The Villa di Castello, near the hills bordering Florence, Tuscany, central Italy, was the country residence of Cosimo I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany (1519-1574). The gardens, filled with fountains, statuary, and a grotto, became famous throughout Europe. The villa also housed some of the great art treasures of Florence, including Sandro Botticelli's Renaissance masterpieces The Birth of Venus and Primavera. The gardens of the Villa had a profound influence upon the design of the Italian Renaissance garden and the later French formal garden.
History
Villa Castello is located at the foot of the hills northwest of Florence, near the town of Sesto Fiorentino. The villa was located near a Roman aqueduct, and took its name from the water cisterns (castella) near the site.
A fortified building had been standing on the site since at least 1427, and was purchased in 1477 by Lorenzo and his brother Giovanni di Pierfrancesco de' Medici. This the year after their father died at the age of 46, leaving the young boys wards of their cousin Lorenzo il Magnifico, of the senior branch of the Medici family and de facto ruler of Florence.
They reconstructed the old building, adding a courtyard, a loggia, kitchens and stables. The house was inherited by a famed condottiere, or mercenary soldier, Giovanni dalle Bande Nere and his wife, Maria Salviati, the parents of Cosimo, who was born in 1519, and lived in the house as a child.
In 1537, the 26-year-old Duke of Florence, Alessandro de' Medici, was assassinated, and Cosimo, though he was only seventeen and a relatively unknown member of the Medici family, was elected by the influential men of Florence to replace him. They were under the impression that they could control him, but they were mistaken. In 1537, the young Cosimo faced a rebellion by a faction which wanted to restore the Republic of Florence. He defeated them at the Battle of Montemurlo, and established himself as the unrivaled ruler of the city.
The design and construction of the garden
Once his power was secure, Cosimo began to spend more time at his villa in Castello. As the architect and writer Giorgio Vasari wrote, "At this place the Duke began to build a little, one thing after another, to the end that he might reside there more commodiously, himself and his court."
Cosimo commissioned the engineer Piero da San Casciano to construct a system of aqueducts to bring water to the villa and its gardens, the sculptor Niccolò Tribolo to create fountains, statues and a garden, and the architect Giorgio Vasari to restore and enlarge the villa.
First, under the direction of Piero da San Casciano, an aqueduct was constructed from the Castella higher up the slope of Monte Morello to a small reservoir he built on the hill above the villa. Later, when more water was needed, a second aqueduct was built from another spring at Petraia.
Tribolo's design for the garden was described in great detail in Vasari's Lives of the Artists. The garden was laid out on the site of original walled garden, which ran from the villa up the gentle slope toward the mountain. On the hillside above the back wall of the garden, where the water reservoir was located, Tribolo created a bosco, or a simulated natural forest, separated from the garden by a high retaining wall. Below this, he divided the old walled garden into two by another wall, and carved out a small upper terrace and a large lower terrace, connected by two ornamental stairways. The smaller upper garden was planted with orange and lemon trees, trained to grow up the walls. It also contained, in the center of the back wall, the entrance to the grotto, a small cave whose walls resembled a natural cavern, richly decorated and filled with sculpture.
The larger lower garden was divided into squares, like small rooms, divided by paths and bordered by hedges and rows of cedar and olive trees, and filled with flower beds. In the center of the terrace was a circular labyrinth of cypress trees interplanted with laurel, myrtle and roses. In the center of the labyrinth was fountain crowned by a statue of Venus. A second, larger fountain, crowned with a bronze statue of Hercules defeating Antaeus, was located between the labyrinth and the villa.