THE GARDENS OF ITALY. 
this stem Tribolo placed a bronze fernale figure 
a yard and a-half high to represent Florence 
of which figure he made a most beautiful model 
wringing the water out of her hair with her 
hands.” Many critics pronounce this figure to 
have been executed by Giovanni Bologna. 
The villa was stormed in 1364 by the 
Pisans with their English and German allies. It 
then belonged to the Brunelleschi, and the young 
sons of the house made a gallant defence, and 
succeeded in repulsing the enemy. Cosimo ie 
when wishing to escape from the cares of State, 
passed most of his time at Petraja. 
on the hiilside above was lent by him to Varchi, 
the historian, who entertained all the notable 
visitors to Florence of the day, not least the 
celebrated courtesan Tullia of Arragon, one of 
those ladies of the late Renaissance whose wise 
A little villa. 
107 
and witty converse and rare beauty and accom- 
plishments, made her a personage in the society ot 
the great and learned. Her picture by Bonvicino 
at Brescia shows us the lovely woman to whom 
poets addressed such passionate verses—the owner 
of those 
“ beautiful eyes, 
Glancing eyes, loving eyes and dear, 
More brilliant than the sun, and than the stars more fair,” 
of which Muzio writes. 
Cosimo’s son, Cardinal Ferdinand, commis- 
sioned Buontalenti to enlarge and improve the 
villa, but the historian Ammirato, to whom the 
Cardinal lent Petraja, so that he might write his 
history of Florence in retirement, is persuaded that 
the tower was not touched and is the same that was 
assaulted by the Pisan army under the command 
of Sir John Hawkwood, in the fourteenth century. 
