I he Villa Torre a Cona 
THE PRINCIPAL FACADE OF THE VILLA 
Showing the Terrace 
tions were made by the Marehese Folco 
Rinuccini. 1 he chapel was also built at this 
time, the park laid out, and the decorations, 
external and internal, completed. 
1 he road from Bagno a Ripoli to I orre a 
Cona passes no village of importance. After 
running mostly uphill for six or seven miles it 
reaches the first iron gates of the villa. A 
straight drive, between a wall to the east and 
a low hedge to the west, leads you to some 
inner iron gates, from which a cypress avenue 
runs down to the terrace whereon the house 
is built. Half-way, at a bend of the road, you 
come upon a strange piece of statuary, one of 
many you will meet in the grounds. The one 
in the avenue once upon a time represented 
the Rape of Dejanira, but the curious material 
of which the group is made has fallen away in 
many places. The Centaur, for instance, 
stands on four bars of iron, and poor Dejanira 
waves, what should be a comely arm, but is 
nothing but an iron bone. 
These statues were built of red brick to 
an approximate shape, then the bricks were 
carved down to get rid of the angles, and 
then a coat of modeled cement finished the 
statue. 
From this point the house begins to be visi¬ 
ble, and fifty yards further on we pass the last 
cypresses and stand on the terrace with the 
villa in front of us. To our left a long two- 
storeyed building extends for some sixty yards 
till it joins the villa, and along part of its 
second floor runs an open loggia, the only 
ornament of this bare side of the house being 
its arches and columns. 
The villa itself appears to be a characteris¬ 
tic eighteenth century building, its long rows 
of windows surmounted by heavy architraves 
—the sills supported by massively moulded 
brackets—have so effectually metamorphosed 
the original old fortress. The tower alone 
rises grey and grim in its original simplicity 
above the villa it is no longer called on to 
defend. To the later date, too, belongs the 
iron-work of the grille and gate, which enclose 
a portion of the terrace forming the main 
entrance to the house. It is to be regretted 
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