DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16632#0310
The Italian Renaissance and Baroque
281
indeed to detect signs here and there of the original lay-out. The neighbourhood of Lucca
is full of villas, and their beauty makes one feel they are gardens of Paradise: they give the
visitor wonderful finds of little fifteenth-century waterways, which have been kept for the
sake of their architectural charm; but the original plan of it all is irrevocably lost, for there
are no drawings, and travellers seem to be so blinded by the supreme beauty of the Medici
villas in Tuscany that they pay no attention to this little pearl.
Pratolino (Fig. 213) is one of the villas of a Florentine prince that roused the enthu-
siasm of travellers even in the late eighteenth century, and was only utterly destroyed in
TIG. 211. VILLA CAMPI, FLORENCE—GROUND-PLAN
the nineteenth. It stands on the road from Florence to Prato. There are more descrip-
tions of this than of any other well-known villa, not excepting the town villas in Rome.
It was built for Francesco de' Medici, Cosimo's son, by Buontalenti, who (in the words of
Montaigne) "emploie tous ses cinq sens de nature pour l'embellir." It is said that this
prince, who loved solitude, aimed at making it a paradise for his fair Bianca Cappello, a
place suited, according to Evelyn, for all the joys of summer. After many adventures he
had won his beloved lady, and very soon after he made her his wife.
When Montaigne saw the villa in 1580, twelve years had passed since it was started,
and now it was finished. Half in surprise and half in disapproval he notices that the
prince intentionally chose a very inconvenient place, very mountainous and barren, very
arid and without springs, merely to have the glory of getting his water from five miles
off, and chalk and sand from another five miles. Montaigne says that the villa was made
281
indeed to detect signs here and there of the original lay-out. The neighbourhood of Lucca
is full of villas, and their beauty makes one feel they are gardens of Paradise: they give the
visitor wonderful finds of little fifteenth-century waterways, which have been kept for the
sake of their architectural charm; but the original plan of it all is irrevocably lost, for there
are no drawings, and travellers seem to be so blinded by the supreme beauty of the Medici
villas in Tuscany that they pay no attention to this little pearl.
Pratolino (Fig. 213) is one of the villas of a Florentine prince that roused the enthu-
siasm of travellers even in the late eighteenth century, and was only utterly destroyed in
TIG. 211. VILLA CAMPI, FLORENCE—GROUND-PLAN
the nineteenth. It stands on the road from Florence to Prato. There are more descrip-
tions of this than of any other well-known villa, not excepting the town villas in Rome.
It was built for Francesco de' Medici, Cosimo's son, by Buontalenti, who (in the words of
Montaigne) "emploie tous ses cinq sens de nature pour l'embellir." It is said that this
prince, who loved solitude, aimed at making it a paradise for his fair Bianca Cappello, a
place suited, according to Evelyn, for all the joys of summer. After many adventures he
had won his beloved lady, and very soon after he made her his wife.
When Montaigne saw the villa in 1580, twelve years had passed since it was started,
and now it was finished. Half in surprise and half in disapproval he notices that the
prince intentionally chose a very inconvenient place, very mountainous and barren, very
arid and without springs, merely to have the glory of getting his water from five miles
off, and chalk and sand from another five miles. Montaigne says that the villa was made