Fiesole had its Libro d’Oro, and inscribed thereon as noble any individual who would pay the required price. From fifteen hundred lire upward was the price for which marquises, counts and barons were created in Florence’s patrician suburb.
Coming out from Florence by another gateway, through the Porta San Gallo, runs the Fiesole highway. A landmark, which can be readily pointed out by anyone, is the villa once possessed by Walter Savage Landor and inhabited by him for nearly thirty years. Here the famous men of letters of the middle years of the last century visited him. Here he revelled amid memories of Boccaccio and wrote the Pentameron. There is talk of buying the place and consecrating it to his memory.
All the way from Florence to Fiesole the roads are lined with typical Florentine villas and country houses. The Villa at Poggio Cajano was built by Lorenzo the Magnificent, who employed Giuliano da San Gallo as his architect. In 1587 Francesco I died within its walls, and the profligate Bianca Capello, whose history had best stay buried, also died here on the following day. Their brother Ferdinand was responsible for their taking off, as they had already prepared to put him out of the way by the administration of a dose of poison. He stood over them, with dagger drawn, and made them eat their own poisoned viands.
The Villa Petraja was a strong-hold of the Brunelleschi family which defended itself ably against the Pisans and the marauders of Sir John Hawkwood in 1364, when that rollicking rascal sold his services to the enemies of Florence. The old tower of the castle, as it then was, still remains, but the major portion of the present structure dates from quite modern times.
The Villa Medici in Careggi was built by Cosimo Pater from the designs of Michelozzi, and though no longer royal it is to-day practically unchanged in general outline. It, too, was one of the favourite residences of Lorenzo the Magnificent, and the conclaves of the famous Platonic Academy were held here on the seventh of November, the anniversary of the date of the birth and death of Plato. Here died both Cosimo and Lorenzo, the latter on the eighth of April, 1492, just after his celebrated interview with Savonarola. The Orsi family came into possession of the villa later on, then “an English gentleman” and then a certain Signor Segré.
Between Careggi and Fiesole, and on towards Vallombrosa, the villas and palatial country houses of the Florentines are scattered as thickly as the leaves of the famous vale itself.
The Villa Salviati is a fine sixteenth century work with a blood-red memory of the middle ages, at one time the property of the singer Mario, remembered by a former generation. The Villa Rinuccini has its grounds laid out in the style of an English formal garden, and the Villa Guadagni was once the home of the historian, Bartolommeo della Scala.
Of all the Florentine suburban villas none has a tithe of the popular romantic interest possessed by the Villa Palmieri. The Villa Palmieri is best seen from its approach by the highroad, up hill, from Florence. At the right of the iron gate, the cancello, runs the old road to Fiesole. Upward still the road runs, through the cancello, through a wind-break of trees and around to the north façade by which one enters. The entire south side of the house is in the form of a loggia, with a great wide terrace in front, below which is the sloping garden with its palm trees and azaleas.
