was built, or at all events enlarged, early in the fourteenth century
by the Grand Seneschal Acciajuoli, whose family first appears in
Florentine history in the thirteenth century as merchants, rivalling,
if they did not surpass, the Bardi and the Peruzzi in wealth. One of
them, Niccola, stands gibbeted to all time by Dante. He and Baldo
d’Aguglione, aided by the Podestà, tore out a sheet of the public
records of the city in order to destroy the proof of certain frauds
committed. Ironically Dante refers to the “well-guided city,” praising
the old days—
“... when still
The registry and label rested safe.”
Unlike the present Florentines, who are never happy away from the
shadow of their Duomo, the Acciajuoli thought nothing of going to far
distant lands or of taking service with foreign princes. Thus Dardano,
son of Lotteringo, passed most of his youth at Tunis as treasurer to
the Bey. In 1305 he was back in Florence leading his fellow-citizens
against Pistoja, and soon afterwards went as ambassador to Naples
to offer the Lordship of Florence to the King, Robert of Anjou; two
years later he returned there to beg assistance against Uguccione
della Faggiuola who threatened to make himself master of the city.
A cousin of his, Niccola Acciajuoli, left Florence for Naples at
the age of twenty-one to negotiate a loan, and by his extraordinary
personal beauty, grace and intelligence, won the heart of Catherine,
titular Empress of Constantinople, widow of the Prince of Taranto; her
brother-in-law the King, who recognised his capacity and diplomatic
talents, appointed him the guardian of her three children. In 1338
Niccola accompanied Louis, the eldest of his wards, to Achaia in
Greece, and for three years conducted the war against the Turks with
great ability; but the death of King Robert, who left the kingdom of
Naples to his niece Joan, proved the stepping-stone to his fortune.
Married against her will to Andrew of Hungary, a coarse, uneducated man
entirely under the dominion of his rude Hungarian followers, Joan had
fallen passionately in love with her cousin Louis, Prince of Taranto;
and when Andrew was strangled whilst asleep popular rumour connected
Acciajuoli with the murder; the Queen married her cousin Louis, and
Niccola became the trusted minister of the crown. The King of Hungary
soon appeared on the scene to avenge the death of his brother, and
finding he was too powerful to be opposed Acciajuoli persuaded Queen
Joan and her young husband to take refuge in his splendid villa Monte
Guffone near Florence. After passing some weeks with him they went to
Avignon to implore the aid of Pope Clement VI, but the plague, which
broke out in Naples soon afterwards, proved a more efficient ally;
the King of Hungary fled from the stricken city and Niccola conducted
Louis and Joan back to Naples where they were received with great
demonstrations of delight. He was created Grand Seneschal of the
Kingdom, Count of Melfi, etc., etc., and placing himself at the head
of the army drove the Hungarians back to their own country. Peace was
finally made through the intervention of the Pope, and then Acciajuoli
set himself to free Sicily of the Spaniards; but during his absence
the King was turned against him by the Neapolitan courtiers, and in
dudgeon he threw up all his appointments and retired into private life.
When, however, the Pope laid the kingdom under an interdict on account
of unpaid taxes, he at once offered himself as mediator. Innocent VI,
received him with extraordinary honours; raised the interdict at his
request, gave him the Golden Rose (the first time a private person had
been thus distinguished), named him a Senator of Rome, Count of the
Campagna and Rector of the ecclesiastical Patrimony, and then sent him
to Milan as envoy to Bernabo Visconti to obtain the restitution of
Bologna. Finding diplomacy of no avail, Niccola put himself with the
Papal Legate at the head of the papal troops and soon entered Bologna
in triumph. Returning to Naples he lived in almost royal state until
his death at the early age of fifty-six.
Besides Monte Guffone, Niccola Acciajuoli built the magnificent Certosa
near Florence after the design of Orcagna, and the first of the family
to be buried there was his handsome, brilliant son Lorenzo, “a Knight
and a great Baron” Matteo Villani calls him in his description of the
funeral. The body was sent from Naples and on the 7th April 1354 was
taken “on a knightly hearse, one great charger being in front and one
behind covered with silken housings emblazoned with the Acciajuoli
arms, while the hearse was covered with rich hangings and a baldaquin
of silk and gold, and over the coffin was fine crimson velvet; the
horses were ridden by squires dressed in black, and preceding the
hearse were seven squires on great chargers, their draperies trailing
on the ground, with the aforesaid arms on their breasts in beaten
silver. The two first squires bore plumed helmets, the third carried a
standard and the other four had each a large banner with the Acciajuoli
arms.” In 1366 Niccola also was buried at the Certosa near his son with
great pomp.
Donato, a cousin of Niccola, had been sent to Corinth as governor, and
in 1392 his brother Neri was created Duke of Athens, Lord of Megara,
Platæa, Thebes and Corinth. Neri’s illegitimate son Antonio inherited
only the Lordship of Bœotia and Thebes, while Athens returned to the
crown of Naples. The Venetians immediately seized it, but Antonio,
worthy scion of a splendid race, soon drove them out and held the
place for himself. He was succeeded by his cousin Neri who, dethroned
by his brother Antonio, only got back his estates after the death of
the latter. Neri’s son was a child when his father died and Sultan
Mahomet II, refusing to acknowledge his title to the throne, named
Francesco, Antonio’s son, in his stead. His tyranny was so intolerable
that the Sultan ordered him to be strangled and thus, after seventy
years of sovereignty ended the Acciajuoli rulers of Greece. Demostene
Tiribilli-Giuliani, from whose work _Le Famiglie Celebre Toscane_
I have gathered the above facts remarks, with a fine disregard of
history, “no one mentions Athens after this, indeed its existence was
hardly known until our day, when it became the capital of Greece.”
The Acciajuoli constantly figure in the history of Florence as
Gonfaloniers, Vicars, Ambassadors, Envoys, Cardinals and Bishops;
and one of the saddest and most romantic stories of the eighteenth
century has an Acciajuoli as its hero. Roberto, eldest son of Donato
Acciajuoli, handsome, clever, brave and fascinating, had long admired
Elisabetta Mormorai, wife of Captain Giulio Berardi. On the death of
her husband he declared his love and the beautiful widow accepted
him. But he reckoned without his uncle Cardinal Acciajuoli, who had
made up his mind that his handsome nephew should make an alliance in
Rome which might help him in his designs on the papal chair. Prayers,
admonitions and threats being of no avail, the Cardinal induced the
Grand Duke Cosimo III, to imprison Elisabetta in a convent; upon which
Roberto contracted a canonical marriage with her by letter and fled to
Milan where he published it, demanding at the same time justice from
the Grand Duke, the Archbishop, the Cardinal and his own father. In
Lombardy the validity of the marriage was upheld, while in Florence
it was declared to be a mere engagement. The lady was removed from
her convent to a fortress, upon which Roberto, while the papal chair
was vacant in 1691, wrote a circular to all the cardinals, imploring
justice from them and from the future pope. All Italy was interested
in the unhappy lovers and blamed the high-handed Cardinal and his
slavish abettor Cosimo III. In vain Cardinal Acciajuoli tried to excuse
himself by throwing all the blame on his relations, his conduct lost
him the chance of being made pope, while the Grand Duke was accused of
arbitrary and unjust conduct and of truckling to the private spite of
a cardinal. Cosimo determined to revenge himself, but for the moment
he set the fair prisoner free who immediately joined her husband in
Venice, where everyone pitied them and blamed the Grand Duke, by whom
formal application was made to the Republic to deliver up the lovers,
accusing them of want of respect to their sovereign. They fled, but
their steps were dogged, and at Trent they were arrested disguised
as friars and taken back to Tuscany, where Roberto Acciajuoli was
condemned to perpetual imprisonment in the fortress of Volterra and
the loss of his patrimony, while Elisabetta was given the choice of
repudiating her marriage or being immured in the same prison. In the
hope of mitigating his sentence she chose the former and ended her days
in tears and misery, while Roberto died in the most terrible prison of
Tuscany, as anyone who has visited the _Mastio_ of Volterra will know.
This is but one of the many instances of Cosimo’s tyranny. An insensate
bigot, he was entirely under the dominion of priests and monks who
ruined the country and destroyed its morality. Few princes have been
more hated by their subjects and their own family, or with better
reason.
In the lovely Val di Pesa near Monte Guffone occurred the pretty
scene so charmingly described in a long letter by that witty Tuscan,
Ser Matteo Franco, chaplain to the Medici, who bandied sonnets and
“strambotti” with Luigi Pulci. The austere, rather disagreeable
Clarice, wife of Lorenzo the Magnificent, who had not been fitted by
her education in the stately Orsini palace at Rome for the brilliant
pleasure-loving life at Florence, was returning from some baths near
Volterra when, as Matteo Franco writes, “... we met paradise full of
festive and joyous angels, that is to say Messer Giovanni, Piero,
Giuliano and Julio on pillions with their attendants. And when they
saw their mother they threw themselves off their horses, some by
themselves, some with the help of others; and all ran forward and were
lifted into the arms of Madonna Clarice with such joy and kisses and
delight that I could not describe in a hundred letters. Even I could
not refrain from dismounting; and before they got on their horses
again, I embraced them all and kissed them twice; once for myself and
once for Lorenzo. Darling little Giulianino said with a long O, o, o,
‘where is Lorenzo?’ We answered, ‘he has gone on before to Poggio to
see you.’ Then he: ‘Oh no never,’ almost in tears. You never beheld
so touching a sight. He and Piero, who has become a beautiful boy,
the finest thing, by God, you ever saw, with such a profile he is
like an angel, and rather long hair which stands out a little and is
pretty to see. And Giuliano red and fresh as a rose, smooth, clean and
bright as a mirror, joyous yet contemplative with those large eyes.
Messer Giovanni also looks well, his colour is not so high but clear
and natural; and Julio has a brown and healthy skin. All, in short, are
happiness itself. And thus with great content a joyous party we went by
Via Maggio, Ponte a Santa Trinita, San Michele Berteldi, Santa Maria
Maggiore, Canto alla Paglia and Via de’ Martegli; and entered into the
house _per infinita asecola asecolorum_ eselibera nos a malo amen.”[69]
[Illustration: (Drawing of road leading uphill to building with tower)]
FOOTNOTES:
[69] See _Florentia_. Isidoro Del Lungo. Firenze, 1897. P. 424.
[Illustration: (Drawing of lake through trees, Villa in background.)]
VILLA DI CASTEL-PULCI
About six miles from Florence on the high road to Pisa stands the fine
villa of Castel-Pulci, now a lunatic asylum. In ancient times the Pulci
owned large possessions in the Val d’Arno, but the first notice I have
found of them is in 1278 when Jacopo di Rinaldo Pulci was denounced to
the captain of the Guelph party in Florence for failing to keep a weir
in the Arno near Ponte a Signa in proper repair. His son Mainetto sold
this weir to the monks of the great Badia[70] a Settimo, who in 1313
also bought an island in the river from Giovanni and Ponzardo, sons of
Mainetto. Like so many of the great Florentine houses the Pulci failed
in 1321 and villa and lands were seized by the cardinal Napoleone
Orsini, one of the creditors. His heirs sold the estate to the Marquis
Rinnucini who enlarged and beautified Castel-Pulci, which was bought by
the government some fifty years ago.
Luigi Pulci, born on the 3rd of December 1431, was the author of the
_Morgante Maggiore_, the first burlesque romance in European literature
and the prototype of that form of poetry which Ariosto brought to
perfection. His two elder brothers were also poets; Luca wrote the
_Ciriffo Calvaneo_ and the _Driadeo d’Amore_, and was considered by
Varchi superior to Luigi, while Giovio calls him _poeta nobile_.
Bernardo, the eldest, was among the first to write pastoral poetry
in the vulgar tongue; he also made a good translation of the Eclogues
of Virgil, and wrote a poem on the passion of Christ and many plays.
His wife Antonia was a poetess of no mean fame in the same style.
Verino celebrates the three brothers thus:
[Illustration: VILLA DI CASTEL-PULCI.]
“Carminibus patriis notissima Pulcia proles.
Qui non hanc urbem Musarem dicat amicam,
Si tres prodicat frates domus una poetas?”
Luigi Pulci was an intimate friend of the Medici and formed one of the
brilliant company surrounding Lorenzo il Magnifico, who mentions him in
his poem on hawking:
“Luigi Pulci ov’è, che non si sente?
Egli se n’andò dianzi in quel boschetto,
Che qualche fantasia ha per la mente,
Vorrà fantasticar forse un sonetto;”
Many were the jokes made by Lorenzo’s witty chaplain, Ser Matteo di
Franco, a canon of the cathedral of Florence, and a favourite of Pope
Innocent VIII, on the name of his friend Pulci (Pulex, a flea). He used
to say of Luigi, who was very thin, “famine is as naturally depicted
on his countenance as though it were a work by Giotto.” They wrote
facetious sonnets to each other which were published in the fifteenth
century and immediately placed on the Index, but a reprint of this rare
volume was made by Marchese De Rossi in 1759. Both were admirers and
intimate friends of Angelo Poliziano (to whom, by the way, some have
erroneously attributed the _Morgante Maggiore_).
Luigi Pulci’s poem, which Lord Byron admired sufficiently to translate,
tells of the hatred borne by the perfidious Ganellone to the chaste
and generous Orlando and the other Christian Paladins. Charlemagne,
deceived by Ganellone, whose envy, dissimulation, feigned humility and
capacity for lying is admirably portrayed, sends him to Spain to treat
for the cession of a kingdom for Orlando with King Marsilio. Instead
of this he plots with the Spaniards for the destruction of Orlando,
who is killed at Roncesvalle. Morgante the giant, after being baptised
by Orlando becomes his faithful squire; the other giant Maggutte is a
jovial pagan, laughing at everybody and everything, who ends his life
in peals of loud laughter. The poem was composed for the amusement of
Lucrezia Tornabuoni, the accomplished mother of Lorenzo de’ Medici,
herself a poetess. “Luigi Pulci,” writes Symonds, “assumed the tone of
a street-singer, opening each canto with the customary invocation to
the Madonna or a paraphrase of some church collect, and dismissing his
audience at the close with grateful thanks or brief good wishes.
“But Pulci was no mere _Canta-storie_. The popular style served but
as a cloak to cover his subtle-witted satire and his mocking levity.
Tuscan humour keeps up an _obbligato_ accompaniment throughout the
poem. Sometimes this humour is in harmony with the plebeian spirit of
the old Italian romances; sometimes it turns aside and treats it as
a theme of ridicule. In reading the _Morgante_ we must bear in mind
that it was written canto by canto to be recited in the palace of
the Via Larga, at the table where Poliziano and Ficino gathered with
Michelangelo Buonarroti and Cristoforo Landino. Whatever topics may
from time to time have occupied that brilliant circle, were reflected
in its stanzas; and this alone suffices to account for its tender
episodes and its burlesque extravagances, for the satiric picture
of Margutte and the serious discourses of the devil Astarotte. The
external looseness of construction and the intellectual unity of
the poem, are both attributable to these circumstances. Passing by
rapid transitions from grave to gay, from pathos to cynicism, from
theological speculations to ribaldry, it is at one and the same time a
mirror of the popular taste which suggested the form, and also of the
courtly wits who listened to it laughing. The _Morgante_ is no _naïve_
production of a simple age, but the artistic plaything of a cultivated
and critical society, entertaining its leisure with old-world stories,
accepting some for their beauty’s sake in seriousness, and turning
others into nonsense for pure mirth.”[71]
Close to Castel-Pulci, on the spur of a hill overlooking the Valle
Morta (a name probably alluding to a battle fought there in 1113) on
one side and the valley of the Arno on the other, is Monte Cascioli,
now a farm-house, once the strong castle of the powerful Lords of
Fucecchio. Here Count Lottario and his mother Countess Gemma held
court in 1006 and gave large donations to the Badia a Settimo. Their
descendant Ugo joined Ruberto Tedesco, Vicario of Tuscany under Henry
III, against the Florentines, who marched out and fought a pitched
battle in which Ruberto was killed and Monte Cascioli was stormed and
destroyed.
From the terrace of Castel-Pulci one looks down upon the broad
and fertile plain of the Arno, whose course is marked by lines of
shimmering poplars, and the fine mass of Mount Morello rises in the
distance. Close to the river bank the beautiful campanile, attributed
by Vasari to Niccolò Pisano, of the ancient Badia a Settimo stands out
against the green background. The Pulci once owned a strong castle near
by of which no vestige remains, but the Badia had been a dependency
of the great Lords of Fucecchio since 940, and was inhabited by
Cluniacense monks, whose behaviour became so scandalous that in 1063
Count Gugliemo Bulgaro appealed to his friend St Giovan Gualberto for
aid, and the saintly abbot of Vallombrosa introduced his own rule. Soon
afterwards, by his order, St Peter Igneus went through the ordeal by
fire at Settimo in the presence of a large concourse of people. The
following inscriptions may still be read bearing witness to the fact:—
IGNEUS HIC PETRUS MEDIOS PERTRANSIIT IGNES,
FLAMMARUM VICTOR, SED MAGIS HAERESEOS.
HOC IN LOCO, MIRACULO S. JOHANNIS GUALBERTO,
QUIDAM FUERE CONFUTATI HAERETICI, MLXX.
In 1236 Gregory IX, took the abbey and monastery under the immediate
protection of the Holy See and gave it to the Cistercians, whose
conduct was so exemplary that the Signoria of Florence entrusted them
with the administration of the taxes, the maintenance of the city walls
and bridges and finally gave the great seal into their keeping. The
monks were made exempt from taxes and their revenue must have been
large, as every abbot paid a thousand golden florins to the Pope on his
investiture. The tall gatetower, once connected with the strong walls
built round the monastery by the Republic of Florence, is very fine and
a large and curious _alto-relievo_ built up of brick and mortar, of
Our Lord and two saints, is above the closed-up door. Under the feet
of the Christ is a slab with the lily of Florence and an illegible
inscription. Below that again is written—
“Anno Domini MCCXXXVI, S.S. Dmn. N. Gregorius IX dedit hoc Monasterium
de Septimo Ordin. Cirterc. cum esset liberum et exemptum ab omni regio
patronatu, quod in plena libertate a dicto Ordine pacifice possidetur.”
Badia a Settimo must have been magnificent with its moat and three
other towers, each of which had a drawbridge. Now much of the ancient
structure lies under fifteen feet of mud deposited by the perpetual
inundations of the Arno, the monks’ refectory has been divided
into cellars, the fine old abbey-church with its solemn, almost
Egyptian-looking, columns is a _tinaia_ where wine is made and the
original height can only be seen by an excavation which has been dug
round one of the columns. The monastery is a private villa, and the
lovely cloister with its slender pillars, beautifully carved capitals
and expanse of grass serves as a playground for the children. The
present church was built in the thirteenth century at right angles to
the ancient abbey-church and nearer to the campanile, on artificially
raised ground. The steps which led up to the door are already deep
under the earth and the bases of the columns supporting the loggia in
front of the church are more than half buried. The high altar is a
fine piece of _pietra dura_ work, and round the top of the choir is
a pretty frieze by one of the Della Robbia, of four-winged heads of
angels alternating with a kneeling lamb holding a banner, emblem of
the guild of wool manufacturers. In the left hand chapel is a small
ambrey, or receptacle for the holy oil, by Desiderio da Settignano,
of most exquisite design and workmanship; the walls of the chapel are
frescoed by Giovanni di San Giovanni, and above the altar is kept
a silver casket containing the bones of St Quentin. The saint was
beheaded at Paris a thousand or more years ago and transported his
bones by some miracle to a church on the opposite side of the river;
not liking his quarters he moved in 1187 to the high altar of the
ancient abbey-church, but still dissatisfied he placed the silver
casket every morning in this chapel, which was the greatest miracle of
all as the chapel was only built late in the thirteenth century. “And
here he still is,” said the sacristan, “but without his head, which he
could not find when he left Paris.” A short corridor behind the high
altar leads into the old chapel of Lapi des Spinis, built according
to an inscription in 1315. Dim traces of frescoes by some follower of
Giotto are still to be seen, but the chapel is so silted up with mud
that the present floor very nearly touches the level of the spring of
the groined arches of the roof.
[Illustration: (Drawing of woman walking in front of building with tower.
Tower has statue in niche. Man riding ox cart at the side.)]
FOOTNOTES:
[70] Abbey.
[71] J. A. Symonds, _Renaissance in Italy._ _Italian Literature._ Part
I. p. 440.
[Illustration: BOCCACCIO,
By ANONIMO.
(_Villa di Poggio Gherardo_).]
[Illustration: MICHEL ANGELO,
By LEONE LEONI.
(_Villa di Gamberaia_).]
[Illustration: DUKE FEDERIGO OF URBINO,
By ANONIMO.
(_Villa di Rusciano_).]
[Illustration: (Drawing of roadway through garden, leading to Villa)]
VILLA DI POGGIO GHERARDO