet with which I carve statues in
+together with my nurse’s milk,” he told Vasari. His father’s small grey house with
+a loggia and a tower&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_68_68" href="#Footnote_68_68" class="fnanchor">[68]</a> lies below the terrace of Gamberaia, and forms a fitting
+foreground to the view of Florence backed by the chain of the Apennines.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp90" id="i_207" >
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_207.jpg" alt="Distant View of the Villa">
+</figure>
+
+<p>After various vicissitudes Gamberaia was bought a few years ago by Princess
+Ghyka, who is restoring the beautiful old-fashioned garden to its pristine splendour
+with infinite patience and taste.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_68_68" href="#FNanchor_68_68" class="label">[68]</a> It now belongs to Signor Chiesa.</p></div></div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">[120]</span></p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+<figure class="figcenter illowp90" id="i_208a" >
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_208a.jpg" alt="General View of the Villa">
+</figure>
+
+
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="VILLA_DI_MONTE_GUFFONE">
+    VILLA DI MONTE GUFFONE
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+<img class="drop-capi" src="images/m.jpg" alt="Stylized M">
+<p class="drop-capi">
+<span class=uc>Monte</span> Guffone was built at a time when castles and
+watch-towers were needed on the Tuscan hills, and the
+Acciajuoli, rivals of the Peruzzi and Bardi, determined
+to have a fortress-villa that should be a visible sign of
+their power and magnificence. The site chosen for it was
+the hilly country near San Casciano, between the river
+Pesa and the streamlet Virginio, a little off the high road to Volterra,
+commanding a varied landscape of vast woods of pine and oak, farms
+surrounded by olive-groves and vineyards, and hill-set villages with winding
+roads overhung with rosemary bushes. The first glimpse of Monte Guffone
+seen across the misty waves of olives is of a grand and shapely massed
+group of building, resting like a citadel on the shoulder of the hills. From
+its midst rises a tall tower closely resembling that of Palazzo Vecchio—with
+the difference that it starts straight from the ground. Upon nearing
+the villa there is a delightful sense of variety, as successive generations of
+the Acciajuoli have given it a different character until finally it has become
+a beautiful but somewhat baroque seventeenth century villa. Still, when
+walking on the broad balcony which probably covers the ancient bastions, there
+is the feeling of a great house built for defence, and the tower has been
+left untouched in a courtyard into which look large Michelangelesque windows
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">[121]</span>framed with dark stone and set at regular intervals one from another,
+forming a perfect piece of work of its kind, and contrasting pleasantly with
+the mediæval watch-tower. On the northern side of the villa a façade has
+been added giving it almost an ecclesiastical appearance, enhanced by the
+group of sedate and sombre cypresses and ilexes growing at one corner of
+this otherwise joyous looking building. To the same period belongs the
+grand stone staircase on the garden side, leading down to a grotto encrusted
+with shells and ornamented with statues of the seasons, which even in their
+present shattered condition recall the past almost Medicean splendour of
+the place. The wall slopes out with spreading bastions forming an entrance
+to the grotto as though the architect had remembered the gateway of some
+Etruscan city, and above the arch is set a shield, supported by cupids, with
+the lions of the Acciajuoli house.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="i_211" >
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_211.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption>
+      VILLA <span class="allsmcap">DI</span> MONTE GUFFONE.
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p>This once magnificent villa, now let out in tenements to poor people,
+was built, or at all events enlarged, early in the fourteenth century by the
+Grand Seneschal Acciajuoli, whose family first appears in Florentine history
+in the thirteenth century as merchants, rivalling, if they did not surpass, the
+Bardi and the Peruzzi in wealth. One of them, Niccola, stands gibbeted
+to all time by Dante. He and Baldo d’Aguglione, aided by the Podestà,
+tore out a sheet of the public records of the city in order to destroy the proof
+of certain frauds committed. Ironically Dante refers to the “well-guided city,”
+praising the old days—</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+  <div class="poetry">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <div class="verse indent16">“... when still</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">The registry and label rested safe.”</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Unlike the present Florentines, who are never happy away from the
+shadow of their Duomo, the Acciajuoli thought nothing of going to far distant
+lands or of taking service with foreign princes. Thus Dardano, son of
+Lotteringo, passed most of his youth at Tunis as treasurer to the Bey. In
+1305 he was back in Florence leading his fellow-citizens against Pistoja,
+and soon afterwards went as ambassador to Naples to offer the Lordship of
+Florence to the King, Robert of Anjou; two years later he returned there
+to beg assistance against Uguccione della Faggiuola who threatened to make
+himself master of the city. A cousin of his, Niccola Acciajuoli, left Florence
+for Naples at the age of twenty-one to negotiate a loan, and by his extraordinary
+personal beauty, grace and intelligence, won the heart of Catherine, titular
+Empress of Constantinople, widow of the Prince of Taranto; her brother-in-law
+the King, who recognised his capacity and diplomatic talents, appointed him
+the guardian of her three children. In 1338 Niccola accompanied Louis, the
+eldest of his wards, to Achaia in Greece, and for three years conducted the
+war against the Turks with great ability; but the death of King Robert, who
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">[122]</span>left the kingdom of Naples to his niece Joan, proved the stepping-stone to his
+fortune. Married against her will to Andrew of Hungary, a coarse, uneducated
+man entirely under the dominion of his rude Hungarian followers, Joan had
+fallen passionately in love with her cousin Louis, Prince of Taranto; and
+when Andrew was strangled whilst asleep popular rumour connected Acciajuoli
+with the murder; the Queen married her cousin Louis, and Niccola became
+the trusted minister of the crown. The King of Hungary soon appeared on
+the scene to avenge the death of his brother, and finding he was too powerful
+to be opposed Acciajuoli persuaded Queen Joan and her young husband
+to take refuge in his splendid villa Monte Guffone near Florence. After
+passing some weeks with him they went to Avignon to implore the aid of
+Pope Clement VI, but the plague, which broke out in Naples soon afterwards,
+proved a more efficient ally; the King of Hungary fled from the stricken
+city and Niccola conducted Louis and Joan back to Naples where they were
+received with great demonstrations of delight. He was created Grand Seneschal
+of the Kingdom, Count of Melfi, etc., etc., and placing himself at the head
+of the army drove the Hungarians back to their own country. Peace was
+finally made through the intervention of the Pope, and then Acciajuoli set
+himself to free Sicily of the Spaniards; but during his absence the King was
+turned against him by the Neapolitan courtiers, and in dudgeon he threw
+up all his appointments and retired into private life. When, however, the
+Pope laid the kingdom under an interdict on account of unpaid taxes, he
+at once offered himself as mediator. Innocent VI, received him with extraordinary
+honours; raised the interdict at his request, gave him the Golden Rose (the
+first time a private person had been thus distinguished), named him a Senator
+of Rome, Count of the Campagna and Rector of the ecclesiastical Patrimony,
+and then sent him to Milan as envoy to Bernabo Visconti to obtain the
+restitution of Bologna. Finding diplomacy of no avail, Niccola put himself
+with the Papal Legate at the head of the papal troops and soon entered
+Bologna in triumph. Returning to Naples he lived in almost royal state until
+his death at the early age of fifty-six.</p>
+
+<p>Besides Monte Guffone, Niccola Acciajuoli built the magnificent Certosa
+near Florence after the design of Orcagna, and the first of the family to be
+buried there was his handsome, brilliant son Lorenzo, “a Knight and a great
+Baron” Matteo Villani calls him in his description of the funeral. The
+body was sent from Naples and on the 7th April 1354 was taken “on a
+knightly hearse, one great charger being in front and one behind covered
+with silken housings emblazoned with the Acciajuoli arms, while the hearse
+was covered with rich hangings and a baldaquin of silk and gold, and over
+the coffin was fine crimson velvet; the horses were ridden by squires dressed
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">[123]</span>in black, and preceding the hearse were seven squires on great chargers, their
+draperies trailing on the ground, with the aforesaid arms on their breasts
+in beaten silver. The two first squires bore plumed helmets, the third
+carried a standard and the other four had each a large banner with the
+Acciajuoli arms.” In 1366 Niccola also was buried at the Certosa near his
+son with great pomp.</p>
+
+<p>Donato, a cousin of Niccola, had been sent to Corinth as governor, and
+in 1392 his brother Neri was created Duke of Athens, Lord of Megara, Platæa,
+Thebes and Corinth. Neri’s illegitimate son Antonio inherited only the
+Lordship of Bœotia and Thebes, while Athens returned to the crown of Naples.
+The Venetians immediately seized it, but Antonio, worthy scion of a splendid
+race, soon drove them out and held the place for himself. He was succeeded
+by his cousin Neri who, dethroned by his brother Antonio, only got back his
+estates after the death of the latter. Neri’s son was a child when his father
+died and Sultan Mahomet II, refusing to acknowledge his title to the throne,
+named Francesco, Antonio’s son, in his stead. His tyranny was so intolerable
+that the Sultan ordered him to be strangled and thus, after seventy years of
+sovereignty ended the Acciajuoli rulers of Greece. Demostene Tiribilli-Giuliani,
+from whose work <cite lang="it">Le Famiglie Celebre Toscane</cite> I have gathered the above
+facts remarks, with a fine disregard of history, “no one mentions Athens after
+this, indeed its existence was hardly known until our day, when it became
+the capital of Greece.”</p>
+
+<p>The Acciajuoli constantly figure in the history of Florence as Gonfaloniers,
+Vicars, Ambassadors, Envoys, Cardinals and Bishops; and one of the saddest
+and most romantic stories of the eighteenth century has an Acciajuoli as its
+hero. Roberto, eldest son of Donato Acciajuoli, handsome, clever, brave and
+fascinating, had long admired Elisabetta Mormorai, wife of Captain Giulio
+Berardi. On the death of her husband he declared his love and the beautiful
+widow accepted him. But he reckoned without his uncle Cardinal Acciajuoli,
+who had made up his mind that his handsome nephew should make an alliance
+in Rome which might help him in his designs on the papal chair. Prayers,
+admonitions and threats being of no avail, the Cardinal induced the Grand
+Duke Cosimo III, to imprison Elisabetta in a convent; upon which Roberto
+contracted a canonical marriage with her by letter and fled to Milan where
+he published it, demanding at the same time justice from the Grand Duke,
+the Archbishop, the Cardinal and his own father. In Lombardy the validity
+of the marriage was upheld, while in Florence it was declared to be a mere
+engagement. The lady was removed from her convent to a fortress, upon
+which Roberto, while the papal chair was vacant in 1691, wrote a circular to
+all the cardinals, imploring justice from them and from the future pope. All
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">[124]</span>Italy was interested in the unhappy lovers and blamed the high-handed
+Cardinal and his slavish abettor Cosimo III. In vain Cardinal Acciajuoli
+tried to excuse himself by throwing all the blame on his relations, his conduct
+lost him the chance of being made pope, while the Grand Duke was accused
+of arbitrary and unjust conduct and of truckling to the private spite of a
+cardinal. Cosimo determined to revenge himself, but for the moment he set
+the fair prisoner free who immediately joined her husband in Venice, where
+everyone pitied them and blamed the Grand Duke, by whom formal application
+was made to the Republic to deliver up the lovers, accusing them of want
+of respect to their sovereign. They fled, but their steps were dogged, and
+at Trent they were arrested disguised as friars and taken back to Tuscany,
+where Roberto Acciajuoli was condemned to perpetual imprisonment in the
+fortress of Volterra and the loss of his patrimony, while Elisabetta was given
+the choice of repudiating her marriage or being immured in the same prison.
+In the hope of mitigating his sentence she chose the former and ended her
+days in tears and misery, while Roberto died in the most terrible prison of
+Tuscany, as anyone who has visited the <i lang="it">Mastio</i> of Volterra will know.</p>
+
+<p>This is but one of the many instances of Cosimo’s tyranny. An insensate
+bigot, he was entirely under the dominion of priests and monks who ruined
+the country and destroyed its morality. Few princes have been more hated
+by their subjects and their own family, or with better reason.</p>
+
+<p>In the lovely Val di Pesa near Monte Guffone occurred the pretty scene
+so charmingly described in a long letter by that witty Tuscan, Ser Matteo
+Franco, chaplain to the Medici, who bandied sonnets and “strambotti” with
+Luigi Pulci. The austere, rather disagreeable Clarice, wife of Lorenzo the
+Magnificent, who had not been fitted by her education in the stately Orsini
+palace at Rome for the brilliant pleasure-loving life at Florence, was returning
+from some baths near Volterra when, as Matteo Franco writes, “... we met
+paradise full of festive and joyous angels, that is to say Messer Giovanni,
+Piero, Giuliano and Julio on pillions with their attendants. And when they
+saw their mother they threw themselves off their horses, some by themselves,
+some with the help of others; and all ran forward and were lifted into the
+arms of Madonna Clarice with such joy and kisses and delight that I could
+not describe in a hundred letters. Even I could not refrain from dismounting;
+and before they got on their horses again, I embraced them all and
+kissed them twice; once for myself and once for Lorenzo. Darling little
+Giulianino said with a long O, o, o, ‘where is Lorenzo?’ We answered, ‘he
+has gone on before to Poggio to see you.’ Then he: ‘Oh no never,’ almost
+in tears. You never beheld so touching a sight. He and Piero, who has
+become a beautiful boy, the finest thing, by God, you ever saw, with such
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_125">[125]</span>
+a profile he is like an angel, and rather long hair which stands out a little
+and is pretty to see. And Giuliano red and fresh as a rose, smooth, clean
+and bright as a mirror, joyous yet contemplative with those large eyes. Messer
+Giovanni also looks well, his colour is not so high but clear and natural;
+and Julio has a brown and healthy skin. All, in short, are happiness itself.
+And thus with great content a joyous party we went by Via Maggio, Ponte
+a Santa Trinita, San Michele Berteldi, Santa Maria Maggiore, Canto alla
+Paglia and Via de’ Martegli; and entered into the house <span lang="la"><i>per infinita asecola
+asecolorum</i> eselibera nos a malo amen.”</span>&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_69_69" href="#Footnote_69_69" class="fnanchor">[69]</a></p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp90" id="i_217" >
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_217.jpg" alt="The Villa and Tower">
+</figure>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_69_69" href="#FNanchor_69_69" class="label">[69]</a> See <cite lang="it">Florentia</cite>. Isidoro Del Lungo. Firenze, 1897. P. 424.</p></div></div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_126">[126]</span></p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp90" id="i_218a" >
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_218a.jpg" alt="Distant View of the Villa from a Podere">
+</figure>
+
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="VILLA_DI_CASTEL-PULCI">
+    VILLA DI CASTEL-PULCI
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+<img class="drop-capi" src="images/a.jpg" alt="Stylized A">
+<p class="drop-capi">
+<span class=uc>About</span> six miles from Florence on the high road to Pisa stands
+the fine villa of Castel-Pulci, now a lunatic asylum. In ancient
+times the Pulci owned large possessions in the Val d’Arno, but
+the first notice I have found of them is in 1278 when Jacopo di
+Rinaldo Pulci was denounced to the captain of the Guelph party
+in Florence for failing to keep a weir in the Arno near Ponte a
+Signa in proper repair. His son Mainetto sold this weir to the monks of the
+great Badia&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_70_70" href="#Footnote_70_70" class="fnanchor">[70]</a>
+ a Settimo, who in 1313 also bought an island in the river from
+Giovanni and Ponzardo, sons of Mainetto. Like so many of the great Florentine
+houses the Pulci failed in 1321 and villa and lands were seized by the cardinal
+Napoleone Orsini, one of the creditors. His heirs sold the estate to the Marquis
+Rinnucini who enlarged and beautified Castel-Pulci, which was bought by the
+government some fifty years ago.</p>
+
+<p>Luigi Pulci, born on the 3rd of December 1431, was the author of the <cite lang="it">Morgante
+Maggiore</cite>, the first burlesque romance in European literature and the prototype of
+that form of poetry which Ariosto brought to perfection. His two elder brothers
+were also poets; Luca wrote the <cite lang="it">Ciriffo Calvaneo</cite> and the <cite lang="it">Driadeo d’Amore</cite>, and
+was considered by Varchi superior to Luigi, while Giovio calls him <i lang="it">poeta nobile</i>.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_127">[127]</span>Bernardo, the eldest, was among the first to write pastoral poetry in the vulgar
+tongue; he also made a good translation of the Eclogues of Virgil, and wrote a
+poem on the passion of Christ and many plays. His wife Antonia was a poetess
+of no mean fame in the same style. Verino celebrates the three brothers thus:</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="i_221" >
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_221.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption>
+      VILLA <span class="allsmcap">DI</span> CASTEL-PULCI.
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<div class="poetry-container" lang="la">
+  <div class="poetry">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <div class="verse indent0">“Carminibus patriis notissima Pulcia proles.</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Qui non hanc urbem Musarem dicat amicam,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Si tres prodicat frates domus una poetas?”</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Luigi Pulci was an intimate friend of the Medici and formed one of the
+brilliant company surrounding Lorenzo il Magnifico, who mentions him in his
+poem on hawking:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container" lang="it">
+  <div class="poetry">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <div class="verse indent0">“Luigi Pulci ov’è, che non si sente?</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Egli se n’andò dianzi in quel boschetto,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Che qualche fantasia ha per la mente,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Vorrà fantasticar forse un sonetto;”</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Many were the jokes made by Lorenzo’s witty chaplain, Ser Matteo di Franco,
+a canon of the cathedral of Florence, and a favourite of Pope Innocent VIII, on
+the name of his friend Pulci (Pulex, a flea). He used to say of Luigi, who was
+very thin, “famine is as naturally depicted on his countenance as though it were
+a work by Giotto.” They wrote facetious sonnets to each other which were
+published in the fifteenth century and immediately placed on the Index, but a
+reprint of this rare volume was made by Marchese De Rossi in 1759. Both were
+admirers and intimate friends of Angelo Poliziano (to whom, by the way, some
+have erroneously attributed the <cite lang="it">Morgante Maggiore</cite>).</p>
+
+<p>Luigi Pulci’s poem, which Lord Byron admired sufficiently to translate, tells
+of the hatred borne by the perfidious Ganellone to the chaste and generous Orlando
+and the other Christian Paladins. Charlemagne, deceived by Ganellone, whose
+envy, dissimulation, feigned humility and capacity for lying is admirably portrayed,
+sends him to Spain to treat for the cession of a kingdom for Orlando with King
+Marsilio. Instead of this he plots with the Spaniards for the destruction of
+Orlando, who is killed at Roncesvalle. Morgante the giant, after being baptised by
+Orlando becomes his faithful squire; the other giant Maggutte is a jovial pagan,
+laughing at everybody and everything, who ends his life in peals of loud laughter.
+The poem was composed for the amusement of Lucrezia Tornabuoni, the accomplished
+mother of Lorenzo de’ Medici, herself a poetess. “Luigi Pulci,” writes
+Symonds, “assumed the tone of a street-singer, opening each canto with the customary
+invocation to the Madonna or a paraphrase of some church collect, and
+dismissing his audience at the close with grateful thanks or brief good wishes.</p>
+
+<p>“But Pulci was no mere <i lang="it">Canta-storie</i>. The popular style served but as a
+cloak to cover his subtle-witted satire and his mocking levity. Tuscan humour
+keeps up an <i lang="it">obbligato</i> accompaniment throughout the poem. Sometimes this
+humour is in harmony with the plebeian spirit of the old Italian romances;
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_128">[128]</span>
+sometimes it turns aside and treats it as a theme of ridicule. In reading the
+<i lang="it">Morgante</i>
+we must bear in mind that it was written canto by canto to be recited
+in the palace of the Via Larga, at the table where Poliziano and Ficino gathered
+with Michelangelo Buonarroti and Cristoforo Landino. Whatever topics may from
+time to time have occupied that brilliant circle, were reflected in its stanzas; and
+this alone suffices to account for its tender episodes and its burlesque extravagances,
+for the satiric picture of Margutte and the serious discourses of the devil Astarotte.
+The external looseness of construction and the intellectual unity of the poem, are
+both attributable to these circumstances. Passing by rapid transitions from grave
+to gay, from pathos to cynicism, from theological speculations to ribaldry, it is
+at one and the same time a mirror of the popular taste which suggested the form,
+and also of the courtly wits who listened to it laughing. The <i lang="it">Morgante</i> is no
+<i lang="fr">naïve</i> production of a simple age, but the artistic plaything of a cultivated and
+critical society, entertaining its leisure with old-world stories, accepting some for
+their beauty’s sake in seriousness, and turning others into nonsense for pure
+mirth.”&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_71_71" href="#Footnote_71_71" class="fnanchor">[71]</a></p>
+
+<p>Close to Castel-Pulci, on the spur of a hill overlooking the Valle Morta (a
+name probably alluding to a battle fought there in 1113) on one side and the
+valley of the Arno on the other, is Monte Cascioli, now a farm-house, once the
+strong castle of the powerful Lords of Fucecchio. Here Count Lottario and his
+mother Countess Gemma held court in 1006 and gave large donations to the
+Badia a Settimo. Their descendant Ugo joined Ruberto Tedesco, Vicario of
+Tuscany under Henry III, against the Florentines, who marched out and fought
+a pitched battle in which Ruberto was killed and Monte Cascioli was stormed and
+destroyed.</p>
+
+<p>From the terrace of Castel-Pulci one looks down upon the broad and
+fertile plain of the Arno, whose course is marked by lines of shimmering
+poplars, and the fine mass of Mount Morello rises in the distance. Close
+to the river bank the beautiful campanile, attributed by Vasari to Niccolò
+Pisano, of the ancient Badia a Settimo stands out against the green background.
+The Pulci once owned a strong castle near by of which no vestige remains,
+but the Badia had been a dependency of the great Lords of Fucecchio since
+940, and was inhabited by Cluniacense monks, whose behaviour became so
+scandalous that in 1063 Count Gugliemo Bulgaro appealed to his friend
+St Giovan Gualberto for aid, and the saintly abbot of Vallombrosa introduced
+his own rule. Soon afterwards, by his order, St Peter Igneus went through
+the ordeal by fire at Settimo in the presence of a large concourse of people.
+The following inscriptions may still be read bearing witness to the fact:—</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container" lang="la">
+  <div class="poetry">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <div class="verse indent0"><span class="smcap">Igneus hic Petrus medios pertransiit ignes,</span></div>
+      <div class="verse indent0"><span class="smcap">Flammarum victor, sed magis haereseos.</span></div>
+      <div class="verse indent0"><span class="smcap">Hoc in loco, miraculo S. Johannis Gualberto, quidam fuere confutati Haeretici</span>, MLXX.</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_129">[129]</span></p>
+
+<p>In 1236 Gregory IX, took the abbey and monastery under the immediate
+protection of the Holy See and gave it to the Cistercians, whose conduct
+was so exemplary that the Signoria of Florence entrusted them with the
+administration of the taxes, the maintenance of the city walls and bridges
+and finally gave the great seal into their keeping. The monks were made
+exempt from taxes and their revenue must have been large, as every abbot
+paid a thousand golden florins to the Pope on his investiture. The tall gatetower,
+once connected with the strong walls built round the monastery by
+the Republic of Florence, is very fine and a large and curious <i lang="it">alto-relievo</i>
+built up of brick and mortar, of Our Lord and two saints, is above the closed-up
+door. Under the feet of the Christ is a slab with the lily of Florence
+and an illegible inscription. Below that again is written—</p>
+
+<p lang="la">“Anno Domini MCCXXXVI, S.S. Dmn. N. Gregorius IX dedit hoc
+Monasterium de Septimo Ordin. Cirterc. cum esset liberum et exemptum ab
+omni regio patronatu, quod in plena libertate a dicto Ordine pacifice possidetur.”</p>
+
+<p>Badia a Settimo must have been magnificent with its moat and three
+other towers, each of which had a drawbridge. Now much of the ancient
+structure lies under fifteen feet of mud deposited by the perpetual inundations
+of the Arno, the monks’ refectory has been divided into cellars, the fine old
+abbey-church with its solemn, almost Egyptian-looking, columns is a <i lang="it">tinaia</i>
+where wine is made and the original height can only be seen by an excavation
+which has been dug round one of the columns. The monastery is a private
+villa, and the lovely cloister with its slender pillars, beautifully carved capitals
+and expanse of grass serves as a playground for the children. The present
+church was built in the thirteenth century at right angles to the ancient
+abbey-church and nearer to the campanile, on artificially raised ground. The
+steps which led up to the door are already deep under the earth and the
+bases of the columns supporting the loggia in front of the church are more
+than half buried. The high altar is a fine piece of <i lang="it">pietra dura</i> work, and
+round the top of the choir is a pretty frieze by one of the Della Robbia, of
+four-winged heads of angels alternating with a kneeling lamb holding a banner,
+emblem of the guild of wool manufacturers. In the left hand chapel is a
+small ambrey, or receptacle for the holy oil, by Desiderio da Settignano, of
+most exquisite design and workmanship; the walls of the chapel are frescoed
+by Giovanni di San Giovanni, and above the altar is kept a silver casket
+containing the bones of St Quentin. The saint was beheaded at Paris a
+thousand or more years ago and transported his bones by some miracle to
+a church on the opposite side of the river; not liking his quarters he moved in
+1187 to the high altar of the ancient abbey-church, but still dissatisfied he placed
+the silver casket every morning in this chapel, which was the greatest miracle
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_130">[130]</span>of all as the chapel was only built late in the thirteenth century. “And
+here he still is,” said the sacristan, “but without his head, which he could
+not find when he left Paris.” A short corridor behind the high altar leads
+into the old chapel of Lapi des Spinis, built according to an inscription in
+1315. Dim traces of frescoes by some follower of Giotto are still to be
+seen, but the chapel is so silted up with mud that the present floor very
+nearly touches the level of the spring of the groined arches of the roof.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp90" id="i_226" >
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_226.jpg" alt="The Gateway of the Badia a Settimo">
+</figure>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_70_70" href="#FNanchor_70_70" class="label">[70]</a> Abbey.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_71_71" href="#FNanchor_71_71" class="label">[71]</a> J. A. Symonds, <cite>Renaissance in Italy.</cite> <cite>Italian Literature.</cite> Part I. p. 440.</p></div></div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_131">[131]</span></p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter"></div>
+<figure class="figcenter illowp50" id="i_228" >
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_228a.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption>
+      BOCCACCIO,
+<br>
+    By <span class="smcap">Anonimo</span>.
+<br>
+    (<i lang="it">Villa di Poggio Gherardo</i>).
+
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+<figure class="figcenter illowp45" >
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_228b.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption>
+      MICHEL ANGELO,
+<br>
+    By <span class="smcap">Leone Leoni</span>.
+<br>
+    (<i lang="it">Villa di Gamberaia</i>).
+
+   </figcaption>
+</figure>
+<figure class="figcenter illowp45" >
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_228c.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption>
+     DUKE FEDERIGO OF URBINO,
+
+    By <span class="smcap">Anonimo</span>.
+
+    (<i lang="it">Villa di Rusciano</i>).
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+<figure class="figcenter illowp90" id="i_231a" >
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_231a.jpg" alt="General View of the Villa from the Podere">
+</figure>
+
+
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="VILLA_DI_POGGIO_GHERARDO">
+    VILLA DI POGGIO GHERARDO
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+<img class="drop-capi" src="images/n.jpg" alt="Stylized N">
+<p class="drop-capi">
+<span class=uc>Nearly</span> two miles due east of Florence, above the Settignano
+road, stands the old castellated villa of Poggio Gherardo on
+an eminence which overlooks the valley of the Arno. In
+1321 Meglino di Jacopo di Magaldo Magaldi died, leaving
+by will part of this ancient possession of his family, <i>i.e.</i> “the
+podere of Poggio and the buildings above the said podere
+where now are, and have been in times gone by, the Loggia, the Tower, the
+Well, the Water-channels, the Courtyard and all the Garden and Orchard,
+with the Fields and Pergole which are enclosed and surrounded in part with
+walls, &amp;c.”, to the Congregation of the Visitation; with the obligation to
+build an oratorio or chapel in the said house in honour of St Zebedeus,
+and to support a resident priest to say mass every day for the repose of
+his soul. Also the priest on each anniversary of the death of Magaldo was
+to invite all the members of the house of Magaldi to dinner. They, however,
+brought a lawsuit against the Congregation of the Visitation, who appealed
+to the Cardinal Legate of Pope John XXII, (who was at Avignon) setting
+forth that by the time they had paid the expenses of the lawsuit with borrowed
+money nothing would be left, and asking permission to sell the estate which
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_132">[132]</span>many would like to buy, <i lang="la">cum sit in loco carisimo situatum</i>. Thus they would
+be able to pay everything and to carry out the wishes of the pious Magaldo
+as far as the daily mass was concerned. So the villa and land was sold to
+Messer Bivigliano del già Manetto de’ Baroncelli and his brother Messer
+Silvestro for 3100 golden florins on the 14th January 1331. The Baroncelli did
+not long enjoy their purchase. They, with the Buonaccorsi, were interested
+in the great banking house of Acciajuoli which was declared insolvent in
+1345. Poggio must have belonged to the Albizzi for a few years, as Andrea
+di Sennino Baldesi bought the villa and one podere from them in 1354, his
+brother Baldese having already purchased other parts of the estate from the
+Baroncelli five years before. In 1400 the Zati became lords of Poggio and in
+1433 they sold it to Gherardo di Bartolomeo Gherardi. He changed the name
+from Palagio del Poggio to Poggio Gherardi, or Gherardo (it is called both
+in the archives), and his descendants held the place for 455 years. Mr Henry
+James Ross bought it in 1888 and has made its name known as the home of
+a fine collection of orchids.</p>
+
+<p>Many illustrious men did the Gherardi give to the service of Florence.
+Gherardo was three times Gonfalonier of the city; his son Francesco was a
+brave soldier and led the troops of the Republic against the Siennese in 1495
+when he stormed Montepulciano and took Giovanni Savelli, their Roman
+captain prisoner, whom he brought, with many nobles and captains of Siena,
+in triumph to Florence. His brother Bernardo Gherardi, Gonfalonier in 1434,
+was a strong partisan of the Medici, and his influence caused the exile of
+Cosimo de’ Medici to be cancelled. The Republic sent him as ambassador to
+Venice, Ferrara and Rome, and when he died in 1459 he was buried at the
+public expense. Seven different Gherardi were Gonfaloniers of Justice, and
+the name occurs frequently in the old history of Florence.&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_72_72" href="#Footnote_72_72" class="fnanchor">[72]</a></p>
+
+<p>Tradition says the old castle stood many a siege and that Sir John
+Hawkwood was guilty of destroying the eastern wing, only partially rebuilt
+some two or three hundred years ago. It probably was one of the frontier
+castles which in ancient times defended Florence from the people of Arezzo
+and of the Casentino. The line of castles, with their towers, can still be
+traced, from Castel di Poggio perched high on the hill above past Vincigliata
+and Poggio Gherardo, across the valley and up the opposite bank of the
+Arno.</p>
+
+<p>Poggio Gherardo stands about 300 feet above the plain. From the gate,
+with its marble busts of the four seasons, a winding road flanked by roses on
+either side—a glory to behold in springtime—leads up through olive-groves
+and vineyards to the spinny which crowns the hill and protects the villa
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_133">[133]</span>from the north wind. Over the door are the arms of the Gherardi and the
+entrance hall is the “Loggia” mentioned in the <cite>Decameron</cite>, the arches of
+which were built up two or three hundred years ago. In the courtyard the
+well, eighty feet deep, “of coldest water” still exists; but alas, the “jocund
+paintings” in the rooms have disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>From the southern terrace garden the view is wonderful, especially if you
+see a purple, orange and blood-red sunset away to the west, behind the
+mountains of Modena and the cloud-like white masses of Carrara. Florence
+lies mapped out at one’s feet, with Galileo’s tower, San Miniato, Monte
+Uliveto and Bellosguardo keeping watch over her. When the air is clear
+the point of Monte Nero above Leghorn can be seen in the far west, while
+to the east Vallombrosa forms a background for Settignano and the house
+of Michelangelo—ninety-three miles as the crow flies. The course of the
+Arno in the valley below is marked by rows of tall poplars, and hundreds
+of villas, shining brightly in the sun, are dotted about in the plain and on the
+hillsides, while line after line of opalesque hills fade away towards the fertile
+vale of the Chianti. Eastwards are Monte Pilli and the Incontro, so-called
+because St Francis and St Dominic are supposed to have met there, and
+beyond them again, as already said, is Vallombrosa.</p>
+
+<p>From the eastern terrace one looks down on the small streamlet Mensola,
+celebrated in Boccaccio’s Ninfale Fiesolane, rushing down to meet her lover
+Affrico, who comes from the Fiesole hills on the west to join his tears with
+hers. Near the banks of the Mensola stands one of the oldest churches in
+Tuscany, San Martino a Mensola. The <em>body</em> of the Irish Saint Andrew, who
+founded a monastery here in the seventh century, lies under the high altar
+clothed in old brocaded robes, while his <em>ashes</em> are supposed to be under a
+side altar in an exquisitely painted wooden box; through the small iron
+grating one can see, by the light of a taper, beautiful slim youths with curled
+hair walking in a garden of orange trees laden with big fruit. In the church
+are some fine pictures, one attributed to Orcagna was given by the Zati,
+once lords of Poggio Gherardo. The old, square, machicolated castle has
+always been identified by students with the first “palagio” in which the
+joyous company of seven ladies and three youths took refuge when they fled
+from the plague in Florence in 1348.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+  <div class="poetry">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <div class="verse indent0">“Wandering in idleness, but not in folly,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Sate down in the high grass and in the shade</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Of many a tree sun-proof—day after day,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">When all was still and nothing to be heard</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">But the cicala’s voice among the olives,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Relating in a ring, to banish care,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Their hundred tales.</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_134">[134]</span></p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+  <div class="poetry">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <div class="verse indent16">Round the green hill they went,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Round underneath—first to a splendid house,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Gherardi, as an old tradition runs,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">That on the left, just rising from the vale;</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">A place for luxury—the painted rooms,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">The open galleries and middle court</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Not unprepared, fragrant and gay with flowers.”&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_73_73" href="#Footnote_73_73" class="fnanchor">[73]</a></div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p>In 1740 Roberto Gherardi wrote a long-winded but curious account
+of his own villa and of many others on the Fiesolean hills called <cite lang="it">La
+Villeggiatura di Majano</cite>. It has never been printed, but if for nothing else
+his MS. is valuable as suggesting that Giovanni Boccaccio was born near
+the banks of the Mensola. He writes, “... our celebrated master of Tuscan
+eloquence, Messer Giovanni di Boccaccio di Chellino da Certaldo, who in
+his earliest days, and afterwards in the flower of his youth passed much time
+in a small villa with a podere belonging to his father but a few paces below
+the hamlet of Corbignano, which podere on account of the rill dividing it
+which runs into the Mensola, and of the specified frontiers, and the two
+parishes San Martino a Mensola and Santa Maria a Settignano, in whose
+jurisdiction it lies, can only be, when you study it well, the villa of Signor
+Berti at Corbignano at present in the possession of Signor Ottavio Ruggeri,
+as can be verified by the contract of sale existing in the archives of Florence
+of the 18th May 1336 when our Boccaccio was twenty-three years old. I
+believe that under the guise of Ameto, Boccaccio tells us he was born among
+the neighbouring hills of Majano. In this forest Ameto, a wandering youth,
+used to visit the Fauns and Dryads who inhabited there; he, remembering
+that perhaps he was born in the neighbouring hills, was constrained thereto
+by a certain carnal love, and honoured them sometimes with pious offerings.”
+Villa Boccaccio was let out in small apartments to poor people for years;
+it now belongs to Mr Kenworthy Browne, and traces of ancient frescoes were
+found in some of the rooms when he restored it.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp60" id="i_235" >
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_235.jpg" alt="Distant View of the Villa">
+</figure>
+
+<p>As before said Poggio Gherardo is generally identified as the place
+Boccaccio had in his mind when he describes how on a Wednesday morning
+“as the day was breaking, the ladies with various of their serving-maids,
+and the three youths with three of their followers, left the town and went
+on their way; they had not gone more than two short miles from the city
+when they arrived at the place they had already decided on.&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_74_74" href="#Footnote_74_74" class="fnanchor">[74]</a> This said place
+was on a small height, removed a little distance from our roads on every
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_135"></a><a id="Page_136"></a>[136]</span>side, full of various trees and shrubs in full greenery and most pleasant to
+behold. On the brow of the hill was a palace with a fine and spacious courtyard
+in the middle, and with loggie and halls and rooms, all, and each one
+in itself beautiful, and ornamented tastefully with jocund paintings; surrounded
+with grass plots and marvellous gardens, and with wells of coldest water,
+and cellars of rare wines; a thing more suited to curious topers than to
+sober and virtuous women.”</p>
+
+<p>Here Pampinea was crowned queen with “an honourable and beautiful
+garland of bays,” and here she commanded Panfilo to begin the series of
+immortal tales known all the world over as the <cite>Decameron</cite>. At the end of
+the first day Pampinea ceded the garland, emblem of royalty, to “the discreet
+maiden Filomena” and the joyous company went slowly down to a stream
+(the Mensola) of clear water, “which descended from a hill and flowed through
+a valley shaded by many trees, amidst live rocks and green grass. Here
+bare-footed and with bare arms they went down into the water and disported
+themselves, then the hour of supper being at hand they returned to the palace
+and supped with great contentment.” Music, singing and dancing whiled
+away the hours until the queen was pleased to command the torches to be
+lit and that everyone should seek repose.</p>
+
+<p>The second day passed in like manner, and when the tenth and last tale
+came to an end, Filomena took the garland from off her own head and crowned
+Neifile queen, who said: “As you know to-morrow is Friday and the next
+day Saturday, days apt to be tedious to most people on account of the viands
+ordered to be eaten; besides Friday was the day on which He who died for
+our life suffered His passion, and it is therefore worthy of reverence. For
+this I consider it to be a proper and virtuous thing that we should rather
+say prayers to the honour of God than invent tales. And on Saturday it
+is the custom for women to wash their heads and remove any dust or dirt
+that may have settled there during the labours of the week; also they used
+to fast out of reverence for the Virgin Mother of God and then in honour
+of the coming Sunday rest from any and every work. Being therefore unable
+on that day to fully carry out our established order of life I think it would
+be well done to refrain from reciting tales also on that day. And as we shall
+then have been here four days, if we are desirous to avoid being joined by
+others, I conceive that it would be more opportune to quit this place and
+go elsewhere and I have already thought of a place and arranged everything.”</p>
+
+<p>All commended the words and the project of the queen, and so it was
+established, but they looked forward with longing to Sunday. On that morning
+“with slow steps the queen, accompanied and followed by her ladies and
+by the three youths, and led by the song of maybe twenty nightingales and
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_137">[137]</span>other birds, took her way towards the west by an unfrequented lane full of
+green herbs and flowers just beginning to open to the rising sun. Gossiping,
+joking and laughing with her company, she led them, after proceeding some
+two thousand paces, to a beautiful and splendid palace before the half of the
+third hour had passed.” (One and a half hours after sunrise.)</p>
+
+<p>The “unfrequented lane” may yet be followed from Majano across the
+Affrico towards San Domenico. Here and there an old oak tree recalls the
+forest that once existed, and nearly every villa and village within sight is
+connected with some illustrious name. The joyous company probably passed—</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+  <div class="poetry">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <div class="verse indent0">“Where the hewn rocks of Fiesole impend</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">O’er Doccia’s dell, and fig and olive blend.</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">There the twin streams of Affrico unite,&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_75_75" href="#Footnote_75_75" class="fnanchor">[75]</a></div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">One dimly seen, the other out of sight,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">But ever playing in his smoothen’d bed</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Of polisht stone, and willing to be led</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Where clustering vines protect him from the sun.</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Here, by the lake, Boccaccio’s fair brigade</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Beguiled the hours, and tale for tale repaid.”</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">Thus sang Walter Savage Landor, whose villa <span lang="it">“Il Frusino,”</span> now belonging
+to Professor Willard Fiske, stands just above the small plain where once
+was the lake of the <span lang="it">“Valle delle Donne,”</span> already silted up in the sixteenth
+century.</p>
+
+<p>About that same time the remains of the strong castle of Majano were
+destroyed; the birthplace of the poet Dante da Majano whose poems in praise
+of his Nina (one of the first Italian poetesses) are well-known. She was a
+Sicilian, and although they never met she always called herself <span lang="it">“la Nina
+di Dante.”</span> He exchanged poems with Dante Alighieri, Chiari Davanzati,
+Guido Orlandi and others. Another poet, Meo di Majano, was born in the
+tiny hamlet, and “the not less prudent than virtuous sculptor,” Benedetto [da
+Majano] “the greatest master who ever held a chisel,” as Vasari calls him, and
+his brother the architect Giuliano. Macchiavelli had a house near by, and
+the Valori owned much property near Majano. The Villa Marmigliano is still
+standing, where the great platonist Marsilio Ficino was for so long the guest
+of Niccolò and Filippo Valori and where he finished his translation of Plato.
+Pico della Mirandola and Poliziano often came from the Medici Villa at
+Fiesole to visit their friends, and in one of his letters Ficino describes a walk
+on these hills with “our Pico” and their talk about a salubrious villa. The
+latter pointed out one as fulfilling all his desires and Ficino tells him “it is
+said to have been built by that wise man Leonardo Aretino, and just beyond
+was the abode of Giovanni Boccaccio.” Only divided by a small valley from
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_138">[138]</span>the Valori lived the brothers Benivieni. Roberto Gherardo describes their
+villa, now belonging to Sir Willoughby Wade, as “the most ancient Villa
+della Querce, since 1272 in the possession of the Signori Baldovini Riccomanni,
+who bought it from Ciencio di Seminetto de’ Visdomini and sold it in 1483
+to Michele Benivieni.” “Happy house of Benivieni,” exclaims Poliziano,
+“beloved of Apollo, favoured with all the celestial gifts. Of four brothers,
+you, Maestro Antonio, are a second Esculapius or Chiron; the second diligently
+studies the virtues of plants and herbs; the third, Girolamo, is a tender and
+learned poet; and Domenico, still a lad, gives himself with a gravity beyond
+his years, to poetry and the study of Aristotle.”</p>
+
+<p>Lower down, on the other side of the little valley is the Salviatino, once
+belonging to the Dukes Salviati, whose good wine is immortalized in that
+jocund poem <cite>Bacco in Toscana</cite>.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+  <div class="poetry">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <div class="verse indent0">“Lovely Majano, lord of dells,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Where my gentle Salviati dwells.</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Many a time and oft doth he</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Crown me with bumpers full fervently,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">And I, in return, preserve him still</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">From every crude and importunate ill.</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">I keep by my side,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">For my joy and pride,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">That gallant in chief of his royal cellar</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Val di Marina, the blithe care-killer;</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">But with the wine yclept Val di Botte</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Day and night I could flout me the gouty.”&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_76_76" href="#Footnote_76_76" class="fnanchor">[76]</a></div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp50" id="i_238" >
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_238.jpg" alt="View of Florence from the Cypress Trees of Poggio Gherardo">
+</figure>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_72_72" href="#FNanchor_72_72" class="label">[72]</a> <i lang="it">Familie Celebre Toscane.</i>
+    D. Tiribilli-Giuliani, riveduto dal Cav. R. Passerini. Firenze, 1862.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_73_73" href="#FNanchor_73_73" class="label">[73]</a> Samuel Rogers. <cite>Italy.</cite> P. 136.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_74_74" href="#FNanchor_74_74" class="label">[74]</a> Pampinea in the Introduction to the <cite>Decameron</cite>, after describing the horrors of the plague and the
+licentious life of the few inhabitants left in the town, suggests going to “our estates in the country, of which
+we all have a great many.” She was probably a Baroncelli—if one may attempt to identify personages or
+places in the <cite>Decameron</cite>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_75_75" href="#FNanchor_75_75" class="label">[75]</a> The Affrico and the Affricuzzo.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_76_76" href="#FNanchor_76_76" class="label">[76]</a> <i>Opus cit.</i> See note page 70.</p></div></div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="i_240" >
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_240.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption>
+      VILLA <span class="allsmcap">DELLE</span> SELVE
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+</div>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_139">[139]</span></p>
+
+
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp90" id="i_243a" >
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_243a.jpg" alt="Sir John Hawkwood’S Walls at Lastra a Signa">
+</figure>
+
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="VILLA_DELLE_SELVE">
+    VILLA DELLE SELVE
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+<img class="drop-capi" src="images/t.jpg" alt="Stylized T">
+<p class="drop-capi">
+<span class=uc>The</span> stately Villa delle Selve, built by Buontalenti, stands high
+on the crest of a hill overlooking the Arno below Signa
+about nine miles from Florence. The first mention of it is
+in the archives of the monastery of San Pier Maggiore where
+it is stated that the Commune of Florence, in the interest
+of the creditors of the Acciajuoli bank, sold “a podere with
+a hut, a brick kiln, etc., at a place called Le Selve in the parish of San Martino
+a Gangalandi for 270 golden florins.” It afterwards came into the possession
+of the Strozzi. And when Filippo Strozzi and his wife Clarice left Rome
+by stealth and sailed to Pisa, a messenger met them with letters from the
+Cardinal of Cortona and from Niccolò Capponi urging them to come to
+Florence, so Filippo, a prudent Florentine “decided,” writes old Varchi, “after
+much meditation not to be the one who, as the saying is, picks the chestnuts
+out of the fire, but determined to send Madonna Clarice on to feel the way;
+she being a woman and a Medici would, he conceived, not run the same risk as
+himself.... Clarice, as courageous as she was proud, accepted the commission
+without waiting to be entreated, and leaving Piero and Vincenzio her sons,
+in Empoli under the charge of their tutor Ser Francesco Zeffi, she went
+accompanied by only Antonio da Barberino and Maestro Marcantonio da San
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_140">[140]</span>Gemignano to dine at Le Selve near Signa, a most favourite villa of Filippo’s
+and from thence the same evening proceeded to Florence.”</p>
+
+<p>Marchese Filippo di Averardo Salviati bought the villa from the Strozzi
+and in 1611 lent it to his friend Galileo Galilei, who unfortunately for himself
+had resigned his professorship at Padua to accept the appointment of court
+mathematician in Florence. It is a curious fact that two of the greatest of
+Italians, Giovanni Boccaccio and Galileo Galilei, had a common ancestor in
+Bonajuto, Lord of Pogna in the Val d’Elsa. Bonajuto’s son Chellino was
+grandfather to Boccaccio; another son, Giovanni, was the father of a celebrated
+doctor Maestro Galileo from whom descended Vincenzio Galilei, a musician of
+some repute and author of a dialogue on music printed in Florence in 1581,
+he married Giulia Ammanati, and their son—the famous Galileo—was born in
+Pisa in 1564. A descendant of a third son of old Maestro Galileo was governor
+of Pisa in 1837 and most bitterly resented any allusion to his relationship with
+a man who had been in the prisons of the Inquisition. The arms of the two
+families are identical, save that the red ladder of the Galilei is placed vertically
+on a gold ground while that of the Chellini is diagonal.&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_77_77" href="#Footnote_77_77" class="fnanchor">[77]</a></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_78_78" href="#Footnote_78_78" class="fnanchor">[78]</a></p>
+
+<p>From the broad terrace of the villa the view is magnificent, “you see
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_141">[141]</span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <i lang="it">Festa degli
+Angeli</i> 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
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_142">[142]</span>Blessed Giovanna, the band plays its loudest and sometimes the donkey
+brays, which causes great amusement.</p>
+
+<p>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 <i lang="it">Tu est servus meus</i>.</p>
+
+<p>A miraculous crucifix is in the church, and every fifty years the <i lang="it">Festa</i>
+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.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp70" id="i_246" >
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_246.jpg" alt="The Villa, With Galileo’S Terrace">
+</figure>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_77_77" href="#FNanchor_77_77" class="label">[77]</a> See <cite lang="it">Marietta de’ Ricci</cite>.
+    A. Ademollo. 2a Edizione con aggiunte di L. Passerini. Firenze, 1845. Vol. III.
+p. 816, and Vol. IV. p. 1216.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_78_78" href="#FNanchor_78_78" class="label">[78]</a> <cite lang="it">Vita di Galileo Galilei.</cite> G. B. Clemente de’ Nelli. Losanna, 1793.</p></div></div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_143">[143]</span></p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="i_248" >
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_248.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption>
+      VILLA I COLLAZZI
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+<figure class="figcenter illowp90" id="i_251a" >
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_251a.jpg" alt="The Loggia">
+</figure>
+
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="VILLA_I_COLLAZZI">
+    VILLA I COLLAZZI
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+<img class="drop-capi" src="images/o.jpg" alt="Stylized O">
+<p class="drop-capi">
+<span class=uc>On</span> 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
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_144">[144]</span>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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_145">[145]</span>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.</p>
+
+<p>“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
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_146">[146]</span>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, <i lang="it">pazienza</i>.’ 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.</p>
+
+<p>“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&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_79_79" href="#Footnote_79_79" class="fnanchor">[79]</a> 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.</p>
+
+<p>“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
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_147">[147]</span>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....”&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_80_80" href="#Footnote_80_80" class="fnanchor">[80]</a></p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp90" id="i_255" >
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_255.jpg" alt="On the Terrace">
+</figure>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_79_79" href="#FNanchor_79_79" class="label">[79]</a> A sedan chair borne between two mules.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_80_80" href="#FNanchor_80_80" class="label">[80]</a>
+    <cite lang="it">Di Certe Usanze delle Gentildonne Fiorentine, nella seconda Meta del secola XVI. Lettera di Vincenzio Giraldi.</cite>
+Nozze Gori-Moro. Edizione integra di LXXX esemplari. Firenze, Carnesecchi e Figli.</p></div></div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_148">[148]</span></p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp90" id="i_256a" >
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_256a.jpg" alt="General View of the Villa">
+</figure>
+
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="VILLA_FERDINANDA_A_ARTIMINO">
+    VILLA FERDINANDA A ARTIMINO
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+<img class="drop-capi" src="images/l.jpg" alt="Stylized L">
+<p class="drop-capi">
+<span class=uc>Long</span> 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,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_149">[149]</span>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.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="i_259" >
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_259.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption>
+      VILLA FERDINANDA <span class="allsmcap">A</span> ARTIMINO.
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p>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.”</p>
+
+<p>During the war between Florence and Castruccio Castracane, the powerful
+tyrant of Lucca and Pistoja, Artimino had even more to suffer. Her castle
+being the key to the valley, the Florentines were not slow to assail it, and
+after a sharp fight it fell into their hands. Not content with taking two
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_150">[150]</span>hundred prisoners, they threw down part of the castle walls and carried home
+in triumph the bell of the Commune which was “of great size and of most
+exquisite metal,” as the Florentine chronicler recounts with a certain amount
+of satisfaction. The evening on which Artimino fell a long streak of lurid
+smoke was seen above Florence, and on the previous night a great earthquake
+shook the city—thus did nature and war combine to cast terror in the minds
+of the mediæval Italians. After the battle of Altopascio Castracane gained
+back his castle, but no sooner did he leave it for some other military enterprise
+than the Florentines returned with renewed ardour to the attack. For three
+days the people of Artimino fought against their assailants, “but on the third,”
+says Villani, “the Florentines delivered the most terrible assault that ever
+castle sustained and the most renowned knights of the army were engaged;
+it lasted from midday until the first hour of the night and the pallisades and
+gates of the castle were set on fire. For which reason great fear fell upon the
+besieged and those who were badly wounded with darts, and they begged for
+mercy and offered to surrender if their lives were spared; and thus it was
+done. And on the morning of the 27th August they left and delivered up
+the castle. But in despite of all promises, when the knights who escorted them
+departed, many were killed.”</p>
+
+<p>After this the Florentines took firm possession of Artimino, rebuilt its
+walls and kept infantry and cavalry there, as they found it a good place
+from whence to harass the territory of Pistoja. For some time after Castruccio’s
+death it was a subject of perpetual skirmishes and many were the changes
+of master. How eagerly the two cities desired Artimino is shown by the
+clause in the agreement of the Pistojese who consented to acknowledge the
+suzerainty of Gualtieri for three years on condition that, together with other
+places, Artimino was to be added once more to their territory.</p>
+
+<p>Artimino fell finally to the dominion of Florence, and to the arms of
+her people—a sea-horse—was added the Lily of Florence as a seal to her
+submission to the mistress and tyrant of Tuscany.</p>
+
+<p>The time of war passed away and with the coming of peaceful years we
+read no more of Artimino’s villages and of her walled castle. Another
+building rose upon the hill whose story brings us at once to the Medicean
+Grand Dukes of Tuscany. It is related by that pleasant gossip Baldinucci
+that “His Majesty Ferdinando I, Grand Duke of Tuscany, being one day
+a-hunting on the hill of Artimino (on the side towards Florence where one
+looks upon a lovely and most extensive tract of country), seated himself on
+a chair and calling Buontalenti to his side said: Bernardo, just on this spot
+where thou seest me, I desire to have a palace sufficient to contain me and
+all my court; think about it and be quick.” And the work was immediately
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_151">[151]</span>begun according to his patron’s desire, with the result that a royal villa soon
+rose upon the hill which had withstood so many sieges, “containing abundantly,”
+continues Baldinucci, “all those delights which a Grandee can desire in his
+country residence.”</p>
+
+<p>The Medici loved the beautiful villa which was called Ferdinanda after
+its builder, and much money was spent in buying more land and enclosing
+the property with a high wall, which divided the farms from the woods
+preserved for the Grand Ducal hunts. Pictures were brought in numbers to
+fill the vast halls and in the inventory we read of priceless objects, such as
+“a portrait of Lorenzo d’ Urbino de’ Medici by Raphael, a Madonna and Child
+by Cristofano Bronzino, and a picture by Titian.”</p>
+
+<p>When in 1782 Pietro Leopoldo I, (the Austrian Grand Duke) sold Artimino
+to Lorenzo Bartolommei, Marchese di Montegiove, the estate consisted, as it
+does to-day, of about two thousand acres. Later the fine old place passed by
+inheritance to the noble family of the Passerini of Cortona and the villa is
+now owned by Conte Silvio Passerini.</p>
+
+<p>The wine of Artimino was famous all over Tuscany even in the days when
+Redi, court physician to the Grand Duke Cosimo III, drank deeply of its
+vintage and sang enthusiastically of its perfections in his <cite>Bacco in Toscana</cite>:—</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+  <div class="poetry">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <div class="verse indent0">“Gods my life, what glorious claret!</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Blessed be the ground that bare it!</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">’Tis Avignon. Don’t say a flask of it,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Into my soul I pour a cask of it.</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Artimino’s finer still,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Under a tun there’s no having one’s fill:”&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_81_81" href="#Footnote_81_81" class="fnanchor">[81]</a></div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p>The Villa Ferdinanda is less famous than it should be, for although
+some visit it and return to spread among their friends a description of its
+grandeur and beauty, few are tempted to climb the steep and winding road
+to the summit of the hill. Again—the house, although seen from a great
+distance, stands so high above the sea level (260 metres) that it gives only
+the impression of being very large and almost overbalanced by an enormous
+projecting roof, and but little idea is obtained of its architectural beauty. The
+lower part of the hill is scarred by quarries of <i lang="it">pietra serena</i> and the landscape
+is a little bare and arid; but as we climb the narrow winding road we soon
+get into a delightfully cool and remote corner of the Arno valley, where the
+slopes are overgrown with thick masses of broom while ilexes and a few
+cypresses rise above the shimmering green of the young oaks. In parts
+stunted oaks form a hedge, broken in parts where rocks jut out covered with
+trailing ivy. Every step leads us to a fairer and more extensive view. A
+deep azure blue of sky and plain with paler blue of the Pistojan mountains
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_152">[152]</span>rising to the west, seen across the Artimino fields of crimson clover as we
+stand within the light shade of a wood where no dark shadows lie, hold the
+very essence of a Tuscan morning in early May. This a place from which
+we can best see the limitless stretch of the valley from Florence down towards
+the sea, the windings of the calm river and the deepening glow of colour
+on the hills and about the white townlets of Sesto and Prato; and as the
+distant murmur of the workers in the valley rise up to us, behind in the
+trees “The nightingale with feathers new she sings.”</p>
+
+<p>Nearing the summit we see some picturesque peasant houses resembling
+Lombard farms, with long finely built arcades and a smaller row of arches
+above. A sudden turn in the road brings us in sight of the great Villa
+Ferdinanda. It would be difficult either in words, or by drawings, to give
+an adequate idea of the sense of size together with perfect proportion, of
+beauty with almost severe simplicity, which we receive on approaching; and
+it is with astonishment that we remember our first impression when looking
+up at it from the plain. Buontalenti would seem to have endeavoured to
+build a very characteristic Medicean villa; it has a beautiful staircase going
+up to the entrance in the manner of a suspended arch, there are the inevitable
+lions, and going into the great hall we pass through a charming arched recess.
+Yet the architect, by placing the villa above a wide grass slope and causing
+the walls to project at the base, and building the corners to resemble towers
+(two of which are only carried half-way up, forming terraces) recalled the
+feudal villa-castle of much earlier date. Unlike the usual Tuscan building,
+humble or pretentious, Artimino’s villa has no courtyard, but is built with
+long vaulted rooms running through at right angles which bear curious
+mediæval names. There is the saloon of “the Bodyguard,” that of “the Lion,”
+with three grated windows looking out over Poggio a Cajano, another of “the
+Bear,” with views over Montelupo and the Ambrogiana, while the entrance
+hall goes by the title of “the Wars.” The enormous size of the villa is
+perhaps its most striking feature—the rooms upstairs are all large and finely
+built with groined roofs and huge chimneypieces, some having no doors
+but only a round arch to separate them. Nothing mean is to be found in
+any part of the place—the banqueting halls and the servants’ rooms are
+equally fine and built on the same magnificent and simple scale. The
+architect had dreamed of a noble race of men who were to inhabit so
+sumptuous a palace.&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_82_82" href="#Footnote_82_82" class="fnanchor">[82]</a></p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_81_81" href="#FNanchor_81_81" class="label">[81]</a> <i>Op. cit.</i> See note p. 70.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_82_82" href="#FNanchor_82_82" class="label">[82]</a> Most of the facts are taken from a pamphlet, <cite>Artiminius</cite>,
+    G. L. Passerini, printed (for private circulation
+only) in 1888, and from Repetti’s admirable <cite lang="it">Dizionario Geografico Fisico Storico della Toscana</cite>. Firenze, 1835.</p></div></div>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp60" id="i_265" >
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_265.jpg" alt="The Medici Shield. Reads Fenis.">
+</figure>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="INDEX">
+    INDEX
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+<ul class="index">
+  <li class="ifrst">A</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Acciajuoli, Cardinal, induces Cosimo III, to imprison his nephew, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Dardano, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Donato, Governor of Corinth, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Francesco, strangled by order of the Sultan, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Neri, Duke of Athens, &amp;c., <a href="#Page_123">123</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Niccola, gibbeted by Dante, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— —— Grand Seneschal, builds Monte Guffone, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">wins the heart of Catherine, widow of the Prince of Taranto, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">fights the Turks in Greece, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">trusted minister of Queen Joan of Naples, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">Papal envoy to Milan, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">death of, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">builds the Certosa near Florence, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">burial of, at the Certosa, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Roberto, sad love story of, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Alberti, Leo Battista, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Ambrogiana, Villa</span> dell’, <a href="#Page_88">88-90</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— built by Ferdinando I, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">marriage of Eleonora Orsini at, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">Don Antonio de’ Medici at, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">Maria de’ Medici at, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">decorated by Cosimo III, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">Ferdinando III, meets his bride at, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">now a prison, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Ammirato, Scipione, defence of Petraja described by, <a href="#Page_54">54-55</a>; <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Anjou, Robert of, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Arcetri, Galileo at, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Arragona d’, Tullia, poetess and courtezan, <a href="#Page_56">56-57</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Ariosto, Lodovico, lines on Florence by, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>; <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Artimino, Villa Ferdinanda</span> a, <a href="#Page_148">148-152</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— <a href="#Page_141">141</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">hill of Artimino mentioned by Cicero, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">given by Otto III, to the Bishop of Pistoja, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">old castle of Artimino taken and retaken by Florentines and Pistojesi, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">built by Ferdinando I, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">pictures in, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">sold by Pietro Leopoldo I, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">present owner of, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">description of, <a href="#Page_151">151-152</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">wine of, praised by Redi, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>; <a href="#Page_152">152</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Austria, Joan of, see <a href="#ind_medici">Medici</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Margaret of, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Maria Maddalena of, see <a href="#ind_medici">Medici</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="ifrst">B</li>
+
+  <li class="indx"><cite>Bacco in Toscana</cite>, by Dr Francesco Redi, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Baccini, G., quoted, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Baldinucci, Filippo, quoted, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Bandini, Giovanni, duel of, <a href="#Page_42">42-44</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Baroncelli, Family of, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Tommaso, favourite of Cosimo I, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">death of, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— The, buy Poggio, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Bavaria, Violante of, see <a href="#ind_medici">Medici</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Bella, Stefano Della, engravings of Pratolino by, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Bellosguardo, Villa di</span>, <a href="#Page_59">59-64</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— owned by the Cavalcanti, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">sold to Tommaso Capponi, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">ruin of, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">confiscation of, by Cosimo I, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">bought by Girolamo Michelozzi, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">immortalised by Mrs Browning, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">view from, <a href="#Page_61">61-62</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Benedict XIII, Pope, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Benivieni, The brothers, Villa of, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">praise of, by Poliziano, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Berenson B., quoted, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Boccaccio, Giovanni, life of, by Baldelli, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">description of Villa Palmieri by, <a href="#Page_6">6-7</a>; <a href="#Page_57">57</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">description of “limpid Fount” by, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">description of “Valley of the Ladies” by, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>; <a href="#Page_114">114</a>; <a href="#Page_133">133</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">youth of, described by Roberto Gherardi, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">description of youths and ladies leaving Florence by, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">description of the “Joyous Company” at Poggio Gherardo, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>; <a href="#Page_137">137</a>; <a href="#Page_138">138</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Bologna, Giovanni da, statue of Apennines at Pratolino by, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Bombicci-Pomi, Signor, present owner of I Collazzi, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Bonajuto, Lord of Pogna, common ancestor of Boccaccio and Galileo, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Bonaparte, Elise, Grand Duchess of Tuscany, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Napoleon, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>; <a href="#Page_142">142</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Borghese, Princess, Cafaggiuolo bought by, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Prince, wife of, inherits Villa Salviati, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Botticelli, Sandro, picture painted for Matteo Palmieri by, described by Vasari, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Botticini, Francesco, pictures by, note, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Bracciolini, Poggio, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Brocchi, Dr G., description of Cafaggiuolo by, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Bronzino, A., portrait of Bianca Cappello by, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Browne, Kenworthy, Mr, present owner of house of Boccaccio’s father, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Browning, Mrs Barrett, quoted, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Brunnelleschi, Filippo, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">enlarges Rusciano for Luca Pitti, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">note, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Brunnelleschi, family of, defence of Petraja by, <a href="#Page_54">54-55</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Buonarroti, Michelangelo, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>; <a href="#Page_98">95</a>; <a href="#Page_118">118</a>; <a href="#Page_143">143</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Buontalenti, Bernardo, architect of Pratolino, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">storage of ice invented by, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">architect of Villa Delle Selve, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">architect of Villa Ferdinanda a Artimino, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Byron, Lord, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="ifrst">C</li>
+
+  <li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Cafaggiuolo, Villa</span> di, <a href="#Page_16">16-25</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— designed by Michelozzi for Cosimo de’ Medici, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">description of, by Vasari, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">description of, by Dr G. Brocchi, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">letter from, by Lorenzo and Giuliano de’ Medici, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">letter from, by factor, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">Donatello, a landed proprietor at, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">Lorenzo and Giuliano de’ Medici at, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">letter from, by A. Poliziano, <a href="#Page_19">19-20</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">Margaret of Austria at, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">Lorenzino de’ Medici flies to, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">murder of Donna Eleonora de’ Medici by her husband at, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">murder of Donna Eleonora de’ Medici at, described by Francesco I, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">Francesco I, and Bianca Cappello at, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">Cardinal Ferdinando de’ Medici at, <a href="#Page_23">23-24</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">majolica of, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Canaccj, Caterina, tragic love story of, <a href="#Page_103">103-106</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Bartolomeo, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">beheaded for the murder of his step-mother, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Francesco, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Giustino, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Candia, Duke of, see <a href="#ind_mario">Mario</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Capraja, original name, and first mention of, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Caprina, Meo Del, and his brother Luca, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Carlo Alberto, Prince of Carignano, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Cappello, Bianca, see <a href="#ind_medici">Medici</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Careggi, Villa</span> di, <a href="#Page_26">26-36</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— built by Cosimo de’ Medici, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">origin of name of, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">Michelozzi architect of, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">Cosimo de’ Medici at, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">Platonic Academy at, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">death of Cosimo de’ Medici at, described by his son, <a href="#Page_29">29-30</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">Piero de’ Medici meets Lucrezia Tornabuoni at, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">Piero de’ Medici dies at, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">death of Lorenzo de’ Medici at, described by A. Poliziano, <a href="#Page_32">32-34</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">Savonarola at, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">Piero de’ Medici accused of drowning Pier Leoni at, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">burning of, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">various sales of, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Cascioli, Monte, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Castello, Villa</span> di, <a href="#Page_65">65-70</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— description of, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">fountain of, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">grotto of, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">origin of name of, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">Caterina Sforza lives at, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">reception of Duke of Urbino at, <a href="#Page_68">68-69</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">death of Maria Salviati at, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">Cosimo I, retires to, after his marriage with Camilla Martelli, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">vineyards of, praised by Redi, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">gardens of, beautified by Pietro Leopoldo I, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Castel-Pulci, Villa</span> di, <a href="#Page_126">126-130</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Castel-Pulci, Villa</span> di, seized by Cardinal N. Orsini for debt, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">sold to Marchese Rinnucini, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">sold to Government for a lunatic asylum, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">view from, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Castracane, Castruccio, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Catherine, titular Empress of Constantinople, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Cavalcanti, Guido, mention of, by Dino Compagni, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">a friend of Dante, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">banishment and death of, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">description of, by Lorenzo de’ Medici, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">praise of, by Dante, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">sonnets by, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Masino, beheaded, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Paffiero, murder of Pazzino de’ Pazzi by, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— The, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Charles III, King of Spain, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Charles VIII, King of France, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Charles Emanuel IV, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Clemente VI, Pope, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx" id="ind_clem">—— VII, Pope, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— VIII, Pope, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— XII, Pope, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Collazzi, Villa</span> I, <a href="#Page_143">143-147</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Signor Bombicci-Pomi present owner of, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">built by Messer Agostino Dini, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">attributed to Michelangelo, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">Santi di Tito probable architect of, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">picture by Santi di Tito at, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>; description of, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Compagni, Dino, quoted, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Corsini, Amerigo, Bishop, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Andrea, Saint, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">apparition of the Virgin to, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Bartolomeo, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Bartolomeo, created Prince of Sismano, &amp;c., <a href="#Page_79">79</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Bertholdo, beheaded in 1555, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Filippo, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Lorenzo, created Pope as Clement XII, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>; <a href="#Page_79">79</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Luca, friend of Savonarola, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Marietta, wife of Macchiavelli, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Neri, Cardinal, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Neri, Don, Prime Minister of Tuscany, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Tommaso di Duccio, jurist and statesman, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Tommaso, Don, present Prince, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Corsini, Villa at Castello, <a href="#Page_71">71-80</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— first known as “La Lepre de’ Rinieri,” <a href="#Page_71">71</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">various sales of, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">description of, <a href="#Page_71">71-72</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">inhabited by Sir Robert Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Cortesi, Jacopo (il Borgognone), <a href="#Page_70">70</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Cowper, Earl, inhabits Villa Palmieri, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">created Prince of the Holy Roman Empire, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Crawford, Earl of, buys Villa Palmieri, <a href="#Page_1">1</a>, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Cybo, Veronica, daughter of Prince of Massa, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">marriage of, described by G. Beggi, <a href="#Page_100">100-102</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">imperious temper of, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">murder of Caterina Canaccj by, <a href="#Page_103">103-106</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="ifrst">D</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Dante, Alighieri, quoted, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">quoted, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>; 109;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">quoted, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>; <a href="#Page_137">137</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Decameron, The, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>; note, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Demidoff, Prince, buys Pratolino, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Dini, Agostino, builds I Collazzi, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">Santi di Tito works for, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">spends too much on building, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Donatello. Landed proprietor at Cafaggiuolo, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>; <a href="#Page_28">28</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Dudley, Sir Robert, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">conquers Guiana and discovers Trinidad, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">description of voyage by, <a href="#Page_73">73-74</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">his marriages, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">enters the service of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">instrument for measuring tides invented by, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">created Duke of Northumberland, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">children of, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Dupré, Prof. G., <a href="#Page_51">51</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Signorina, present owner of Lappeggi, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="ifrst">E</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Eleonora of Toledo, see <a href="#ind_medici">Medici</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Etruria, Kingdom of, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Evelyn, John, description of Pratolino by, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Ewart, Dorothea, quoted, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="ifrst">F</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Fabriczy, Carl von, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Farhill, Miss, buys Villa Palmieri, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Fagiuoli, Giovan Battista, facetious poem on Lappeggi by, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">Cardinal Francesco Maria’s wit described by, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>; note, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Ferdinando III, (of Lorraine), <a href="#Page_24">24</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">lends Poggio Imperiale to King of Sardinia, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">lends Poggio Imperiale to Carlo Alberto, Prince of Carignano, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>; <a href="#Page_89">89</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">destroys villa at Pratolino, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Ferri, Antonio, architect of Lappeggi, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">enlarges Villa Corsini, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Ficino, Marsilio, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">President of the Platonic Academy, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">translation of Plato finished at Villa Marmigliano, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Fiesole, Description of, by B. Varchi, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">traditions of, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">mentioned by Dante, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">poem by A. Poliziano on, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Fiske, Prof. Willard, present owner of Villa Landor, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Font’ all’ erta, Villa</span> di, <a href="#Page_108">108-115</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— description by Roberto Gherardi of, <a href="#Page_108">108-109</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">bought by Taddeo Gaddi, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">A. Bonsi, ambassador of Clemente VII, at, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">inherited by Sinibaldo Gaddi, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">Loggia of, built by Niccolò Gaddi, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">bought by Niccolò Gondi, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">bought by Count Pasolini, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">meeting-place of the “Young Italy” party, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">inherited by Countess Rasponi della Testa, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Francavilla, Pietro, Pietà by, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Franco, Ser Matteo, meeting of Clarice de’ Medici and her children, described by, <a href="#Page_124">124-125</a>; <a href="#Page_127">127</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Frederick IV, King of Denmark, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="ifrst">G</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Gaddi, Angelo, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Niccolò, builds Loggia at Fout’ all’ Erta, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">character of, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">will of, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Sinibaldo, inherits Font’ all’ Erta, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Gaddi, Taddeo (the elder), <a href="#Page_109">109</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Taddeo (the younger), buys Font’ all’ Erta, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Galilei, Galileo, lives at Bellosguardo, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">lives at Arcetri, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">lives at Villa Delle Selve, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Galluzzi, Riguccio, death of Francesco I, and of Bianca Cappello described by, <a href="#Page_12">12-13</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">financial genius of Cosimo de’ Medici described by, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Gamberaia, Villa</span> di, <a href="#Page_116">116-119</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— probable origin of name of, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">description of, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">garden of, laid out by Cosimo Lapi, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">becomes the property of the Capponi, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">cypresses and grotto of, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">Princess Ghyka present owner of, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Garibaldi, Giuseppe, visit to Mario of, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Gherardi, Gherardo di Bartolomeo, buys Poggio and calls it by his name, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Roberto, description of the Font’ all’ Erta by, <a href="#Page_108">108-109</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">account of Boccaccio’s youth by, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">description of Villa della Querce by, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Ghyka, Princess, present owner of Gamberaia, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Gioli, Simone, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Giraldi, Senator Vincenzio di Giovanni di Niccolò, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">letter deploring the extinction of simple old Florentine manners, <a href="#Page_144">144-147</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Giuliani, D. Tiribilli-, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Gondi, Niccolò, buys Font’ all’ Erta, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Gregory IX, Pope, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— XIII, Pope, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="ifrst">H</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Hawkwood, Sir John, note, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>; <a href="#Page_132">132</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Hawthorne, Nathaniel, <cite>Transformation</cite> written by, at Villa Montauto, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Henry VII, Emperor, siege of Florence by, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="ifrst">I</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Innocent III, Pope, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— VI, Pope, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="ifrst">J</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Joan, of Austria, see <a href="#ind_medici">Medici</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Queen of Naples, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">John XXII, Pope, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="ifrst">L</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Landino, Cristofano, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Landor, Walter Savage, Villa of, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">description of the Affrico by, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Lapi, Andrea, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">remains of works at Gamberaia, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Cosimo, garden at Gamberaia laid out by, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Jacopo, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Zanobi, Gamberaia probably built by, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— The, property of the, divided, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Lapini, A., quoted, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Lappeggi, Villa</span> di, <a href="#Page_48">48-52</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— sold by the Ricasoli to Francesco de’ Medici, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">various owners of, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">favourite residence of Cardinal Francesco Maria de’ Medici, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">rebuilt by Ferri, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">celebrated by the poet G. B. Fagiuoli, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">Frederick IV, of Denmark at, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">Violante of Bavaria at, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">present owner of, Signorina Dupré, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">description of, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Leicester, Earl of, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx" id="ind_leoX">Leo X, Pope, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Leoni, Pier, fresco of murder of, by G. F. Watts, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>; <a href="#Page_35">35</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Leopoldo II, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">destruction of grottoes and statues at Pratolino by, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Lodovico of Bourbon, created King of Etruria, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Lorraine, Christine of, see <a href="#ind_medici">Medici</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Lucrezia Tornabuoni, see <a href="#ind_medici">Medici</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="ifrst">M</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Macchiavelli, Niccolò, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Magaldi, Meglino di Jacopo di Magaldo, leaves Poggio to the Congregation of the Visitation, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— The, appeal to the Cardinal-Legate against will of Meglino and sell Poggio, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Majano, Benedetto da, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Dante da, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Meo di, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Mann, Sir Horace, on Lord Cowper, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">on Lady Orford, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Manetti, G., <a href="#Page_29">29</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Manni, Domenico, description of Roman remains near Florence, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx" id="ind_mario">Mario (Duke of Candia) owner of Villa Salviati, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">visit of Garibaldi to, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Martelli, Lodovico, duel of, <a href="#Page_42">42-44</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Martinelli, V., quoted, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Martino V, Pope, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Martino, San, a Mensola, St Andrew buried in, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">pictures in, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>; <a href="#Page_134">134</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Mecati, Abbate G. M., attempted murder of Lorenzo de’ Medici, described by, <a href="#Page_83">83-84</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx" id="ind_medici">Medici, Alessandro de’, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Antonio de, Don, supposititious child of Bianca Cappello, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>; note, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">returns from wars in Hungary, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Bianca de’ (Cappello) at Cafaggiuolo, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">at Pratolino, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">sonnets by Tasso to, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Caterina de’, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— —— (Sforza) description of, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">education of her son Giovanni by, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Christine de’ (of Lorraine), bride of Ferdinando I, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">death of, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Clarice de’ at Cafaggiuolo, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>; <a href="#Page_86">86</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">meeting with her children, described by Ser Matteo Franco, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Claudia de’, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Contessina de’, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Cosimo de’ (Pater Patriae) builds Cafaggiuolo, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">builds Careggi, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>; <a href="#Page_27">27</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">founds Platonic Academy, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">death of, <a href="#Page_29">29-30</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">wise words of, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">character of, by Galluzzi, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">admiration of Pius II, for, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">friends of, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Cosimo I, de’, reception of Eleonora of Toledo by, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">as a child at Trebbio, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">created Grand Duke by Pius V, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">gives Villa Baroncelli (afterwards Poggio Imperiale) to his daughter Isabella, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">at Petraja, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">confiscation of Bellosguardo by, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">retires to Castello after his marriage with Camilla Martelli, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">letter from, about his marriage, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Cosimo II, de’, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Cosimo III, de’, marriage of, to Marguerite Louise d’ Orleans, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">quarrels with his wife, <a href="#Page_14">14-15</a>, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>,
+    <a href="#Page_89">89</a>, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">imprisons the wife of Roberto Acciajuoli, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">condemns Roberto Acciajuoli to perpetual imprisonment, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>; <a href="#Page_151">151</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Eleonora de’, (of Toledo), marries Cosimo I, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">dislike of the Florentines to, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Eleonora de’, Donna, (of Toledo), description of, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">murder of, by her husband Don Pietro, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">letter by Francesco I, about murder of, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Ferdinando de’, Cardinal, goes to Poggio a Cajano, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">becomes Grand Duke of Tuscany, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>; <a href="#Page_57">57</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Ferdinando I, de’ (late Cardinal), <a href="#Page_13">13</a>; <a href="#Page_24">24</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">grants Lappeggi to Don Antonio, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">Buontalenti commissioned to enlarge Petraja by, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>; <a href="#Page_70">70</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">Villa dell’ Ambrogiana built by, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">death of, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>; <a href="#Page_94">94</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">Villa Ferdinanda a Artimino built by, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Ferdinando II, de’, attempt to resuscitate Platonic Academy by, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">marries Vittoria della Rovere, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>; <a href="#Page_70">70</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">takes Sir Robert Dudley into his service, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>; <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Ferdinando de’, Prince, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">love of music of, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">letter from Scarlatti to, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">death of, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Francesco I, de’, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">death of at Poggio a Cajano, described by Galluzzi, <a href="#Page_12">12-13</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">letters of, about murder of Donna Eleonora at Cafaggiulo, <a href="#Page_22">22-23</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">Lappeggi bought by, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">Pratolino built by, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>; <a href="#Page_92">92</a>; <a href="#Page_141">141</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Francesco Maria de’, Cardinal, rebuilds Lappeggi, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">practical joke of, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">entertains King of Denmark at Lappeggi, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">marriage of, to Eleonora Gonzaga, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">death of, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>; <a href="#Page_52">52</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Giancarlo de’, dies at Castello, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Giangastone de’ (or Gastone), last of the Medici, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>; <a href="#Page_50">50</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Giuliano de’, letter of as a child, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>; <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">murder of, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Giulio de’, see <a href="#ind_clem">Clemente VII, Pope</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Giovanni de’, see <a href="#ind_leoX">Leo X, Pope.</a></li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— ——, Villa at Fiesole built for, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— ——, husband of Maria Salviati, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— ——, (Delle Bande Nere) childhood of, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Isabella de’, married to P. G. Orsini, Duke of Bracciano, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">murder of, by her husband, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Ippolito de’, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Joan de’ (of Austria), <a href="#Page_11">11</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Lorenzino de’, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Lorenzo de’ (the Magnificent), builds Poggio a Cajano, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1"><cite>Ambra</cite>, poem by, <a href="#Page_9">9-10</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">letter of, as a child, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1"><i lang="it">Nencia da Barberino</i>, country idyll by, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>; <a href="#Page_20">20</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">room of, at Careggi, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">letter to, from his father, <a href="#Page_29">29-30</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">character of, by J. A. Symonds, <a href="#Page_30">30-31</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">death of, at Careggi, described by A. Poliziano, <a href="#Page_32">32-34</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">letter of, about Guido Cavalcanti, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">at Fiesole, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">sonnet on the violet by, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">dedication by Jacopo Poggio to, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">attempted murder of, described by Mecatti, <a href="#Page_83">83-84</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">gives hospitality to A. Poliziano at Fiesole, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">praise of, in Poliziano’s poem <i lang="la">Rusticus</i>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>; <a href="#Page_124">124</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">Luigi Pulci mentioned by, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Lorenzo de’, Duke of Urbino, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Lucrezia de’, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">letter to from A. Poliziano, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>; <a href="#Page_30">30</a>; <a href="#Page_127">127</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Marguerite Louise de’ (of Orleans), <a href="#Page_13">13</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">retires to Poggio a Cajano, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Maria de’, leaves Florence as bride of Henry IV, of France, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— —— (Salviati) at Trebbio, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">death of, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>; <a href="#Page_99">99</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Maria Maddalena de’ (of Austria), buys Villa Baroncelli and changes its name to Poggio Imperiale, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>; <a href="#Page_69">69</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Mattias de’, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Pietro de’, Don, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">murders his wife Donna Eleonora at Cafaggiuolo, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">murder of Donna Eleonora by, described by Francesco I, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">accused of poisoning his little son, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Pier Francesco de’, Castello built by, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Piero de’, letter from, to his sons on death of Cosimo de’ Medici, <a href="#Page_29">29-30</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— The, exiled from Florence, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Violante de’ (of Bavaria) <a href="#Page_45">45</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">lives at Lappeggi, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>; <a href="#Page_95">95</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Vittoria de’ (della Rovere), <a href="#Page_15">15</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">buys Poggio Imperiale of her husband, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>; <a href="#Page_78">78</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Medici, Villa</span>, at Fiesole, <a href="#Page_81">81-88</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Medici, Villa</span>, description by Vasari of, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">Lorenzo the Magnificent at, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">murder of Lorenzo and Giuliano de’ Medici planned to take place at, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">description by A. Poliziano of, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">Countess of Orford at, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">sales of, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Mensola, The, celebrated in the <cite lang="it">Ninfale Fiesolane</cite>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— San Martino a, one of the oldest churches in Tuscany, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>; <a href="#Page_134">134</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Michelozzi, Michelozzo, architect of Cafaggiuolo, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">architect of Careggi, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>; <a href="#Page_28">28</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">architect of Medicean villa at Fiesole, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>; <a href="#Page_97">97</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Mirandola, Pico della, description by A. Poliziano of, <a href="#Page_31">31-32</a>; <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>,
+    <a href="#Page_137">137</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Montaigne, M. de, description of Pratolino by, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Montauto, Otto da, mission to Trebbio of, described by B. Varchi, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Villa, tower of, described by N. Hawthorne in <cite>Transformation</cite>, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Montefeltro, Federigo di, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">Republic of Florence gives Rusciano to, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Monte Guffone, Villa</span> di, <a href="#Page_120">120-125</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— description of, <a href="#Page_120">120-121</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">built by the Grand Seneschal Acciajuoli, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">Queen Joan of Naples at, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">meeting of Clarice de’ Medici and her children near, described by Ser Matteo Franco, <a href="#Page_124">124-125</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Montelupo, Plates and jugs of, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>; <a href="#Page_118">118</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Moreni, D., quoted, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Mozzi, Cavaliere, Medici Villa at Fiesole left by Lady Orford to, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="ifrst">N</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Napoleon I, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Nicholas II, Pope, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="ifrst">O</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Ombrellino, Villa dell’, Galileo Galilei lives at, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Orford, Countess of, buys Medicean Villa at Fiesole, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Orleans, Marguerite Louise of, life of described by Martinelli, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="ifrst">P</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Paget, Lady, restoration of Villa di Bellosguardo by, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Palagi, G., quoted, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Palmieri, Villa</span>, <a href="#Page_1">1-7</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— old names of, <a href="#Page_1">1</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">bought by Matteo Palmieri, <a href="#Page_1">1</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">transformed by Palmiero Palmieri, <a href="#Page_1">1</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">bought by Earl of Crawford, <a href="#Page_1">1</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">inhabited by Earl Cowper, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">bought by Miss Farhill, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">left to the Grand Duchess of Tuscany, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">lent by Countess of Crawford to H. M. Queen Victoria, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">identified with the second villa described in the <cite>Decameron</cite>, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">described by Baldelli, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">described by Boccaccio, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>; <a href="#Page_98">98</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Pasolini, Count Giuseppe, buys Font’ all’ Erta, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">joins the “Young Italy” party, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">political life of, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">death of, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Count Pier Desiderio, quoted, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Passerini, Count Silvio, present owner of Artimino, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Pazzi, Jacopo de’, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Francesco de’, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">hung out of the window of Palazzo della Signoria, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Peter Igneus, St., goes through ordeal by fire at Badia a Settimo, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Petraja, Villa</span> della, <a href="#Page_53">53-58</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— tree of Victor Emanuel at, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">fountain at, described by Vasari, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">defence by the Brunelleschi of, described by S. Ammirato, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">owned by the Strozzi, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">Cosimo I, lives at, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">favourite villa of Ferdinando de’ Medici, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">Scipione Ammirato lives at, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">Victor Emanuel at, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Petrucci, Cesare, Gonfalonier of Florence, orders the Archbishop of Pisa and others to be hung, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Pietro Leopoldo I, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Pitti, Luca, builds Rusciano, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">wise words of Cosimo de’ Medici to, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">character of, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Pius II, Pope, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— V, Pope, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— IX, Pope, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Poccetti, Bernardino, ceiling by, at Careggi, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Poggio a Cajano, Villa</span> di, <a href="#Page_8">8-15</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— built by Lorenzo de’ Medici, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">frescoes in, <a href="#Page_8">8-9</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">gardens of, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">mentioned by B. Varchi, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">Cosimo I, and his bride at, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">Francesco de’ Medici and Joan of Austria at, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">Cardinal de’ Medici at, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">death of Francesco I, and of Bianca Cappello at, <a href="#Page_12">12-13</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">Christine of Lorraine received at, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">Marguerite Louise of Orleans retires to, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>; <a href="#Page_152">152</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Poggio Gherardo, Villa</span> di, <a href="#Page_131">131-138</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— owned by the Magaldi, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">various owners of, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">description of, <a href="#Page_132">132-133</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">mentioned by S. Rogers, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">identified with first villa mentioned in the Decameron, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">description of, by Boccaccio, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Poggio Imperiale, Villa</span> di, <a href="#Page_41">41-47</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— first name of, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">various owners of, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">duel between L. Martelli and G. Bandini at, <a href="#Page_42">42-44</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">given by Cosimo I, to his daughter Isabella, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">bought by the Grand Duchess Maria Maddalena and named Poggio Imperiale, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">bought by the Grand Duchess Vittoria, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">Violante of Bavaria at, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">Pietro Leopoldo enlarges, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">Charles Emanuel IV, at, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">Queen of Etruria builds Loggia at, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">Elise Bonaparte at, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">Carlo Alberto, Prince of Carignano, at, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">Victor Emanuel narrowly escapes being burnt to death at, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Poggio, Jacopo del, dedication to Lorenzo de’ Medici by, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">hanging of, for murder of Giuliano de’ Medici, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Poliziano, Angelo, letter from, on Lorenzo de’ Medici’s pet horse, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">letter to Lucrezia de’ Medici from, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">dismissal of, by Clarice de’ Medici, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>; <a href="#Page_27">27</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">praise of Lorenzo de’ Medici by, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">description of Pico della Mirandola by, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">letter to Jacopo Antiquario on the death of Lorenzo de’ Medici by, <a href="#Page_32">32-34</a>; <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">letter to Marsilio Ficino by, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">praise of Lorenzo de’ Medici in <i lang="la">Rusticus</i> by, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>; <a href="#Page_137">137</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">praise of the brothers Benivieni by, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Pontormo, Jacopo da, fresco by, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Pratolino, Villa</span> di, <a href="#Page_90">90-96</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— built by Francesco I, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">Bernardo Buontalenti, architect of, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">engravings by Stefano Della Bella of, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">description by Bernardo Sgrilli of, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">statue of the Apennines at, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">Bianca Cappello at, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">sonnet by Tasso on, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">described by Montaigne, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">mentioned by Sir Henry Wotton, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">ambassador of Prince of Transylvania goes to, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">described by John Evelyn, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">theatre built by Prince Ferdinando de’ Medici at, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">destroyed by Ferdinando of Lorraine, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">grottoes and statues of, destroyed by Leopoldo II, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">bought by Prince Demidoff, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Pulci, Antonia, a poetess, wife of Bernardo Pulci, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Bernardo, a pastoral poet, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Jacopo di Rinaldo, his son and grandsons, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Luca, author of the <cite lang="it">Ciriffo Calvaneo</cite>, &amp;c., <a href="#Page_126">126</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Luigi, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">author of the <cite lang="it">Morgante Maggiore</cite>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">mentioned by Lorenzo de’ Medici in his poem on hawking, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">jokes on his name by Ser Matteo Franco, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">poem by, translated by Lord Byron, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">description of poem by, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">J. A. Symonds on poem by, <a href="#Page_127">127-128</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— The three brothers, celebrated by Verino, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="ifrst">Q</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Quentin, St., silver casket containing bones of, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="ifrst">R</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Rasponi della Testa, Countess Angelica, present owner of Font’ all’ Erta, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Redi, Dr Francesco, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">praise of vineyards of Petraja and Castello by, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>; <a href="#Page_89">89</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">praise of Salviati’s wine by, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">praise of wine of Artimino by, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Riario, Count Gugliemo, assists in planning murder of Lorenzo and Giuliano de’ Medici, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Ricca, G., quoted, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Robbia, Della, frieze by one of the, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">Madonna by, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">frieze by one of the, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Rogers, Samuel, on Florence, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">on Galileo, <a href="#Page_62">62-63</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">on Poggio Gherardo, <a href="#Page_133">133-134</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Roscoe, W., quoted, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Ross, Henry James, present owner of Poggio Gherardo, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Rossellino, Antonio, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Rovere, Frederigo Ubaldo della, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Vittoria della, see <a href="#ind_medici">Medici</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Rusciano, Villa</span> di, <a href="#Page_37">37-40</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— first mention of, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">built by Luca Pitti, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">famous window at, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">bought by Republic of Florence and presented to Federigo of Montefeltro, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">various sales of, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">view from, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">garden of, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="ifrst">S</li>
+
+  <li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Salviati</span>, Alemanno, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Averardo, Villa Delle Selve lent to Galileo by, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Francesco, Archbishop of Pisa, murder of Lorenzo and Giuliano de’ Medici approved by, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">hanging of, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Giuliano, insults Luisa Strozzi, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Jacopo, brother of Archbishop, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Jacopo, brother-in-law of Lorenzo de’ Medici, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Jacopo, Duke of Giuliano, marriage of, to Veronica Cybo described by G. Beggi, <a href="#Page_100">100-102</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">falls in love with Caterina Canaccj, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">tragic love story of, <a href="#Page_103">103-106</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Maria, see <a href="#ind_medici">Medici</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Salviati, Villa</span>, <a href="#Page_97">97-107</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— description of, <a href="#Page_97">97-98</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">left by Cardinal Gregorio Salviati to Princess Borghese, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">bought by Mario (Duca di Candia), <a href="#Page_106">106</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">Signor Turri, present owner of, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Salviatino, Villa del, good wine of, praised by Redi, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">San Gallo, Giuliano da, architect of Poggio a Cajano, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Santi di Tito, works for Agostino Dini at I Collazzi, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Savonarola, Fra Girolamo, at deathbed of Lorenzo de’ Medici, <a href="#Page_33">33-34</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Scarlatti, letter to Prince Ferdinando de’ Medici by, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Segré, Comm., present owner of Careggi, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Selve, Le, church of, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">apparition of the Virgin to Sant’ Andrea Corsini in, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">Feast of the Miraculous Crucifix at, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Selve, Villa</span> Delle, <a href="#Page_139">139-142</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— first mention of, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">bought by the Strozzi, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">bought by Averardo Salviati and lent to Galileo, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">room of Galileo in, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">view from, <a href="#Page_140">140-141</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">Countess Capelli, present owner of, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Settignano, Desiderio da, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">Ambrey by, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Simone da, and his son Francesco, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Village of, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">famous men of, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Settimanni, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Settimo, Badia a, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">campanile of, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">St Peter Igneus goes through ordeal by fire at, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">given to the Cistercians, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">alto-relievo at, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">description of, <a href="#Page_129">129-130</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Sforza, Caterina, see <a href="#ind_medici">Medici</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Sgrilli, B., quoted, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Signa, Beata, Beata Giovanna of, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1"><i lang="it">Festa degli Angeli</i> at, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Lastra a, walls built by Sir John Hawkwood, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Ponte a, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Sixtus IV, Pope, murder of Lorenzo and Giuliano de’ Medici planned by, <a href="#Page_82">82-83</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Stegmann, Dr Carl von, on window at Rusciano, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Stumm, Baron von, present owner of Rusciano, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Strozzi, Alexandra, character of Luca Pitti by, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Clarice (de’ Medici), <a href="#Page_139">139</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Filippo, exiled by Cosimo de’ Medici, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Filippo, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">sends his wife Clarice de’ Medici to Florence, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Lorenzo, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">—— Palla, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Symonds, J. A., translation of Poliziano by, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">quoted, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>; <a href="#Page_29">29</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">character of Lorenzo de’ Medici by, <a href="#Page_30">30-31</a>; <a href="#Page_32">32</a>; <a href="#Page_118">118</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">criticism on Pulci’s Morgante Maggiore by, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="ifrst">T</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Tasso, Torquato, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">sonnets by, translated by R. C. Trevelyan, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Toledo, Eleonora of, see <a href="#ind_medici">Medici</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Transylvania, Ambassador of Prince of, at Pratolino, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Trebbio, Castle of, Otto da Montauto’s mission to, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Trevelyan, R. C., Translation of Ariosto by, <a href="#Page_53">53-54</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">translation of sonnet by Lorenzo de’ Medici by, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">translation of A. Poliziano by, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">translations of sonnets by Tasso by, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Tribolo, Fountain at Petraja by, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">fountain at Castello attributed to, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">statue of Apennines by, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>; <a href="#Page_118">118</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Turri, Signor, present owner of Villa Salviati, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="ifrst">U</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Urban VIII, Pope, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Urbino, Guidobaldo, Duke of, sells Rusciano, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="ifrst">V</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">“Valley of the Ladies,” seen from Font’ all’ Erta, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>; <a href="#Page_114">114</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">situated under Prof. Fiske’s Villa, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Valori, Villa of the, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Varchi, Benedetto, departure of Cardinal, Ippolito and Alessandro de’ Medici for Poggio a Cajano described by, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">mission of Otto da Montauto to Trebbio described by, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">Montughi and Careggi mentioned by, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">burning of Careggi and Castello described by, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">duel between G. Bandini and L. Martelli described by, <a href="#Page_42">42-44</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">love of, for Tullia d’Arragona, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">reception of Duke of Urbino described by, <a href="#Page_68">68-69</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">Fiesole described by, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">scene between Filippo Strozzi and Jacopo Salviati described by, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>; <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">Clarice Strozzi’s journey to Florence described by, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Vasari, Giorgio, description of Palmieri’s picture by, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>; <a href="#Page_8">8</a>; note, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>; <a href="#Page_10">10</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">Cafaggiuolo mentioned by, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">Rusciano mentioned by, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">description of fountain at Petraja by, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>; <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">description of Medicean villa at Fiesole by, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>; <a href="#Page_97">97</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>,
+    <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Verino, The three brothers Pulci mentioned by, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Victor Emanuel, King of Italy, narrow escape of being burnt alive as a child, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">tree at Petraja of, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">Petraja favourite villa of, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Villani, Matteo, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>; <a href="#Page_108">108</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">funeral of Lorenzo Acciajuoli, described by, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">siege of the castle of Artimino, described by, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Villari, Pasquale, Prof., <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="ifrst">W</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Wade, Sir Willoughby, present owner of villa of the Benivieni, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Walpole, Horace, criticism on Zoffany’s picture of the Tribune by, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Watts, G. F., fresco by, at Careggi, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Wotton, Sir Henry, letter from, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>.</li>
+
+  <li class="ifrst">Z</li>
+
+  <li class="indx">Zati, The, once Lords of Poggio, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">picture given to the Church of San Martino a Mensola by, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp60" id="i_274" >
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_274.jpg" alt="The View from the Terrace">
+</figure>
+
+<p class="center fs60 p4">
+TURNBULL AND SPEARS, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH
+</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter"></div>
+<div class="transnote" id="ENDNOTE">
+<strong>TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE</strong>
+
+<p class="noindent">Illustrations in this eBook have been positioned between paragraphs
+and outside quotations. In versions of this eBook that support
+hyperlinks, the page references in the List of Illustrations lead to
+the corresponding illustrations.</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">Illustrations without captions have had a description added, this is denoted
+with parentheses.</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">The index was not checked for proper alphabetization or correct page
+references.</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">Obvious typographical errors and punctuation errors
+have been corrected after careful comparison with other occurrences
+within the text and consultation of external sources. Otherwise
+misspellings in the text, and inconsistent or archaic usage, have been
+retained.</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">Some hyphens in words have been silently removed, some added,
+when a predominant preference was found in the original book.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76926 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
+
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+This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
+Procedures for determining public domain status are described in
+the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org.
+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
+jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize
+this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright
+status under the laws that apply to them.
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for eBook #76926
+(https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/76926)