VILLA FABRICOTTI AND 
VILLA STIBBERT, 
FLORENCE. 
S we pass the imposing iron gate that leads 
to that villa lying on the north-west side 
of Florence—the villa that Marchese 
Fabricotti once lent to Queen Victoria, 
we very quickly perceive that we are in the 
haunt of a lover of arboriculture. Few villas 
have such a fine avenue of cypresses winding up 
their drive, and these are interspersed and the 
rest of the garden almost overgrown with conifers, 
palms, bamboos, silver firs, wellingtonias of every 
kind, besides numbers of small rare trees in 
and out of pots, and one of the largest cedars 
in Italy. 
Fabricotti is a modern villa, though it stands 
upon the site of a hunting-lodge that belonged to 
the Strozzi. Most of the adornments of the 
garden are modern, too, with the exception of 
the two solemn lions which keep watch and 
ward on the long — balustrade halfway up the 
ascent. The villa is built like the old ones in 
many ways, with an airy entrance hall, going right 
through the house, and a long, cheerful gallery 
opening on to the sunny terrace, on which great 
beds of rose pink phlox—very pyramids of luscious 
colour—glow against the background of close-cut 
cypresses and contrast with the gleaming white of 
statues. At the back of the villa are two giant 
horse-chestnuts, which overshadow it, and under 
the shade of which a colony of basket-chairs and 
low tables littered with books is always established 
in hot weather. Pauline Bonaparte Princess 
Borghese died in one of the rooms. ‘The brown 
Duomo looks quite close at hand, for this villa 
is only a few minutes outside the gates, and is 
one of those which is occupied throughout the 
greater part of the year. 
If the Villa Fabricotti bears evidence of its 
owner’s love for trees, we should be equally quickly 
t-o 
aware that Villa Stibbert belongs to an antiquary, 
were the fact less well known than it is. Driving 
up the slopes, the attention is caught every moment 
by some interesting piece of stonework, disposed 
with great care and meaning. Here is a little 
shrine of the renaissance, there a fine old carved 
well-head, set against a graceful scrolled iron rail, 
iron torch-holders project from the walls, and the 
space round the. entrance is covered with shields 
bearing the devices of half the ancient houses of 
Tuscany. It is as a museum that Mr. Stibbert’s 
residence must be regarded, for the house and 
garden exist for the collection, and this, it is an 
open secret, is to be a princely bequest to the 
municipality. 
In the long rooms and galleries is an endless 
array of rare and beautiful objets d’art—cases of those 
brocaded coats, velvet suits, heavy with embroidery, 
silks and satins in which the gallants and ladies 
ruffled at the Courts of the Grand Dukes. The 
walls are hung with old painted leather, still bril- 
liantly coloured, and with beautiful tapestries ; and 
the collection of armour, above all, must be one 
of the finest in the world. Not only is it very 
large, filling room after room, but many of the 
suits are richly inlaid, and the variety is so 
great. The balls of the Medici gleam on the 
shield of a knight, a Saracenic warrior is arrayed 
in fine chain mail, each link riveted and_ the 
whole engraved with verses from the Koran, 
here are Japanese suits, including one of the 
Royal House, complete even to the carved ivory 
scimitar sheath. There are suits of mail, fine 
and flexible- as silk, and heavy buff coats of 
Louis XIV.’s troopers. It is strange to find 
this priceless collection, the work of forty years, 
in this secluded villa in its shady garden, and 
it takes a long visit to exhaust its wonders. 
