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]