Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 9/A Tuscan villa
A TUSCAN VILLA.
Every one who catches the first view of Florence from the Bologna or Roman road, or from the Leghorn railroad, must be struck with the numberless villas which dot the smiling plain of the Arno, or which cluster together on the heights that look down upon Florence.
The Tuscans, in olden times, were rarely travellers from pleasure, and usually limited their journeys to a drive of a few hours outside the walls, if they were compelled to change the air; but, from the highest to the lowest, their dearest ambition was, and still is, to possess a few acres of land with a house, in the neighbourhood of the city. The nobles had their strong fortress-looking towers; the church, its monasteries and convents; the humbler classes, their little white villas, with the olive-trees and vines growing in the cornfields about the house, and up to its very walls; but all within sight, if possible, of their beloved Duomo and Campanile. It is not exaggeration to say that it would be difficult to find a respectable lawyer, physician, or tradesman in Florence who does not possess, outside one or other of the gates, a tiny domain, the produce of which he shares with the contadini who cultivate it, and a few rooms into which he can crowd his family during September and October.
The true Florentine rarely visits his country-house during the summer. He leaves that folly, he will tell you, to foreigners. What is the use of going into the country during those months, when from ten till five, the green shutters must be closed, and the view shut out, and when all but dogs and Englishmen willingly remain in the cool darkness of a sheltered room? The time to enjoy oneself in the country in Tuscany is during the autumn. The sun is not too hot to prevent one sitting out or walking out all day; there is the vintage to occupy you, and you can judge of the olive crop, and combine pleasure and business in a very agreeable manner. This arrangement is satisfactory to all parties; for if, during the rest of the year, any benighted foreigner likes to pay rent for the deserted villa, he is quite welcome to do so, and the property thus becomes doubly profitable.
From the division of property caused by the laws of inheritance, the large villas have often changed hands, and some of those most celebrated in history have become the property of foreigners. Careggi, Alessandri, Mozzi, Albizzi, have been purchased by strangers; and a great many others, such as Capponi, Nicolini, Montauto, &c., are hired yearly by foreign families, who live in Florence during the winter.
It is now quite a speculation for a Florentine to buy a villa, at some fabulously cheap price, and, after furnishing the house in some faint degree to suit the love of comfort which is peculiar to the Anglo-Saxon race, to let it for a year, or term of years, to one of them.
To a person who is a good walker, or has the means of hiring a carriage, it seems to me that it is far pleasanter to live outside than inside the walls. From the peculiar position of Florence, almost surrounded as it is by heights, half an hour’s ascent up any of the excellent roads which radiate from the city, gives one the advantage of purer air, and a view almost unparalleled from its beauty and interesting associations. From every side, Fiesole, San Miniato, Montuy, Bellosguardo, from each and all, one can look down upon that fair city of which Charles V. said: “It is too pleasant for week-day life; it must be reserved for holydays and festivals.”
My villa is on the declivity of the hill of Bellosguardo. Outside the Porta Romana are four roads. The one to the left, close under the walls, leads in the direction of San Miniato, and branches off in steep footpaths to a cluster of villas, under and beside Fort Belvedere. Near this road is the entrance to that noble avenue of cypresses and ilexes called the Poggio Imperiale. The avenue, by a long and gradual ascent, conducts you to a royal palace. This palace is now almost deserted. The offices have been converted into barracks. Its chief interest to the casual passer-by, besides the exquisite view which it commands, is, that it possesses duplicates of Lely’s pictures at Hampton Court. The bare snowy bosoms and profuse fair ringlets of those famous court ladies are displayed in these noble rooms, and under this Italian sky, in fine contrast to the dark-browed, olive-cheeked Florentines who come to gaze upon them. On each side of this stately avenue are paths to sunny little villas dropped like nests amid the cornfields. Beyond the palace is the ascent to the Piano di Giullari, and from thence to Arcetri, St. Margarita, &c.
Both these roads are to the left of the gate; just opposite to it is the old high road to Siena and Rome. The Strada Regia, however, is no longer the great outlet for travellers bound to Rome. The railroad to Siena has changed the character and purpose of the old royal road. It is now only used by the owners of the neighbouring villas, and by the peasants and farmers going to the Florence market to sell and buy. On each side are houses, shops, warehouses, and quite a crowded suburb seems to be stretching out of Florence on that side: but as the great thoroughfare to the south, its day is over.
If you skirt the wall to the right of the Porta Romana, you will come to the foot of the winding ascent which leads you up to the hill of Bellosguardo.
Bellosguardo has been celebrated by Foscolo and by Landor. Galileo lived for a short time in the old tower which crowns the highest spur of the hill. It is well worthy of having been celebrated by the Italian and by the Englishman, and of having been for a brief period the residence of him “of the starry fame.”
The road winds upwards by a very gradual ascent. At first there are poor-looking houses on each side. Some are detached; between these you obtain glimpses of Florence, starting up with its spires and domes, above the walls. At about a third of the height is a chapel dedicated to San Francesco. A statue of the saint, with an iron glory round his head, and his fingers spread out in the act of blessing, stands before it. There is a road here, at a right angle with the one we have taken, which leads to the gate of San Frediano, facing the old Leghorn road to the west of Florence. Behind the chapel is the office of the municipality, and opposite this office, bent in two as sharply as a card, a villa, which forms the angle of the two roads.
Higher up is a shrine, with its Madonna placed outside a small iron gate. This gate belongs to the Villa Nicolini, an unpretending, and somewhat dilapidated-looking building, but which has the most wonderful of panoramas, day and night, before its windows. Its quaint garden supported on arches, its two balconies, and its noble hall, make it the most picturesque, both within and without, of all the villas of the neighbourhood of Florence.
At the next curve the road divides. In one direction is the chapel of San Vito, and then a raised road, which is almost a bridge, brings you to a neighbouring but lower height, Monte Oliveto, and its cypresses and monastery. Turning back from this to the Bellosguardo road, you have Villa Nuti on your right hand, and Florence below you on the left. Villa Nuti is supposed to be haunted; but, except the fact that Pope Leo X. slept there for a few nights, there is nothing to account for such a tradition. It is a strong-looking building, with barred lower windows and a green court. On the first story is one of those picturesque-looking open rooms, supported by pillars, which have such an eminently Italian appearance. A few yards higher up you come to the projecting slab which, from the wonderful beauty of the prospect seen from it, has given the whole height the name of Bellosguardo! It is just below the Michelozzi tower. Nowhere does Florence look more lovely than from this platform. As it lies to the north east of the spectator, all the architectural beauty of the city lies before him in clear outline of light and shade. From Fiesole the view is more extensive, but the city itself is seen at a greater distance. In the morning a mist often veils it; and at noon it glitters vaguely under the sparkling sunshine, in which it lies as in a golden cup. From Bellosguardo the effect is more distinct, and, at the same time, more picturesque. Monte Morello, Fiesole, the Bologna Apennines, the Vallombrosan hills to the right, as you look towards Florence, the Carrara and Lucca hills to the left, are fitting backgrounds to the picture. Their forms and undulations are cut clear and firm as with a knife on the blue sky, while the ever-changing light is perpetually varying their hues, sometimes bathed in a rosy blush as if new-born, sometimes displaying the weird character of ages, in the deep indentations and fissures which mark their surface. The distant mountains form the outer circle of the amphitheatre before us; the nearer ones run into the plains, either lapsing down in gentle slopes, or more boldly, shoulder over shoulder, breaking into vast knolls, which stand out green against the grey of the remoter chain.
The Val d’Arno to our left looks like an enormous bay which has spread by some convulsion of nature into a vast inland sea, but instead of the masts of ships riding at anchor, in that broad expanse are the spires and towers of countless villages.
But we must leave this vision and, turning our backs upon it, descend and take the road which, from the height of Bellosguardo, leads towards the different villas which have been built upon it. Some are modern; some, such as the Michelozzi, the Albizzi, the Montauto, are many hundred years old. Montauto, with its old tower, should be interesting to the English and Americans as having been the residence of Nathaniel Hawthorne for three months, during the summer of the year 1858.
The road divides itself in two just below Villa Albizzi, as it passes a quaint-looking public well in the centre of a grassplot. One prong of the fork runs to Villa Montauto, and then drops by a very steep descent and sharp curve till it comes down to the west of Bellosguardo, and connects itself with the old Leghorn road, which lies like a winding ribbon on the plain we have been surveying. The other prong is longer, and descends, with villas on each side of it, till by another subdivision it breaks into three more roads, and two of these join the Roman road to the south of Bellosguardo. One is a very steep cut rather than a road, and can scarcely be used by carriages, but it takes a pedestrian in ten minutes to the gate.
My villa makes the angle of this steep path and the broader, easier road which comes further down, and also joins the Strado Regia.
If you enter by the gate that is at this angle, you have a low two-storied building to the right of you, with a wide flagged pavement in front of it, then a broad space of gravel spotted over by huge flower-pots and lemon plants in uncouth green tubs; and beyond are the orchards and fields belonging to my landlord. He is a lawyer, who spends his days at Florence in his office, or at a café, and returns to dine and sleep here. The rambling, irregular building is divided into three sets of apartments with separate entrances. The part nearest the gate is occupied by my landlord and his family. He has a wife and two sons. In true patriarchal fashion, the eldest, though married and a father, lives under the paternal roof. The other is a student at Pisa. The second apartment is a very small one, and is usually let for short periods to any Florentine requiring a breath of fresh air during those months in which Florentines affect a change. The third part of the building is mine, and is almost entirely detached from the rest. It is the part which is devoted to “forestieri,” and is well furnished, according to Italian ideas.
A large door opens into a hall divided into two parts, the larger one raised above the other by a flight of four broad shallow steps; an arched window looks into a triangular paved court, where a great fig-tree grows with a sturdy and persistent luxuriance.
My little garden, which might be a very bower of sweets in this shady spot, has been utterly neglected; but with patience and care I trust that the wilderness will soon be made to blossom again. My rooms (eleven, besides a kitchen), are hired, furnished, for much less than the price of two rooms in a moderately good situation in London. All the necessities of life are here, and beyond and above them is a perpetual feast to the eye.
In ten minutes on foot, and in half an hour by the longest road in a carriage, one reaches Florence, and is thus within easy reach of the galleries, theatres, and of any social gaieties one may covet. Letters, newspapers, &c., are brought every morning by the man who goes early into Florence to buy the provisions for the day. Figs, grapes, apples and pears grow beneath your window, and milk and vegetables are brought by the contadino belonging to the land. The air is pure and fresh, and perfectly dry. Space, a beautiful view, and no contemptible amount of conveniences and comforts, make it possible to construct a very pleasant home in these villas. One gets very near to the life of the middle-class Italians by living thus under the same roof, though not absolutely with them.
My “padrone” is a thorough gentleman in manner and appearance. He understands French and English, and is educated up to the mark which was considered becoming in Italy thirty years ago. A small independence, the meagre proceeds of his profession, and the dower of his wife invested in this villa, compose his whole fortune. Few Italians are absolutely destitute, though still fewer are what we should call rich. The paternal fortune is divided between the children, and the sons always add to their share by marrying a girl with some fortune. Early marriages are the fashion, and, without any forcing of inclination on either side, a prudent match is the general rule.
My landlady is inferior to her husband in manners and appearance. She must have married very young, in fact the moment she was out of her convent, and her mind on all subjects of ordinary information is infantine. But she is sharp as a needle as to all matters of profit or gain. It is curious to see a woman whose status is certainly that of a lady, haggling for a few shillings, and striving to take advantage of her tenants in the most infinitesimal affairs, and, more curious still, to see how perfectly good-humoured she is when she finds herself baffled. It is she who undertakes all the disagreeable offices which appertain to letting a house. Her husband monopolises all the agreeable part. He takes the money and does all the smiles and civility. Keeping back crockery, which is marked in a voluminous inventory, as given; doling it out at last cracked, and expecting to receive it whole when her tenants leave; a stringent refusal of carpets, and an endeavour to make an increased rent the condition of yielding them,—such are all tasks which devolve on her. Sometimes she gains her point, sometimes she does not; but, on the whole, I think she is more civil when beaten. She rather respects you for not being taken in.
There is nothing surprising in this, as regards the usual principles of an ordinary lodging-house keeper; but this is a lady of good family and position, and the wife of a man who might enter any society as an equal, so distinguished are his manners, so gentlemanly is his appearance. But this phase of her character is shown only to those whom she considers her legitimate prey, i.e., her tenants. At home she is kind, good-humoured, patient. Her servants are treated justly, in some things indulgently. Their wages are of the lowest, but their freedom of manner and paucity of work are, in their opinion, full compensation. Several dependants are hanging about the villa, whom she feeds and tries to serve. She is capable of any benevolence which does not require her to put her hand, then and there, into her purse. Indirect expense she does not care for; but the fact of parting with a franc, or losing an opportunity of saving one, is gall and wormwood to her.
The simplicity of this woman’s manners, her life spent among her peasants and her servants, working as one of them, and dressing usually much as they dress, would astonish a barrister’s wife in England, inferior to her probably, both in birth and fortune. With the Signora there is not the slightest effort at making an appearance. It is only on those days when she goes to mass in Florence, or when she dines with some of her own family, that there is a perceptible effort to appear well dressed. Then her toilette is sans reproche. She goes in her own carriage, and represents her position very fairly. But this occurs but seldom, save only on high days and festivals.
Her husband reads the newspaper to her, but, except a general confused hatred of “tedeschi,” she knows nothing about politics; though if any positive fact is placed before her and her judgment is required on it, she is shrewd enough. Her husband is very polite to her, but it strikes me as the politeness of one who consults rather his own dignity in being polite to another, than the claims of that other. But they are perfectly good friends, and not a trace exists in this entirely domestic family of that light regard of the conjugal tie which we are taught in England to consider to be the fashion in Italy.
Extreme parsimony in the exigencies of everyday life, a total absence of ostentation, and a primitive simplicity, are the home characteristics of Tuscans of the middle class. Their quaint humour, their aptness for satire, and the quickness of their perceptions, have prevented in their case the degeneracy which bad government produces elsewhere. Besides these qualities, they have never lost their commercial spirit. Money and material prosperity have always been highly valued by them, and in this disposition there is a strong salt which keeps alive a nation’s spirit. Side by side with their splendid achievements this spirit was manifest, and it has long outlived them.
As I sit at my window, I look down on the city which played such a distinguished part in the middle ages,—the city which possessed Dante, Galileo, Machiavelli, as citizens, and which comprises within its walls, miracles of art which have never been surpassed, and scarcely equalled. Those glories are past, yet there is no air of ruin or effete grandeur about it. That smoke which issues from its very centre, evoked by the shrill whistle which announces to me at short intervals the arrival of the train, is a proof that a healthy activity is going on there, and that, glorious as has been the past, there is a busy, prosperous, and as glorious a future awaiting Florence.