Florentine villas

The number of beautiful homes owned by the Medici strikes one with fresh surprise when visiting the villas of Petraja and Castello, which lie close together with a shady ilex wood between them, about three miles from Florence. Something of the old charm still lingers about them although the life of that time has departed, and few now pace the terraced walks, or sit in the shade of the quiet ilex woods, where once all the gay world of Florence thronged to hold court round their Medicean rulers. The charm of both villas now lies in their gardens and surroundings, and though so essentially Florentine each has its individual character—Petraja, within sight of the city, peaceful, amidst a garden of roses and carnations, its terraces sinking gradually down to the plain, with an enormous marble reservoir of clear green water, in which colossal carp disport themselves under the first one, on which the villa and a few huge ilexes stand. A rustic staircase twines round the trunk of the largest of these trees leading up to a platform among the branches, where Victor Emanuel used to dine. The view of Florence at one’s feet, surrounded by villa-crowned hills, is lovely, and Ariosto is said to have written his well-known lines while standing on the terrace of Petraja—

The beautiful fountain on the east side of the villa was removed from Castello and brought here by the Grand Duke Pietro Leopoldo. It is one of Tribolo’s masterpieces, and Vasari tells us “he carved on the marble base a mass of marine monsters, all plump and under-cut, with tails so curiously twisted together that nothing better can be done in that style; having finished it, he took a marble basin, brought to Castello long before ... and in the throat, near to the edge of the said basin, he made a circle of dancing boys holding certain festoons of marine creatures carved with excellent imagination out of the marble; also the stem to go above the said basin he executed with much grace, with boys, and masks for spouting out water of great beauty, and on the top of this stem Tribolo placed a bronze female figure a yard and a half high to represent Florence ... of which figure he had made a most beautiful model, wringing the water out of her hair with her hands.”⁠[37]

Petraja is first celebrated in Florentine history for a gallant defence made by its owners the Brunelleschi, against the Pisans and their English and German allies in 1364. It was the time of the fierce feud between Pisa and Florence, when the Pisans were smarting under the loss of the great iron chain used for closing the entrance of their port, which the Florentines had carried off in triumph and hung over the western door of San Giovanni. Piero de’ Farnese, commander of the Florentine army, had also taunted the Pisans by striking a commemorative coinage under their very walls; Piero, however, died of the plague, and the fortune of war changed. The Pisans not only coined money under the walls of Florence, but they ravaged the whole country. “The Germans,” writes Scipione Ammirato, “the Pisan despoilers and the English, encamped at Sesto and Colonnato on their way back from the Mugello, and spreading over the slopes of Monte Morello took San Stefano in Pane, where they remained some days devastating the villas, which they burned down over a radius of three miles. The sons of Boccaccio Brunelleschi, most valorous youths, then owned Petraja.... The villa being therefore well defended by the young Brunelleschi, who showed no sign of surrendering, the enemy determined to take it by force, with the intention of cutting the defenders to pieces and razing the building to the ground. The English⁠[38] first undertook the work and advanced in fine order with the greatest ferocity, carrying ladders and catapults as though they had to storm the walls of Florence itself. But all was in vain. Some were killed, many others were bruised and wounded. The Germans then determined to try their luck and made a second assault as furious as any castle ever underwent. Neither more nor less happened to them than what had befallen the English. So they determined with combined forces to assault the villa a third time, and to their shame and the everlasting glory of the Brunelleschi they were once more repulsed.”⁠[39]

The Brunelleschi were on the winning side, and had the joy of witnessing the triumphal entry of Galeotto Malatesta and his army into Florence; when, by way of insulting a fallen foe, the Pisan prisoners were compelled to kiss the tail of the Marzocco, the stone lion beloved of all Florentines.

The Strozzi were the next owners of Petraja, and we can fancy the pleasure Palla Strozzi took in spending some of his wealth on laying out terraces and beautiful gardens and filling his villa with costly works of art and valuable manuscripts. He occupied several high offices in Florence and took a leading part in the affairs of the city; unfortunately he joined the Albizzi against the Medici and was exiled in 1435. His son Messer Lorenzo di Palla Strozzi seems however to have still owned Petraja in 1438, as is shown by a deed executed by him before a public notary dated “from my villa of Petraja.” Whether it came into the possession of the Medici when the estates of Palla were confiscated by the Republic of Florence after the return of Cosimo the Elder from exile, or whether it was confiscated in consequence of the rebellion of Filippo Strozzi against the government of Cosimo, is not ascertained. Palla Strozzi was sixty-six years old when he was driven into exile, and although he carefully avoided the society of other Florentine malcontents and lived entirely with learned men, his sentence of banishment was renewed. He lost one son after another, and died in 1462 without seeing his beloved Florence again.

Cosimo de’ Medici died two years later at the age of seventy-six, the Republic inscribed the glorious title of “Pater Patriae” on his tomb, and he was universally mourned as the most sagacious man in Italy. “His financial genius,” says Galluzzi, “was such that when Alfonso, King of Naples, joined the Venetians against the Republic of Florence, he caused so great a dearth of coin by drawing bills as to compel them to come to terms. There are few examples in history of a citizen who, without arms, and solely by the admiration excited by his virtues, became the master of his fatherland.”⁠[40] “Nothing is denied to him,” exclaimed Pius II, “he is a judge of war and peace, a moderator of the laws; not so much a citizen as the lord of the country. The policy of the Republic is settled in his house, he gives commands to the magistrates.” “Write in private to Cosimo,” was the advice Sforza’s envoy gave to his master, “if you want anything particularly.... Cosimo does everything.... Without him nothing is done.”⁠[41] The most eminent men in Florence were among his intimate friends: Antonino the saintly archbishop, Fra Angelico the holy painter, and the learned monk Ambrogio Traversari, who set aside one of the cells of St Marco for his use. Cosimo invited Argyropulos the Greek to Florence, and made him one of the teachers of his son Piero and of his grandson Lorenzo. Marsilio Ficino was brought up in his house, and the last year of his life he spent in studying the translation made by his protegé of Plato’s On the highest good.

Cosimo I, his collateral descendant, was like all his house a patron of men of letters; he lived much at Petraja, and wishing to have Varchi near him “to enjoy his sweet converse,” lent him “La Topaja,” a small villa on the hillside above Petraja. Poets, artists and strangers of note who came to Florence, toiled up the steep road to visit the great historian, and Varchi must often have entertained there the celebrated courtezan Tullia d’ Arragona, whose portrait at Brescia by Bonvicino fully justifies the passionate verses addressed to her by so many poets of that time.

writes Muzio; while Ercole Bentivoglo indited sonnets to her celestial brow. Tasso called her “la mia Signora,” and Alessandro Arrighi praised her wise conversation, her most rare beauty, and her singing, which could turn a marble statue into flesh and blood. Tullia was the daughter of Cardinal Luigi d’ Arragona (son of the Marquis of Gerace, a natural son of Francis I of Arragon, King of Naples, and of Diana Guardato). Born in Rome and educated in Siena and Florence, she aspired to be a second Sappho. Varchi, in spite of the silvered hair he talks so much about, evidently succumbed to the charms of the beautiful woman, and even when love had cooled into a platonic friendship he continued to polish and sometimes re-write, in his elegant scholarly language, the sonnets and verses of the lovely Tullia. Her reputation as a poetess induced Cosimo to excuse her from wearing the yellow veil, odious sign of her profession. The sonnet sent with her petition, which is still in the state archives of Florence, bears Fasseli gratia per poetessa in his handwriting on the margin. In her old age she became devout and was a protegée of the pious Duchess Eleonora of Toledo, wife of Cosimo. Tullia’s poem Guerrino il Meschino, which she declared to be the versification of a Spanish story, was written about this time; it is no doubt an old popular tale, and some critics hold that from it Dante took the conception of his Divine Comedy. In the preface she rates Boccaccio soundly for “the improper, indecent and truly abominable things” in his book, and wonders how people calling themselves Christians can hear his name mentioned without making the sign of the Holy Cross. “Yet,” she goes on, “so corrupt is our nature, that the book is not avoided as an abomination, but run after by all.” Poor Tullia, when young and beautiful she no doubt read the Decameron with as much zest as other people, and one cannot help thinking she must occasionally have been rather bored in her new rôle of a well-conducted woman. Her patroness Eleonora, disliked in spite of many virtues by the Florentines on account of her “insopportabile gravità,” died in 1562, and Tullia did not long survive her.

After the death of Cosimo I, Petraja was the favourite residence of his son, Cardinal Ferdinando de’ Medici, on his rare visits to Florence. He commissioned Bernardo Buontalenti to enlarge and improve the villa, “but,” says Ammirato, “I am persuaded that the tower we see to-day, which Cardinal Ferdinando certainly did not touch when he altered the rest of the building, is the same that was assaulted by the Pisan army.⁠[42] When the Cardinal left the church and married Christine of Lorraine, Petraja was their favourite residence; and here in May 1598 they received the Chiaus of the Gran Signore, as old Settimanni calls the Sultan’s ambassador, who came to treat about Levantine commerce, a very important thing for Leghorn. The Turk evidently enjoyed himself at Florence, as he spent seventy-four days there, and “although he had a large company with him he was a cheap and frugal guest,” remarks the old chronicler.

Ferdinando, one of the best of the Medici, was fond of gathering literary society about him. He gave Scipione Ammirato, “the modern Livy,” rooms in his palace in Florence, and offered him La Topaja as a country residence. But the steepness of the road alarmed the southern Italian, accustomed to the dead flat of the country about Lecce; so the Grand Duke gave him an apartment in Petraja, where the history of Florence was chiefly written. In front of La Topaja is an orchard garden with a marble statue of St Fiacrio, whom Moreni calls a son of Eugenius IV, King of Scotland (he really was I am told an Irish Chief), who devoted all the hours he could spare from his orations to the culture of medicinal plants. A laudatory inscription was put on the base of the statue by Cosimo III, in 1696.⁠[43]

When Victor Emanuel came to Florence (as a stepping-stone to Rome) Petraja and Castello were his two favourite villas, and enormous aviaries were erected on the upper terrace of Petraja for his fine collection of pheasants. His wife “la bella Rosina” lived there, and her beauty is still talked of by the people about the place. For the King’s convenience the great inner courtyard, with frescoes by Volterrano—or what little was left of them after having been white-washed and then “restored”—was glazed over, which though perhaps convenient has entirely spoiled the look of the villa.