The Medici Lappeggi Villa

Before the Lappeggi Villa was built, in the same location rested a turreted building belonging to the Ricasoli family (among others). In 1569 Francesco de’ Medici, the son of Cosimo I, bought the property and made it his home. When Francesco became the Grand Duke of Tuscany he commissioned an extensive refurbishment of the Villa, which was entrusted to Buontalenti. The Villa’s loggia (according to a Lunette by Flemish painter Giusto Utens, now kept in the Museum of Florence) was closed by two tiers and opened out to an external southern-facing courtyard enclosed by a crenelated wall. Close by were the garden and the vast fields of the farm. In 1667 the house was given to the Cardinal Francesco Maria, the younger brother of the Grand Duke Cosimo III. The Cardinal commissioned architect Antonio Maria Ferri to radically transform the building by constructing an additional floor, replacing the upper gallery with a terrace, and by adding a double stairway. Stables, greenhouses, a theater, a chapel, a Kaffeehaus and a recreation room for ball games were also added. 

 

Lappeggi was essentially transformed into a small court outside of the city. There are stories of great pools in which fish were bred to be served fresh at the Medici dinner tables, of grand boulevards in front of the basins along which five hundred lemon trees grew, of the hunting lodge in the oak forest behind the Villa used by the nobles during the excursions for thrush hunting. 

 

The interior spaces of the Cardinal’s apartments were decorated “a fresco“, starting from 1703, by painters Pier Dandini, Rinaldo Botti and Alessandro Gherardini, who were able to create a surprisingly beautiful and high-quality pictorial cycle that celebrated the splendor of the Medici court. Among the most famous visitors to the Villa we can count, in 1709, King Frederick IV of Denmark. 

 

The sudden death of Francesco Maria de’ Medici in 1710 marked the end of the period of carefree splendor of the Villa Lappeggi, subsequently left abandoned. In 1814 it was put to auction and purchased by Captain Cambiagi, who had the upper floor torn down in order to consolidate the remaining floors and the park annexed to the farms. 

In 1876 the sculptor Giovanni Dupré purchased the Villa, but in 1895 it was gravely damaged by an earthquake. Restored in recent years, the Villa is now in good condition.

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