Florentine villas

Long ere the Medici thought of building yet another princely villa on the Florentine hillside, or Cosimo I came to hunt in the woods above Signa, Artimino was a famous portion of the Arno valley and is continually mentioned in the oldest of the Tuscan chronicles. Its name may have come from the narrow defile (arctus minor) where the Arno forces its way through the barrier of hills at the Gonfolina and Artimino juts out into the valley like the prow of a ship, its foot bathed by the Ombrone and the Arno. It is really a spur of the great Mount Albano and so far back as the days of Cicero it had achieved a certain importance, for we find in his nineteenth epistle to Attico the mention that Silla had proclaimed Artimino, together with the territory of Volterra, public property in order to divide it amongst his soldiers. The hill of Artimino attracted not only the leaders of passing armies but numerous Roman families, who found the groves of ilex and oak upon its summit delightful sites for villas when they left the towns during the summer months. The valley of the Arno in those days may have suggested the same thoughts to a Roman poet as later to Ariosto, when he looked down from some Medicean terraced garden upon the “gay Arno,” and the palaces strewn so thickly over the hillsides. It is believed that the group of villas then standing on Artimino’s hill made quite a little community, and a certain record of life there has been preserved to us in a quantity of bronze idols, cinerary urns, necklaces and coins, mosaics and leaden tubes for conducting water of what may have been public baths found in the grottoes of the hillside. Scanty as is the history of the place in Roman times it begins to emerge in the tenth century, when Otto III, gave over Artimino and its church San Leonardo to the Pistojan bishop Antonino; and from this time we may date the building of its castle which was to serve as a protection to the frontiers of Pistoja against the ever encroaching raids of the Florentines. Now the Fattoria or agent’s house, a few peasants’ houses, part of a tower and an old wall, probably part of the ramparts whence the soldiers watched the valley far below for the approach of an enemy, are all that remain to recall the ancient village of Artimino. A stretch of country lane between the vineyards and an avenue of cypresses growing in a half circle behind the village now symbolise an age of securer peace, and between the straight, bare stems we see the little parish church of San Leonardo a little lower down on the hillside, with its loggia of rounded arches under which the peasants linger when they meet for mass on a Sunday morning. Its square campanile, so strongly built and tall, might easily have served as a watch-tower in the time of trouble.

The strong position of the old castle above the Arno valley caused it to be connected with several Florentine events during the prosperous but troubled times of the Commonwealth. Up to the year 1204 the people of Artimino enjoyed a certain amount of political independence, but when the struggle began between Pistoja and Florence the latter envied the rival Tuscan city the possession of so strong a fortress, situated on the summit of a steep and precipitous mountain and commanding the narrow defile. When the Florentines invaded the lands of Artimino it appeared, says the chronicler, as though a mighty tempest had swept over the land, leaving vines, olives and fruit trees bowed beneath its passage. A little later the people of Artimino began to prey upon the neighbouring Carmignano, which continued for some time to be a deadly foe; swooping down like falcons from their eyrie, hardly a day passed without bloodshed, and at last things came to such a pass that Pistoja had to send mediators to conciliate these war-like dwellers of the hill and their truculent neighbours. “But finding it impossible to obtain anything by persuasion, the mediators were obliged to have recourse to threats in order to induce them to keep the peace, which under pain of severe penalties and fines was at last arranged on the 28th June 1224, when the mediators returned to Pistoja where those of Carmignano swore fealty to the Consuls.”

During the war between Florence and Castruccio Castracane, the powerful tyrant of Lucca and Pistoja, Artimino had even more to suffer. Her castle being the key to the valley, the Florentines were not slow to assail it, and after a sharp fight it fell into their hands. Not content with taking two hundred prisoners, they threw down part of the castle walls and carried home in triumph the bell of the Commune which was “of great size and of most exquisite metal,” as the Florentine chronicler recounts with a certain amount of satisfaction. The evening on which Artimino fell a long streak of lurid smoke was seen above Florence, and on the previous night a great earthquake shook the city—thus did nature and war combine to cast terror in the minds of the mediæval Italians. After the battle of Altopascio Castracane gained back his castle, but no sooner did he leave it for some other military enterprise than the Florentines returned with renewed ardour to the attack. For three days the people of Artimino fought against their assailants, “but on the third,” says Villani, “the Florentines delivered the most terrible assault that ever castle sustained and the most renowned knights of the army were engaged; it lasted from midday until the first hour of the night and the pallisades and gates of the castle were set on fire. For which reason great fear fell upon the besieged and those who were badly wounded with darts, and they begged for mercy and offered to surrender if their lives were spared; and thus it was done. And on the morning of the 27th August they left and delivered up the castle. But in despite of all promises, when the knights who escorted them departed, many were killed.”

After this the Florentines took firm possession of Artimino, rebuilt its walls and kept infantry and cavalry there, as they found it a good place from whence to harass the territory of Pistoja. For some time after Castruccio’s death it was a subject of perpetual skirmishes and many were the changes of master. How eagerly the two cities desired Artimino is shown by the clause in the agreement of the Pistojese who consented to acknowledge the suzerainty of Gualtieri for three years on condition that, together with other places, Artimino was to be added once more to their territory.

Artimino fell finally to the dominion of Florence, and to the arms of her people—a sea-horse—was added the Lily of Florence as a seal to her submission to the mistress and tyrant of Tuscany.

The time of war passed away and with the coming of peaceful years we read no more of Artimino’s villages and of her walled castle. Another building rose upon the hill whose story brings us at once to the Medicean Grand Dukes of Tuscany. It is related by that pleasant gossip Baldinucci that “His Majesty Ferdinando I, Grand Duke of Tuscany, being one day a-hunting on the hill of Artimino (on the side towards Florence where one looks upon a lovely and most extensive tract of country), seated himself on a chair and calling Buontalenti to his side said: Bernardo, just on this spot where thou seest me, I desire to have a palace sufficient to contain me and all my court; think about it and be quick.” And the work was immediately begun according to his patron’s desire, with the result that a royal villa soon rose upon the hill which had withstood so many sieges, “containing abundantly,” continues Baldinucci, “all those delights which a Grandee can desire in his country residence.”

The Medici loved the beautiful villa which was called Ferdinanda after its builder, and much money was spent in buying more land and enclosing the property with a high wall, which divided the farms from the woods preserved for the Grand Ducal hunts. Pictures were brought in numbers to fill the vast halls and in the inventory we read of priceless objects, such as “a portrait of Lorenzo d’ Urbino de’ Medici by Raphael, a Madonna and Child by Cristofano Bronzino, and a picture by Titian.”

When in 1782 Pietro Leopoldo I, (the Austrian Grand Duke) sold Artimino to Lorenzo Bartolommei, Marchese di Montegiove, the estate consisted, as it does to-day, of about two thousand acres. Later the fine old place passed by inheritance to the noble family of the Passerini of Cortona and the villa is now owned by Conte Silvio Passerini.

The wine of Artimino was famous all over Tuscany even in the days when Redi, court physician to the Grand Duke Cosimo III, drank deeply of its vintage and sang enthusiastically of its perfections in his Bacco in Toscana:—

The Villa Ferdinanda is less famous than it should be, for although some visit it and return to spread among their friends a description of its grandeur and beauty, few are tempted to climb the steep and winding road to the summit of the hill. Again—the house, although seen from a great distance, stands so high above the sea level (260 metres) that it gives only the impression of being very large and almost overbalanced by an enormous projecting roof, and but little idea is obtained of its architectural beauty. The lower part of the hill is scarred by quarries of pietra serena and the landscape is a little bare and arid; but as we climb the narrow winding road we soon get into a delightfully cool and remote corner of the Arno valley, where the slopes are overgrown with thick masses of broom while ilexes and a few cypresses rise above the shimmering green of the young oaks. In parts stunted oaks form a hedge, broken in parts where rocks jut out covered with trailing ivy. Every step leads us to a fairer and more extensive view. A deep azure blue of sky and plain with paler blue of the Pistojan mountains rising to the west, seen across the Artimino fields of crimson clover as we stand within the light shade of a wood where no dark shadows lie, hold the very essence of a Tuscan morning in early May. This a place from which we can best see the limitless stretch of the valley from Florence down towards the sea, the windings of the calm river and the deepening glow of colour on the hills and about the white townlets of Sesto and Prato; and as the distant murmur of the workers in the valley rise up to us, behind in the trees “The nightingale with feathers new she sings.”

Nearing the summit we see some picturesque peasant houses resembling Lombard farms, with long finely built arcades and a smaller row of arches above. A sudden turn in the road brings us in sight of the great Villa Ferdinanda. It would be difficult either in words, or by drawings, to give an adequate idea of the sense of size together with perfect proportion, of beauty with almost severe simplicity, which we receive on approaching; and it is with astonishment that we remember our first impression when looking up at it from the plain. Buontalenti would seem to have endeavoured to build a very characteristic Medicean villa; it has a beautiful staircase going up to the entrance in the manner of a suspended arch, there are the inevitable lions, and going into the great hall we pass through a charming arched recess. Yet the architect, by placing the villa above a wide grass slope and causing the walls to project at the base, and building the corners to resemble towers (two of which are only carried half-way up, forming terraces) recalled the feudal villa-castle of much earlier date. Unlike the usual Tuscan building, humble or pretentious, Artimino’s villa has no courtyard, but is built with long vaulted rooms running through at right angles which bear curious mediæval names. There is the saloon of “the Bodyguard,” that of “the Lion,” with three grated windows looking out over Poggio a Cajano, another of “the Bear,” with views over Montelupo and the Ambrogiana, while the entrance hall goes by the title of “the Wars.” The enormous size of the villa is perhaps its most striking feature—the rooms upstairs are all large and finely built with groined roofs and huge chimneypieces, some having no doors but only a round arch to separate them. Nothing mean is to be found in any part of the place—the banqueting halls and the servants’ rooms are equally fine and built on the same magnificent and simple scale. The architect had dreamed of a noble race of men who were to inhabit so sumptuous a palace.⁠[82]