VILLA SALVIATI AND VILLA GARZONI. 



333 



Caterina, but failing, she laid a plot to get rid of her. She contrived to get hold of 

 Caterina's two step-sons, Bartolommeo and Francesco, and by bribes and by a promise 

 to hold thein harmless and also to make them an allowance, she prevailed on the elder 

 of the pair to introduce the instruments of her vengeance into their father's house. She 

 thereupon hired four assassins from Massa, who, on December 3ist, 1638, effected an entrance 

 and brutally murdered both the unfortunate Caterina and her maid. They cut the bodies 

 to pieces and threw them down a well and into the Arno, all except the head of poor Caterina, 

 which the Duchess had desired to have sent to her. 



' Now, the Duchess," continues the narrative, " was used to send to the Duke's room on 

 Sundays and other holidays a silver basin covered with a fair cloth, containing collars, cuffs and 

 such-like things, which the Duke was wont to change on those days. But on this, the ist of 

 January . . . the present sent was of a different nature. Taking the head of poor Caterina, 



346. VILLA GARZONI, AT COLLODI, NEAR PESCIA : THE GARDENER'S HOUSE. 



which, though bloodless and cold, yet preserved the beauty which had been the cause of her 

 death, the Duchess placed it in the basin, covered with the usual cloth, and sent it by her waiting 

 woman into the Duke's room. When he rose and lifted the cloth to take the clean linen, let his 

 horror be pictured when he saw such a pitiful sight. . . . Knowing full well that his wife 

 had done this deed, he would have no more of her, and for many a long year refused to be where 

 she was." It was at Villa Salviati that this dreadful offering was made, and there is still a 

 legend that in the dusk of the last night of the year a fair head rolls silently along the haunted 

 floor of the Duke's chamber. The last Salviati who owned the villa was a Cardinal. He left 

 it to his niece, Princess Borghese. Later on it was sold to an Englishman and afterwards to 

 Mario, the famous tenor, who as Duke of Candia lived there with Grisi. Here he entertained 

 Garibaldi on his visit to Florence. The villa now belongs to Signor Turri. E. M. P. 



