THE BOBOLI GARDENS 



Owing to exceptional circumstances it was in Rome and its neighbour- 

 hood that the most important development of the maison de plaisance took 

 place, both in the purely country and the suburban villa. Around 

 Florence, with the exception perhaps of the Grand Ducal villas, no 

 attempt was made to enter into competition with the special luxury of 

 the Eternal City. 



Lord Orrery, writing from Florence in 1754, says : " Luqa Pitti, a 

 Florentine gentleman, more rich than wise, more envious than prudent, 

 heard with great uneasiness the palace of the famous Filippo Strozzi 

 much commended and admired. It was the largest palace at that time 

 in Florence. ' It shall be so no longer,' exclaimed Luca Pitti ; ' I will 

 build a larger. The palace of Strozzi shall be measured to stand within 

 my court. Every one of my windows shall be as large as his portal.' 

 Luca Pitti verified his boast, but ruined his fortune. He built his 

 palace, and he erected a most magnificent front on the outside, magnifi- 

 cent but heavy ; truly Tuscan, durable as the world itself. By which 

 design the great arch of each window is, on the outside, noble ; on the 

 inside, six parts in seven of it are bricked up to adapt the windows to 

 the size of the rooms ; nor are the chambers divided with the least 

 attention to regularity. . . . Cosmo I,, whose riches and grandeur were 

 boundless, bought the palace Pitti, which from his time till the total 

 extinction of his family has been receiving additional ornaments of every 

 kind that can be named. Behind the palace is a large garden, called 

 Boboli, laid out in what is now deemed the old-fashioned taste. I mean 

 statues, fountains, long straight alleys, and dipt hedges, the garden 



81 L 



