DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.68272#0300
282
THE GARDENS OF ITALY.
of great beauty, and on the top of this stem Tribolo placed a bronze female figure a yard and
a half high to represent Florence ... of which figure he made a most beautiful model
wringing the water out of her hair with her hands.” Many critics pronounce this figure to
have been executed by Giovanni Bologna.
The villa was attacked in 1364 by the Pisans with their English and German allies in
the course of one of their chronic wars with the Florentines. It then belonged to the Brunelleschi,
and the young sons of the house made a gallant defence and succeeded, in repulsing the enemy.
They were a different family to that of the great architect Filippo Brunelleschi. The Strozzi
succeeded as owners, and on their exile the property came to the Medici. Cosimo I,
when wishing to escape from
293.—A FOUNTAIN OF COLOURED MARBLE IN GROTTO UNDER
UPPER TERRACE AT CASTELLO.
the cares of State, passed most
of his time at Petraja. A
little villa on the hillside above
La Topaja was lent by him
to Varchi, the historian, who
entertained all the notable
visitors to Florence of the
day, not least the celebrated
courtesan Tullia of Arragon,
one of those ladies of the late
Renaissance whose wise and
witty converse and rare beauty
and accomplishments made her
a personage in the society of
the great and learned. Her
picture by Bonvicino at Brescia
shows us the lovely woman to
whom poets addressed such
passionate verses — the owner
of those
beautiful eyes,
Glancing eyes, loving eyes and dear,
More brilliant than the sun, and than
the stars more fair,
of which Muzio writes.
Cosimo’s son, Cardinal
Ferdinando di Medici, commis-
sioned Buontalenti to enlarge
and improve the villa, but the
historian Scipione Ammirato,to
whom the Cardinal gave an
apartment at Petraja so that
he might write his history
of Florence in retirement, is
persuaded that the tower was
not touched and is the same
that was assaulted by the
Pisan army under the command
of Sir John Hawkwood, in the
fourteenth century. Ferdinando
and his wife Christine of
Lorraine lived here and in 1598 received the Sultan’s Ambassador when he came to negotiate
about the trade with the Levant, so important in this century. E. M. P.
Lying about three miles due north of Florence, this pair of Medicean villas have surroundings
somewhat different to those at Poggio Cajano. They lie, one above the other, in the valley of
THE GARDENS OF ITALY.
of great beauty, and on the top of this stem Tribolo placed a bronze female figure a yard and
a half high to represent Florence ... of which figure he made a most beautiful model
wringing the water out of her hair with her hands.” Many critics pronounce this figure to
have been executed by Giovanni Bologna.
The villa was attacked in 1364 by the Pisans with their English and German allies in
the course of one of their chronic wars with the Florentines. It then belonged to the Brunelleschi,
and the young sons of the house made a gallant defence and succeeded, in repulsing the enemy.
They were a different family to that of the great architect Filippo Brunelleschi. The Strozzi
succeeded as owners, and on their exile the property came to the Medici. Cosimo I,
when wishing to escape from
293.—A FOUNTAIN OF COLOURED MARBLE IN GROTTO UNDER
UPPER TERRACE AT CASTELLO.
the cares of State, passed most
of his time at Petraja. A
little villa on the hillside above
La Topaja was lent by him
to Varchi, the historian, who
entertained all the notable
visitors to Florence of the
day, not least the celebrated
courtesan Tullia of Arragon,
one of those ladies of the late
Renaissance whose wise and
witty converse and rare beauty
and accomplishments made her
a personage in the society of
the great and learned. Her
picture by Bonvicino at Brescia
shows us the lovely woman to
whom poets addressed such
passionate verses — the owner
of those
beautiful eyes,
Glancing eyes, loving eyes and dear,
More brilliant than the sun, and than
the stars more fair,
of which Muzio writes.
Cosimo’s son, Cardinal
Ferdinando di Medici, commis-
sioned Buontalenti to enlarge
and improve the villa, but the
historian Scipione Ammirato,to
whom the Cardinal gave an
apartment at Petraja so that
he might write his history
of Florence in retirement, is
persuaded that the tower was
not touched and is the same
that was assaulted by the
Pisan army under the command
of Sir John Hawkwood, in the
fourteenth century. Ferdinando
and his wife Christine of
Lorraine lived here and in 1598 received the Sultan’s Ambassador when he came to negotiate
about the trade with the Levant, so important in this century. E. M. P.
Lying about three miles due north of Florence, this pair of Medicean villas have surroundings
somewhat different to those at Poggio Cajano. They lie, one above the other, in the valley of