VILLA MONTALTO, 
FLORENCE. 
HIS villa stands high upon the hills, about 
three miles from Florence on the road to 
Ponte a Mensola. The greater part of 
the house is modern, but the ground on 
which it is built is full of interest and of old 
associations. The small house and farm, which are 
entered in old deeds as existing here in 1349, 
belonged to Dolce, the widow of Bindo Buonaveri, 
a noble Florentine, and were sold by her to a sister 
of Cenni di Giotto, a relation of Florence’s first 
great painter. In the fifteenth century one Valori 
owned the place. It was part of the grounds of his 
large villa near, where he was visited by Pico della 
Mirandola, Poliziano, Marsilio Ficino, Lorenzo him- 
self, when all that brilliant company were gathered 
at Villa Medici on the neighbouring slopes. In 
1559 1t was bought by Giacomo di Fea, the second 
husband of Catherine Sforza, and nine years later 
it was resold to the Baron del Nero. The little 
house was arched and frescoed and given a sixteenth 
century loggia, and the western front is still that 
of the old villa of the Del Nero, but it suffered 
considerably from the earthquake of 1895, at 
which time it belonged to Mr. Hall, an English- 
man, and then Count Fritz von Hochberg bought 
it from Mr. Hall’s widow, and turned it into the 
magnificent place it now is. The Count was his 
own architect and landscape gardener, and the 
result of his planning is so successful that we feel 
that posterity owes him a debt of gratitude for a 
real attempt to create and hand down a. really 
beautiful Italian garden. Count von Hochberg, 
who is a brother of Prince Henry of Pless, sold 
the villa last year to Lord Mexborough. 
Mrs. Ross, in a detailed account of the villa, 
139 
mentions that when the Count recast the interior 
of the building, he found pieces of fine old 
sculptured friezes, portions of columns and ancient 
capitals built into the wall, and that above the stone 
vaults were remains of old carved wooden ceilings 
with traces of painting. The present interior has 
beautiful stucco-work, much of which is copied 
from Sans Souci, and fine old pictures of fruit and 
flowers are let into the walls. 
The garden shows what may be done with a 
clever gardener, intelligence, taste, and ample 
resources, in the bounteous climate of ‘Tuscany. 
The rose-garden-is a very feast of colour in the 
springtime. Five hundred varieties of roses are 
collected together and bloom in glorious profusion 
a mass of colour and perfume. The formal 
garden is laid out with fountains and statues and 
quaint spirals of box, masses of flowers bloom along 
the terraces, or overflow from great vases, and are 
reflected in stone-bordered tanks. It is almost 
impossible to believe that six years ago no trace 
of this garden existed, but the podere, or farm land, 
with artichokes, olives, and Indian corn, grew 
up to the walls of the dwelling-house. The fine 
Belvedere, of which there is an illustration, has 
a magnificent outlook over the purple distance, 
and all round lie white villas set in cypresses and 
olives. The view extends from Vallombrosa on the 
one hand to Carrara on the other, and at your feet 
lies Florence with its dome and towers. Just below 
are the machicolated walls of Poggio Gherardo, 
with the tower which Sir John Hawkwood stormed. 
To the left are the turrets of Vincigliata. On the 
hillside lies the village of Settignano, and the house 
where Michael Angelo passed his boyhood. 
