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.