Florentine villas

“Not more than two miles distant from Florence,” writes old Varchi, “shines Fiesole, once a city, now a fruitful hill; yet is she still a city.... I say still a city, because she always had and still has, her bishop.... Of a truth the position on this charming hill is so pleasant and delightful that the fable about its having been built by Atlantus under a constellation which bestows peace of mind, repose of body and gaiety of heart seems to be true.” Another tradition says it was founded by Comero Gallo, son of Japhet, in the tenth year of the Assyrian empire; he surrounded it with great walls, built high towers and erected two castles, one to the east the other to the west, for defence; others again attribute it to Jason, brother of Dardanus; while some say Hercules of Egypt laid the first stone. Hesiod affirms that Fiesole was one of the nymphs from whom sprang the constellation of the Pleiads which forms a half moon, still the emblem of the city; “Faesulas ex una Pleaidum ferunt esse dictum,” says also Volterrano. But Dante considers all these to be old women’s tales:

Borghini in his history of Fiesole cautiously remarks: “From the divers opinions of so many and such various authors I can only conclude that the city is so ancient that her history can only be guessed at, not known or discovered; and as she is beyond all memory so is she beyond all other cities in renown. The more mysterious her origin, the more attractive she is.”

Vasari tells us that Michelozzo Michelozzi built for Giovanni, son of Cosimo de’ Medici, a “magnificent and noble palace at Fiesole; the foundations of the lower part on the steep slope of the hill cost an enormous sum, but it was not thrown away, as there he made vaults, cellars, stables, places for the making of wine and oil, and other good and commodious habitations; and above them, besides the bed-chambers, drawing-rooms and other apartments, he arranged rooms for containing books and for music: in short Michelozzo showed in this edifice how valiant an architect he was, for it was so well built that although high up on that hill, no crack has ever started.”

Here, beneath the Etruscan city of Fiesole, with all Florence in the valley far below, Lorenzo the Magnificent passed his happiest hours in the company of Landino, Scala, Ficino, Poliziano, Pico della Mirandola and other literary friends, at one moment discussing Plato, at another writing sonnets and songs in idiomatic Tuscan. A true Florentine in his love of the country, his poetry abounds in descriptions of woods and rivers, of the song of birds and the joys of the chase. The following sonnet on the violet will show how well he merited the praise bestowed on his poetry by his contemporaries.

The villa at Fiesole was nigh being the scene of a double murder, when, as Roscoe writes, “a pope, a cardinal, an archbishop, and several other ecclesiastics associated themselves with a band of ruffians to destroy two men who were an honour to their age and country; and purposed to perpetrate their crime at a season of hospitality....” The two men were Lorenzo the Magnificent and his brother Giuliano, one of the best of the Medici; the conspirators were Sixtus IV, and his nephew Girolamo Riario, Francesco de’ Pazzi, whom jealousy of the Medici had led to settle at Rome, his uncle Jacopo de’ Pazzi, a gambler and a libertine, and all his ten nephews save two; Gugliemo, married to Lorenzo’s sister Bianca before their father’s death, and Renato, a man of letters. The Pope’s chief agent was the archbishop of Pisa, Francesco Salviati, a man of notoriously bad character, whose preferment to the see of Pisa Lorenzo had strenuously opposed, seconded by his brother Jacopo Salviati and by the son of Poggio Bracciolini the great scholar. Jacopo Poggio was of some repute in the world of letters and dedicated a commentary on Petrarch’s Trionfo della Fama to Lorenzo. “I am aware,” he writes, “that what little I know is due to the help and valiant encouragement given to me in my youth by Cosimo thy grandfather.... I consider myself obliged and constrained out of gratitude to dedicate unto thee, his true and worthy heir, whatever fruit is born of his grave and weighty admonitions and exhortations; as a recognition that whatever virtues I possess derive from thy house.” The underlings were Bernardo Bandini, a man of ill-fame, Giovan Battista Montesicco, a condottiere engaged in the service of the Pope, Antonio Maffei, a priest from Volterra and Stefano da Bagnone, an apostolic scribe.

Mecatti gives a vivid account of the attempted murder of Lorenzo, who seems to have behaved with admirable coolness, in his Storia Chronologica di Firenze. “When Cesare Petrucci was Gonfalonier of Florence in 1478, the Pazzi, brothers-in-law of the Medici, for Guglielmo had a sister of Lorenzo and Giuliano to wife, proposed, together with the Salviati, to murder Lorenzo and Giuliano; they knew that the Pope would give them a free hand in this undertaking because Francesco Pazzi, treasurer to the Pope, wrote that on account of the aid given to Vitelli the Pontiff was exceeding wroth with him, and also that the King of Naples approved of it. On communicating this their idea to Salviati, archbishop of Pisa, he immediately joined them, accounting himself offended by Cosimo for having outlawed Jacopo Salviati his relation, and by Lorenzo for not having been able to take possession of his archbishopric; moreover he promised to bring with him many of his relations and friends. Matters being thus arranged they thought of how to execute their design. Now there was in Florence at the Loggia de’ Pazzi⁠[51] a nephew of Count Girolamo Riario lately created a cardinal, who was studying at Pisa and considered as an archbishop; so they thought their design might be effected when they went to dine at the villa of Lorenzo at Fiesole. But this came to nought because Giuliano did not come; then they determined to do the deed in the Medici house, for they made sure that when the archbishop came to Florence to attend High Mass Lorenzo, according to his custom, would invite him to dinner. Thus was it therefore settled, and on the 26th April, the day fixed for the function, the cardinal went with a large following to the house of Lorenzo, who received him with every mark of extreme benevolence and courtesy and invited him and all his company to dinner. But on the conspirators hearing that Giuliano would not be present, they determined to do that in church which they had thought to accomplish at table, and settled among themselves that the signal was to be the elevation of the Body of Christ. Therefore when all had gone into the cathedral and the mass had begun, the archbishop of Pisa went with thirty of his companions to the Palace of the Signoria to kill the Gonfaloniere and take possession of the Palace. But on entering to speak with the Gonfaloniere his confusion was such that Petrucci, calling his people ordered them to arm and take prisoner the archbishop, his brother, his nephew Jacopo del Poggio, secretary of the cardinal Riario and the five brothers Perugini with the rest of their company. A short while after securing them a great noise was heard in the street, and Jacopo de’ Pazzi appeared on horseback, galloping hither and thither and shouting aloud Liberty, Liberty. Then the Priors and their familiars threw several stones from the windows: and meanwhile came the news that in Santa Maria del Fiore at the elevation of the Host Giuliano de’ Medici had been murdered, and Lorenzo wounded in the neck by Stefano Bagnone, rector of Montemurlo and chancellor of Jacopo de’ Pazzi, and Antonio Maffei of Volterra an apostolic scribe: that Francesco Nori had fallen by his side, and that Lorenzo, all streaming with blood, had been carried to his own house. When the Gonfaloniere heard this he commanded cords to be put round the necks of the archbishop, of his brother, of his nephew and of Jacopo del Poggio, and that they should be thrown out of the windows, the cords being attached to the columns; the other wounded he caused to be either driven out of the doors on to the Piazza or thrown also out of the windows. Then the people rose in fury, and rushing to the house of the Pazzi found Francesco in bed, he having wounded himself on the leg when he struck Giuliano, and naked as he was they took him to the Palace and hung him at once by the side of the archbishop. They would have done yet more ferocious things, but that on going to the Medici house Lorenzo showed himself, and begged them to let vengeance be taken by the magistrate. In a short time Giovanni and Galeotto de’ Pazzi Riario himself and his brother were brought in, when Lorenzo entreated of the Signoria that no proceedings should on any account be taken against the cardinal or his brother. Meanwhile from the Mugello arrived Renato, Giovanni and Niccolò de’ Pazzi with many men from Montesicco as prisoners, and soon after Jacopo and Renato his nephew were hung, the latter somewhat unjustly, because, being a man of letters, when he heard of the plot he disapproved and hastened away to his villa in order not to be present.”⁠[52]

It was after this attempt on his life that Lorenzo sent his wife and children and their tutor Angelo Poliziano to Cafaggiuolo for safety. Madonna Clarice had always disliked Poliziano and he was bored to death in such uncongenial company, so after a little while Clarice dismissed him, and was very irate when Lorenzo gave him hospitality in his Fiesole villa. A delightful description of the life led by the Platonists is to be found in a letter from Poliziano to Marsilio Ficino: “When your retreat at Careggi becomes too hot in the month of August, I hope you may think this our rustic dwelling of Fiesole not beneath your notice. We have plenty of water here and, as we are in a valley, but little sun, and are never without a cooling breeze. The villa itself, lying off the road and almost hidden in the midst of a wood, yet commands a view of the whole of Florence; and although in a densely populated district yet have I perfect solitude, such as is loved by him who leaves the town. I have a double attraction to offer you, for Pico often comes from his oak wood to see me, stealing in unexpectedly he drags me out of my den to share his supper, which as you know is frugal, yet well served and sufficient, and seasoned with most pleasant talk and jests. But come to me, you shall not sup worse and perchance you shall drink better; for the palm of good wine I am ready to contend even with Pico himself.”⁠[53]

It was in this “perfect peace” that Poliziano wrote his famous Latin poem Rusticus, full of the same love of woods and fields that animated Lorenzo the Magnificent, to whom he affectionately refers towards the end of the poem:

Little is heard of the Fiesole villa after the death of Lorenzo the Magnificent; eventually it was sold to the Marchese del Serre, who let it to that eccentric Englishwoman the Countess of Orford, about whom Sir Horace Mann tells Walpole: “she has been detained by the purchase of her own Villa, at Fiesole, which, about a year ago, had been bought over her own head.... Cavaliere Mozzi, her messenger told me that she had commissioned him to desire that I would inform you that, if her age and ill-health permitted, she would hasten to England, though she does not see in what shape she could be useful to her son.... She set out yesterday for Naples, I believe to bring away all her furniture, in order to fix in Tuscany.... She has bought the villa at Fiesole.” Later in the same year he mentions her again as riding for some hours every morning and maintaining “a vivacity not common at her age.” In Jan. 1781, Mann informs Walpole: “Lady Orford died at Pisa on the 13th.... She has left everything she was possessed of to Mozzi. The whole inheritance will be very considerable, reckoning only what she had here and at Naples.” Three years later he notes, “Lady Orford’s old Cicisbeo, Cavaliere Mozzi married.” He sold the Medicean villa to the Buoninsegni family of Siena, from whom Mr Spence bought it in 1862, and for many years it was the meeting-place of all English visitors to Florence, attracted by the genial hospitality of its versatile owner. In 1897 it passed into the possession of Col. Harry Macalmont, whose mother now lives there. But little remains of the original design of Michelozzi as Mozzi unfortunately restored and altered the building considerably, turning it into a villa of the eighteenth century.