House and Garden 
hydrangea covered with bloom—among the 
largest i have ever seen. 
One is grateful that the Vdla Turri-Salviati 
has become the property of those who know 
how to preserve its characteristics. Villa and 
garden have been left as they were. I he 
additions made at different periods, none 
later, luckily, than the eighteenth century, 
have remained untouched. Good taste has 
furnished the rooms, not with a museum-like 
accuracy, in the style of any particular period, 
but with things fine, sombre, massive, in keep¬ 
ing with the huge vaulted rooms, the thick 
fortress-like walls and the heavily barred win¬ 
dows. Dark wood, rich brocade, the subdued 
glow of some fine old pictures, these give the 
right note of simple grandeur. And withal, 
comfort has not been sacrificed to picturesque¬ 
ness, for the rooms are thoroughly liveable. 
It would be strange if a bouse inhabited for 
centuries by one of the great Italian families 
had not its gruesome tale of dramatic crime 
to tell. The history of the Salviati proves 
them to have been in no way behind their 
contemporaries in such matters, but their 
history concerns us in so far only as it deals 
with that of the villa. This, however, was 
the scene of the last act of a tragedy which 
can hold its own for horror among the many 
tales of terror of the time. At the beginning 
of the seventeenth century the villa belonged 
to another Jacopo Salviati, Duke of San 
Giuliano, who married Veronica Cybo, daugh¬ 
ter of the Prince Massa of Carrara. 1 he 
match was a brilliant one, but the bride ill- 
favored, proud and hard of heart, and so it 
came to pass that Jacopo sought elsewhere 
that which was lacking in his own household 
and found it in the exquisite beauty, the 
charm and sweetness of one Caterina di S. 
Brogi, married to, but separated from ber 
husband, a man thirty-three years older than 
herself. 
1 he beautiful Catherine may have been 
boastful. Anyhow all Jacopo’s endeavors to 
keep the knowledge of his infidelity from his 
wife proved vain. Following Catherine into 
a church one day, the Duchess threatened her 
with a terrible vengeance if she did not give up 
Jacopo, but the girl, trusting in her powerful 
lover’s protection, scoffed at these threats. 
Some days passed. The Duchess laid her 
plans. She sent for a stepson of Caterina’s, 
one Bartolommeo Canacci, and found him a 
willing: tool. From her father’s court at 
Massa two men were sent to her, two of those 
sicarj or bravi, hangers-on of every Italian 
court of that date, ready to do her bidding, 
whatever it might be. 
On the night of the 31st of December, 1633, 
Caterina was sitting in her house in the Via 
dei Pilastri, with two young men, friends of 
THE PLANTING BESIDE A GARDEN WALL 
79 
