DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.68272#0306
288
THE GARDENS OF ITALY.
CHAPTER XXIII.
VILLA BONDI AND VILLA PALMIERI, FLORENCE.
A ■“A HE Villa of Garofano in Camerata, to call it by its mediaeval name, stands on the old
road to Fiesole. A small, modest road between dun-coloured walls leads up to the
gateway, with its simple columns and ancient ironwork, but at the back of the villa
is a still narrower road, hardly more than a track, and this is probably the way by which
the Court painter, Cimabue, rode, to find and bring back a shepherd boy from the hills beyond
Fiesole. More memorable still, this older road must often have known the feet of Dante, for this
was the home of his later life in Florence, and the villa belonged to him at the time of his
banishment. The first notice we have of the villa is in an instruction of May 16th, 1332, by
Ser Saldi Dini (an ancestor, we may take it, of that Agostino Dini who long after built Villa
Collazzi). He portions out land between Piero and Jacopo, sons of the dead poet, and their
uncle, Francesco Alighieri, and specifies the confines “ which run along the public road.”
The sons made over the villa to their uncle, to reimburse him for the loan of two hundred
and five golden florins lent to their unhappy father in two loans, March 14th and June 2nd,
301.—THE WELL IN THE CORTILE OF THE VILLA BONDI, FLORENCE.
THE GARDENS OF ITALY.
CHAPTER XXIII.
VILLA BONDI AND VILLA PALMIERI, FLORENCE.
A ■“A HE Villa of Garofano in Camerata, to call it by its mediaeval name, stands on the old
road to Fiesole. A small, modest road between dun-coloured walls leads up to the
gateway, with its simple columns and ancient ironwork, but at the back of the villa
is a still narrower road, hardly more than a track, and this is probably the way by which
the Court painter, Cimabue, rode, to find and bring back a shepherd boy from the hills beyond
Fiesole. More memorable still, this older road must often have known the feet of Dante, for this
was the home of his later life in Florence, and the villa belonged to him at the time of his
banishment. The first notice we have of the villa is in an instruction of May 16th, 1332, by
Ser Saldi Dini (an ancestor, we may take it, of that Agostino Dini who long after built Villa
Collazzi). He portions out land between Piero and Jacopo, sons of the dead poet, and their
uncle, Francesco Alighieri, and specifies the confines “ which run along the public road.”
The sons made over the villa to their uncle, to reimburse him for the loan of two hundred
and five golden florins lent to their unhappy father in two loans, March 14th and June 2nd,
301.—THE WELL IN THE CORTILE OF THE VILLA BONDI, FLORENCE.