314 ™E gardens of ITALY. 
continued on the underside of the floor boards, the wood showing through the openwork patterns 
as the background. Under the stout main timbers are short moulded corbel beams. All the 
rooms are lofty ; where not beamed thev have intersected lunette vaulting. The size of the 
old canopy beds will attract the attention of the modern visitor. An old panel of needlework 
hung on the walls resembles majolica pavement in its design. The staircase is of the open well 
type, with later iron balusters between stone newels, prepared probably for a stone balustrading. 
The floors are of brick, waxed, or of terrazzo, polished. The untouched character of the 
interior is as unique as the completeness of the chapel. This, of a later date, is in painted 
architecture, complex on a simple background (Fig. 316). There is a vestry complete with 
vestment and other presses. At the west end of the chapel, grilles in the wall make the entrance 
passage serve as an ante-chapel. Opposite the altar the frescoed architecture provides a throne 
for Faith tramplmg on Infidelity. These frescoes are in such a singular state of preservation. 
325. — THE TERRACE OF THE VILLA GAMBERAIA. 
SO fresh in colouring, as to show once more the value of the painter’s severe technical 
training in those earlier days. The altar-piece represents the marriage at Cana. In the 
chapel is buried Filippo Dini, “ Patrizio Fiorentino,” the last of the Dini Castelli family to hold 
the property, who died in 1824. It was then purchased by the Bombicci, who have so 
carefully preserved its ancient character. The present owner, Cavaliere Guglielmo Bombicci, 
represents the third generation since the purchase. 
This grand villa, begun by the Dini family, was not destined to be finished, for at the back 
were to have been a pair of loggias at the first floor level, only one of which has been built as 
that front still lacks about half of its full extension. This loggia is of the type employed by 
Vasari at the Uffizi, the twin arches springing from a short architrave carried on a pail ot 
columns (Fig. 319). The family were known as the Dini della Tdberta from their being on the 
popular side in the fourteenth century. In Medicean days they would seem to have been aristocrats. 
