DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19776#0071
VILLA GARZONI,
COLLODI.
THE gardens of the great villa at Collodi,
near Pescia, are a monument of baroque
art. The villa overpowers the little old
town, whose ramshackle houses climb the
steep hill behind it, and looms from afar, a huge,
grey building, decorated with flamboyant statues,
and surrounded by mountains whose undulations
are rich in olive woods and vineyards. The
garden is laid out against the hillside, and is
evidently designed to impress the visitor as lie
enters with a grand coup d^ceil. It differs in this
from the gardens of an earlier day, in which you
are led on from one revelation to another. Standing
within the tall gates and spreading ironwork barriers,
the formal garden spreads and expands upwards,
lavishly bedecked with plaster figures, of great size
and small merit. Although the <rarden, which is a
work of the seventeenth century, cannot compare
with those of previous ages, there is a fine boldness
of idea in the planning of the great stairway, with
its balustrades, sweeping up from the centre and
rising one tier above another, forming two or three
terraces. The terraces themselves are very pic-
turesque, with cypresses towering against the blue
distance, and on a summer day the air is heavy
with the scent of orange blossom and jasmine.
Below the perron of the stairway is placed one of the
fantastic shell grottoes so dear to the garden archi-
tect of the decadence. It still retains the pretty,
foolish trick which must often have made good
sport when it was new. You enter, a spring is
touched, and a frieze of jets at the entrance keeps
you a prisoner till the one who knows the secret
bids it cease. We can fancy the conceit lending
itself to many mock captures and feigned despairs
in those frivolous, bygone summers.
For Villa Garzoni is par excellence a garden
arranged for pleasure. Situated in so isolated a
position, far from Florence, alone in the mountains,
save for what were only the few peasants' houses, that
clustered near it, it can only have been used for a
summer resort, in those days of powder and patches,
when its splendour was at its height. It is some-
thing of an attempt to imitate the gardens of
Versailles, is more rococo and less Italian than any
other. One of its beauties is a stately framework
of clipped cypress, a double wall, with shady path
between, rising in volutes and arches, and going all
round the central garden. The stairway culminates
in a wonderful water-work centre-piece, which once
played in all directions; a mass of jets and spouts
and spraying showers.
Above this great central jeu d'artifice, we
mount again on either side of the descending
stream which feeds the fountain ; this is formed
into a series of deep pools, and halfway up on
either hand, reclines a more than life-size female
figure in stucco, one personifying Lucca, the other
Florence. While higher still, a giant " Fame "
'owers aloft in a bower of green, and from the
trumpet at her lips once blew a sparkling shower
into the maidenhair-fringed basin at her feet.
Behind her the wood begins. Plane trees and
acacias make a green shade, and in the cool
recesses above, we come to the most attractive
little bath-house imaginable. It contains two
bathrooms with tempting marble baths, and
dressing-rooms, and two little salons " for repose."
The whole is decorated in white, blue, and gold,
with gilt scrolls and frescoes of little amorini and
garlands. The pretty sofas and tabourets are still
covered with pale, faded silks. It gives a curious
impression of the daintiness and luxury of Italian
society in the days of the Grand Dukes of
Tuscany, when the Marchese Garzoni, for whom
the villa was built, held his mimic summer court
in the mountains. The designer and architect of
the villa and its garden is doubtful. It belongs
to the middle of the seventeenth century, for
Francesco Sbarra, a poet of Lucca, wrote an ode
in 1652 entitled "The Pomps of Collodi," in
which he lauds the enchanting parterres and the
lordly palace, constructed for the Marchese Romano
Garzoni, and says :
" Here where we lately saw ruins and caves,
And horrid chaos, we admire to-day
Delights and vastness and wonders."
He describes the rustic bridge, the labyrinth, the
mimic theatre, and gives a long account of the
fountains and the statues, " whose beauties are
hidden beneath a silver veil of spray." He
speaks, too, of the castle, or palace, with its
ample cortt/e, raised by him " who is the sovereign
lord of all this region."
( 53 )
COLLODI.
THE gardens of the great villa at Collodi,
near Pescia, are a monument of baroque
art. The villa overpowers the little old
town, whose ramshackle houses climb the
steep hill behind it, and looms from afar, a huge,
grey building, decorated with flamboyant statues,
and surrounded by mountains whose undulations
are rich in olive woods and vineyards. The
garden is laid out against the hillside, and is
evidently designed to impress the visitor as lie
enters with a grand coup d^ceil. It differs in this
from the gardens of an earlier day, in which you
are led on from one revelation to another. Standing
within the tall gates and spreading ironwork barriers,
the formal garden spreads and expands upwards,
lavishly bedecked with plaster figures, of great size
and small merit. Although the <rarden, which is a
work of the seventeenth century, cannot compare
with those of previous ages, there is a fine boldness
of idea in the planning of the great stairway, with
its balustrades, sweeping up from the centre and
rising one tier above another, forming two or three
terraces. The terraces themselves are very pic-
turesque, with cypresses towering against the blue
distance, and on a summer day the air is heavy
with the scent of orange blossom and jasmine.
Below the perron of the stairway is placed one of the
fantastic shell grottoes so dear to the garden archi-
tect of the decadence. It still retains the pretty,
foolish trick which must often have made good
sport when it was new. You enter, a spring is
touched, and a frieze of jets at the entrance keeps
you a prisoner till the one who knows the secret
bids it cease. We can fancy the conceit lending
itself to many mock captures and feigned despairs
in those frivolous, bygone summers.
For Villa Garzoni is par excellence a garden
arranged for pleasure. Situated in so isolated a
position, far from Florence, alone in the mountains,
save for what were only the few peasants' houses, that
clustered near it, it can only have been used for a
summer resort, in those days of powder and patches,
when its splendour was at its height. It is some-
thing of an attempt to imitate the gardens of
Versailles, is more rococo and less Italian than any
other. One of its beauties is a stately framework
of clipped cypress, a double wall, with shady path
between, rising in volutes and arches, and going all
round the central garden. The stairway culminates
in a wonderful water-work centre-piece, which once
played in all directions; a mass of jets and spouts
and spraying showers.
Above this great central jeu d'artifice, we
mount again on either side of the descending
stream which feeds the fountain ; this is formed
into a series of deep pools, and halfway up on
either hand, reclines a more than life-size female
figure in stucco, one personifying Lucca, the other
Florence. While higher still, a giant " Fame "
'owers aloft in a bower of green, and from the
trumpet at her lips once blew a sparkling shower
into the maidenhair-fringed basin at her feet.
Behind her the wood begins. Plane trees and
acacias make a green shade, and in the cool
recesses above, we come to the most attractive
little bath-house imaginable. It contains two
bathrooms with tempting marble baths, and
dressing-rooms, and two little salons " for repose."
The whole is decorated in white, blue, and gold,
with gilt scrolls and frescoes of little amorini and
garlands. The pretty sofas and tabourets are still
covered with pale, faded silks. It gives a curious
impression of the daintiness and luxury of Italian
society in the days of the Grand Dukes of
Tuscany, when the Marchese Garzoni, for whom
the villa was built, held his mimic summer court
in the mountains. The designer and architect of
the villa and its garden is doubtful. It belongs
to the middle of the seventeenth century, for
Francesco Sbarra, a poet of Lucca, wrote an ode
in 1652 entitled "The Pomps of Collodi," in
which he lauds the enchanting parterres and the
lordly palace, constructed for the Marchese Romano
Garzoni, and says :
" Here where we lately saw ruins and caves,
And horrid chaos, we admire to-day
Delights and vastness and wonders."
He describes the rustic bridge, the labyrinth, the
mimic theatre, and gives a long account of the
fountains and the statues, " whose beauties are
hidden beneath a silver veil of spray." He
speaks, too, of the castle, or palace, with its
ample cortt/e, raised by him " who is the sovereign
lord of all this region."
( 53 )