DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19776#0139
VILLA CAPPONI,
FLORENCE.
NO one who knows the environs of Florence
can fail to he struck hy the enormous
number of old villas which cluster upon
all her hills for many miles round. The
love of Italians for country life has, indeed, always
been intense. It has been pointed out that in
Northern countries the nobles lived in their fortified
castles, monks in well-guarded convents, and even
the wealthiest burghers from one year's end to
another in the cities ; but in Italy the passion for
country life was so strong, that men were willing
to run immense risk in order to gratify it. Thus
many a well-to-do citizen aspired to have his villa,
or country house. This precious inheritance of
the old Roman world was revived, ami the villa
became the best-loved possession upon which all
expenditure was lavished.
The old Tuscan nobleman Pandolfini, in his
" Governo," a sort of manual of advice to a son,
written in the fifteenth century, speaks of the
wealth of delightful sites round Florence, " in
crystal air," with beautiful views, soft winds, good
water. " Let us seek one," he says, " which
affords, above all, the necessaries of life ; bread,
wine, oil, wood : take up a load of salt to last the
family for a year and see that a road is made
passing near."
All other modes of lite lie holds to be full
of difficulty, and other possessions entail danger and
disappointment ; but to live on a villa or farm is to
live where all is kind and gracious, and love and
satisfaction in it are sure to increase. " In the
spring the villa gives you flowers and verdure,
birds sing and all is gay. You look forward to a
laughing harvest. And how generous the land is,
sending you one fruit after another so that the
house is never empty. In the autumn, what
unwearying store of fruit, rendering tenfold of its
willing abundance. Filling the house in winter
with grapes, nuts, figs, apples, and almonds. It
sends wood, oil, laurel, and juniper, so that safe
from snow and wind, the fire may be gay with
scented flames. ... It ought to be the refuge
for good men, for the just and honest. It ought
to be pleasantly spacious, so as to afford bird-
catching, hunting, and fishing at the proper seasons.
All live honestly, openly, in the light of day, there
is no occasion for litigation and contention, no hatred
or malevolence. You gaze on frowning hills and
happy plains and fountains and streams leaping
in the meadows and taste the delight of fleeing
from the tumult of the city, the piazza, and the
palace, and from all the injustice, the dishonesty
and display of a crowd. In the city are finer
buildings, refinement and taste, fame and glory, but
in the villa, quiet, content of soul, liberty to live
without worry and in steady health."
" In villas such as these," says John Addington
Symonds, "or in those on the Brenta, on the
Lombard hills at Posilippo, or on the Vomero,
social life assumed a freer and more rural character,
and we meet with charming descriptions of the
intercourse of the guests, the hunting parties and
all the open-air pursuits and amusements, while the
noblest achievements of poetry and thought are
sometimes dated from these scenes of rural peace."
Villa Capponi, standing on the hill above San
Miniato, is a good example of an old fortified
house which once belonged to the family of
the Accoramboni, and about 1680 came into the
hands of a member of the honoured house - of
Capponi. It was converted into a seventeenth-
century residence, and is now one of the most
charming English homes to he found upon the
Tuscan hills. Its spacious, stone-flagged loggia
looks down upon the distant city, and the garden,
though small, is planned to the greatest advantage,
and is a dream of beauty in the spring-time. A
long strip of fine velvety turf on the east side,
bordered by cypress hedges, is a survival of the
old garden. The ground adjoining has been laid
out with great taste, divided by beautiful walls
of close-shaved green box and cypress, and an old
iron gateway makes a delicious picture when
the tulips crowd at the foot and banksia
roses riot above. A very interesting feature
of Villa Capponi is afforded by its high garden
walls, in smooth tawny plaster, built in hold
curves and volutes and pedestals, each pedestal
crowned with an urn-shaped vase in which
geraniums flourish as they can do in Italy. These
seventeenth century walls make a most graceful
setting, broken as their lines are by sumptuous
curtains of richly-flowering roses.
( 126 )
FLORENCE.
NO one who knows the environs of Florence
can fail to he struck hy the enormous
number of old villas which cluster upon
all her hills for many miles round. The
love of Italians for country life has, indeed, always
been intense. It has been pointed out that in
Northern countries the nobles lived in their fortified
castles, monks in well-guarded convents, and even
the wealthiest burghers from one year's end to
another in the cities ; but in Italy the passion for
country life was so strong, that men were willing
to run immense risk in order to gratify it. Thus
many a well-to-do citizen aspired to have his villa,
or country house. This precious inheritance of
the old Roman world was revived, ami the villa
became the best-loved possession upon which all
expenditure was lavished.
The old Tuscan nobleman Pandolfini, in his
" Governo," a sort of manual of advice to a son,
written in the fifteenth century, speaks of the
wealth of delightful sites round Florence, " in
crystal air," with beautiful views, soft winds, good
water. " Let us seek one," he says, " which
affords, above all, the necessaries of life ; bread,
wine, oil, wood : take up a load of salt to last the
family for a year and see that a road is made
passing near."
All other modes of lite lie holds to be full
of difficulty, and other possessions entail danger and
disappointment ; but to live on a villa or farm is to
live where all is kind and gracious, and love and
satisfaction in it are sure to increase. " In the
spring the villa gives you flowers and verdure,
birds sing and all is gay. You look forward to a
laughing harvest. And how generous the land is,
sending you one fruit after another so that the
house is never empty. In the autumn, what
unwearying store of fruit, rendering tenfold of its
willing abundance. Filling the house in winter
with grapes, nuts, figs, apples, and almonds. It
sends wood, oil, laurel, and juniper, so that safe
from snow and wind, the fire may be gay with
scented flames. ... It ought to be the refuge
for good men, for the just and honest. It ought
to be pleasantly spacious, so as to afford bird-
catching, hunting, and fishing at the proper seasons.
All live honestly, openly, in the light of day, there
is no occasion for litigation and contention, no hatred
or malevolence. You gaze on frowning hills and
happy plains and fountains and streams leaping
in the meadows and taste the delight of fleeing
from the tumult of the city, the piazza, and the
palace, and from all the injustice, the dishonesty
and display of a crowd. In the city are finer
buildings, refinement and taste, fame and glory, but
in the villa, quiet, content of soul, liberty to live
without worry and in steady health."
" In villas such as these," says John Addington
Symonds, "or in those on the Brenta, on the
Lombard hills at Posilippo, or on the Vomero,
social life assumed a freer and more rural character,
and we meet with charming descriptions of the
intercourse of the guests, the hunting parties and
all the open-air pursuits and amusements, while the
noblest achievements of poetry and thought are
sometimes dated from these scenes of rural peace."
Villa Capponi, standing on the hill above San
Miniato, is a good example of an old fortified
house which once belonged to the family of
the Accoramboni, and about 1680 came into the
hands of a member of the honoured house - of
Capponi. It was converted into a seventeenth-
century residence, and is now one of the most
charming English homes to he found upon the
Tuscan hills. Its spacious, stone-flagged loggia
looks down upon the distant city, and the garden,
though small, is planned to the greatest advantage,
and is a dream of beauty in the spring-time. A
long strip of fine velvety turf on the east side,
bordered by cypress hedges, is a survival of the
old garden. The ground adjoining has been laid
out with great taste, divided by beautiful walls
of close-shaved green box and cypress, and an old
iron gateway makes a delicious picture when
the tulips crowd at the foot and banksia
roses riot above. A very interesting feature
of Villa Capponi is afforded by its high garden
walls, in smooth tawny plaster, built in hold
curves and volutes and pedestals, each pedestal
crowned with an urn-shaped vase in which
geraniums flourish as they can do in Italy. These
seventeenth century walls make a most graceful
setting, broken as their lines are by sumptuous
curtains of richly-flowering roses.
( 126 )