Florentine villas

The three great Medicean villas, Careggi, Cafaggiuolo and Poggio Cajano, have been so often sung by poets and celebrated by historians, that to all who love Italy their names are household words.

Careggi lies about two miles north-west of Florence, on what old Varchi calls “the most delightful hill named Montughi, after the ancient and noble family of the Ughi, whereon are innumerable villas of splendid construction; and most splendid of them all, the new Careggi built by Cosimo the elder.”⁠[19] The name Careggi is derived from the Latin Campus Regis, and Roman remains abound in the neighbourhood. Near by was the Via Cassia, leading from Rome to Pistoja and Lucca, and some of the inscriptions found relating to it have been placed in the courtyard of the church, San Stefano in Pane de Arcora.⁠[20]

On the 17th June 1417, Cosimo de’ Medici bought a country house at Careggi from Tommaso Lippi for 800 florins. “A palace with a courtyard, a loggia, a well, archways, dove-cotes, a tower, a walled kitchen-garden, two peasant houses and arable land, vineyards, olive-groves, and spinnies, in the parish of Careggi.” Thus runs the contract.

Cosimo called in his friend and favourite architect, Michelozzo Michelozzi, to rebuild the villa, and no doubt remembering the place of his birth—the strong castle of Trebbio in the Mugello—he ordered that Careggi should become a castle with battlements, covered galleries round the upper part, a tower, a drawbridge, and high walls all round the pleasure grounds.

The huge pile of Careggi lies embosomed among fine cedars, pines and firs; unfortunately the villa has been painted a dirty chocolate brown, which detracts considerably from its beauty. But the entrance hall is fine, and the great straight staircase leading from the open courtyard up to the first floor is most imposing.

The first room at the top of the staircase is a large hall with a huge grey stone fireplace. How one would like to conjure up the magnificent Lorenzo and his friends; to listen entranced while Luigi Pulci declaimed a Canto of Morgante, or Messer Angelo Poliziano recited a Ballata; or hear the learned Greek Argyropoulos discuss philosophy with Marsilio Ficino and Pico della Mirandola, Bernardo Rucellai, Leo Battista Alberti and Cristofano Landino, while Michelangelo Buonarroti sat by listening, his head resting on one hand like one of his own prophets.

Out of the big hall one goes through three or four rooms on to a loggia facing west, with a brilliantly gay ceiling painted by Poccetti. Here, no doubt, the Academicians sat in the long summer evenings looking down on the garden with its fountains, and on the oak woods crowning the neighbouring hills.

The last room on the south side of the house (on the first floor) was probably where Lorenzo de’ Medici died, and not the one generally pointed out to strangers. On an ancient plan of the villa the end room is found marked “the room of Messer Lorenzo,” and the small closet opening out of it, with a spiral staircase in the thickness of the wall leading down into the courtyard, is indicated as “the study of Messer Lorenzo.”

From the courtyard one enters a fine vaulted and frescoed room leading into a loggia under the one painted by Poccetti. This has been closed in by glass windows, and here Mr Watts, while staying with Lord Holland, who rented Careggi when he was minister to the Tuscan court in 1845, painted a large fresco of the murder of Piero Leoni, doctor to Lorenzo. It is a fine work with daring and successful foreshortening.

From the covered gallery round the top of the villa the view is splendid. To the south is “the delightful hill Montughi,” dotted with villas, to most of which is attached some story of love or bloodshed; then the towers and palaces of fair Florence backed with line upon line of blue and violet mountains. Looking westward we can follow the track of the Arno flowing down to the sea, until lost behind the hill on which stands Artimino, another Medici villa. The little town of Prato shines white in the sun, and if the day be at all clear Pistoja can be seen, with the rugged Apennines and the white peaks of the Carrara mountains in the distance. To the north, shielding Careggi from the harsh north wind, rises Monte de’ Vecchi, so-called because the great family of Vecchi, or Vecchietti, whose palaces stood on the site of the Campidoglio in the centre of Florence and were destroyed by the Ghibellines after the battle of Monteaperti, possessed villas and estates on its slopes.

At Careggi, Cosimo the elder passed what time he could spare from the affairs of state, surrounded by a galaxy of artists and men of letters such as the world has seldom seen. Among the former were Brunelleschi, Donatello, Michelozzo Michelozzi, Ghiberti, Verrocchio, Paolo Uccello, Luca della Robbia, Fra Angelico, Fra Filippo Lippi and Masaccio. Among the latter, Marsilio Ficino, Niccolò de’ Niccoli, Cristofano Landino, Lionardo Aretino (Bruni), Carlo Aretino (Marsuppini), Poggio Bracciolini, Ambrogio Traversari and Giannozzo Manetti.

To Ficino Cosimo gave a villa (la Fontanella)⁠[21] close to Careggi, and named him President of the Platonic Academy which he founded, having been convinced of the importance of Platonic studies by Giorgius Gemistus, a native of Byzantium, who came to Florence in 1438 in the train of the Emperor Palaelogus. Niccolò de’ Niccoli “censor of the Latin tongue,” as Lionardo Aretino called him, was one of the Academicians. He spent his whole fortune in buying MSS., and his house, stored with treasures, was open to all strangers, students and artists. Cristofano Landino, known for his commentary on Dante, and Lionardo Aretino (Bruni), Chancellor of the Republic of Florence, were also Academicians. The translations of the latter from Greek were celebrated for their sound scholarship and pure latinity, while his diplomatic letters were regarded as models, and his public speeches were compared to those of Pericles. When he walked abroad a train of scholars and foreigners attended him, and when he died the Priors of Florence decreed him a public funeral in Santa Croce, “after the manner of the ancients.” Carlo Aretino (Marsuppini), another member of the Platonic Academy, succeeded Bruni as Chancellor; an omnivorous reader and possessed of an extraordinary memory, he formed a great contrast to Niccoli, who had introduced him to Cosimo. Vespasiano describes Niccoli as “of a most fair presence, lively, with a smile ever on his lips, and very pleasant in his talk”; whereas Marsuppini was grave in manner, taciturn, and given to melancholy.

Poggio Bracciolini was another of the great scholars attracted to Florence by the fame of Cosimo’s liberality. He was a friend of Ambrogio Traversari, whose cell in the convent of the Angeli was the meeting-place of learned men. Giannozzo Manetti, the Hebrew scholar, had studied Greek under Traversari, and his Latin was so perfect that Bruni is said to have been jealous of him. The Republic sent him as her ambassador to various Italian courts, and there is a good story in the Commentario, that “when he was speaking at Naples the King was so entranced he did not even brush the flies from his face.” At last Manetti roused the jealousy of the Medicean party and ended his life in exile. “These men,” writes Symonds, “formed the literary oligarchy who surrounded Cosimo de’ Medici, and through their industry and influence restored the studies of antiquity at Florence.” Cosimo was a Mæcenas worth serving. For his own family he built the great palace in Via Larga (afterwards Riccardi, now the Prefecture), he restored or rebuilt the villas of Cafaggiuolo, Trebbio and Careggi, while he expended 500,000 golden florins on public buildings. During the last years of his life he seldom moved from Careggi, and the following letter, written by his son Piero to Lorenzo and Giuliano about their grandfather four days before his death, gives a pleasant picture of the private life of the Medici family:—

“I wrote to you the day before yesterday how much worse Cosimo was; it appears to me that he is gradually sinking, and he thinks the same himself. On Tuesday evening he would have no one in his room save only Mona Contessina [Cosimo’s wife] and myself. He began by recounting all his past life, then he touched upon the government of the city, and then on its commerce, and at last spoke of the management of the private possessions of our family and of what concerns you two; taking comfort that you had good wits, and bidding me educate you well so that you might be of help to me. Two things he deplored. Firstly, that he had not done as much as he had wished or could have done; secondly, that he left me in such poor health and with much irksome business. Then he said he would make no will, not having made one whilst Giovanni⁠[22] was alive seeing us always united in true love, amity and esteem; and that when it pleased God to so order it he desired to be buried without pomp or show, and reminded me of his often expressed wish to be interred in San Lorenzo. All this he said with much method and prudence, and with a courage that was marvellous to behold; adding that his life had been a long one and that he was ready and content to depart whensoever it pleased God. Yestermorn he left his bed, and caused himself to be carefully dressed. The Priors of San Marco, of San Lorenzo and of the Badia were present, and he spoke the responses as though in perfect health. Then being asked the articles of faith, he repeated them word by word, made his confession, and took the Holy Sacrament with more devotion than can be described, having first asked pardon of all present. These things have raised my courage and my hope in God Almighty, and although according to the flesh I am sorrowful, yet, seeing the greatness of his soul and how well disposed, I am in part content that his end should be thus. Yesterday he was pretty well and also during the night, but on account of his great age I have small hope of his recovery. Cause prayers to be said for him by the Monks of the Wood, and bestow alms as seems good to you, praying God to leave him to us for a while, if such be for the best. And you, who are young, take example and take your share of care and trouble as God has ordained, and make up your minds to be men, your condition and the present case demanding that of you lads. And above all take heed to everything that can add to your honour and be of use to you, because the time has come when it is necessary that you should rely on yourselves, and live in the fear of God, and hope all will go well. Of what happens to Cosimo I will advise you. We are expecting a doctor from Milan, but I have more hope in Almighty God than in aught else. No more at present. Careggi, the 26 July 1464.”

Cosimo died on the 1st August 1464; he was buried with sovereign honours in the sacristy he had built in San Lorenzo, and on his tomb was inscribed, by public desire, “Cosimo Pater Patriae.” Piero, his son, succeeded quietly to the honours and power of his father. He had met and loved Lucrezia Tornabuoni at Careggi, her father having a villa close by,⁠[23] and Cosimo sanctioned the marriage and regarded Lucrezia as a daughter. She was a gifted woman, handsome and virtuous, a poetess, and at the same time devoted to all her household cares. Piero de’ Medici died only five years after his father of a fit of the gout at Careggi on the 3rd December 1469, and was succeeded by his brilliant son Lorenzo the Magnificent.

“Lorenzo,” writes John Addington Symonds, “was a man of marvellous variety and range of mental power. He possessed one of those rare natures, fitted to comprehend all knowledge and to sympathise with the most diverse forms of life. While he never for one moment relaxed his grasp on politics, among philosophers he passed for a sage; among men of letters for an original and graceful poet; among scholars for a Grecian, sensitive to every nicety of Attic idiom; among artists for an amateur gifted with refined discernment and consummate taste. Pleasure-seekers knew in him the libertine, who jousted with the boldest, danced and masqueraded with the merriest, sought adventures in the streets at night, and joined the people in their May-day games and Carnival festivities. The pious extolled him as an author of devotional lauds and mystery plays, a profound theologian, a critic of sermons. He was no less famous for his jokes and repartees than for his pithy apothegms and maxims; as good a judge of cattle as of statues; as much at home in the bosom of his family as in the riot of an orgy; as ready to discourse on Plato as to plan a campaign or to plot the death of a dangerous citizen.”⁠[24]

“What other men call study and hard toil, for thee shall be pastime;” sings Poliziano, “wearied with deeds of state, to this thou hast recourse, and dost address the vigour of thy well-worn powers to song; blest in thy mental gifts, blest to be able thus to play so many parts, to vary thus the great cares of thy all-embracing mind, and weave so many divers duties into one.”⁠[25] Angelo Poliziano, “honour and glory of Montepulciano” as Pulci calls him, who thus sounds the praises of Lorenzo, was born in 1454. His name, famous in Italian literature, is a latinised version of his birthplace, Montepulciano. As a boy of ten he entered the University of Florence, and studied under Landino, Argyropoulos, Andronicus Kallistos and Ficino. At thirteen he published Latin letters, at seventeen Greek poems, and edited Catullus when he was eighteen. Lorenzo de’ Medici received the young student into his own household, and made him tutor to his children. Ugly and misshapen, he squinted and had an enormous nose, but his voice was wonderfully sweet and melodious, and his eloquence great. Men of learning visited Florence on purpose to see him, and he complains (in a letter to Hieronymus Donatus, May 1480), “does a man want a motto for a ring, an inscription for his bedroom or a device for his plate, or even for his pots and pans, he runs like all the world to Poliziano.”

Another famous frequenter of Careggi, Pico della Mirandola, is thus described by Poliziano:—

“Nature seemed to have showered on this man, or hero, all her gifts. He was tall and finely moulded, from his face a something of divinity shone forth. Acute, and gifted with prodigious memory, in his studies he was indefatigable, in his style perspicuous and eloquent. You could not say whether his talents or his moral qualities conferred on him the greater lustre. Familiar with all branches of philosophy and the master of many languages, he stood on high above the reach of praise.” Pico della Mirandola showed remarkable abilities at a very early age. His mother, a niece of Boiardo the knightly poet of “Orlando Innamorato,” sent him at the age of fourteen to Bologna. There he mastered the humanities and what was taught of mathematics, logic, philosophy and oriental languages, and then went to Paris, the headquarters of scholastic theology. His memory was wonderful, a single reading served to fix the language and the matter of the text on his mind for ever. Pico was about twenty when he came to Florence, and his beauty, noble manners and great learning made him the idol of society. But every year he inclined more and more to grave and abstruse studies, and as Symonds notes: “at last the Prince was merged in the philosopher, the man of letters in the mystic.”⁠[26]

In a letter to Jacopo Antiquario Poliziano, after describing the malady from which Lorenzo had been suffering for some time, continues: “The day before his death, being at his villa of Careggi, he grew so weak that all hope of saving him vanished. Perceiving this, like a wise man, he called before all else for the confessor to purge himself of his past sins. This same confessor told me afterwards that he marvelled to see with what courage and constancy Lorenzo prepared himself for death; how well he ordered all things pertaining thereunto, and with what prudence and religious feeling he thought on the life to come. Towards midnight, while he was quietly meditating, he was informed that the priest, bearing the Holy Sacrament, had arrived. Rousing himself, he exclaimed, ‘It shall never be said that my Lord, who created and saved me, shall come to me—in my room—raise me I beg of you, raise me quickly, so that I may go and meet Him.’ Saying this he raised himself as well as he could, and supported by his servants advanced to meet the priest in the outer room, there crying he knelt.” Poliziano here gives the text of a long prayer which Lorenzo recited and then continues: “these and other things he said sobbing, while all around cried bitterly. At length the priest ordered that he should be raised from the ground and carried to bed, so as to receive the Viaticum in more comfort. For some time he resisted, but at last out of respect to the priest he obeyed. In bed, repeating almost the same prayer and with much gravity and devotion, he received the body and blood of Christ. Then he devoted himself to consoling his son Pietro, for the others were away, and exhorted him to bear this law of necessity with constancy; feeling sure the aid of Heaven would be vouchsafed to him, as it had been to himself in many and divers occasions, if he only acted wisely. Meanwhile your Lorenzo, the doctor from Pavia, arrived; most learned as it seemed to me, but summoned too late to be of any use; yet to do something he ordered various precious stones to be pounded together in a mortar, for I know not what kind of medicine. Lorenzo thereupon asked the servants what that doctor was doing in his room and what he was preparing; and when I answered that he was composing a remedy to comfort his intestines he recognised my voice and looking kindly, as was his wont, ‘Oh Angiolo,’ he said, ‘art thou here?’ and raising his languid arms took both my hands and pressed them tightly. I could not stifle my sobs or stay my tears, though I tried hard to hide them by turning my face away. But he showed no emotion and continued to press my hands between his. When he saw that I could not speak for crying, quite naturally he loosed my hands and I ran into the adjoining room where I could give free vent to my grief and to my tears. Then drying my eyes I returned, and as soon as he saw me he called me to him and asked what Pico della Mirandola was doing. I replied that Pico had remained in town, fearing to molest him with his presence. ‘And I,’ said Lorenzo, ‘but for the fear that the journey here might be irksome to him, would be most glad to see him and speak to him for the last time before I leave you all.’ I asked if I should send for him. ‘Certainly, and with all speed,’ answered he. This I did, and Pico came and sat near the bed, while I leaned against it by his knees in order to hear the languid voice of my lord for the last time. With what goodness, with what courtesy, I may say with what caresses, Lorenzo received him. First he asked his pardon for thus disturbing him, begging him to look upon it as a sign of the friendship—the love—he bore him; assuring him that he died more willingly after seeing so dear a friend. Then introducing, as was his wont, pleasant and familiar sayings, he joked also with us. ‘I wish,’ he said to Pico, ‘that death had spared me until your library had been complete.’ Pico had hardly left the room when Fra Girolamo (Savonarola) of Ferrara, a man celebrated for his doctrine and his sanctity and an excellent preacher, came in. To his exhortations to remain firm in his faith, and to live in future, if Heaven granted him life, free from crime; or if God so willed it, to receive death willingly; Lorenzo replied that he was firm in his religion, that his life would always be guided by it, and that nothing could be sweeter to him than death if such was the divine will. Fra Girolamo then turned to go, when Lorenzo said, ‘Oh, father, before going deign to give me thy benediction.’ Then bowing his head, immersed in piety and religion, he repeated the words and the prayers of the friar, without attending to the grief, now openly shown, of his familiars. It seemed as though all save Lorenzo were going to die, so calm was he. He gave no signs of anxiety or of sorrow; even in that extreme moment he showed his usual strength of mind and fortitude. The doctors who stood round him, not to seem idle, worried him with their remedies and assistance: he accepted and submitted to everything they suggested, not because he thought it would save him, but in order not to offend anyone, even in death. To the last he had such mastery over himself that he joked about his own death. Thus when given something to eat and asked how he liked it he answered, ‘As well as a dying man can like anything.’ He embraced us all tenderly and humbly asked pardon if, during his illness, he had caused annoyance to anyone. Then disposing himself to receive extreme unction he recommended his soul to God. The gospel containing the passion of Christ was then read, and he showed that he understood by moving his lips, or raising his languid eyes, or sometimes moving his fingers. Gazing upon a silver crucifix inlaid with precious stones and kissing it from time to time, he expired....”

The other accounts of the last interview of Lorenzo with Savonarola by various authors—Pico della Mirandola, Cinozzi, Burlamacchi, Barsanti, Razzi, Fra Marco della Casa, etc.—give the more generally accepted story that Lorenzo sent for Savonarola, and said he wished to confess to him. He deplored three great sins: the sack of Volterra; the dowry monies taken from the Monte delle Fanciulle, whereby so many girls were driven to a life of shame; and the blood shed after the Pazzi conspiracy. The friar told him that three things were required of him. “Firstly, a lively faith in the mercy of God.” “I have that,” said Lorenzo. “Secondly, to restore what you have unjustly taken, and to bid your sons make restitution.” This, after some moments of hesitation, Lorenzo also acceded to. Then Savonarola drew himself up to his full height and said, “Lastly, to restore to Florence her liberty.” Lorenzo turned his head away and Savonarola departed without hearing his confession and without giving him absolution. Professor Villari, who may be supposed to understand the manners and motives of his countrymen better than foreigners, does not believe that Savonarola would have gone to Careggi save at the express desire of Lorenzo, who sent for him in order to confess his sins and receive absolution from a man he knew to be honest. Cinozzi gives the words of Savonarola, stating that the conversation was a preliminary to the confession which was never made. He adds: “These words were repeated to me by Fra Silvestro, who died with his superior Fra Ieronimo, and who, as I well believe, had them and heard them from Fra Ieronimo’s own lips.” Professor Villari considers that Poliziano would not have dared to make a genuine report of the scene (supposing he saw it), in order not to cast a slur on the memory of his patron and benefactor, and to avoid giving offence to the Medicean party.

Various versions also exist of the death of Pier Leoni, who evidently was what we should call the trusted family doctor of the Medici; for when Lorenzo’s daughter Magdalena, married to Francesco Cybo, son of Innocent III, was so ill at Rome, she sent an express messenger to her father to beg him to send Maestro Leoni to see her. Poliziano declares that Piero Leoni killed himself in despair at not being able to save Lorenzo; Piero Ricci (Petrus Crinitus), a contemporary author, also records that he drowned himself in a well near Florence, but other accounts say that he was murdered by some of Lorenzo’s people, who suspected him, unjustly, of poisoning their master. Enemies of the Medici went so far as to accuse Piero de’ Medici of inducing him to administer poison to his father, and then of drowning him in the well of the courtyard at Careggi.

In 1494 the Medici were expelled from Florence and an attempt was made to reconstitute a commonwealth upon the model of Venice. But the internal elements of discord were too potent. The Medici were recalled, again to be expelled in 1527. “Two years later Dante and Lorenzo da Castiglione and a number of youths went in hot haste,” writes Varchi, “and set fire to the villas of Careggi and Castello; the latter, however, did not burn easily, and fearing lest the enemy’s forces should cut off their retreat they fell back. So one of Signor Cosimo’s labourers was enabled to saw some beams in half and put out the fire. They also set fire to the palace of Jacopo Salviati, which was burnt, as well as Careggi.”

Luckily the thick walls of the fine old villa defied the flames, and the first care of Alessandro de’ Medici was to restore it to its pristine splendour; but he was murdered by his cousin Lorenzino before he had time to finish the work. The Grand Duke Ferdinando II, had an especial affection for Careggi, and attempted to resuscitate the Platonic Academy which once flourished there, but in vain. All he could do was to commemorate it in a fresco in the Pitti palace, which represents Plato surrounded by the illustrious men who had formed part of it—

(Behold here in the soft air of Careggi, Marsilio, and Pico, and a hundred men of learning, and say whether at Thebes or Athens there were as many in the shade of the Elysian myrtles) is the inscription.

In 1779 Careggi was sold to Vincenzo Orsi for 31,000 scudi. In 1848 it again changed hands and was bought by Mr Sloane, who left it to Count Boutourline, from whose family the present owner, M. Segré, bought the villa a few years ago.