[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.