Old Gardens of Italy 9 1 



VILLA MEDICI, FIESOLE. 



ALSO known as Belcante or II Palagio di Fiesole. 

 One of the many villas of Lorenzo de' Medici. 

 Here he usually spent his week ends, and here, as 

 at Careggi, the meetings of the philosophers took 

 place. Cosimo III. sold it in 1671 for 4,000 

 scudi to Senator Cosimo del Sera, to whom be- 

 longed the crest which still adorns the corner of the 

 terrace bordering the old avenue. In 1721 it 

 was inherited by the Durazzini, who, in 1725, sold 

 it to the Borgherini. In 1771, when this family 

 became extinct, the villa was bought by Colonel 

 Albergotto, who, the following year, sold it to the 

 widow of Robert Walpole, Earl of Oxford. At 

 the beginning of the nineteenth century Mr. Spence 

 purchased it, and Lady Sybil Cutting now resides 

 there. The garden has, to a certain extent, 

 retained its old design. Owing to the site it 

 occupies along a narrow shelf on the steep hill- 

 side it can never have had an elaborate plan, but 

 whoever laid out the grounds made them conform 

 admirably to their position. The beautiful cypress 

 avenue leading steeply up from the old road to 

 Fiesole is now a public highway. Where it formerly 

 reached the house there is still a little forecourt 

 with cypresses and a fountain. The loggia of the 

 house on the other side opens on a lawn, once, no 

 doubt, a parterre laid out with flower beds. Two 

 grottos form the ends of the paths on either side, 

 and a central gateway leads to the long cypress 



