290 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. 



1300. Francesco Alighieri sold his newly acquired possession at once, and the purchasers were 

 Giovanni and Accerito Portinari, nephews of that Bice who was the inspiration of the divine poet. 

 When, by a decree of the Duca de Atene, the act of confiscation against Dante was annulled 

 and all other possessions restored to his heirs the legal sale of this villa was allowed to stand. 



In 1427 Bernardo di Giovanni Portinari, nephew of Giovanni, the buyer, possessed, among 

 his other estates, a farm called Garofano, with " a good gentleman's house " on it, situated in 

 Camerata, in the abbey of Fiesole, and in the parish of San Bartolommeo. The boundaries have 

 become somewhat changed, owing to deviations in the course of the torrential river Mugrone, 

 and the property is sometimes described as in the parish of San Marco, or even in that 

 of San Gervasio ; but this was the only piece of land owned by the Portinari in Camerata. 

 Names of villas always change at the caprice of their owners, and later on it is denominated 

 Como. Portinari sold the villa to his cousin Giovanni di Guatteri and his wife Francesca 

 Strozzi, and they sold it back to the Portinari in 1454. It remained in this family till 1507, and 

 then passed through several other hands. Duke Salviati bought it in 1738, and then again it 

 had various owners for short periods ; but every transfer is recorded, and we have the utmost 

 certainty that this was really Dante's house. The shield of the Portinari is carved on a wall 

 not later than the second half of the fourteenth century. At the time Salviati bought it it is 

 entered in the city annals as " a villa in Camerata," and must have been that of Dante, bought 

 by the Portinari family. 



It is worth while tracing the history of this villa minutely, because so much of the old house 

 still retains its original aspect. One of the bedrooms goes by the name of "Dante's room," and may, 

 indeed, well have been that of the master of the house. Its windows lead out on to a loggia 

 from which there is a view over Florence, and it is hardly going too far to assume that when 

 the exile's thoughts turned back to his beloved city he must often have pictured it as it appeared 

 from the loggia of this, his own sweet home. It is one of the most perfect views, looking 

 off to Vallombrosa on the one hand, and towards the mountain on which stands the village of 

 Incontro, where tradition says that St. Francis and St. Dominic met, and on the other to where 

 the sharp shafts of the Carrara mountains stand out against the horizon. 



The villa now belongs to Signor Bondi. E. M. P. 



The Villa Bondi lies on the slopes below San Domenico di Fiesole. Originally owned by 

 Dante about 1300, it was remodelled in the fifteenth century. The road runs up-hill between 

 walls enlarging to a rough oval at the entrance, where two tall stone columns support iron 

 gates. It has been carefully restored and decorated, and presents attractive features. The house is 

 built round an open court, delightful in its quiet and sunlit brilliance. This is about fifteen 

 yards by ten yards, having a wide brick paved balcony at the first-floor level. There is an end 

 loggia overlooking the garden with its palm trees and modern lay-out at this same level of the 

 first floor. This loggia has a decorated open timber roof. The fa9ade is interesting, with 

 an end tower and a centre of two bold arches forming a loggia on the ground floor. Above is 

 a columned belvedere of two oblong bays, now, unfortunately, built up. The right wing 

 advances and a balanced composition is established without symmetry. A. T. B. 



The author of the immortal " Decameron/' the founder of who can say how many modern 

 novels, is believed to have been born by the river Mensola, near Settignano, in 1313. The Villa 

 Palmieri, which belonged to his father, has been identified by a contract of sale existing in 

 the archives of Florence and dated 1336, when Giovanni Boccaccio was twenty-three years 

 old. This villa, now called Villa Boccaccio, still lies on the hill above Villa Palmieri. Some 

 old frescoes were found lately in restoring it. All over this fertile land, which must have 

 been almost as thickly studded with habitations in his day as it is now, the romancer 

 wandered marrying fiction to reality. He wrote the famous volume of stories of the patient 

 Griselda, of Romeo and Juliet, of Isabella and her pot of Basil ; stories from which 

 Chaucer and Shakespeare and Keats and who shall say how many others ? have borrowed 

 through the centuries. And, after more than five hundred years it is still possible to identify 

 the scenes in which he laid them. 



