There are not many monuments, even in an area full of history such as Florence and its noble countryside, capable of evoking memories almost half a millennium wide. The Medicean Park of Pratolino is one of them. From the opulence of the Medici Grand Duchy to the rather narrow economies of the Toscanina Lorraine, from the prodigality of a Russian prince to the post-war building speculations, his memory intersects with the history of art, architecture and customs from the sixteenth century to the our days.
The park remains of the complex of the Villa Medicea di Pratolino, built on the large estate purchased in 1568 by the Grand Duke Francesco I. We are in the middle of the 16th century and the Renaissance fades into mannerism even in the architecture of the gardens. When Bernardo Buontalenti began planning, the Sacro Bosco di Bomarzo, also known as the Monster Park, was inaugurated a few years ago. Like Bomarzo, the park of Pratolino is a forest of symbols, first of all the gigantic statue of the Giant of the Apennines, eleven meters in stone and plaster, a masterpiece by Giambologna; but visitors are struck by the extraordinary wealth of hydraulic games. An exceptional traveler like Michel de Montaigne was fascinated by it and described it as an impressive carousel of sculptures of characters, animals, gods, and epic heroes; caves, fountains, water games and jokes; theaters of water-powered self-propelled automata, hydraulic organs that reproduced gentle music, automatic machines that reproduced the song of birds.
The park and villa were perhaps a sumptuous gift given by the Grand Duke to his first lover and then second wife, the chatted Venetian noblewoman Bianca Cappello, previously housed in an elegant building in Via Maggio. But the marriage was short-lived because the couple died a few hours apart, poisoned, according to the popular rumor, confirmed by recent toxicological research on the victims’ livers. The tragedy (or the crime) was not staged in Pratolino, but in the villa of Poggio a Caiano; for the complex it was equally affected by a long period of removal and a slow deterioration began, partly interrupted at the end of the 17th century by the interest of the failed heir to the throne Ferdinando Maria de ‘Medici.
With the advent of the Lorraine, who, imbued with Enlightenment utilitarianism, preferred to spend in reclamation rather than in the conservation of representative buildings, the structure was upset. The estate became a hunting reserve, the Mannerist garden an English park, the body of the villa was abandoned to decay and, now unsafe, in 1820, an extreme outrage, was blown up. What was left of the complex was saved by a rescue from the East, linked to a family tragedy. In the nineteenth century the members of one of the richest European families, the Demidoffs, a dynasty of arms manufacturers who also distinguished themselves for their philanthropic spirit, spent long stays in Florence. One of them, Nicola, had been the Tsar’s ambassador to the grand duchy and had started the construction of a splendid villa with an English garden, completed by his son Anatolius, in San Donato, in a malarious terrain. An elegant sculptural group by the sculptor Lorenzo Bartolini, protected, more unique than rare, by a sort of canopy, remembers it in the square that took its name.
His nephew Paolo, prince of San Donato, who had inherited the complex and was the mayor of Kiev for some years, would therefore not have needed another residence. But the pain of the early death of his first wife, who died at 24, had made her life unbearable where he had shared so many happy days with her. He sold the villa and the park of San Donato separately, which was to host among other things the first Italian golf course and the first matches of the aristocratic Florence Football Club, remarried and bought the Pratolino complex, restoring the surviving buildings and using the restored pages at the residence: new wife, new villa.
Pratolino returned to live until the death of Paul’s last descendant, Maria, who had married a Yugoslav prince. The husband tried to create a subdivision in the park, as had happened in San Donato, where the complex had been abandoned to decay and the park had become a building area. To save Pratolino in this case was the public intervention. As the Municipality of Pietrasanta had done for the Versiliana two years earlier, the Province acquired buildings and park in 1982, allocating them to public use, with heavy maintenance and safety costs (and unfortunately, twenty years ago, the Giant of ‘Appennino was the scene of a tragic accident during a school trip). Now the Metropolitan City has requested a contribution of two million euros from the National Recovery and Resilience Plan for the restoration of the park and water features. Michel de Montaigne would agree; we hope that the bureaucracy is of the same opinion as well.
April 7, 2022 | 09:58
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