Medici villas

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Medici villas and gardens in Tuscany
UNESCO world heritage UNESCO World Heritage Emblem
Villa medicea del trebbio, 11.jpg
Villa del Trebbio
National territory: ItalyItaly Italy
Type: Culture
Criteria : (ii) (iv) (vi)
Surface: 125.4 ha
Buffer zone: 3,539.08 ha
Reference No .: 175
UNESCO region : Europe and North America
History of enrollment
Enrollment: 2013  (session 37)
Map of Tuscany with Medici Villas
Villa La Petraia
Villa di Castello

As Medici villas ( ital. : Ville medicee ) is defined as the country villas, the family Medici from the 15th to the 17th century around Florence and elsewhere in Tuscany acquired or had built.

The Italian villa types Azienda , Tempio and Reggia , including many of the Medici villas, but also those of the patriciate of Venice along the Brenta River , found their models in the ancient forms of the villa urbana and the villa rustica and the gardens were also based on this Roman palace complexes such as the Villa Adriana . The Italian villas of the Renaissance period were, for their part, architectural milestones on the way to becoming a baroque pleasure palace .

Creation of the villas

The Medici family came from the Mugello , north of Florence. They soon made wealth with the cloth trade, which enabled them to influence political developments through their banking house. They also invested part of their money in land purchase.

At the same time as the turn to nature and the countryside, which began in the early Renaissance, as well as the influence of antiquity, fort-like country estates emerged for the time being, which, however, were more and more influenced by the architectural forms of antiquity as their rule became more firmly established.

The importance of the Medici in their contribution to the development of the Tuscan villa and the creation of the Italian Garden cannot be overstated. Although the early villas Il Trebbio , Cafaggiolo and Careggi still convey a rather defensive character, the beauty of the garden of Villa Careggi is already praised by Galeazzo Maria Sforza in a letter to his father on the occasion of a visit to Cosimo . Cosimo de 'Medici had the Villa Medici built in Fiesole and gathered here and in Careggi the most important spirits of his time.

Lorenzo il Magnifico acquired two more villas: Castello and Poggio a Caiano , which he had Giuliano da Sangallo remodeled. But it is precisely this early section that lies in the dark due to the expulsion of the Medici from Florence. After the return of the Medici in 1512, they resumed the expansion of the villas and the promotion of young talent, including the young Michelangelo .

In 1553 Cosimo I de 'Medici moved from the city villa, with a stopover in the Palazzo Vecchio , into the redesigned Palazzo Pitti . Here he personally took care of the design of the Boboli Gardens . In 1555, after the area around Forte dei Marmi had fallen to Florence, he had another villa built in Seravezza .

Francesco I created for himself and his lover Bianca Cappello the Villa Pratolino and the adjoining garden with its water features, which were unique for the time. However, the preservation was much too expensive for later generations, so that they gradually fell into disrepair and today only a few remains of them can be seen in Park Demidoff .

Francesco died without leaving a son, so he is succeeded by his brother Ferdinando I , who lived in the Medici Villa in Rome , as he was intended for the dignity of cardinal. After he had abandoned this and took over the reign in Tuscany, he had the Villa Ambrogiana built and a short time later the Villa Artimino .

Cosimo II , a son of Ferdinando, married Archduchess Maria Magdalena of Austria in 1609 , who bought the Villa Poggio Imperiale in 1619 and had it remodeled by Giulio Parigi. The term imperiale refers to the relationship with the imperial family.

It is not known whether the last Medici, Gian Gastone , was ever interested in the villas, as he mainly stayed in the Pitti Palace. After his death in 1737, the Medici's private property was divided up by a "family pact" of October 31, 1737; Gian Gastone's sister, Anna Maria Luisa de 'Medici , widowed Electress of the Palatinate, received the Palazzo Pitti , the art collections of the Uffizi and the city palaces (an enormous legacy that she bequeathed to the city of Florence in 1743) and the new Tuscan Grand Duke Franz von Lothringen received u. a. the remaining Medici villas in the country.

List of Medici Villas

photos

literature

  • Harold Acton : Villas of Tuscany ( "Tuscan villas"). Benteli, Bern 1984, ISBN 3-7165-0468-8 .
  • Gerda Bödefeld, Berthold Hinz : The villas of Tuscany and their gardens. Art and cultural history travels through the landscapes around Florence and Pistoia, Lucca and Siena . Du Mont, Cologne 1991, ISBN 3-7701-2275-5 .
  • Carlo Cresti (text), Massimo Listri (photos): Villas in Tuscany (“Civiltà delle ville toscane”). Verlag Müller, Cologne 2003, ISBN 3-89893-407-1 (reprint of the Munich edition 1992).
  • Torsten O. Enge, Carl F. Schröer, Martin Claßen: Garden art in Europe. 1450–1800, from the villa garden of the Italian Renaissance to the English landscape garden . Taschen-Verlag, Cologne 1994, ISBN 3-8228-0402-9 .
  • Penelope Hobhouse: Gardens in Italy. A travel guide to the most beautiful gardens ("Gardens of Italy"). Birkhäuser Verlag, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-7643-6006-2 .
  • Massimo Listri, Cesare Cunaccia: Italian gardens, fascinating garden art from 5 centuries (“Giardini i parchi italiani”). Edition Basserman, Niedernhausen / T. 2003, ISBN 3-8094-0998-7 .
  • Gianni C. Sciolla: The Medici Villas in Tuscany ("Ville Medicee"). Pawlak, Herrsching 1989, ISBN 3-88199-614-1 .
  • Margherita Azzi Visentini: The Italian Villa. Buildings from the 15th and 16th centuries (“La villa in Italia”). DVA, Stuttgart 1997, ISBN 3-421-03125-8 .

Web links

Commons : Medici Villas  - Collection of Pictures, Videos and Audio Files