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.