DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19776#0100
VILLA SALVIATI,
FLORENCE.
IT is not known who built this massive and
fortress-like villa, with its towers and machico-
lations and its sloping bastion-like walls. In
iioo it is mentioned in Florentine archives
as belonging to the Montegonzi, who in 1450
sold it to Messer Alemanno Salviati. It was
then described as " a strong castle with towers
and battlements," and Vasari tells us that in 1529
it was besieged by the Florentine mob and burnt.
That presumably ended its life as a fortress, and
the massive tower, of which the main portion
consists, has been transformed by a wide roof
above its battlements ; a courtyard with Renaissance
arches has risen inside the adjoining part, but
there still remain the two tall corner towers, from
which men-at-arms must have watched in the old
days of mediaeval Florence, when a dwelling-house
at a distance from the town had also to be a
place of refuge.
Jacopo Salviati had already laid out the
terraced garden in 1510, and in the eighteenth
century an owner, smitten with the taste for
rococo gardening brought in by Francesco di
Medici, built the long graceful orange-houses,
frivolous, stucco-decorated erections, with a balus-
traded facade and a clock tower. The combination
makes a fascinating document, and we realise how
much more interesting the buildings of the past
are, because successive owners cared nothing about
their additions being " in keeping."
The villa is now approached by a winding
road of little interest, smothered in trees, but
from Zocchi's prints we perceive that the old
approach led straight up in front, by a broad,
walled road. All this is now in process of being
turned into a garden, with roses, bamboos, pampas
grasses, lawns, and other adjuncts of modern
gardening.
The most curious feature of the old garden
is a spacious grotto-house, some 60ft. square, dug
out underground and supported by long rows of
columns, the whole covered in the grotesque
fashion of the eighteenth century with stalactites,
shellwork, and ornamented with statuary and
monstrous animals. It is perfectly cool on the
hottest day and has the remains of old jeux
d'eaux ; unfortunately, like all cool, damp, out-
door places in Italy it is a haunt beloved of
mosquitoes.
For 350 years the villa belonged to the great
Florentine family whose name it bears. We first
hear of the Salviati in Florence towards the end of
the thirteenth century. A doctor, Messer Salvi,
had two sons, Cambio and Lotto, who became
priors of the city, and altogether the Salviati gave
it sixty-three priors and twenty-three Gonfalonnieri.
One worthless member there was ; Giuliano, who
led the mob against the Medici in 1527, and
afterwards became the boon companion of the
dissolute Duke Alessandro. It was he who insulted
Luisa Strozzi at a masked ball and paid for it
by being maimed for life by her brother, while
his wife was always supposed to have poisoned the
beautiful and virtuous woman who had resented
his infamous behaviour. Jacopo Salviati was his
cousin, and married Lucrezia, daughter of Lorenzo
the Magnificent and sister to Leo X. Jacopo was
the one man who at the death of Leo X. dared to
stand forth as the advocate of the liberty of the people,
and thereby forfeited the favour of Clement VII.
His daughter Maria married Giovanni delle Bande
Nere, the famous captain of Condottieri, and was
the mother of Cosimo I. The family increased in
wealth and power, and in 1628 the Jacopo of that
day married Veronica, daughter of the Prince of
Massa, and was created Duke of Giuliano. A letter
exists giving an account of the festivities and of
the wedding presents, including a picture by
RafFaele d'Urbino. The letter gives a glowing
description of Donna Veronica, but a contem-
porary declares that " Donna Veronica was endowed
with but small beauty, but had a most violent
and imperious temper and a jealous disposition.
Her husband, poor man, had small joy of her."
The Duke was handsome, gallant, and accom-
plished, and, as an anonymous account in the
Marencelliana library in Florence has it, " was
driven to seek for comfort elsewhere." Mrs. Ross,
in her learned book on Florentine villas, to which I
am indebted for many particulars, has translated this
manuscript, which had never before been published,
and which tells the tragedy most graphically.
There was an old gentleman in Florence,
Giustino Canacci (to give it shortly), who, being
( ss )
FLORENCE.
IT is not known who built this massive and
fortress-like villa, with its towers and machico-
lations and its sloping bastion-like walls. In
iioo it is mentioned in Florentine archives
as belonging to the Montegonzi, who in 1450
sold it to Messer Alemanno Salviati. It was
then described as " a strong castle with towers
and battlements," and Vasari tells us that in 1529
it was besieged by the Florentine mob and burnt.
That presumably ended its life as a fortress, and
the massive tower, of which the main portion
consists, has been transformed by a wide roof
above its battlements ; a courtyard with Renaissance
arches has risen inside the adjoining part, but
there still remain the two tall corner towers, from
which men-at-arms must have watched in the old
days of mediaeval Florence, when a dwelling-house
at a distance from the town had also to be a
place of refuge.
Jacopo Salviati had already laid out the
terraced garden in 1510, and in the eighteenth
century an owner, smitten with the taste for
rococo gardening brought in by Francesco di
Medici, built the long graceful orange-houses,
frivolous, stucco-decorated erections, with a balus-
traded facade and a clock tower. The combination
makes a fascinating document, and we realise how
much more interesting the buildings of the past
are, because successive owners cared nothing about
their additions being " in keeping."
The villa is now approached by a winding
road of little interest, smothered in trees, but
from Zocchi's prints we perceive that the old
approach led straight up in front, by a broad,
walled road. All this is now in process of being
turned into a garden, with roses, bamboos, pampas
grasses, lawns, and other adjuncts of modern
gardening.
The most curious feature of the old garden
is a spacious grotto-house, some 60ft. square, dug
out underground and supported by long rows of
columns, the whole covered in the grotesque
fashion of the eighteenth century with stalactites,
shellwork, and ornamented with statuary and
monstrous animals. It is perfectly cool on the
hottest day and has the remains of old jeux
d'eaux ; unfortunately, like all cool, damp, out-
door places in Italy it is a haunt beloved of
mosquitoes.
For 350 years the villa belonged to the great
Florentine family whose name it bears. We first
hear of the Salviati in Florence towards the end of
the thirteenth century. A doctor, Messer Salvi,
had two sons, Cambio and Lotto, who became
priors of the city, and altogether the Salviati gave
it sixty-three priors and twenty-three Gonfalonnieri.
One worthless member there was ; Giuliano, who
led the mob against the Medici in 1527, and
afterwards became the boon companion of the
dissolute Duke Alessandro. It was he who insulted
Luisa Strozzi at a masked ball and paid for it
by being maimed for life by her brother, while
his wife was always supposed to have poisoned the
beautiful and virtuous woman who had resented
his infamous behaviour. Jacopo Salviati was his
cousin, and married Lucrezia, daughter of Lorenzo
the Magnificent and sister to Leo X. Jacopo was
the one man who at the death of Leo X. dared to
stand forth as the advocate of the liberty of the people,
and thereby forfeited the favour of Clement VII.
His daughter Maria married Giovanni delle Bande
Nere, the famous captain of Condottieri, and was
the mother of Cosimo I. The family increased in
wealth and power, and in 1628 the Jacopo of that
day married Veronica, daughter of the Prince of
Massa, and was created Duke of Giuliano. A letter
exists giving an account of the festivities and of
the wedding presents, including a picture by
RafFaele d'Urbino. The letter gives a glowing
description of Donna Veronica, but a contem-
porary declares that " Donna Veronica was endowed
with but small beauty, but had a most violent
and imperious temper and a jealous disposition.
Her husband, poor man, had small joy of her."
The Duke was handsome, gallant, and accom-
plished, and, as an anonymous account in the
Marencelliana library in Florence has it, " was
driven to seek for comfort elsewhere." Mrs. Ross,
in her learned book on Florentine villas, to which I
am indebted for many particulars, has translated this
manuscript, which had never before been published,
and which tells the tragedy most graphically.
There was an old gentleman in Florence,
Giustino Canacci (to give it shortly), who, being
( ss )