THE GARDENS OF ITALY. 



CHAPTER XX. 

 FLORENTINE GARDENS AND VILLAS.-INTRODUCTORY NOTE 



WHEN all the centres of interest in Italy have in turn been visited it will be strange 

 if the traveller's recollections do not settle upon Florence, living its strenuous 

 life, crowded within the narrow limits of the plain of the Arno ; on the city 

 ringed about with olive clad hillsides, dotted with the white and brown villas 

 characteristic of Tuscany. Here, if anywhere, we should find the simplicity of cultivated taste 

 and that love of solid building which thinks beyond the lives of one century. In the true 

 Tuscan villa the solid, vaulted ground floor is the factory of the farm, and all the work is there 

 carried on which sustains the life lived on the Piano Nobile above. 



At the Villa dei Collazzi, illustrated later, are cellars and substructures of vast extent, the 

 ' fattoria " of the estate. The entrance is through a wide doorway, adequate for ox carts to 

 descend by a gentle slope. Here under the great vaults are two long rows of wine vats, each 

 inscribed with the name of a " podere," or farm. The tall tubs of wood full of grapes come 

 in stacked upon the carts, which are drawn by white oxen with red tassels dependent from 

 heir horns. The grapes, first emptied into the vats, are then crushed by the feet or by wooden 

 maces of the farm labourers. When fermented the wine is drawn off and transferred to an 



272. AT FLORENCE : SHELLEY 's VIEW. 



