326 



THE GARDENS OF ITALY. 



Medici, built the long graceful orange-houses, frivolous, stucco-decorated erections, with a balus- 

 traded facade and a clock tower. The combination makes a fascinating document (Figs. 340 and 341). 



The villa is now approached by a winding road of little interest, smothered in trees ; but 

 from Zocchi's prints we perceive that the old approach led straight up in front by a broad, 

 walled road. All has been turned into a garden, with roses, bamboos, pampas grasses, lawns 

 and other adjuncts of modern gardening. 



The most curious feature of the old garden is a spacious grotto-house, some sixty feet square, 

 dug out underground and supported by long rows of columns, the whole covered, in the 

 grotesque fashion of the eighteenth century, with stalactites and shell work and ornamented with 

 statuary and monstrous animals. There are remains of old jeux d'eaux. It is perfectly cool on 

 the hottest day ; unfortunately, like all cool, damp, outdoor places in Italy, it is also a haunt 

 beloved of mosquitoes. 



For three hundred and fifty years the villa belonged to the great Florentine family whose 

 name it bears. We first hear of the Salviati in Florence towards the end of the thirteenth 



338. GARDEN BOUNDARY. 



century. A doctor, Messer Salvi, had two sons, Carnbio and Lotto, who became priors of the city, 

 and altogether the Salviati gave to Florence sixty-three priors and twenty-three Gonfalonnieri. 

 One worthless member there was: Giuliano, who led the mob against the Medici in 1527, and 

 afterwards became the boon companion of the dissolute Duke Alessandro. It was he who 

 insulted Luisa Strozzi at a masked ball and paid for it by being maimed for life by her brother, 

 while his wife was always supposed to have poisoned the beautiful and virtuous woman who 

 had resented his infamous behaviour. Jacopo Salviati was his cousin and married Lucrezia, 

 daughter of Lorenzo the Magnificent and sister to Leo X. Jacopo was the one man who at 

 the death of Leo X dared to stand forth as the advocate of the liberty of the people, and thereby 

 forfeited the favour of Clement VII. His daughter Maria married Giovanni delle Bande Nere, 

 the famous captain of Condottieri, and was the mother of Cosimo I. The family increased in 

 wealth and power, and in 1628 the Jacopo of that day married Veronica, daughter of the Prince 



