3io 



THE GARDENS OF ITALY. 



3! 8. VILLA DEI COLLAZZI : INTERIOR OF THE GREAT HALL. 



tecture, worked for Agostino Dini at Giogoli. . . . 

 For this same Agostino he also painted one of 

 his finest altar-pieces." The front of the villa, 

 which looks toward the city, facing north across 

 the broken intervening hillsides, is, as it were, half 

 a cortile, its loggias, in two storeys, collecting the 

 sunlight and commanding the views on three sides. 

 The finish of the arcades is very well managed, 



of that reputed authorship 

 from what little we know 

 of Michelangelo's work 

 elsewhere, but it does 

 show the hand of an 

 architect trained in the 

 school of Florence. Santi 

 di Tito (15381603), 

 whose masterpiece is the 

 painted altar-piece (Fig. 

 320) in the chapel of 

 the villa, has been 

 credited with the super- 

 intendence and execution 

 of the work. Michel- 

 angelo is known to have 

 been an intimate friend 

 of the Dini who built the 

 villa. Baldinucci says : 

 " Santi di Tito, scholar 

 of Bronzino in painting, 

 and of Vasari in archi- 



. VILLA DEI COLLAZZI : THE BACK FACAD: 



320. THE ALTAR-PIECE BY SANTI DI TITO 

 IN THE CHAPEL. 



and the paved level of the court, approached 

 by the double stairway, balustraded and com- 

 pleted by great stone lions, is final in its 

 pictorial impressiveness (Fig. 323). The villa 



