stands the old castellated villa of Poggio Gherardo on an eminence
which overlooks the valley of the Arno. In 1321 Meglino di Jacopo di
Magaldo Magaldi died, leaving by will part of this ancient possession
of his family, _i.e._ “the podere of Poggio and the buildings above
the said podere where now are, and have been in times gone by, the
Loggia, the Tower, the Well, the Water-channels, the Courtyard and
all the Garden and Orchard, with the Fields and Pergole which are
enclosed and surrounded in part with walls, &c.”, to the Congregation
of the Visitation; with the obligation to build an oratorio or chapel
in the said house in honour of St Zebedeus, and to support a resident
priest to say mass every day for the repose of his soul. Also the
priest on each anniversary of the death of Magaldo was to invite all
the members of the house of Magaldi to dinner. They, however, brought
a lawsuit against the Congregation of the Visitation, who appealed to
the Cardinal Legate of Pope John XXII, (who was at Avignon) setting
forth that by the time they had paid the expenses of the lawsuit with
borrowed money nothing would be left, and asking permission to sell
the estate which many would like to buy, _cum sit in loco carisimo
situatum_. Thus they would be able to pay everything and to carry out
the wishes of the pious Magaldo as far as the daily mass was concerned.
So the villa and land was sold to Messer Bivigliano del già Manetto de’
Baroncelli and his brother Messer Silvestro for 3100 golden florins
on the 14th January 1331. The Baroncelli did not long enjoy their
purchase. They, with the Buonaccorsi, were interested in the great
banking house of Acciajuoli which was declared insolvent in 1345.
Poggio must have belonged to the Albizzi for a few years, as Andrea
di Sennino Baldesi bought the villa and one podere from them in 1354,
his brother Baldese having already purchased other parts of the estate
from the Baroncelli five years before. In 1400 the Zati became lords
of Poggio and in 1433 they sold it to Gherardo di Bartolomeo Gherardi.
He changed the name from Palagio del Poggio to Poggio Gherardi, or
Gherardo (it is called both in the archives), and his descendants held
the place for 455 years. Mr Henry James Ross bought it in 1888 and has
made its name known as the home of a fine collection of orchids.
Many illustrious men did the Gherardi give to the service of Florence.
Gherardo was three times Gonfalonier of the city; his son Francesco was
a brave soldier and led the troops of the Republic against the Siennese
in 1495 when he stormed Montepulciano and took Giovanni Savelli, their
Roman captain prisoner, whom he brought, with many nobles and captains
of Siena, in triumph to Florence. His brother Bernardo Gherardi,
Gonfalonier in 1434, was a strong partisan of the Medici, and his
influence caused the exile of Cosimo de’ Medici to be cancelled. The
Republic sent him as ambassador to Venice, Ferrara and Rome, and when
he died in 1459 he was buried at the public expense. Seven different
Gherardi were Gonfaloniers of Justice, and the name occurs frequently
in the old history of Florence.[72]
Tradition says the old castle stood many a siege and that Sir John
Hawkwood was guilty of destroying the eastern wing, only partially
rebuilt some two or three hundred years ago. It probably was one of
the frontier castles which in ancient times defended Florence from the
people of Arezzo and of the Casentino. The line of castles, with their
towers, can still be traced, from Castel di Poggio perched high on the
hill above past Vincigliata and Poggio Gherardo, across the valley and
up the opposite bank of the Arno.
Poggio Gherardo stands about 300 feet above the plain. From the gate,
with its marble busts of the four seasons, a winding road flanked by
roses on either side—a glory to behold in springtime—leads up through
olive-groves and vineyards to the spinny which crowns the hill and
protects the villa from the north wind. Over the door are the arms of
the Gherardi and the entrance hall is the “Loggia” mentioned in the
_Decameron_, the arches of which were built up two or three hundred
years ago. In the courtyard the well, eighty feet deep, “of coldest
water” still exists; but alas, the “jocund paintings” in the rooms have
disappeared.
From the southern terrace garden the view is wonderful, especially if
you see a purple, orange and blood-red sunset away to the west, behind
the mountains of Modena and the cloud-like white masses of Carrara.
Florence lies mapped out at one’s feet, with Galileo’s tower, San
Miniato, Monte Uliveto and Bellosguardo keeping watch over her. When
the air is clear the point of Monte Nero above Leghorn can be seen in
the far west, while to the east Vallombrosa forms a background for
Settignano and the house of Michelangelo—ninety-three miles as the crow
flies. The course of the Arno in the valley below is marked by rows of
tall poplars, and hundreds of villas, shining brightly in the sun, are
dotted about in the plain and on the hillsides, while line after line
of opalesque hills fade away towards the fertile vale of the Chianti.
Eastwards are Monte Pilli and the Incontro, so-called because St
Francis and St Dominic are supposed to have met there, and beyond them
again, as already said, is Vallombrosa.
From the eastern terrace one looks down on the small streamlet Mensola,
celebrated in Boccaccio’s Ninfale Fiesolane, rushing down to meet her
lover Affrico, who comes from the Fiesole hills on the west to join his
tears with hers. Near the banks of the Mensola stands one of the oldest
churches in Tuscany, San Martino a Mensola. The _body_ of the Irish
Saint Andrew, who founded a monastery here in the seventh century,
lies under the high altar clothed in old brocaded robes, while his
_ashes_ are supposed to be under a side altar in an exquisitely painted
wooden box; through the small iron grating one can see, by the light
of a taper, beautiful slim youths with curled hair walking in a garden
of orange trees laden with big fruit. In the church are some fine
pictures, one attributed to Orcagna was given by the Zati, once lords
of Poggio Gherardo. The old, square, machicolated castle has always
been identified by students with the first “palagio” in which the
joyous company of seven ladies and three youths took refuge when they
fled from the plague in Florence in 1348.
“Wandering in idleness, but not in folly,
Sate down in the high grass and in the shade
Of many a tree sun-proof—day after day,
When all was still and nothing to be heard
But the cicala’s voice among the olives,
Relating in a ring, to banish care,
Their hundred tales.
Round the green hill they went,
Round underneath—first to a splendid house,
Gherardi, as an old tradition runs,
That on the left, just rising from the vale;
A place for luxury—the painted rooms,
The open galleries and middle court
Not unprepared, fragrant and gay with flowers.”[73]
In 1740 Roberto Gherardi wrote a long-winded but curious account of
his own villa and of many others on the Fiesolean hills called _La
Villeggiatura di Majano_. It has never been printed, but if for nothing
else his MS. is valuable as suggesting that Giovanni Boccaccio was
born near the banks of the Mensola. He writes, “... our celebrated
master of Tuscan eloquence, Messer Giovanni di Boccaccio di Chellino
da Certaldo, who in his earliest days, and afterwards in the flower of
his youth passed much time in a small villa with a podere belonging to
his father but a few paces below the hamlet of Corbignano, which podere
on account of the rill dividing it which runs into the Mensola, and of
the specified frontiers, and the two parishes San Martino a Mensola
and Santa Maria a Settignano, in whose jurisdiction it lies, can only
be, when you study it well, the villa of Signor Berti at Corbignano at
present in the possession of Signor Ottavio Ruggeri, as can be verified
by the contract of sale existing in the archives of Florence of the
18th May 1336 when our Boccaccio was twenty-three years old. I believe
that under the guise of Ameto, Boccaccio tells us he was born among the
neighbouring hills of Majano. In this forest Ameto, a wandering youth,
used to visit the Fauns and Dryads who inhabited there; he, remembering
that perhaps he was born in the neighbouring hills, was constrained
thereto by a certain carnal love, and honoured them sometimes with
pious offerings.” Villa Boccaccio was let out in small apartments to
poor people for years; it now belongs to Mr Kenworthy Browne, and
traces of ancient frescoes were found in some of the rooms when he
restored it.
[Illustration: (Drawing showing orchards on a hill, Villa is at top
of the hill.)]
As before said Poggio Gherardo is generally identified as the place
Boccaccio had in his mind when he describes how on a Wednesday
morning “as the day was breaking, the ladies with various of their
serving-maids, and the three youths with three of their followers, left
the town and went on their way; they had not gone more than two short
miles from the city when they arrived at the place they had already
decided on.[74] This said place was on a small height, removed a little
distance from our roads on every side, full of various trees and
shrubs in full greenery and most pleasant to behold. On the brow of the
hill was a palace with a fine and spacious courtyard in the middle, and
with loggie and halls and rooms, all, and each one in itself beautiful,
and ornamented tastefully with jocund paintings; surrounded with grass
plots and marvellous gardens, and with wells of coldest water, and
cellars of rare wines; a thing more suited to curious topers than to
sober and virtuous women.”
Here Pampinea was crowned queen with “an honourable and beautiful
garland of bays,” and here she commanded Panfilo to begin the series
of immortal tales known all the world over as the _Decameron_. At the
end of the first day Pampinea ceded the garland, emblem of royalty, to
“the discreet maiden Filomena” and the joyous company went slowly down
to a stream (the Mensola) of clear water, “which descended from a hill
and flowed through a valley shaded by many trees, amidst live rocks and
green grass. Here bare-footed and with bare arms they went down into
the water and disported themselves, then the hour of supper being at
hand they returned to the palace and supped with great contentment.”
Music, singing and dancing whiled away the hours until the queen was
pleased to command the torches to be lit and that everyone should seek
repose.
The second day passed in like manner, and when the tenth and last tale
came to an end, Filomena took the garland from off her own head and
crowned Neifile queen, who said: “As you know to-morrow is Friday and
the next day Saturday, days apt to be tedious to most people on account
of the viands ordered to be eaten; besides Friday was the day on which
He who died for our life suffered His passion, and it is therefore
worthy of reverence. For this I consider it to be a proper and virtuous
thing that we should rather say prayers to the honour of God than
invent tales. And on Saturday it is the custom for women to wash their
heads and remove any dust or dirt that may have settled there during
the labours of the week; also they used to fast out of reverence for
the Virgin Mother of God and then in honour of the coming Sunday rest
from any and every work. Being therefore unable on that day to fully
carry out our established order of life I think it would be well done
to refrain from reciting tales also on that day. And as we shall then
have been here four days, if we are desirous to avoid being joined by
others, I conceive that it would be more opportune to quit this place
and go elsewhere and I have already thought of a place and arranged
everything.”
All commended the words and the project of the queen, and so it was
established, but they looked forward with longing to Sunday. On that
morning “with slow steps the queen, accompanied and followed by her
ladies and by the three youths, and led by the song of maybe twenty
nightingales and other birds, took her way towards the west by an
unfrequented lane full of green herbs and flowers just beginning
to open to the rising sun. Gossiping, joking and laughing with her
company, she led them, after proceeding some two thousand paces, to a
beautiful and splendid palace before the half of the third hour had
passed.” (One and a half hours after sunrise.)
The “unfrequented lane” may yet be followed from Majano across the
Affrico towards San Domenico. Here and there an old oak tree recalls
the forest that once existed, and nearly every villa and village within
sight is connected with some illustrious name. The joyous company
probably passed—
“Where the hewn rocks of Fiesole impend
O’er Doccia’s dell, and fig and olive blend.
There the twin streams of Affrico unite,[75]
One dimly seen, the other out of sight,
But ever playing in his smoothen’d bed
Of polisht stone, and willing to be led
Where clustering vines protect him from the sun.
Here, by the lake, Boccaccio’s fair brigade
Beguiled the hours, and tale for tale repaid.”
Thus sang Walter Savage Landor, whose villa “Il Frusino,”
now belonging to Professor Willard Fiske, stands just above the small
plain where once was the lake of the “Valle delle Donne,” already
silted up in the sixteenth century.
About that same time the remains of the strong castle of Majano were
destroyed; the birthplace of the poet Dante da Majano whose poems in
praise of his Nina (one of the first Italian poetesses) are well-known.
She was a Sicilian, and although they never met she always called
herself “la Nina di Dante.” He exchanged poems with Dante Alighieri,
Chiari Davanzati, Guido Orlandi and others. Another poet, Meo di
Majano, was born in the tiny hamlet, and “the not less prudent than
virtuous sculptor,” Benedetto [da Majano] “the greatest master who ever
held a chisel,” as Vasari calls him, and his brother the architect
Giuliano. Macchiavelli had a house near by, and the Valori owned much
property near Majano. The Villa Marmigliano is still standing, where
the great platonist Marsilio Ficino was for so long the guest of
Niccolò and Filippo Valori and where he finished his translation of
Plato. Pico della Mirandola and Poliziano often came from the Medici
Villa at Fiesole to visit their friends, and in one of his letters
Ficino describes a walk on these hills with “our Pico” and their talk
about a salubrious villa. The latter pointed out one as fulfilling
all his desires and Ficino tells him “it is said to have been built
by that wise man Leonardo Aretino, and just beyond was the abode of
Giovanni Boccaccio.” Only divided by a small valley from the Valori
lived the brothers Benivieni. Roberto Gherardo describes their villa,
now belonging to Sir Willoughby Wade, as “the most ancient Villa
della Querce, since 1272 in the possession of the Signori Baldovini
Riccomanni, who bought it from Ciencio di Seminetto de’ Visdomini and
sold it in 1483 to Michele Benivieni.” “Happy house of Benivieni,”
exclaims Poliziano, “beloved of Apollo, favoured with all the celestial
gifts. Of four brothers, you, Maestro Antonio, are a second Esculapius
or Chiron; the second diligently studies the virtues of plants and
herbs; the third, Girolamo, is a tender and learned poet; and Domenico,
still a lad, gives himself with a gravity beyond his years, to poetry
and the study of Aristotle.”
Lower down, on the other side of the little valley is the Salviatino,
once belonging to the Dukes Salviati, whose good wine is immortalized
in that jocund poem _Bacco in Toscana_.
“Lovely Majano, lord of dells,
Where my gentle Salviati dwells.
Many a time and oft doth he
Crown me with bumpers full fervently,
And I, in return, preserve him still
From every crude and importunate ill.
I keep by my side,
For my joy and pride,
That gallant in chief of his royal cellar
Val di Marina, the blithe care-killer;
But with the wine yclept Val di Botte
Day and night I could flout me the gouty.”[76]
[Illustration: (Drawing of village seen through tall trees)]
FOOTNOTES:
[72] _Familie Celebre Toscane._ D. Tiribilli-Giuliani, riveduto dal
Cav. R. Passerini. Firenze, 1862.
[73] Samuel Rogers. _Italy._ P. 136.
[74] Pampinea in the Introduction to the _Decameron_, after
describing the horrors of the plague and the licentious life of the
few inhabitants left in the town, suggests going to “our estates in
the country, of which we all have a great many.” She was probably a
Baroncelli—if one may attempt to identify personages or places in the
_Decameron_.
[75] The Affrico and the Affricuzzo.
[76] _Opus cit._ See note page 70.
[Illustration: VILLA DELLE SELVE]
[Illustration: (Drawing of long colonnade in front of Villa)]
VILLA DELLE SELVE
The stately Villa delle Selve, built by Buontalenti, stands high on
the crest of a hill overlooking the Arno below Signa about nine miles
from Florence. The first mention of it is in the archives of the
monastery of San Pier Maggiore where it is stated that the Commune of
Florence, in the interest of the creditors of the Acciajuoli bank, sold
“a podere with a hut, a brick kiln, etc., at a place called Le Selve
in the parish of San Martino a Gangalandi for 270 golden florins.” It
afterwards came into the possession of the Strozzi. And when Filippo
Strozzi and his wife Clarice left Rome by stealth and sailed to Pisa,
a messenger met them with letters from the Cardinal of Cortona and
from Niccolò Capponi urging them to come to Florence, so Filippo, a
prudent Florentine “decided,” writes old Varchi, “after much meditation
not to be the one who, as the saying is, picks the chestnuts out of
the fire, but determined to send Madonna Clarice on to feel the way;
she being a woman and a Medici would, he conceived, not run the same
risk as himself.... Clarice, as courageous as she was proud, accepted
the commission without waiting to be entreated, and leaving Piero and
Vincenzio her sons, in Empoli under the charge of their tutor Ser
Francesco Zeffi, she went accompanied by only Antonio da Barberino and
Maestro Marcantonio da San Gemignano to dine at Le Selve near Signa,
a most favourite villa of Filippo’s and from thence the same evening
proceeded to Florence.”
Marchese Filippo di Averardo Salviati bought the villa from the Strozzi
and in 1611 lent it to his friend Galileo Galilei, who unfortunately
for himself had resigned his professorship at Padua to accept the
appointment of court mathematician in Florence. It is a curious fact
that two of the greatest of Italians, Giovanni Boccaccio and Galileo
Galilei, had a common ancestor in Bonajuto, Lord of Pogna in the Val
d’Elsa. Bonajuto’s son Chellino was grandfather to Boccaccio; another
son, Giovanni, was the father of a celebrated doctor Maestro Galileo
from whom descended Vincenzio Galilei, a musician of some repute
and author of a dialogue on music printed in Florence in 1581, he
married Giulia Ammanati, and their son—the famous Galileo—was born in
Pisa in 1564. A descendant of a third son of old Maestro Galileo was
governor of Pisa in 1837 and most bitterly resented any allusion to his
relationship with a man who had been in the prisons of the Inquisition.
The arms of the two families are identical, save that the red ladder
of the Galilei is placed vertically on a gold ground while that of the
Chellini is diagonal.[77]
The room occupied by Galileo at the Selve communicates by a winding
staircase with an upper terrace where he used to spend the nights in
watching the stars. Here he discovered the spots on the sun and its
revolution upon its axis, the ring of Saturn, the phases of Venus and
Mars and their rotation round the sun, and here he wrote his treatise
on the planets, the history of the sun-spots and other works. He loved
the country and country pursuits, and his favourite recreation was
working in the garden; very proud was he of his skill in pruning vines
and fruit trees and he used to declare there was no better preservative
of health than living in the open air. A wall at the back of the villa
with a peculiar curve is said to have been built under his supervision.
If two people whisper in a low voice at the ends each can hear the
other distinctly.
In 1614 Filippo Strozzi died at Barcelona and Galileo left the villa
he loved so well. About the same time a Dominican friar, Tommaso
Caccini, preached a sermon in Santa Maria Novella denouncing Galileo
and all professors of mathematics. “Mathematics are of the devil,” he
exclaimed, “and mathematicians as the authors of all heresies should be
driven out of every state.” Monks and theologians denied the existence
of the Medicean planets, some even insisted that the moon shone by her
own unaided light.[78]
From the broad terrace of the villa the view is magnificent, “you see
half the world” the peasants say. Below is the glinting river fringed
with tall poplars and on the summit of the hill on the opposite bank
stands the huge Medicean Villa Artimino surrounded by ilexes. To the
right is the picturesque old bridge across the Arno connecting Ponte
a Signa with Beata Signa; further away still the grey machicolated
walls and towers of Lastra a Signa stand out against the fruitful green
plain. In the far distance Poggio a Cajano rises like a giant above the
village clustering round it, and the trees look like shrubs beside the
villa where Francesco I, and his second wife, “the infamous Bianca” as
her brother-in-law called her, died on the 19th and 20th October 1587.
Lastra a Signa owes its walls, built in 1377, to the English
condottiere Sir John Hawkwood; he advised the Republic of Florence
to erect them as a defence against the Pisans who some years before,
aided by English auxiliaries, had taken and burnt the strong castle
of Gangalandi near by. Twenty years later Alberigo, a captain in the
pay of Galeazzo Visconti Lord of Milan who was at deadly feud with the
Republic of Florence, besieged and took Lastra a Signa. The walls were
restored again in time to keep part of the army of the Prince of Orange
at bay for some time in 1529. Francesco Ferrucci, whose head-quarters
were at Empoli five miles lower down the river, had garrisoned the
place with some of his best troops, and as long as their ammunition
lasted they beat off the Spaniards. Whilst treating for the surrender,
five hundred more Spanish Lances arrived with scaling ladders and
battering-rams, made a breach in the walls (which still exists) and cut
the defenders to pieces.
Beata Signa on the opposite bank of the river, owes its name of Beata
(Blessed) to a shepherdess. Giovanna was a good and holy maiden who
tended her flock of sheep on the banks of the Arno and worked miracles
in days long past. Her mummified body still lies under an altar in
the picturesque church, and on Easter Monday the pretty old-world
_Festa degli Angeli_ is held in her honour. The confraternities of
neighbouring parishes bring offerings of oil, for the lamp kept always
burning before her tomb, in small barrels slung pannier fashion on a
donkey. On a little platform above the barrels stands the Angel, the
prettiest small child of the parish, supported by an iron upright
ending in a hoop. Crowned with roses and carnations, decked with the
pearl necklaces of the peasant women and often with a pair of white
wings fastened to its shoulders, the Angel on the donkey form the
centre of many processions which wind along the country lanes with
banners flying and generally a band playing. As each procession arrives
in the little townlet of Beata Signa it files into the old church,
the Angel and the barrels of oil are lifted off the donkey in front
of the altar of the Blessed Giovanna, the band plays its loudest and
sometimes the donkey brays, which causes great amusement.
Near by the Villa delle Selve, nestling amid elms and cypresses on a
spur of the same hill, is the church of Le Selve adjoining a monastery
of Carmelite friars suppressed, like so many others, by Napoleon I.
The abbot’s rooms are now inhabited by the village priest and the
monk’s garden, with a fine old well in the centre and surrounded by
two-storied cloisters, has been turned into a nursery for olive trees.
The church, said to have been restored by Buontalenti, possesses a nave
of considerable height and beauty terminating in an apse and under the
high altar is a small crypt where St Andrea Corsini celebrated his
first mass. The young priest fled from the grand preparations made in
Florence, and took refuge with the monks at Le Selve; when at daybreak
trembling with religious fervour he raised the chalice to his lips a
vision of Our Lady appeared to him; smiling graciously she bent her
head and said _Tu est servus meus_.
A miraculous crucifix is in the church, and every fifty years the
_Festa_ of the Crucifix of Providence is celebrated in the month of
April. Just before sunset the crucifix is borne out of the church
followed by a long line of priests, little acolytes in snow-white
robes and stalwart peasants dressed in their best carrying banners and
canopies. The steep hill down to Ponte a Signa is all strewn with rose
leaves, irises and sweet herbs, and the long procession winds down to
the river and returns with flaring torches like a huge fiery serpent,
creeping up the hill beneath the olives and cypresses when the stars
come out. The peasants put candles in their windows and the stately
villa, now the property of the Contessa Cappelli, becomes a blaze of
light.
[Illustration: (Drawing of three story Villa seen from garden)]
FOOTNOTES:
[77] See _Marietta de’ Ricci_. A. Ademollo. 2a Edizione con aggiunte di
L. Passerini. Firenze, 1845. Vol. III. p. 816, and Vol. IV. p. 1216.
[78] _Vita di Galileo Galilei._ G. B. Clemente de’ Nelli. Losanna, 1793.