Florentine villas

Nearly two miles due east of Florence, above the Settignano road, 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.

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.

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—

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.