310 
THE GARDENS OF ITALY. 
318— VILLA DEI COLLAZZI : INTERIOR OF THE GREAT HALL. 
of that reputed authorship 
from what little we know 
of Michelangelo’s work 
elsewhere, but it does 
show the hand of an 
architect trained in the 
school of Florence. Santi 
di Tito (1538—1603), 
whose masterpiece is the 
painted altar-piece (Fig. 
320) in the chapel of 
the villa, has been 
credited with the super- 
intendence and execution 
of the work. Michel- 
angelo is known to have 
been an intimate friend 
of the Dini who built the 
villa. Baldinucci says : 
“ Santi di Tito, scholar 
of Bronzino in painting, 
and of Vasari in archi- 
tecture, worked for Agostino Dini at Giogoli. . . . 
For this same Agostino he also painted one of 
his finest altar-pieces.” The front of the villa, 
which looks toward the city, facing north across 
the broken intervening hillsides, is, as it were, half 
a cortile, its loggias, in two storeys, collecting the 
sunlight and commanding the views on three sides. 
The finish of the arcades is very well managed, 
319.- VILLA DEI COLLAZZI : THE BACK FACADE. 
320. — THE ALTAR-PIECE BY SANTI DI TITO 
IN THE CHAPEL. 
and the paved level of the court, approached 
by the double stairway, balustraded and com- 
pleted by great stone lions, is final in its 
pictorial impressiveness (Fig. 323). The villa 
