THE GARDENS OF ITALY. 



325 



CHAPTER XXVI. 



VILLA SALVIATJ, FLORENCE, AND VILLA GARZONI, 



COLLODI, NEAR PESGIA. 



IT is not known who built this massive and fortress-like villa, with its towers and machico- 

 lations and its sloping bastion-like walls.* In noo it is mentioned in Florentine archives 

 as belonging to the Montegonzi, who in 1450 sold it to Messer Alemanno Salviati. It 

 was then described as " a strong castle with towers and battlements," and Vasari tells us 

 that in 1529 it was besieged by the Florentine mob and burnt. That presumably ended its life 

 as a fortress, and the massive tower, of which the main portion consists, has been transformed 

 by a wide roof above its battlements (Fig. 339). A courtyard with Renaissance arches has risen 

 inside the adjoining part, but there still remain the two tall corner towers, from which men-at- 

 arms must have watched in the old days of mediaeval Florence, when a dwelling-house at a 

 distance from the city must also be a place of refuge. 



Jacopo Salviati had already laid out the terraced garden in 1510, and in the eighteenth 

 century an owner, smitten with the taste for rococo gardening brought in by Francesco di 



* Resembling Careggi, it may have been designed by Michelozzo Michelozzi (1396-1472). 



337-- VILLA SALVIATI : SOUTH-!- AST CORNER. 



