THE VILLA TURRI-SALVIATI 
By B. C. Jennings-Bramly 
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Illustrated with Photographs by Arthur Murray Cobb 
MONG the 
many smil¬ 
ing seventeenth 
century villas 
that look down 
on Florence 
from her sur¬ 
rounding circle 
of hills, Villa 
T urri-Salviati, 
almost alone, 
frowns stern and 
severe, telling of 
an earlier time, 
when it was well 
that the great 
Florentine fami¬ 
lies had strong 
walls behind 
which to retire, 
for to belong to 
a great house 
meant to be of 
one or other of 
the factions that 
fought for mas¬ 
tery during the 
first centuries of the Republic, before the 
strong grip of the Medicean tyranny had 
quelled the turbulent spirits of the citizens. 
In i ioo a fortified castello belonging to the 
Montegonzi is known to have stood on the site 
of the present villa, and this was sold in 1450 
to Signore Alemanno Salviati. At that time 
it was described as a strong castle with towers 
and battlements, and from its likeness to bis 
work at Cafaggiolo and Careggi it is more 
than probable that the alterations which Sal¬ 
viati carried out in the building, were confided 
to Michelozzi and designed by him with a due 
regard to a maintenance of the strength of the 
place. It stands above San Domenico, a 
square building rising high to its machicolated 
battlements, covered by a pent roof, forming 
an allure, or 
covered passage, 
round the crene¬ 
lated walls. The 
house maintains 
its fortress-like 
aspect untouch¬ 
ed on its eastern 
side, where no 
gardens, no trees 
soften the sever¬ 
ity of the lines. 
The very few 
heavily barred 
windows open 
irregularly above 
the sloping bas¬ 
tion wall and 
look down upon 
a narrow grass- 
covered terrace 
bordered by a 
stone parapet. 
Another bastion 
supports this ter¬ 
race and then 
the podere runs 
down the very steep hill till it reaches the 
banks of the Mugnone, the stream which 
flows at the bottom of the valley. 
To the west the square of the fortress has 
attached to it a lower building, machicolated 
and with towers rising to the north and south. 
The centre of this is an open cortile above and 
round three sides of which runs a closed-in 
gallery, supported on columns which form a 
loggia in the cortile below. This cortile is 
entered by gates facing west. The house was 
partly burnt down in 1529, when many pic¬ 
tures were destroyed. It is possible that this 
cortile was an addition made when the fortress 
was rebuilt, at a time when the question of 
strength was of no such paramount impor¬ 
tance. 
THE ENTRANCE TO THE VILLA 
73 
