[Illustration: (Drawing of two story villa with u-shaped colonnade, with
a double stairway to garden)]
VILLA I COLLAZZI
On a ridge of the hills which rise above the fortress-convent built by
Niccolò Acciajuoli for the monks of the Certosa, once stood a castle of
the Buondelmonti; but all trace of it has long since disappeared and on
the site stands the famous Florentine Villa I Collazzi, now belonging
to Signor Bombicci-Pomi. When Messer Agostino Dini commissioned his
architect to build him a house, the time for strongholds and mediæval
castles had passed away, and the villa which rose upon the Tuscan
hillside was characteristic of the century of Michelangelo. Such is
the grandeur and beauty of I Collazzi, with its imposing double flight
of steps leading from a broad terrace up to the courtyard, with its
two wells crowned by fine old iron work, its lofty arcade and the
large vaulted rooms wherein one feels a race of giants ought to live,
that many have attributed its building to Michelangelo. But there are
a few blemishes in the finish and detail of the decoration which,
though by no means detracting from the general beauty of the whole
structure, are easily recognised by a student of the Master, and lead
him to suppose it to be rather a work of one of his scholars. The Dini
papers have been lost, used to light the fires a century ago some say,
and the only clue we have to the architect is from Baldinucci who
tells us that Santi di Tito, scholar of Bronzino in painting and of
Vasari in architecture, “worked for Agostino Dini at Giogoli ... for
this same Agostino he also painted one of his finest altar pictures,”
which is still in the chapel of I Collazzi. But those who support the
theory that Michelangelo built the villa, say that Santi di Tito only
completed the work begun by his great forerunner. The building raised
upon the lonely Tuscan hill within a few miles of Florence, yet not
within sight of her towers, is the finest villa of its kind to be found
in all the countryside. There is nothing to spoil the impression of
grandeur and beauty; the unfinished wing on the left of the courtyard
only seems to give variety of line and grouping as one approaches
between a long avenue of cypresses so closely planted together as to
form a sombre green wall shutting out all else but the villa in front.
Across the broad terrace, raised on high bastioned walls above the
vineyards, the villa faces the valley of the Arno where villas are
strewn like diamonds on the sunlit hills, and higher up towards the
north the mountains behind Pistoja with their thick covering of snow
show palely against the sky. The view opening out wider as the eye
travels towards Prato seems even sunnier and more brilliantly coloured,
for the country round here is subdued in tints, losing the sunlight
early, and the shadows lie almost black on the ilex and pine woods near
by. So striking is the monotonous scene of rounded pine-covered hills
that the name I Collazzi (small hillocks) suggested itself to the Dini
family for the fine villa they built in lieu of the modest abode which
satisfied all their desires in those early days when great Florentine
families lived simply and frugally, and the lady passed her time in
looking after her household and teaching her daughters to sew and say
their prayers. If the girl’s daily task was not done in time, “cuffs
would fly, or even a cane would cleanse her skirts of dust,” says an
old writer. Conversation with men, even with near relations, was not
permitted; in some houses the girls were not allowed to play with their
brothers and at table they never spoke save in answer to their parents.
If an entertainment was given they were shut up in their own room, and
looking out of the window was severely prohibited as it might lead to
loss of reputation.
But things changed in the sixteenth century when Messer Agostino Dini
built for himself this villa suited to a noble Florentine, and like
many another spent too much money on bricks and mortar. No doubt the
Dini were among the people blamed by Senator Vincenzio di Giovanni
di Niccolò Giraldi who, writing to a friend in 1598, deplores the
gradual extinction of simple old Florentine customs in favour of
Spanish grandeur and magnificence. “Now,” he writes, “little girls
wear dresses of fine cloth, not only in Florence but in the country,
more suitable to brides than to children, and expect to be waited on
by men and maid-servants. Going afoot is out of fashion, and that they
may not accustom themselves to so rustic a custom they take the air
in a carriage.... There are not more grains of sand in the bed of the
Arno after a flood, than there are ornaments and flimsy vanities on
their heads in order to augment the natural love of dress inherent in
woman. And when of marriageable age they no longer rise with the sun to
go to early mass, but lie abed so as not to lose their sleep or spoil
their complexions. As to work, I am told the girls sometimes fashion
pretty and delicate things but coarse sewing, such as our wives did,
they will not look at, for such work and the making of their beds of
a-morning is not noble, so is left to the maids.... When the blessed
and much desired husband arrives none can describe the grandeur and
comforts that are indulged in. Dresses of cloth of gold and of thick
silk trimmed with gold lace of diverse kinds are bought for the bride,
without reflecting whether they are suited to her own or her husband’s
condition. She must be on a par with others, for there is no longer
any difference between one person and another, or between high and low
rank. People say such a one spends of his own and so may do as others
do; it would be a small evil if he only spent what was his, but often
now-a-days it becomes apparent that he spends what belongs to others.
Then a carriage and fine horses are a necessity, for whoso takes a
wife and does not set up a carriage would be flouted by the women
and pointed at as ill-bred and miserly. So they pay their visits in
Florence in noble fashion with great comfort, scornfully pitying the
poor women of bygone times who trotted round on their own feet wearing
coarse and heavy gowns only fit, as they consider, for peasants. The
house must correspond and be furnished according to modern ideas. The
walls are hung from floor to ceiling with damask, and fine pictures
are needful; above all the chairs, when not covered with velvet, must
at least be covered with silk so that the ladies may sit softly. Whoso
takes a wife must also keep a good table, not served with homely
dishes, which are plebeian, for the ladies of the present day insist on
delicate food, not for gluttony—oh no—but because it keeps them healthy
and of good heart, and consequently enables them to have fine and
well-made children. If linen has to be sewn for the husband or babes
the work is commonly sent to the convents, and then the husband is told
there is so much to pay for such work and so much for the other and he
has to loose his purse-strings or confront a pouting face.
“With what majesty do the ladies now drive in their carriage, a peacock
when he rustles and spreads his tail is not so proud and puffed up.
A new custom too has been introduced in order to have more frequent
occasion for going about the town. Visits are paid to brides, even
by those who are not relations, and thus the women can spy out other
folk’s business, which is always attractive. If the house be not nobly
furnished they jeer at the master thereof and call him a miser; but if
it be better found than their own they return home discontented and
begin to grumble, saying: ‘I have been to see such a one and her house
is beautiful; she has this and the other and all is in good taste; but
we live worse than artisans, so that I no longer dare invite anyone
as I will not have it said that I, who am as good as many of them,
and had a marriage portion large eno’ to enjoy what they have—but as
it must be so, _pazienza_.’ And the poor wretch of a husband has to
swallow it all, and either be constantly tormented, or content his wife
and do what he dislikes or perchance cannot afford; for at length the
perpetual clapper of the bell at night would break even the head of a
ram, which is proverbially hard.
“The ladies now all carry fans attached to golden chains when they
leave the house, and not only in the streets do they flutter them but
in the churches, as an aid to devotion while hearing mass. I have been
told by a lady of honour and veracity, not in fun but in sober earnest,
that she has seen women’s smocks trimmed round with lace exactly
like Monsignori’s surplices. When they leave town for their villas,
if the carriages are too large and heavy to go the whole distance, a
lettiga[79] is necessary because mounting a horse savours of rusticity,
though I have seen my mother-in-law, wife of Messer Luigi Capponi, and
the wife of his brother Alessandro, who were not exactly plebeians or
beggars, going to their villa in Val d’ Elsa some twenty miles from
Florence on the horses of their factor or peasants.
“Intending to write only about women I will but just mention that the
young men of the present day imitate them in many things. They are
lovers of ease, of amusements and of show; carriages are even more
used by them than by the women and certainly more than is warranted
by their youth. They emulate the maidens in dress, love comfort and
anoint themselves with perfumes, in short they enjoy life and stint
themselves in nothing, without thinking about increasing or preserving
their estates. If they cannot live like princes, at least they try as
far as they can to show how noble they are; their desires are those
of emperors, their purses are those of beggars. Yet I do not imagine
that our city will be less rich, for I know that land cannot run away
nor money take wings; but I conceive that they may change masters.
Soon our fine villas, if this style of life be persevered in, will be
in the possession of shopkeepers, apothecaries, grocers and the like.
The nobles will either live obscurely in Florence or retire to some
small villa still left to them, to quarrel with their peasants over the
division of the harvest, or pass the day in trying to shoot a hare
or a few small birds to diminish the butcher’s bill; in short with a
little smoke and no substance they will eke out their wretched life to
the undoing and ultimate disappearance of their caste....”[80]
[Illustration: (Drawing of patio with carved banister, and lion statue)]
FOOTNOTES:
[79] A sedan chair borne between two mules.
[80] _Di Certe Usanze delle Gentildonne Fiorentine, nella seconda
Meta del secola XVI. Lettera di Vincenzio Giraldi._ Nozze Gori-Moro.
Edizione integra di LXXX esemplari. Firenze, Carnesecchi e Figli.
[Illustration: (Drawing of Villa Ferdinanda from lawn)]
VILLA FERDINANDA A ARTIMINO
Long ere the Medici thought of building yet another princely villa
on the Florentine hillside, or Cosimo I came to hunt in the woods
above Signa, Artimino was a famous portion of the Arno valley and is
continually mentioned in the oldest of the Tuscan chronicles. Its
name may have come from the narrow defile (arctus minor) where the
Arno forces its way through the barrier of hills at the Gonfolina and
Artimino juts out into the valley like the prow of a ship, its foot
bathed by the Ombrone and the Arno. It is really a spur of the great
Mount Albano and so far back as the days of Cicero it had achieved a
certain importance, for we find in his nineteenth epistle to Attico
the mention that Silla had proclaimed Artimino, together with the
territory of Volterra, public property in order to divide it amongst
his soldiers. The hill of Artimino attracted not only the leaders of
passing armies but numerous Roman families, who found the groves of
ilex and oak upon its summit delightful sites for villas when they
left the towns during the summer months. The valley of the Arno in
those days may have suggested the same thoughts to a Roman poet as
later to Ariosto, when he looked down from some Medicean terraced
garden upon the “gay Arno,” and the palaces strewn so thickly over the
hillsides. It is believed that the group of villas then standing on
Artimino’s hill made quite a little community, and a certain record
of life there has been preserved to us in a quantity of bronze idols,
cinerary urns, necklaces and coins, mosaics and leaden tubes
for conducting water of what may have been public baths found in the
grottoes of the hillside. Scanty as is the history of the place in
Roman times it begins to emerge in the tenth century, when Otto III,
gave over Artimino and its church San Leonardo to the Pistojan bishop
Antonino; and from this time we may date the building of its castle
which was to serve as a protection to the frontiers of Pistoja against
the ever encroaching raids of the Florentines. Now the Fattoria or
agent’s house, a few peasants’ houses, part of a tower and an old wall,
probably part of the ramparts whence the soldiers watched the valley
far below for the approach of an enemy, are all that remain to recall
the ancient village of Artimino. A stretch of country lane between the
vineyards and an avenue of cypresses growing in a half circle behind
the village now symbolise an age of securer peace, and between the
straight, bare stems we see the little parish church of San Leonardo a
little lower down on the hillside, with its loggia of rounded arches
under which the peasants linger when they meet for mass on a Sunday
morning. Its square campanile, so strongly built and tall, might easily
have served as a watch-tower in the time of trouble.
[Illustration: VILLA FERDINANDA A ARTIMINO.]
The strong position of the old castle above the Arno valley caused it
to be connected with several Florentine events during the prosperous
but troubled times of the Commonwealth. Up to the year 1204 the people
of Artimino enjoyed a certain amount of political independence, but
when the struggle began between Pistoja and Florence the latter envied
the rival Tuscan city the possession of so strong a fortress, situated
on the summit of a steep and precipitous mountain and commanding the
narrow defile. When the Florentines invaded the lands of Artimino it
appeared, says the chronicler, as though a mighty tempest had swept
over the land, leaving vines, olives and fruit trees bowed beneath its
passage. A little later the people of Artimino began to prey upon the
neighbouring Carmignano, which continued for some time to be a deadly
foe; swooping down like falcons from their eyrie, hardly a day passed
without bloodshed, and at last things came to such a pass that Pistoja
had to send mediators to conciliate these war-like dwellers of the hill
and their truculent neighbours. “But finding it impossible to obtain
anything by persuasion, the mediators were obliged to have recourse to
threats in order to induce them to keep the peace, which under pain of
severe penalties and fines was at last arranged on the 28th June 1224,
when the mediators returned to Pistoja where those of Carmignano swore
fealty to the Consuls.”
During the war between Florence and Castruccio Castracane, the powerful
tyrant of Lucca and Pistoja, Artimino had even more to suffer. Her
castle being the key to the valley, the Florentines were not slow
to assail it, and after a sharp fight it fell into their hands. Not
content with taking two hundred prisoners, they threw down part
of the castle walls and carried home in triumph the bell of the
Commune which was “of great size and of most exquisite metal,” as the
Florentine chronicler recounts with a certain amount of satisfaction.
The evening on which Artimino fell a long streak of lurid smoke was
seen above Florence, and on the previous night a great earthquake shook
the city—thus did nature and war combine to cast terror in the minds
of the mediæval Italians. After the battle of Altopascio Castracane
gained back his castle, but no sooner did he leave it for some other
military enterprise than the Florentines returned with renewed ardour
to the attack. For three days the people of Artimino fought against
their assailants, “but on the third,” says Villani, “the Florentines
delivered the most terrible assault that ever castle sustained and
the most renowned knights of the army were engaged; it lasted from
midday until the first hour of the night and the pallisades and gates
of the castle were set on fire. For which reason great fear fell upon
the besieged and those who were badly wounded with darts, and they
begged for mercy and offered to surrender if their lives were spared;
and thus it was done. And on the morning of the 27th August they left
and delivered up the castle. But in despite of all promises, when the
knights who escorted them departed, many were killed.”
After this the Florentines took firm possession of Artimino, rebuilt
its walls and kept infantry and cavalry there, as they found it a good
place from whence to harass the territory of Pistoja. For some time
after Castruccio’s death it was a subject of perpetual skirmishes and
many were the changes of master. How eagerly the two cities desired
Artimino is shown by the clause in the agreement of the Pistojese who
consented to acknowledge the suzerainty of Gualtieri for three years on
condition that, together with other places, Artimino was to be added
once more to their territory.
Artimino fell finally to the dominion of Florence, and to the arms of
her people—a sea-horse—was added the Lily of Florence as a seal to her
submission to the mistress and tyrant of Tuscany.
The time of war passed away and with the coming of peaceful years we
read no more of Artimino’s villages and of her walled castle. Another
building rose upon the hill whose story brings us at once to the
Medicean Grand Dukes of Tuscany. It is related by that pleasant gossip
Baldinucci that “His Majesty Ferdinando I, Grand Duke of Tuscany, being
one day a-hunting on the hill of Artimino (on the side towards Florence
where one looks upon a lovely and most extensive tract of country),
seated himself on a chair and calling Buontalenti to his side said:
Bernardo, just on this spot where thou seest me, I desire to have a
palace sufficient to contain me and all my court; think about it and be
quick.” And the work was immediately begun according to his patron’s
desire, with the result that a royal villa soon rose upon the hill
which had withstood so many sieges, “containing abundantly,” continues
Baldinucci, “all those delights which a Grandee can desire in his
country residence.”
The Medici loved the beautiful villa which was called Ferdinanda
after its builder, and much money was spent in buying more land and
enclosing the property with a high wall, which divided the farms from
the woods preserved for the Grand Ducal hunts. Pictures were brought
in numbers to fill the vast halls and in the inventory we read of
priceless objects, such as “a portrait of Lorenzo d’ Urbino de’ Medici
by Raphael, a Madonna and Child by Cristofano Bronzino, and a picture
by Titian.”
When in 1782 Pietro Leopoldo I, (the Austrian Grand Duke) sold Artimino
to Lorenzo Bartolommei, Marchese di Montegiove, the estate consisted,
as it does to-day, of about two thousand acres. Later the fine old
place passed by inheritance to the noble family of the Passerini of
Cortona and the villa is now owned by Conte Silvio Passerini.
The wine of Artimino was famous all over Tuscany even in the days when
Redi, court physician to the Grand Duke Cosimo III, drank deeply of its
vintage and sang enthusiastically of its perfections in his _Bacco in
Toscana_:—
“Gods my life, what glorious claret!
Blessed be the ground that bare it!
’Tis Avignon. Don’t say a flask of it,
Into my soul I pour a cask of it.
Artimino’s finer still,
Under a tun there’s no having one’s fill:”[81]
The Villa Ferdinanda is less famous than it should be, for although
some visit it and return to spread among their friends a description of
its grandeur and beauty, few are tempted to climb the steep and winding
road to the summit of the hill. Again—the house, although seen from a
great distance, stands so high above the sea level (260 metres) that it
gives only the impression of being very large and almost overbalanced
by an enormous projecting roof, and but little idea is obtained of its
architectural beauty. The lower part of the hill is scarred by quarries
of _pietra serena_ and the landscape is a little bare and arid; but as
we climb the narrow winding road we soon get into a delightfully cool
and remote corner of the Arno valley, where the slopes are overgrown
with thick masses of broom while ilexes and a few cypresses rise above
the shimmering green of the young oaks. In parts stunted oaks form a
hedge, broken in parts where rocks jut out covered with trailing ivy.
Every step leads us to a fairer and more extensive view. A deep azure
blue of sky and plain with paler blue of the Pistojan mountains rising
to the west, seen across the Artimino fields of crimson clover as we
stand within the light shade of a wood where no dark shadows lie, hold
the very essence of a Tuscan morning in early May. This a place from
which we can best see the limitless stretch of the valley from Florence
down towards the sea, the windings of the calm river and the deepening
glow of colour on the hills and about the white townlets of Sesto and
Prato; and as the distant murmur of the workers in the valley rise
up to us, behind in the trees “The nightingale with feathers new she
sings.”
Nearing the summit we see some picturesque peasant houses resembling
Lombard farms, with long finely built arcades and a smaller row of
arches above. A sudden turn in the road brings us in sight of the
great Villa Ferdinanda. It would be difficult either in words, or by
drawings, to give an adequate idea of the sense of size together with
perfect proportion, of beauty with almost severe simplicity, which we
receive on approaching; and it is with astonishment that we remember
our first impression when looking up at it from the plain. Buontalenti
would seem to have endeavoured to build a very characteristic Medicean
villa; it has a beautiful staircase going up to the entrance in the
manner of a suspended arch, there are the inevitable lions, and going
into the great hall we pass through a charming arched recess. Yet the
architect, by placing the villa above a wide grass slope and causing
the walls to project at the base, and building the corners to resemble
towers (two of which are only carried half-way up, forming terraces)
recalled the feudal villa-castle of much earlier date. Unlike the
usual Tuscan building, humble or pretentious, Artimino’s villa has no
courtyard, but is built with long vaulted rooms running through at
right angles which bear curious mediæval names. There is the saloon
of “the Bodyguard,” that of “the Lion,” with three grated windows
looking out over Poggio a Cajano, another of “the Bear,” with views
over Montelupo and the Ambrogiana, while the entrance hall goes by the
title of “the Wars.” The enormous size of the villa is perhaps its most
striking feature—the rooms upstairs are all large and finely built with
groined roofs and huge chimneypieces, some having no doors but only a
round arch to separate them. Nothing mean is to be found in any part
of the place—the banqueting halls and the servants’ rooms are equally
fine and built on the same magnificent and simple scale. The architect
had dreamed of a noble race of men who were to inhabit so sumptuous a
palace.[82]
FOOTNOTES:
[81] _Op. cit._ See note p. 70.
[82] Most of the facts are taken from a pamphlet, _Artiminius_, G.
L. Passerini, printed (for private circulation only) in 1888, and
from Repetti’s admirable _Dizionario Geografico Fisico Storico della
Toscana_. Firenze, 1835.
[Illustration: (Decorative wreath reading: FINIS.)]
INDEX
A
Acciajuoli, Cardinal, induces Cosimo III, to imprison his nephew, 123.
—— Dardano, 121.
—— Donato, Governor of Corinth, 123.
—— Francesco, strangled by order of the Sultan, 123.
—— Neri, Duke of Athens, &c., 123.
—— Niccola, gibbeted by Dante, 121.