Villa Medici (Poggio a Caiano)
The Villa Medici in Poggio a Caiano near Prato is a villa in Tuscany that has served the Medici as a summer residence since the end of the 15th century . It was built according to the plans of Giuliano da Sangallo and was the model for a villa architecture of the Renaissance , which was based on the principles of ancient villas, as described by Vitruvius and Pliny .
history
Around 1480 Lorenzo il Magnifico bought a villa on the northern slope of Montalbano in Poggio a Caiano from the Florentine Rucellai family . In 1485 he commissioned Sangallo to design a new building. The construction was completed by Sangallo and his workshop around 1520, but the construction period was interrupted between 1495 and 1513 due to the expulsion of the Medici from Florence .
It was customary for newly wed couples of the Medici family to spend their honeymoons in the villa before receiving honors from the Florentine nobility in Florence. Eleonora de Toledo met her future husband here, Cosimo , who was twenty at the time . The most famous wedding couple was Francesco I de 'Medici and his second wife Bianca Cappello (whose son Antonio he adopted) in 1579 , who spent their wedding night there. The later, unexpected death of the two (1587) caused rumors of poisoning and murder to flourish.
The villa was the preferred residence of the art-loving Hereditary Prince Ferdinando de 'Medici (1663–1713) , who made the house a center of art and culture. After the death of the last Medici in 1737, the villa became the property of the new Tuscan rulers, the Dukes of Habsburg-Lorraine , who continued to use it as a summer residence.
Under Napoleon , Tuscany also came under French influence, initially as the Kingdom of Etruria and later as part of the Napoleonic Empire. The villa was subsequently inhabited by Maria Luisa of Etruria , who had various structural changes made by Pasquale Poccianti . Then the property went to Elisa Bonaparte , a sister of Napoleon, who gave her the title of Princess of Lucca and Piombino and, since 1809, Princess of Tuscany. The villa was Elisha's favorite place, which made it a center of cultural and social events.
After the restoration , the new rulers of Italy, the House of Savoy , also used the villa. In 1861 Victor Emmanuel II of Savoy became King of Italy and made Florence his capital. He had the Villa Medici restored and, as a lover of hunting and horses, new stables were built. Some of the halls on the ground floor were repainted and the grand ballroom in the Piano Nobile became a billiard room. Rosa Vercellana - the beautiful Rosina - the king's lover and later his wife on the left hand side , also moved into the villa .
In 1919 the villa became the property of the Italian state. The meierhof ( cascina ) and the stables, which together with the villa had formed a unique architectural ensemble, were gradually sold to private individuals.
In 1965 the Villa Medici was used as the location for some scenes in the film Darling by director John Schlesinger .
architecture
The villa is the first example of a stately villa of the Renaissance, in which ideas of ancient villa architecture and principles of a contemporary architectural theory, as formulated by Alberti in his architectural treatise, were realized: starting with the choice of the building site to the formal design principles such as symmetrical Layout, harmony of the components and the proportions.
The two-storey villa is built on a spacious terrace, which is supported by the arcades of the basement. The view of the villa largely corresponds to Sangallo's concept, but Sangallo's straight outside staircase to the terrace was replaced in 1807 by a curved, two-flight staircase that leads to the portico covered with a temple gable .
This motif, which subsequently became popular in the architecture of secular buildings, appears here for the first time. On the architrave of the loggia is a terracotta frieze with allegorical scenes to glorify the builder and his circle of friends, which is attributed to Sansovino .
Interior
The interior of the villa has been redesigned several times in its history and only contains parts of the original decoration.
In the basement there is the entrance hall, a court theater from the 18th century, the so-called apartment of Bianca Cappello, which, however, no longer shows any traces of a Renaissance ambience, and the ballroom or billiard hall of the Savoy with a decor from the 19th century. Century.
The highlight of the villa is the famous Leo X room with frescoes from the 16th century by Sangallo, Pontormo , Franciabiagio and Alessandro Allori . The themes of the history paintings on the walls come from Roman history, especially from the lives of Caesar, Cicero and Scipio Africanus, and contain allegorical allusions to the life and deeds of the Medici family.
One of the two lunettes in the hall was decorated with a fresco by Pontormo . The subject of the enigmatic, extremely artistically encrypted picture is one of the stories from the Metamorphoses of Ovid , Vertumnus and Pomona , at the same time an allegory of the rebirth of the Medici family. The fresco is one of the main works of Pontormo. The second lunette contains a garden of the Hesperides by Alessandro Allori.
The garden
In the middle of the 16th century, Niccolò Tribolo arranged the garden, which was completed with the construction of the stables in 1548.
Today, most of the complex is an English garden . It was redesigned by Giuseppe Manetti after 1811 without taking the original concept into account. Manetti laid out an English garden with a lake, a temple of Diana and other architectural gadgets according to the taste of the time.
Only on the right-hand side of the villa is a part of the garden which, with its closed geometric layout, garden vases and statues, has the appearance of one of the characteristic Italian Renaissance gardens , as it may have looked under its builder.
museum
The villa now serves as a museum, in which, in addition to the frescoes, musical instruments and handicrafts can be seen.
The former stables on the road to Prato are used as exhibition buildings, a library and a congress center.
Web links
Villa L'Ambrogiana | Artimino's villa | Villa of Cafaggiolo | Villa of Careggi | Villa of Castello | Villa of Cerreto Guidi | Villa of Fiesole | Villa of Lappeggi | Villa La Magia | Villa of Montevettolini | Villa La Petraia | Villa of Poggio a Caiano | Villa Poggio Imperiale | Villa of Seravezza | Villa del Trebbio | Boboli Gardens | Pratolino garden
Coordinates: 43 ° 49 '2.9 " N , 11 ° 3' 22.5" E