Florentine villas

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]