Villa La Pietra
Villa La Pietra is a country estate on the outskirts of Florence . Due to the will of the childless deceased Sir Harold Acton , the mansion and the 23 hectare garden have belonged to New York University since 1994 .
history
The original villa building was from the 15th century and belonged to the Macinghi family. In 1460 it was bought by the Florentine banker Francesco Sassetti , in whose family the estate remained until 1545. It then passed into the ownership of the Capponi family until 1877. Cardinal Luigi Capponi made significant changes in the 17th century and had the baroque facade design done (possibly by Carlo Fontana ).
Arthur Acton (1873–1953) was a British born in Italy, an art dealer by profession, his father Roger (1834–1895), temporarily advisor to Ismail Pascha in Cairo, was born in Naples. Arthur's wife, Hortense, nee Mitchell, was the daughter of Willam Hamilton Mitchell , founder of the Illinois Trust and Savings Bank . The moderately wealthy Briton and the wealthy heiress from the USA acquired the property of La Pietra in 1908 and attempted to redesign the park, which had become the English Garden in the 19th century, in the spirit of the Renaissance. Her son Harold continued this endeavor.
The garden
An impressive avenue of cypress trees leads from the property line to the main building. The driveway cleverly bridges a public road. In the garden itself, the view of Florence and numerous statues are impressive, many of them by Orazio Marinali from Vicenza and Antonio Bonazza from Padua . Mighty box hedges structure the garden and create separate rooms, which is ideal for cultural use for festivals and concerts.
The Villa
The mansion building is essentially as it was at the time of Harold Acton's death. It contains the art collection of the Actons (medieval art, tapestries etc.) and can be viewed by appointment.
The university is trying to reconstruct the garden in terms of its photographically well-documented condition from around 1937.
Web links
literature
- Alex Ramsay, Helena Attlee: Italian Gardens. A visitor's guide. Robertson McCarta, London 1989, ISBN 1-85365-182-6 .
- New York University (Ed.): Villa La Pietra, Research and Conservation . Issue 1: The Tapestries , (2005); Issue 2: The Saletta delle rovine (2008); Volume 3: The Acton Photograph Archive (2010). Unpaginated.
Individual evidence
- ^ New York University (ed.): Villa La Pietra, Research and Conservation , Volume 2: The Saletta delle rovine (2008), pp. 1 ff (unpaginated)
- ^ New York University (ed.): Villa La Pietra, Research and Conservation , Volume 3: The Acton Photograph Archive (2010) p. 6 ff - unpaginated
Coordinates: 43 ° 47 ′ 45 " N , 11 ° 15 ′ 58" E