Villa Medici of Pratolino

Giusto Utens: the Medici Villa of Pratolino

The Villa Medici of Pratolino (also Park Demidoff or Villa Demidoff ) is located in the municipality of Vaglia , Via Fiorentina 276, Metropolitan City of Florence , Tuscany Region , Italy.

history

In 1568 Francesco I de 'Medici bought a piece of land from Benedetto di Buonaccorso Uguccione near the village of Pratolino, along the old Bolognese road, and then left Bernardo Buontalenti for himself and his lover Bianca Cappello , whom he bought after the death of his wife Johanna von Austria got married, built a villa and laid out a garden.

With the death of Gian Gastone de 'Medici in 1737, the Medici family died out and Pratolino fell to the House of Lorraine. Franz Stephan visited the villa in 1739; In honor of his visit, the famous water features were probably put into operation for the last time. When he was elected emperor, he lost interest in Pratolino and the villa was leased to Bernardo Sgrilli for nine years. Even for the next owner, Grand Duke Peter Leopold, who later became Emperor Leopold II , maintaining the property was far too expensive, so that the park and the villa continued to deteriorate.

Grand Duke Ferdinand III. paid more attention to the property again, but the supply lines to the water features had leaked and had washed away the foundation of the villa. The Bohemian engineer Joseph Fiechs convinced Ferdinand III. of the hopelessness of a renovation, began in 1821 with the demolition of the villa and laid out an English garden . In 1824, after the death of Ferdinand III, the project was discontinued.

In 1872 Prince Paul Demidoff , the Russian envoy to Tuscany, bought the property and had the remaining pagan house ( paggeria ) converted into a villa by the architect Emilio de Fabris . After the death of his daughter, the property went to Prince Paul of Yugoslavia , but he too failed because of the immense cost of his maintenance. The park has been owned by the city of Florence since 1981.

The park

The Giambologna Apennines

Play media file

The Demidoff Park in Pratolino

Due to the numerous descriptions, engravings and pictures that have been handed down, we have a pretty good idea of the appearance of the park today. The lunette picture by Giusto Utens in the Topographic Museum Firenze com'era in Florence shows the state from 1599.

Francesco I was a difficult person who had withdrawn here and devoted himself to planning and improving the water features known as meravigilies . One of the main attractions was the Viale degli Zampilli , an avenue lined with fountains facing each other that formed a water arbor in which the sunlight conjured rainbow colors and which you could walk through without getting wet. At the end of this avenue, "there is a woman made of white marble, a washerwoman who wring water from a piece of linen," reports the English traveler John Evelyn in his diary, who visited Pratolino in 1645. At the other end of this avenue was the Jupiter fountain .

On the left side of the Utens painting you can see the Peschiera della Maschera , a chain of water basins that drained the water down the slope until it flowed into a fountain with bronze statues of satyrs by Giambologna . A multitude of grottos offered all sorts of fantastic surprises. There was the Grotto of the Flood - the Grotto of the Tritons , which frightened with thunder and lightning, or the Grotto of the Samaritan woman , where a stone servant offered water to cool drinks or to clean his fingers.

Many of these statues have disappeared, stolen or lost, only a few found their way into other gardens, e.g. B. the Boboli Gardens , and very few have remained in the garden, such as the gigantic statue of the Apennines by Giambologna. This statue is so huge that you can climb it inside and look out through its eyes.

In 1697 the architect Antonio Ferri created a theater for Ferdinando de 'Medici (1663–1713) , which for a short time became a musical meeting place. Famous musicians such as Alessandro and Domenico Scarlatti , Bernardo Pasquini and Georg Friedrich Händel were guests .

literature

In Montaigne's travel diary of 1580 the garden is described as follows: “A grotto borders on the wonderful, which has numerous indentations and seating niches; this facility now surpasses everything we have ever seen. It is completely encased and lined with a material that is said to have been brought from certain mountains and fastened in such a way that the nails remain invisible. By setting the water of the grotto in motion, you not only create music and harmonious sounds, but also cause the many statues to begin to stir and perform all imaginable actions, while the equally numerous artificial animals put their beaks and snouts into their drinks Diving wet - and the like. To flood the whole grotto in this way, you only need a single handle. At the same time, water is splashed into the buttocks of the guests from all seats. If you then flee and dash up the stairs to the castle, you are sprayed with a thousand jets of water every other step, so that you arrive completely soaked in the room upstairs - a pleasure that is not for everyone. "

Christian August Vulpius has the first chapter ( Pratolino; the manuscript, and the narrative ) and thus the framework story of his novella Lucindora play the enchantress in the Villa Medici and her garden:
“The Medici, Grand Duke Francis of Florence conjured up a wonderful little wood Builder Buontalenti, father and son, to the love and joy of a Gemalin, the beautiful Bianka Capello, the splendid Luſtſchloß Pratolino, ſa garden, and ſsurroundings. In 1575 he took his beloved there for the first time, and there he left me in the arms of love to her joys.
Who has been to Italy, who knows this country from descriptions of travel, and knows nothing of the glories at Pratolino? Separated from the world, love and joy had established an empire here that only the happy could inhabit.
The time has passed. The Medici tribe died out. - What is Pratolino now? [...] "

Web links

Commons : Villa Medici de Pratolino - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

↑ Michel de Montaigne: Diary of the trip to Italy via Switzerland and Germany from 1580 to 1581. Translated, edited and provided with an essay by Hans Stilett . Eichborn, Frankfurt am Main 2002, ISBN 3-8218-0725-3 .
↑ Christian August Vulpius: Lucindora the sorceress. A story from the last days of the Medici. Anonymous, o. O. u. J. [Leipzig 1810] ( digitized in the Internet Archive ).

43.85963 11.2981Coordinates: 43 ° 51 ′ 34.7 " N , 11 ° 17 ′ 53.2" E

[1] Michel de Montaigne: Diary of the trip to Italy via Switzerland and Germany from 1580 to 1581. Translated, edited and provided with an essay by Hans Stilett . Eichborn, Frankfurt am Main 2002, ISBN 3-8218-0725-3 .

[2] Christian August Vulpius: Lucindora the sorceress. A story from the last days of the Medici. Anonymous, o. O. u. J. [Leipzig 1810] ( digitized in the Internet Archive ).