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77-599: The Villa Medicea di Cafaggiolo is a villa situated near the Tuscan town of Barberino di Mugello in the valley of the River Sieve , some 25 kilometres north of Florence , central Italy. It was one of the oldest and most favoured of the Medici family estates, having been in the possession of the family since the 14th century, when it was owned by Averardo de' Medici . Averardo's son, Giovanni di Bicci de' Medici ,

154-587: A chartered town. Later evolution has made the Hispanic distinction between villas and ciudades a purely honorific one. Madrid is the Villa y Corte , the villa considered to be separate from the formerly mobile royal court , but the much smaller Ciudad Real was declared ciudad by the Spanish crown. In 14th and 15th century Italy, a villa once more connoted a country house, like the first Medici villas ,

231-543: A classical feature, is Gothic in its use of the pointed arch , but rises to a classical oculus . or put simply "Gothic in form but Renaissance in detail". In style, the castle resembled the Palazzo Vecchio , the Medici's older Florentine residence, to which Michelozzo was also making alterations while the castle was being built. Thus, at first glance, the architecture of Castello Mediceo di Cafaggiolo appears that of

308-535: A consequence, the villa was the scene of many momentous events in the history of the dynasty, ranging from the reception of Medici brides to the murder of a Medici wife. The castle is today privately owned by the company Società Cafaggiolo srl . During the 15th and 16th centuries, the Tuscan aristocracy , who had forsaken their medieval castles for the political expediency, comfort and greater security of town life, developed an aesthetic awareness which necessitated

385-751: A few of the notable early architects were Wallace Neff , Addison Mizner , Stanford White , and George Washington Smith . A few examples are the Harold Lloyd Estate in Beverly Hills, California , Medici scale Hearst Castle on the Central Coast of California , and Villa Montalvo in the Santa Cruz Mountains of Saratoga, California , Villa Vizcaya in Coconut Grove, Miami , American Craftsman versions are

462-493: A high-status power centre with its baths and gardens. The grand villa at Woodchester preserved its mosaic floors when the Anglo-Saxon parish church was built (not by chance) upon its site. Grave-diggers preparing for burials in the churchyard as late as the 18th century had to punch through the intact mosaic floors. The even more palatial villa rustica at Fishbourne near Winchester was built (uncharacteristically) as

539-695: A humanized agricultural landscape , at that time the only desirable aspect of nature . Later villas and gardens include the Palazzo Pitti and Boboli Gardens in Florence, and the Villa di Pratolino in Vaglia . Rome had more than its share of villas with easy reach of the small sixteenth-century city: the progenitor, the first villa suburbana built since Antiquity, was the Belvedere or palazzetto , designed by Antonio del Pollaiuolo and built on

616-721: A large open rectangle, with porticos enclosing gardens entered through a portico. Towards the end of the 3rd century, Roman towns in Britain ceased to expand: like patricians near the centre of the empire, Roman Britons withdrew from the cities to their villas, which entered on a palatial building phase, a "golden age" of villa life. Villae rusticae are essential in the Empire's economy. Two kinds of villa-plan in Roman Britain may be characteristic of Roman villas in general. The more usual plan extended wings of rooms all opening onto

693-578: A larger tower dominating the building at the rear. It is possible that this tower (now demolished) was retained from the older fortress. A similar tower exists at another Medici villa , Villa La Petraia , which Bernardo Buontalenti retained in 1575 when converting that villa from an earlier fortress, for Francesco de' Medici . Just as Renaissance architecture looked back to the classical civilizations , so did Renaissance garden design. The gardens of Renaissance were terraced with ilex groves and walks bordered with myrtle and statuary, just like those of

770-421: A linking portico, which might be extended at right angles, even to enclose a courtyard . The other kind featured an aisled central hall like a basilica , suggesting the villa owner's magisterial role. The villa buildings were often independent structures linked by their enclosed courtyards. Timber-framed construction, carefully fitted with mortises and tenons and dowelled together, set on stone footings, were

847-436: A long entrance hall. In South Korea, the term "villa" refers to small multi-household house with 4 floors or less . In Cambodia, "villa" is used as a loanword in the local language of Khmer, and is generally used to describe any type of detached townhouse that features yard space. The term does not apply to any particular architectural style or size, the only features that distinguish a Khmer villa from another building are

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924-402: A medieval castle rather than a villa, with a crenellated tower at the front flanked by two battlemented wings, reinforced with bastions at each corner. These Gothic and Renaissance features were not included by Michelozzo to retain older features from the earlier fortress but, 33 years after the commencement of Brunelleschi's Ospedale degli Innocenti, as a deliberate motif intended to fulfil

1001-485: A meeting place for the great intellectuals of the day, who came either for the many parties dedicated to hunting, or merely to entertain the court with their learning – for example, Luigi Pulci is known to have read aloud his Morgante there. Lorenzo composed many of his songs at Cafaggiolo, and entertained such worthies as Marsilio Ficino and his most faithful friends, Poliziano and Pico della Mirandola . From 1476 onwards, Lorenzo il Magnifico needed to raise funds,

1078-632: Is also used in Pakistan, and in some of the Caribbean islands such as Jamaica , Saint Barthélemy , Saint Martin , Guadeloupe , British Virgin Islands , and others. It is similar for the coastal resort areas of Baja California Sur and mainland Mexico, and for hospitality industry destination resort "luxury bungalows " in various locations worldwide. In Indonesia, the term "villa" is applied to Dutch colonial country houses ( landhuis ). Nowadays,

1155-410: Is apparent in the architecture. The political climate of the period required all noble houses to be semi-fortified; so, just as in the design of the first great urban palazzi, the ground floor was "a defended courtyard surrounded by guardrooms and quarters for men at arms ". This structure dictated the fenestration : the windows are few, small and high from the ground on the lower floor, while those on

1232-571: Is considered to be the founder of the Medici dynasty. The villa was reconstructed following designs of the eminent Renaissance architect Michelozzo in 1452, becoming a meeting place for some of the greatest intellectuals of the Italian Renaissance . The villa is located in the Mugello region, the area which was the homeland of the Medici. Although by no means the grandest or largest of their many houses, they visited it often: as

1309-552: Is now the city museum of Helsinki, Finland . During the 19th and 20th century, the term "villa" became widespread for detached mansions in Europe. Special forms are for instance spa villas ( Kurvillen in German) and seaside villas ( Bädervillen in German), that became especially popular at the end of the 19th century. The tradition established back then continued throughout the 20th century and even until today. Another trend

1386-419: The "kilnmasters" of the maiolica manufactory for which Cafaggiolo is famed. These are Piero and Stefano di Filippo da Montelupo , who started up the kilns under Medici patronage in 1495. 43°57′53.42″N 11°17′41.87″E  /  43.9648389°N 11.2949639°E  / 43.9648389; 11.2949639 Villa Roman villas included: In terms of design, there was often little difference in

1463-823: The Château de Ferrières is an example of the Italian Neo-Renaissance style villa – and in Britain the Mentmore Towers . A representative building of this style in Germany is Villa Haas (designed by Ludwig Hofmann) in Hesse . Villa Hakasalmi in Helsinki (built in 1834–46) represents Empire-era villa architecture. It was the home of Aurora Karamzin (1808–1902) at the end of the 19th century and

1540-631: The Farnese . Near Siena in Tuscany, the Villa Cetinale was built by Cardinal Flavio Chigi . He employed Carlo Fontana , pupil of Gian Lorenzo Bernini to transform the villa and dramatic gardens in a Roman Baroque style by 1680. The Villa Lante garden is one of the most sublime creations of the Italian villa in the landscape, completed in the 17th century. In the later 16th century in

1617-518: The Franks . Kintzheim was Villa Regis , the "villa of the king". Around 590, Saint Eligius was born in a highly placed Gallo-Roman family at the 'villa' of Chaptelat near Limoges , in Aquitaine (now France). The abbey at Stavelot was founded ca 650 on the domain of a former villa near Liège and the abbey of Vézelay had a similar founding. As Europe's influence spread to other cultures,

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1694-666: The Gamble House and the villas by Greene and Greene in Pasadena, California Modern architecture has produced some important examples of buildings known as villas: Country-villa examples: Today, the term "villa" is often applied to vacation rental properties. In the United Kingdom the term is used for high quality detached homes in warm destinations, particularly Florida and the Mediterranean. The term

1771-1252: The Liebermann Villa and Britz House in Berlin, Albrechtsberg , Eckberg, Villa Stockhausen and Villa San Remo  [ de ] in Dresden , Villa Waldberta in Feldafing , Villa Kennedy  [ de ] in Frankfurt , Jenisch House and Budge-Palais in Hamburg , Villa Andreae  [ de ] and Villa Rothschild  [ de ; ar ; fr ] in Königstein , Villa Stuck and Pacelli-Palais  [ de ] in Munich , Schloss Klink at Lake Müritz , Villa Ludwigshöhe in Rhineland-Palatinate , Villa Haux in Stuttgart and Weinberg House in Waren . In France

1848-653: The Medici Chapel (the family mausoleum ) at the Basilica di San Lorenzo . Her homicidal husband was sent from the Florentine court to the court of Spain until his own death in 1604. In 1737, on the death of Gian Gastone de' Medici , the last Medici ruler of Tuscany, Cafaggiolo came into the possession of the Medici's successors, the House of Habsburg-Lorraine , in the person of Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor . As

1925-579: The Neo-Palladian a part of the late 17th century and on Renaissance Revival architecture period. In the early 18th century the English took up the term, and applied it to compact houses in the country, especially those accessible from London: Chiswick House is an example of such a "party villa". Thanks to the revival of interest in Palladio and Inigo Jones , soon Neo-Palladian villas dotted

2002-494: The Pope having seized many of his assets. He borrowed from his cousins, with the eventual result that ownership of the villa was transferred after protracted negotiations to Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco and his brother Giovanni in 1485. Cafaggiolo thus passed for a time to the younger branch of the Medici — who established the manufacture of maiolica in the villa's outbuildings — until all the Medici holdings were once more reassembled in

2079-718: The Queen Anne style Victorian architecture and Beaux-Arts architecture . Communities such as Montecito , Pasadena , Bel Air , Beverly Hills , and San Marino in Southern California, and Atherton and Piedmont in the San Francisco Bay Area are a few examples of villa density. The popularity of Mediterranean Revival architecture in its various iterations over the last century has been consistently used in that region and in Florida . Just

2156-654: The Villa Giulia of Pope Julius III (1550), designed by Vignola . The Roman villas Villa Ludovisi and Villa Montalto, were destroyed during the late nineteenth century in the wake of the real estate bubble that took place in Rome after the seat of government of a united Italy was established at Rome. The cool hills of Frascati gained the Villa Aldobrandini (1592); the Villa Falconieri and

2233-900: The Villa Godi , the Villa Forni Cerato , the Villa Capra "La Rotonda" , and Villa Foscari . The Villas are grouped into an association (Associazione Ville Venete) and offer touristic itineraries and accommodation possibilities. Soon after in Greenwich England, following his 1613–1615 Grand Tour , Inigo Jones designed and built the Queen's House between 1615 and 1617 in an early Palladian architecture style adaptation in another country. The Palladian villa style renewed its influence in different countries and eras and remained influential for over four hundred years, with

2310-550: The Villa Mondragone . The Villa d'Este near Tivoli is famous for the water play in its terraced gardens . The Villa Medici was on the edge of Rome, on the Pincian Hill , when it was built in 1540. Besides these designed for seasonal pleasure, usually located within easy distance of a city, other Italian villas were remade from a rocca or castello, as the family seat of power, such as Villa Caprarola for

2387-579: The Villa del Trebbio and that at Cafaggiolo , both strong fortified houses built in the 14th century in the Mugello region near Florence . In 1450, Giovanni de' Medici commenced on a hillside the Villa Medici in Fiesole , Tuscany , probably the first villa created under the instructions of Leon Battista Alberti , who theorized the features of the new idea of villa in his De re aedificatoria . These first examples of Renaissance villa predate

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2464-501: The ancient Romans . To the humanist Renaissance noble, the gardens were of equal importance as the villa. The hallmarks of Renaissance architecture were symmetry, balance and precise proportions, and if the Villa Medicea di Cafaggiolo itself did not quite meet these demands, its gardens certainly did. Renaissance principles were strictly applied to the garden's design: during this era a garden came to be viewed as an extension of

2541-424: The humanist need that a villa should be "a place for the spirit to rest" which was compatible with the buildings intended use a country retreat and hunting lodge. Its machicolations and crenelations, in reality no more than a projecting crenelated pediment , supported by small arches and corbels , were only intended for decoration, not defence. That is not to say that the villas was completely undefended, and this

2618-808: The Americas from Spain and Portugal, by the Spanish Colonial Revival style with regional variations. In the 20th century International Style villas were designed by Roberto Burle Marx , Oscar Niemeyer , Luis Barragán , and other architects developing a unique Euro-Latin synthesized aesthetic. Villas are particularly well represented in California and the West Coast of the United States, where they were originally commissioned by well travelled "upper-class" patrons moving on from

2695-515: The Elder – the first of the Medici to combine leadership of the family bank with governing the Republic of Florence ) commissioned his favourite architect Michelozzo to redesign his fortress as a more comfortable country retreat, which could be used for hunting. It was to be one of four villas built by Cosimo, the others being Careggi, Villa Mozzi and Villa Trebbia . Michelozzo had already designed

2772-564: The Florentine nobility for what was considered the pretentious design of the more Renaissance Palazzo Medici-Riccardi. The architectural style was a deliberate retrospective quattrocento - a style and period which combined both the Gothic and classical styles, and a period of transformation which was the birth of the Renaissance, perhaps best exemplified by Brunelleschi 's dome of Florence Cathedral , begun in 1417. The dome, in itself,

2849-496: The Italian language, include Pistole , Driadeo d'amore , and Cyriffo Calvaneo . The poem Morgante is composed of 28 cantari (chapters) written in ottava rima . The subject was loosely derived from the Carolingian epic tradition, but Pulci drew many characters and motives also from the popular poems usually sung by storytellers in Florence's piazzas and developed a rich series of comic and parodistic episodes. The work

2926-593: The Medici's town palazzo in Florence, the Palazzo Medici-Riccardi , and Cosimo's new villa at Careggi. The architect transformed the forbidding fortress into a castellated country house – in effect, the castle became a villa . After the death of Cosimo de' Medici in 1464, the villa became a hunting lodge of his son Piero . Piero was succeeded in 1469 by his son Lorenzo de' Medici (known as "il Magnifico"), and it became his favourite residence. Frequently occupied both winter and summer, it became

3003-487: The Tuscan residences created by the Medici family, Villa Medicea di Cafaggiolo does not adhere to ideals of Renaissance architecture . This cannot be attributed to its date of 1452, the year Michelozzo was charged with transforming the building from castle to villa. The first true Renaissance building, the Ospedale degli Innocenti in Florence, had been designed as early as 1419, and Michelozzo had proved his understanding of

3080-462: The age of Lorenzo de' Medici , who added the Villa di Poggio a Caiano by Giuliano da Sangallo , begun in 1470, in Poggio a Caiano , Province of Prato , Tuscany . From Tuscany the idea of villa was spread again through Renaissance Italy and Europe. The Quattrocento villa gardens were treated as a fundamental and aesthetic link between a residential building and the outdoors, with views over

3157-561: The castle was the scene of the murder of a Medici wife. Neglected by her husband, Eleonora di Garzia di Toledo , the wife of Pietro de' Medici , had been conducting an illicit love affair with Bernardino Antinori , a young nobleman. Their affair came to light when Antinori killed a fellow noble, Francesco Ginori, in self-defence. Antinori confessed to his crime and was banished to Elba by Eleonora's brother-in-law, Francesco I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany . From Elba, Antinori recklessly sent love letters to Eleonora. These letters fell into

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3234-515: The consort of the future Empress Maria Theresa of Austria , he seldom visited Tuscany, remaining in Vienna . That the villa at Cafaggiolo was a favoured home of the Medici is without doubt, if only because it survived as a Medici residence for far longer than many of their other homes: the great Palazzo Vecchio , their seat of power, was subsequently vacated in 1587 for the Palazzo Pitti . Cosimo de' Medici's other villa by Michelozzo, Villa Trebbia ,

3311-532: The eighth century, Gallo-Roman villas in the Merovingian royal fisc were repeatedly donated as sites for monasteries under royal patronage in Gaul – Saint-Maur-des-Fossés and Fleury Abbey provide examples. In Germany a famous example is Echternach ; as late as 698, Willibrord established an abbey at a Roman villa of Echternach near Trier , presented to him by Irmina , daughter of Dagobert II , king of

3388-467: The fifth century, but the concept of an isolated, self-sufficient agrarian working community, housed close together, survived into Anglo-Saxon culture as the vill , with its inhabitants – if formally bound to the land – as villeins . In regions on the Continent, aristocrats and territorial magnates donated large working villas and overgrown abandoned ones to individual monks ; these might become

3465-401: The form, and use of the villa would also spread as well. In post-Roman times a villa referred to a self-sufficient, usually fortified Italian or Gallo-Roman farmstead. It was economically as self-sufficient as a village and its inhabitants, who might be legally tied to it as serfs were villeins . The Merovingian Franks inherited the concept, followed by the Carolingian French but

3542-478: The fountains, grottoes and statuary, including Tribolo , Vasari and Buontalenti , who created sculptured tableaux depicting scenes in stone conceived by Benedetto Varchi . Utens' view of the villa in 1599 also shows another popular garden feature of the era - water. Often a scarce commodity, when water was available, it was piped to fountains and cascades - providing not only the obvious irrigation, but also movement and sound. The presence of water also permitted

3619-442: The greatest luxury in a Tuscan garden, green grass. This symbol of luxury was usually planted only near the house where it could be constantly admired. Topiary and hedging , which demanded less moisture, was used in preference to colourful planting, providing the seclusion necessary to divide the garden into compartmentalised sections, and also shade and living green statuary. Thus, the Renaissance garden became as much as symbol of

3696-411: The hands of Cosimo I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany . The Medici Pope Leo X , formerly Giovanni di Lorenzo de' Medici, spent a part of his childhood at the castle, and briefly held court at the villa on 15 December 1515, on his return from his secret talks with Francis I at Bologna , in which it was said that he had played a double game in his efforts to drive the French out of Italy. In 1576,

3773-413: The hands of the Grand Duke, who promptly had Antinori executed to preserve the family's honour. On 11 July 1576, Pietro, the cuckolded husband, summoned his wife to the castle, where he strangled her with a dog leash. Reports of the murder were suppressed and it was reported she had died of a heart attack . Eleonora was buried with the full pomp and honours usually accorded a member of the Medici family in

3850-410: The house itself and as such was arranged in the same order. Statuary and seating were placed much as it was within the house - lining compartmentalised sections, the sections representing rooms and halls. Grottoes provided not only protection from the sun but a setting for allegorical scenes depicted in statuary and water. At Cafaggiolo, the greatest sculptors of the day were employed on the creation of

3927-417: The later French term was basti or bastide. Villa / Vila (or its cognates) is part of many Spanish and Portuguese placenames, like Vila Real and Villadiego : a villa / vila is a town with a charter ( fuero or foral ) of lesser importance than a ciudad / cidade ("city"). When it is associated with a personal name, villa was probably used in the original sense of a country estate rather than

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4004-406: The main residence between these types at any particular level of size, but the presence or absence of farm outbuildings reflected the size and function of the estate. Not included as villae were the domus , city houses for the élite and privileged classes, and the insulae , blocks of apartment buildings for the rest of the population. In Satyricon (1st century CE), Petronius described

4081-403: The model for the Renaissance villas of Florence. These early villas as in the case at both Careggi and Villa Medicea di Cafaggiolo were the result of the complete rebuilding of existing Medici castles. The Villa Medicea di Cafaggiolo's origins date from the 14th century. The fortezza that belonged to the Republic of Florence in 1349 was already known as "Cafaggiolo de' Medici" by 1359, when it

4158-446: The new form in 1444 with his design for the ten-sided extension to Santissima Annunziata, Florence , inspired by a plan from the Roman temple of Minerva Medica . and between 1444 and 1460 he constructed the first of the 15th century Renaissance palazzos, the Medici-Riccardi for Cosimo de' Medici. This palazzo provides another possible reason for the conservative design of the castle - Cosimo had been heavily criticised in Florence by

4235-408: The northeastern Italian Peninsula the Palladian villas of the Veneto , designed by Andrea Palladio (1508–1580), were built in Vicenza in the Republic of Venice . Palladio always designed his villas with reference to their setting. He often unified all the farm buildings into the architecture of his extended villas while focusing on symmetry and perfect proportion. Examples are the Villa Emo ,

4312-410: The nuclei of monasteries . In this way, the Italian villa system of late Antiquity survived into the early Medieval period in the form of monasteries that withstood the disruptions of the Gothic War (535–554) and the Lombards . About 529 Benedict of Nursia established his influential monastery of Monte Cassino in the ruins of a villa at Subiaco that had belonged to Nero . From the sixth to

4389-463: The owner's wealth and culture as his house or art collection. The long outbuilding to the left of the castle in the image above was known as the Manica Lunga , the "long wing"; this building was used for the manufacture of the tin-glazed earthenware known as maiolica . The 1498 inventory notes that the fornaze col portico da cuocere vaselle ("kilns for baking pottery") in the piazza murata (walled enclosure) were let to Piero and Stefano foraxari ,

4466-416: The rest of the Old South functioned as the Roman Latifundium villas had. A later revival, in the Gilded Age and early 20th century, produced The Breakers in Newport, Rhode Island , Filoli in Woodside, California , and Dumbarton Oaks in Georgetown, Washington, D.C. ; by architects-landscape architects such as Richard Morris Hunt , Willis Polk , and Beatrix Farrand . In the nineteenth century,

4543-415: The rule, replaced by stone buildings for the important ceremonial rooms. Traces of window glass have been found, as well as ironwork window grilles . With the decline and collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the fourth and fifth centuries, the villas were more and more isolated and came to be protected by walls. In England the villas were abandoned, looted , and burned by Anglo-Saxon invaders in

4620-410: The seasonal occupation of a country retreat. The new humanist values they sought could be found in an attractive country setting, enhanced by a garden. The first of these villas were built by the Medici family, whose affluence coincided with the beginning of the Renaissance period, circa 1420. The builder of Villa Medicea di Cafaggiolo was Cosimo de' Medici , whose villa at Careggi is considered to be

4697-601: The self-sufficiency of their latifundium villas, where they drank their own wine and pressed their own oil . This was an affectation of urban aristocrats playing at being old-fashioned virtuous Roman farmers, it has been said that the economic independence of later rural villas was a symptom of the increasing economic fragmentation of the Roman Empire . Archaeologists have meticulously examined numerous Roman villas in England . Like their Italian counterparts, they were complete working agrarian societies of fields and vineyards , perhaps even tileworks or quarries , ranged round

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4774-433: The service of Roberto Sanseverino d'Aragona , a northern condottiere . In 1478 (after the assassination of Lorenzo's brother Giuliano during the Pazzi Conspiracy ), Pulci, riding on the coattails of the city's current anti-clericalism, wrote a poem dedicated to Lucrezia Tornabuoni that fulminated against Pope Sixtus IV's Rome. His brother Luca Pulci (1431–1470) was also a writer. His brother Luca's works, all in

4851-401: The slope above the Vatican Palace . The Villa Madama , the design of which, attributed to Raphael and carried out by Giulio Romano in 1520, was one of the most influential private houses ever built; elements derived from Villa Madama appeared in villas through the 19th century. Villa Albani was built near the Porta Salaria. Other are the Villa Borghese ; the Villa Doria Pamphili (1650);

4928-549: The term villa was extended to describe any large suburban house that was free-standing in a landscaped plot of ground. By the time 'semi-detached villas' were being erected at the turn of the twentieth century, the term collapsed under its extension and overuse. The second half of the nineteenth century saw the creation of large "Villenkolonien" in the German speaking countries, wealthy residential areas that were completely made up of large mansion houses and often built to an artfully created masterplan. Also many large mansions for

5005-546: The term is more popularly applied to vacation rental usually located in countryside area. In Australia, "villas" or "villa units" are terms used to describe a type of townhouse complex which contains, possibly smaller attached or detached houses of up to 3–4 bedrooms that were built since the early 1980s. In New Zealand , "villa" refers almost exclusively to Victorian and Edwardian wooden weatherboard houses mainly built between 1880 and 1914, characterised by high ceilings (often 3.7 m or 12 ft), sash windows , and

5082-448: The upper floors, occupied by the household proper, were larger and more plentiful. Utens' 1599 painting shows nothing in the way of outer defences and fortifications: a moat is known to have existed, probably one of the few feature retained from the older fortress. The view (above) painted by Giusto/Gustav Utens in 1599 shows the villa as completed by Michelozzo. Built around a courtyard, the front appears much as it does today, but with

5159-565: The valley of the River Thames and English countryside. Marble Hill House in England was conceived originally as a "villa" in the 18th-century sense. In many ways the late 18th century Monticello , by Thomas Jefferson in Virginia , United States is a Palladian Revival villa. Other examples of the period and style are Hammond-Harwood House in Annapolis, Maryland ; and many pre- American Civil War or antebellum plantations , such as Westover Plantation and many other James River plantations as well dozens of Antebellum era plantations in

5236-543: The wealthy German industrialists were built, such as Villa Hügel in Essen . The Villenkolonie of Lichterfelde West in Berlin was conceived after an extended trip by the architect through the South of England. Representative historicist mansions in Germany include the Heiligendamm and other resort architecture mansions at the Baltic Sea, Rose Island and King's House on Schachen in the Bavarian Alps , Villa Dessauer in Bamberg , Villa Wahnfried in Bayreuth , Drachenburg near Bonn , Hammerschmidt Villa in Bonn ,

5313-462: The wide range of Roman dwellings. Another type of villae is the "villa maritima", a seaside villa, located on the coast. A concentration of Imperial villas existed on the Gulf of Naples , on the Isle of Capri , at Monte Circeo and at Antium . Examples include the Villa of the Papyri in Herculaneum ; and the Villa of the Mysteries and Villa of the Vettii in Pompeii . There was an important villa maritima in Barcola near Trieste. This villa

5390-577: The yard space and being fully detached. The terms "twin-villa" and "mini-villa" have been coined meaning semi-detached and smaller versions respectively. Generally, these would be more luxurious and spacious houses than the more common row houses. The yard space would also typically feature some form of garden, trees or greenery. Generally, these would be properties in major cities, where there is more wealth and hence more luxurious houses. Luigi Pulci Luigi Pulci ( Italian pronunciation: [luˈiːdʒi ˈpultʃi] ; 15 August 1432 – 11 November 1484)

5467-423: Was an Italian diplomat and poet best known for his Morgante , an epic and parodistic poem about a giant who is converted to Christianity by Orlando and follows the knight in many adventures. Pulci was born in Florence . His patrons were the Medicis , especially Lucrezia and Lorenzo Medici , who often sent Pulci on diplomatic missions. Even so, sometime around 1470 Pulci needed more money and went into

5544-515: Was built in the 19th century. Wealthy Romans also escaped the summer heat in the hills round Rome, especially around Tibur ( Tivoli and Frascati ), such as at Hadrian's Villa . Cicero allegedly possessed no fewer than seven villas, the oldest of which was near Arpinum , which he inherited. Pliny the Younger had three or four, of which the example near Laurentium is the best known from his descriptions. Roman writers refer with satisfaction to

5621-533: Was commissioned by Lucrezia Tornabuoni , the mother of Lorenzo and Giuliano Medici. The poem in progress was read at the Medicis' court, where the public appreciated the funny characters, partly new, partly recreated from the epic tradition. Popular Florentine humour, bourgeois way of thinking and living, and free imagination are expressed in a language based upon the Florentine dialect and extends from criminal argot to literary or scientific Latin. This language

5698-521: Was located directly on the coast and was divided into terraces in a representation area in which luxury and power was displayed, a separate living area, a garden, some facilities open to the sea and a thermal bath. Not far from this noble place, which was already popular with the Romans because of its favorable microclimate, one of the most important Villa Maritima of its time, the Miramare Castle ,

5775-506: Was sold in 1644 by Ferdinand II to Giuliano Serragli for 113,500 scudos . In 1864, the castle was sold by the Italian Government to Prince Marcantonio Borghese . Borghese carried out a vast rebuilding program, altering much of Michelozzo's design. The new designs swept away remaining fortifications such as the moat and enceinte walls, while the interior was redecorated in a more ancient, medievalizing style. Unlike many of

5852-579: Was the erection of rather minimalist mansions in the Bauhaus style since the 1920s, that also continues until today. In Denmark, Norway and Sweden "villa" denotes most forms of single-family detached homes , regardless of size and standard. The villa concept lived and lives on in the haciendas of Latin America and the estancias of Brazil and Argentina. The oldest are original Portuguese and Spanish Colonial architecture ; followed after independences in

5929-421: Was the property of Averardo de' Medici (died 1363). It passed from Giovanni di Bicci jointly to Averardo and Giuliano di Francesco de' Medici, the grandsons of Averardo's younger son Lorenzo; from them, it passed to Cosimo and Lorenzo jointly; and it was ceded to Cosimo's sole ownership in a property division of 1451. In the following year, 1452, Averardo de' Medici's grandson Cosimo de' Medici (known as Cosimo

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