Villa di Poggio a Caiano

[1]: 137 The villa is located in the middle of a hilltop, the last offshoot of the Montalbano mountains, in a strategic position, lying on the promontory towards the Ombrone river and the plain and dominating the road between Florence and Pistoia, which overwhelms the small heights here.

After a period of intensive land acquisition by the Medici family, in the area of Poggio a Caiano and also on the other bank of the Ombrone river, at Tavola, between 1470 and 1474, Lorenzo commissioned Giuliano da Sangallo to build a villa that became the prototype of the country's noble residences in the following centuries.

[citation needed] At that time it began to set the idea of the villa-fortress (like the Villa Medici at Careggi, more like a castle made only thirty years ago by Michelozzo for Cosimo the Elder, the grandfather of Lorenzo).

The fresco of Filippino Lippi dates back to the period under the loggia on the first floor and perhaps the glazed majolica pediment attributed to Andrea Sansovino (some historians refer to a second phase of construction).

The vault of the central hall on the first floor was made with the papal coat of arms (which was then referred to as Leo X's Lion), under the direction of Andrea di Cosimo Feltrini and Franciabigio.

The princess, profoundly different from Cosimo's dark and ultra-religious character, and at odds with the Grand Duke's mother Vittoria della Rovere, was never happy in her marriage or in Tuscany.

It was a picture gallery set in a single room of the villa, which contained 174 paintings of as many different painters, the largest of which measured 100x75 cm, and which included works by some of the most important artists, Dürer, Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Rubens and so on.

The monumental organ of the Roman Lorenzo Testa (1703), already in Palazzo Pitti and today in the theater, is the result of Ferdinando de' Medici, Grand Prince of Tuscany's deep interest in music.

The necessary maintenance work and periodic restoration were carried out, though, according to their economic strategy, they intended to resize their landholdings: they began to no longer use some villas (such as the Ambrogiana and Lappeggi), bringing the furnishings into Palazzo Pitti and the surviving residences.

Poggio a Caiano did not suffer this fate, and only a few furnishings testify to that period, such as the small wooden chest of drawers with inlays depicting views and landscapes.

At the time of Ferdinand III of Tuscany, the park in front of the villa was equipped with some fun facilities: a "flying arcana", a swing, a "donkey rider" and a "carousel of horses", which are still stored today by the museum.

Commissioned by Elisa Bonaparte in 1811, Giuseppe Manetti designed new English Gardens, featuring irregular avenues, a pond, and small neoclassical pavilions, such as a conical glacier and a temple of Diana.

While following the unification of Italy the interior of the villa was updated with fine furnishings from the royal palaces of Modena, Piacenza, Parma, Turin, Lucca and Bologna and used as a residence by the House of Savoy.

The restoration was concluded in 2007 with the opening to the public of the second floor, where the Museum of Still Life was housed, in which the great paintings of Bartolomeo Bimbi As well as other works from the Medici villas of Castello, Topaia, Ambrogiana and others.

This environment is one of the best preserved examples of architecture tailored to the home needs of a court: it includes several rooms for laundry use and also a vegetable garden with aromatic herbs for use in kitchens.

It is principally attributed to Andrea Sansovino regarding the construction phase of Lorenzo il Magnifico, as It refers to the theme of the return to the Age of gold, or performed by Giuliano da Sangallo or Bertoldo.

In any case, it is clear the nature of the expression of the complex initiatory climate, relating to the philosophical circle of Lorenzo, through a series of allegorical allegories, of evocative classicism.

The entrance hall is plastered in A light yellow color and contains some inscriptions on Victor Emmanuel II and the plebiscite that united the Grand Duchy of Tuscany to the nascent Kingdom of Italy.

The Billiard Hall is in the Savoyard style, with a frescoed ceiling as a pergola from which overlook cherubs and cupids while a cloth painting displays real signs of the House of Savoy.

In the villa, the two of them also died in October 1587, one day away from the other: a 2004–2006 study speaks of arsenic intoxication in the tissues of the two, although it is not possible to understand whether it is a post-mortem treatment on some symbolic organs buried together in the Church of Santa Maria Assunta at Bonistalloh.

In the first hall of these apartments, a simple anteroom, there are three paintings on a biblical subject attributed to Paolo Veronese: Moses and the Burning Bush, The Passage of the Red Sea and the Resurrection of Lazarus; Here after the restoration was also the Pietà of Giorgio Vasari, coming from the chapel of the villa that today belongs to the local mercy mission.

The room, although eclectically restored in the 19th century, still retains the beautiful white marble fireplace, with the floor supported by two telamons carved with remarkable plastic strength.

A door at the same level leads to Bedroom of the Grand Duchess Bianca, covered with pressed papermaking, imitating the coramas (decorated leather panels) and neo-Renaissance furniture, the result of a complete reconstruction of the 1865 style (non-visitable).

The Bella Rosina's room is decorated in particular with a four-poster bed and walls entirely covered with pink silk with floral motifs (1865), radiated draped so as to see a pre-existing neoclassical fresco at the center.

The most ancient fresco of the villa, belonging to the period of Lorenzo the Magnificent, is the so-called Sacrifice of Laocoön (according to Halm's interpretation) by Filippino Lippi, kept under the loggia at the first floor, once detached for restoration and now relocated, though it is rather faded by weather.

On the second floor, the "Museum of Still Life" is set up, which is unique in its kind and exhibits about 200 paintings dating from the late sixteenth to the middle of the eighteenth century and coming from the Medici collections.

[5] Adjacent to the Villa are some buildings such as the chapel, (where the Pietà con i Santi Cosimo e Damiano, painted in 1560 Giorgio Vasari, waiting for restoration), housed on the ground floor of the south-east bastion; the Cucinone built at the beginning of the 17th century and the neoclassical cellar (or limonaia) "with anchored water retention", the work of Pasquale Poccianti (1825).

The Hall of the Pallacorda is a building at the corner of the garden, which dates back to the late eighteenth century to practice this game, and today houses the concierge and a store.

In order to remedy these disadvantages several steps were taken: the road to Prato was rerouted, the numerous walls that separated the seating areas and unified in one fence were cut down, while on the square of the villa were made some serpentine driveways with various vegetable decoration; The Ombrone course was straightened and a new ironable bridge was built to connect with Cascine di Tavola and Pavoniere.