POGGIO A CAIANO - A RENAISSANCE HOLIDAY PAD UNDER THE TUSCAN SUN

THE MEDICI VILLA - POGGIO A CAIANO

I'm still absorbing and digesting the wonderful experiences we had on this year's June trip to Umbria and Tuscany and I don't mean the swimming pool and the wine though thinking about it they were quite nice too! On the final day of our short stay we'd arranged to fly back from Pisa airport - about a two and a half hour drive from our place near Castiglione del Lago. The flight was an afternoon one leaving us plenty of time to take a leisurely drive northwards and a great opportunity to fit in a visit to a site of special interest on the way. From the options I'd thought about there really was only one choice - an exploration of a magnificent Tuscan villa I'd read about outside Florence whose history could be traced back to Lorenzo de Medici's "get away from it all" commission for a summer home away from the heat of the city.

Precedents for holiday homes in cooler climes are not difficult to find in the Italian peninsula. Many Roman senators had villas on the slopes of Mount Vesuvius on the Bay of Naples and I couldn't help but recollect a visit I once made to Emperor Hadrian's glorious villa at Tivoli outside Rome.The Pope's summer residence at Castel Gandolfo south of Rome has been in use since the early 17th century. In Renaissance Florence, where the heat could be fierce in Summer, lots of important members of the elite sought Summer respite in the hills round the city in towns like Fiesole. Cosimo de Medici, the recognized godfather of the Medici dynasty, spent many a summer at his villa in the hills outside the city.

THE VILLA POGGIO A CAIANO OUTSIDE FLORENCE
Commisioned by Lorenzo de Medici in 1485

Cosimo's grandson Lorenzo Medici (Lorenzo the Magnificent) commissioned a holiday home outside Florence from the Italian sculptor, architect and military engineer - Giuiliano da Sangallo in 1485. Sangallo had worked for Lorenzo by building military fortifications and managing artillery in the town of Castellina to fend off attacks from the Duke of Calabria with a good degree of success. Despite having attempted to hold a competition for the villa project to find the best architect, Lorenzo went with the man he had come to know and respect. Sangallo used Alberti's design for a villa in Fiesole as a source of inspiration, but the one at Poggio would be more ambitious and involve a greater degree of creativity in its attempt to fuse Tuscan vernacular with principles of architecture derived from antiquity. Though the villa remained incomplete during Lorenzo's life and would be finished by his son Giovanni who became Pope Leo X - today its exterior remains largely as it was in the early 16th century. The only major change to have taken place is the removal of the original exterior staircase to the first floor and the installation of a curvaceous replacement one in the early 19th century by Pasquale Poccianti.

MODEL OF HOW THE VILLA LOOKED AFTER ITS COMPLETION
c1520 - the original staircase was replaced in 1807 with the one seen now

The main block is surrounded by a porticoed terrace with a tunnel vault beneath, finely decorated in relief. At first floor level the terrace frontage is dominated by the portico - the classical temple like structure complete with columns and pediment. Between the top of the columns and the pediment a frieze incorporates a wonderful blue and white glazed terra cotta series of relief panels attributed to Andrea Sansovino and with figurative scenes inspired by mythology and telling stories related to themes of "the Cycle of Time", "Eternity" and "the History of the Soul". Though the originals have been replaced with reproductions there is a room inside the villa where the original frieze can be viewed in detail at eye level.

PART OF THE ORIGINAL GLAZED TERRA COTTA FRIEZE
FROM THE TEMPLE PORTICO OF POGGIO A CAIANO

Inside the story is rather a different one for there have been significant changes to the interior decor and use of the various spaces. Many alterations were introduced when the villa became the summer residence of King Victor Emmanuel II. What I do want to focus on though is the survival of an interior space which does remain intact, both to the original architectural scheme by Sangallo and to the work done on the property by Pope Leo X, Lorenzo's son. The room is named after the man and lies at the heart of the villa on the first floor - the "Salone di Leo X". Oblong in shape and extending the full width of the villa with windows at both ends, it replaces what would have been a courtyard space in a traditional Tuscan villa of the 15th or 16th centuries.

THE BARREL VAULTED CEILING OF THE SALON OF LEO X
The Pope's heraldic device can be seen at the centre of the ceiling

A huge barrel vaulted ceiling makes the space incredibly impressive and grand and its an architectural form again derived from antiquity. Even in its construction, which made use of fitted together moulded elements in to which concrete was poured. is derived from Roman sources and made use of by Sangallo in 1485. The decoration of the room is later and related to the scheme commissioned by Lorenzo's son Giovanni, after he was elected Pope Leo X in 1513. The ceiling is decorated with moulded and sculpted stucco (plaster work) which incorporates many Medici emblems - at the centre of which is the device of Pope Leo himself.

FRESCO OF ONE OF THE "VIRTUES" ABOVE A
DOORWAY IN THE SALON OF LEO X

The wall decorations are in colourful fresco (painted plaster) and celebrate Cosimo the Elder de Medici and Lorenzo the Magnificent by allying them with figures and narratives from classical mythology. Over the doors and windows for example figures representing the "Virtues" take central stage. On the walls frescoes concerned with stories such as "The Return of Cicero from Exile" by Franciabigio.

On each end wall the half circle lunettes are decorated with two stories - "Vertumno and Pomona" by Pontormo and "Hercules in the Garden of the Hesperides" by Allori. The latter (shown below) relates to Hercules's 11th labour where he was asked, against all odds, to retrieve the golden apples belonging to Zeus kept in a garden at the northern end of the world. It's probably an allegory for one of the Medici family "achieving the impossible" but its depiction here is a light-hearted representation of the story in a bucolic garden probably meant to suggest the one surrounding the villa.

LUNETTE DECORATION IN THE SALON OF LEO X
Hercules in the Garden of the Hesperides

It's clear that this room had one purpose and one purpose only - the achievements and glorification of the Medici dynasty and though we see it today as being pompous in the extreme - its a rare, beautiful and major survival of an art installation that reflects not only the achievements of important Renaissance architects and artists, but as a fine example of the use of art to aggrandise and glorify this most important of families in the Italian High Renaissance.

I hope Donald Trump doesn't get similar ideas for the White House though!! I can't imagine what would appear on the ceilings there!!

Oh - and I forgot to mention - when you turn up to view this magnificent villa - there is no entrance charge. Check the internet for opening times as they are restricted.

Ciao and KBO
Ian