THE GARDENS OF ITALY. 



continued on the underside of the floor boards, the wood showing through the openwork patterns 

 as the background. Under the stout main timbers are short moulded corbel beams. All the 

 rooms are lofty ; where not beamed they have intersected lunette vaulting. The size of the 

 old canopy beds will attract the attention of the modern visitor. An old panel of needlework 

 hung on the walls resembles majolica pavement in its design. The staircase is of the open well 

 type, with later iron balusters between stone newels, prepared probably for a stone balustrading. 

 The floors are of brick, waxed, or of terrazzo, polished. The untouched character of the 

 interior is as unique as the completeness of the chapel. This, of a later date, is in painted 

 architecture, complex on a simple background (Fig. 316). There is a vestry complete with 

 vestment and other presses. At the west end of the chapel, grilles in the wall make the entrance 

 passage serve as an ante-chapel. Opposite the altar the frescoed architecture provides a throne 

 for Faith trampling on Infidelity. These frescoes are in such a singular state of preservation, 



325. THE TERRACE OF THE VILLA GAMBERAIA. 



so tresh in colouring, as to show once more the value of the painter's severe technical 

 training in those earlier days. The altar-piece represents the marriage at Cana. In the 

 chapel is buried Filippo Dini, " Patrizio Florentine," the last of the Dini Castelli family to hold 

 the property, who died in 1824. It was then purchased by the Bombicci, who have so 

 carefully preserved its ancient character. The present owner, Cavaliere Guglielmo Bombicci, 

 represents the third generation since the purchase. 



This grand villa, begun by the Dini family, was not destined to be finished, for at the back 

 were to have been a pair of loggias at the first floor level, only one of which has been built as 

 that front still lacks about half of its full extension. This loggia is of the type employed by 

 Vasari at the Uffizi, the twin arches springing from a short architrave carried on a paii or 

 columns (Fig. 319). The family were known as the Dini della Liberta from their being on the 

 popular side in the fourteenth century. In Medicean days they would seem to have been aristocrats. 



