GARDENS OF ESTE AND GONZAGA PRINCES 
The new theatre at Marmirolo had cost some 20,000 
ducats, and Giulio Romano was already beginning 
his sumptuous palace on the marshy grounds of the 
Te. So Michelangelo’s designs were put aside and 
forgotten. Fortunately they fell into the hands of 
some of his friends at Florence, and long afterwards, 
when Agostino Dini built himself a villa, they were 
brought to light. The Dini family had been intimate 
with Michelangelo himself, and Santi di Tito, the 
architect whom Agostino employed, was a pupil of 
Bandinelli and, like all his contemporaries, held the 
great man’s memory in the highest honour. The 
house which he reared for Dini on the hills beyond 
the Certosa di Val d’Ema has always been traditionally 
ascribed to Michelangelo, and its noble and austere 
simplicity bears the stamp of the master’s genius. 
It stands on the top of a lofty ridge looking towards 
Pistoia and the distant Apennines. On either side 
long cypress avenues lead up to a terrace from which 
a majestic double flight of steps flanked with lions 
ascends to a paved courtyard. The south front of 
the villa, consisting of a two-storied arcade of slender 
columns, supporting a roof with projecting eaves, is 
built round three sides of this court. At the back 
is a stately loggia and another double stairway leading 
down to a sunny parterre, with orange and lemon trees 
in terra-cotta pots, low box hedges, and an ilex grove 
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