Abbadia d'Ombrone

Abbazia di Vallombrosa

Villa Arceno

Bardini Garden in Florence

Bernard Berenson

Boboli's Gardens

Il parco dei Mostri di Bomarzo

Villa Bottini

Castello di Brolio

Villa Cahen

Villa della Capponcina

Villa Capponi

Villa Medici at Careggi

Villa di Catignano

Cecil Ross Pinsent

Castello di Celsa

Villa Certano Baldassarrini

Certosa di Pontignano

Villa di Cetinale

Villa Chigi Saracini

Villa Farnese (Caprarola)

Gardens in Fiesole

Villa Gamberaia

Villa Garzoni in Collodi

Villa di Geggiano

Villa Grabau

Villa Guicciardini Corsi Salviati

Horti Leonini di San Quirico

Villa I Collazzi, Firenze

Iris Origo

L'Orto de'Pecci (Siena)


Villa I Tatti

Villa Medicea La Ferdinanda

Villa La Foce

Villa La Gallina in Arcetri

Villa Lante

Villa La Petraia

Villa La Pietra

Villa La Suverana in Casole d'Elsa

The Medici Villa at Careggi

Villa Medici in Fiesole, Firenze

Garden of Palazzo Medici-Riccardi in Firenze

Villa Medicea at Poggio a Caiano

Medici Villas in Tuscany

Villa di Monaciano

Giardino degli Orti Oricellari | Firenze

Orto Botanico, Siena

Villa Orlandini in Poggio Torselli

Il Palazzone

Villa Palmieri and Villa Schifanoiai

Villa Peyron al Bosco di Fontelucente

Palazzo Piccolomini in Pienza

Villa di Pratolino

Villa Reale di Marlia

Villa San Donato in Colle (Bagno a Ripoli)

Villa Santini Torrigiani

Villa di Vicobello

Villa Vistarenni

Il Vittoriale degli Italiani


 
Gardens in Tuscany
             
 

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Giardino degli Orti Oricellari | Firenze

   
   

Along via della Scala and in Via Orti Oricellari (the name comes from Rucelai name), there is Palazzo Venturi Ginori, the palace of Venturi Ginori family. The villa building, erected in the late 15th century over a property bought by Nannina de' Medici, the sister of Lorenzo il Magnifico, and by her husband Bernardo Rucellai, is undoubtedly of particular cultural importance. Set amid the Giardino degli Orti Oricellari (or Rucellai Gardens), it is known to have hosted the Plato Academy, and to have attracted such personalities as Niccolò Machiavelli, Jacopo Nardi and Pope Leo X.
Following the financial and political misfortunes of the Rucellai family, the property was sold in 1573 to Bianca Cappello, who restored the gardens to their former splendour. In 1640, the property once again passed into Medici hands as a result of a complex inheritance situation. The first main transformation of the garden dates back to the mid-17th century, when Buontalenti introduced new water displays and giant statues. Here, as in Villa Pratolino though on a smaller scale, the atmosphere is Arcadian, and takes its inspiration from classical mythology.

   
   

The Italian-style layout is enhanced by a highly theatrical effect culminating in the huge figure of Polyphemus drinking from a wineskin, sculpted by Antonio Novelli. The Garden Grotto, also the work of Novelli, is a cave decorated with sponges and statues in dynamic poses and representing the winds. The grotto consists of two communicating chambers, the first elliptical in shape, the second regularly shaped with frescoes of nymphs.

The garden underwent a further transformation in the early 19th century, when marquis Giuseppe Stiozzi Ridolfi commissioned architect Luigi Cambray Digny to adapt the garden to the English style then in vogue. Though relatively small, the new garden (which was divided by the central avenue ending in the temple of Flora) was landscaped with winding paths, hillocks, small pools, statues and artificial ruins. Ancient elements dominated, and the statue of Polyphemus and the grotto were absorbed into the new layout. In 1861, the property changed hands yet again and princess Olga Orloff commissioned Giuseppe Poggi to modernise the villa and the garden. Poggi presented classicalstyle plans and reinstated the pool from which the statue of Polyphemus emerged. During the large-scale works carried out when Florence was capital of the Kingdom of Italy, the gardens were cut into two parts by Via Benedetto Rucellai. Generally speaking, however, few if any of the changes made after the creation of the new road altered the layout created by Giuseppe Poggi.


Polyphemus drinking from a wineskin, sculpted by Antonio Novelli


 
   

Oricellari Gardens
Address: Via degli Orti Oricellari, 9 , 50123 Firenze

Art in Tuscany | Florence | Santa Maria Novella

Walking in Tuscany | Florence | Quarter of Santa Maria Novella
You can start this tour from Santa Maria Novella, the main railway station in Florence built in 1933/35 by Michelucci Group. Take via degli Avelli, in front of the train station and arrive in Piazza Santa Maria Novella, the church is one of the most famous and beautiful churches in Florence, rich of masterpieces. Admire the square and the façade by Leon Battista Alberti. You need the whole morning to visit the church and the Cappellone degli Spagnoli, the green cloister (Description in “Churches” section) – You can have a free tour of the church. Coming out from the church, go to the left in via delle Belle Donne there is a little square with a column: The Croce al Trebbio (1338) with the symbols of the Evangelists.


[1] Bianca Cappello (1548 – 17 October 1587) was an Italian noblewoman who was the mistress, and afterward the second wife, of Francesco I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany. Her husband officially made her his consort.
She was born in Venice, in 1548, the daughter of Bartolomeo Cappello and Pellegrina Morosini, a member of one of the richest and noblest Venetian families, and was noted for her great beauty.[1]
At the age of fifteen she fell in love with Pietro Bonaventuri, a young Florentine clerk in the firm of Salviati, and on 28 November 1563 escaped with him to Florence, where they were married. In 1564 she had a daughter named Virginia, or, according to other sources, Pellegrina. The Venetian government made every effort to have Bianca arrested and brought back but the Grand Duke Cosimo I intervened in her favour and she was left unmolested.[2]
However, she did not get on well with her husband's family, who were very poor and made her do menial work, until at last her beauty attracted Grand Prince Francesco, son and heir apparent of the grand duke.[3]
Although already married to Joanna of Austria, he seduced Bianca and gave her jewels, money and other presents. Bianca's husband was given court employment, and consoled himself with other ladies. In 1572 he was murdered in the streets of Florence in consequence of some amorous intrigue, though it is possible that Bianca and Francesco were involved.

Bianca Cappello (1548 – 17 October 1587) was an Italian noblewoman who was the mistress, and afterward the second wife, of Francesco I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany. Her husband officially made her his consort.
She was born in Venice, in 1548, the daughter of Bartolomeo Cappello and Pellegrina Morosini, a member of one of the richest and noblest Venetian families, and was noted for her great beauty.[1]
At the age of fifteen she fell in love with Pietro Bonaventuri, a young Florentine clerk in the firm of Salviati, and on 28 November 1563 escaped with him to Florence, where they were married. In 1564 she had a daughter named Virginia, or, according to other sources, Pellegrina. The Venetian government made every effort to have Bianca arrested and brought back but the Grand Duke Cosimo I intervened in her favour and she was left unmolested.[2]
However, she did not get on well with her husband's family, who were very poor and made her do menial work, until at last her beauty attracted Grand Prince Francesco, son and heir apparent of the grand duke.[3]
Although already married to Joanna of Austria, he seduced Bianca and gave her jewels, money and other presents. Bianca's husband was given court employment, and consoled himself with other ladies. In 1572 he was murdered in the streets of Florence in consequence of some amorous intrigue, though it is possible that Bianca and Francesco were involved. On the death of Cosimo in 1574 Francesco succeeded to the grand duchy; he now installed Bianca in a palace (now known as Palazzo di Bianca Cappello) close to his own and outraged his wife by flaunting his mistress before her. As Giovanna had borne Francesco only one son, Filippo (20 May 1577 – 29 March 1582) who died as a juvenile, and six daughters, of whom, only two lived to adulthood, Bianca was very anxious to present him with an heir, for otherwise her position would remain very insecure. In 1576 she gave birth to Don Antonio de' Medici (d. 1621), but he was not openly acknowledged as Francesco's heir until after Joanna's death, when the boy was about three years old.[4]

Marriage

In 1578 Giovanna died; a few months later Francesco secretly married Bianca, and on 10 June 1579, the marriage was publicly announced. Two days later, on the 12 June, Bianca was crowned the Grand Duchess of Tuscany at the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence. The Venetian government now put aside its resentment and was officially represented at the magnificent wedding festivities, for it saw in Bianca Cappello an instrument for cementing good relations with Tuscany. But the long expected heir failed to come, and Bianca realized that if her husband were to die before her she was lost, for his family, especially his brother Cardinal Ferdinand, hated her bitterly, as an adventuress and interloper.[5]
In October 1587, at the Villa Medici in Poggio a Caiano, Francesco and Bianca died on the same day, possibly poisoned, or as some historians believe, from malarial fever. In 2006, forensic and toxicology experts at the University of Florence reported evidence of arsenic poisoning in a study published in the British Medical Journal,[6] but in 2010 evidence of the parasite Plasmodium falciparum, which causes malaria, was found in Francesco's remains.[7]
Montaigne, the French writer, described Bianca in diplomatic terms:" According to the Italians [she] is beautiful. She has an agreeable and imposing face, and large breasts, the way they like them here…”

[1] Lytton, Lytton, Rosina Wheeler Bulwer (2010). Bianca Cappello: An historical romance. Nabu Press. pp. 13–14. ISBN 978-1144883667.
[2] Sizeranne, Robert de La (1969). Celebrities of the Italian Renaissance in Florence and in the Louvre. Bianca capello in the pitti palace. pp. 122–124. ISBN 978-0836913026.
[3] Sizeranne, Robert de La (1969). Celebrities of the Italian Renaissance in Florence and in the Louvre. Bianca capello in the pitti palace. pp. 125–126. ISBN 978-0836913026.
[4] Roberto Cantagalli, “Bianca Cappello e una leggenda da sfatare; La questione del figlio supposto,” Nuova rivista storica 44 (1965): 636–652; Jacqueline Marie Musacchio, “Objects and Identity: Antonio de' Medici and the Casino at San Marco in Florence,” in The Renaissance World, ed. John Jeffries Martin (New York: Routledge, 2007), 481–500.
[5] Sizeranne, Robert de La (1969). Celebrities of the Italian Renaissance in Florence and in the Louvre. Bianca capello in the pitti palace. pp. 129–130. ISBN 978-0836913026.
[6] Francesco Mari; Aldo Polettini, Donatella Lippi, Elisabetta Bertol (2006). "The mysterious death of Francesco I de' Medici and Bianca Cappello: an arsenic murder?". BMJ 333 (June 23–30, 2006): 1299–1301. doi:10.1136/bmj.38996.682234.AE. PMC 1761188. PMID 17185715.
[7] Lorenzi, Rossella (14 July 2010). "Medici family cold case finally solved". Discovery.com. Retrieved 16 July 2012.

 


Alessandro allori, Portrait of Bianca Cappello, c. 1580, fresco, Galleria degli Uffizi, Firenze

Grand Duke Francesco I de' Medici was a man of profound and obsessive passions. The Uffizi galleries, which he established, were one, Bianca Cappello (1548-1587), his mistress, and afterwards, the second wife, was the other.


16th century sgraffito on
Bianca Cappello's house

[2] Palazzo Venturi Ginori    



Bibliography

Pozzana, Mariachiara, Gardens of Florence and Tuscany (Giunti Editore, 2001)

Pratolino, Villa Demidoff (Alinari, 1990)

Steegman, Mary G., Bianca Capello (Norman Remington and Company, 1913).

Vannucci, Marcello. Le Donne di Casa Medici (Newton and Compton, 1999)

James Chater, "Bianca Cappello and Music", in Renaissance Studies in Honor of Craig Hugh Smyth (Florence, 1985), vol. i, 569–79

Samuele Romanin, Lezioni di storia Veneta, vol. ii (Florence, 1875)

G. E. Saltini, Tragedie Medicee domestiche (Florence, 1898)

Saltini, Della morte di Francesco de' Medici e di Bianca Cappello (Florence, 1863)

Elizabeth Clementine Stedman, Bianca Capello, A Tragedy (1873)

Rosina Wheeler Bulwer-Lytton Lytton (2010) Bianca Cappello: An Historical Romance Nabu Press ISBN 978-1144883667

 

This article incorporates material from the Wikipedia article Bianca Cappello published under the GNU Free Documentation License.
This article also incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.

Villa is Tuscany

Located on the outskirts of Castiglioncello Bandini, in a hilly and unspoilt land, Podere Santa Pia is one of the best places to slow traveling in Tuscany. This formal cloister offers the quiet tranquility of a private retreat, with numerous attractions, beautiful nature reserves and unspoilt beautiful beaches within easy reach. The most interesting artistic, historical and cultural sites of southern Tuscany are nearby, and are awaiting your discovery.

Farmhouses in Tuscany | Podere Santa Pia

 
 
   
Podere Santa Pia
Podere Santa Pia, view from the garden
on the valley below

Florence, Duomo
         

L'Orto de'Pecci
San Quirico d'Orcia, Capella Vialeta
Podere Santa Pia, famous wines in southern Tuscany
         
   
Choosing one of the Florence walking tours you'll be able to visit the world-famous museums of the Uffizi and Accademia Galleries, discovering the main historical and artistic treasures of the city.
The tours focus on Florence's major sights and attractions, including the Duomo, the Ponte Vecchio and the city's famous churches and Renaissance palaces.
Novelist Henry James called Florence a “rounded pearl of cities -- cheerful, compact, complete -- full of a delicious mixture of beauty and convenience.” The best way to experience the Italian city’s artistry, history and joy of life is by walking the same paths that the Medicis, Michelangelo and James once used.


1 | A Walk Around the Uffizi Gallery

2 | Quarter Duomo and Signoria Square

3 | Around Piazza della Repubblica

4 | Santa Maria Novella

5 | San Niccolo Neighbourhood in Oltrarno

6 | Walking in the Bargello Neighbourhood

7 | From Fiesole to Settignano

 

 


San Miniato al Monte

 

Sarteano

Sarteano
Certosa del Galluzzo (Firenze)
Villa I Tatti