Villa di Pratolino
The Villa Medici Pratolino (also Demidoff Park or Villa Demidoff ) located in the municipality Vaglia, Via Fiorentina 276, Florence, Region of Tuscany, Italy.
History
1568 bought Francesco I de ' Medici near the village Pratolino, along the old Bolognese road, a piece of land by Benedetto di Buonaccorso Uguccione and let it by Bernardo Buontalenti for himself and his mistress Bianca Cappello, he of after the death of his wife Johanna Austria married, build a villa and plant a garden.
With the death of Gian Gastone de ' Medici in 1737, the family of the Medici died out, and Pratolino passed to the House of Lorraine. Franz Stephan visited the Villa in 1739; in honor of his visit, the famous trick fountains were probably taken the last time in operation. Through his election as emperor, he lost interest in Pratolino, and the villa was leased for nine years at Bernardo Sgrilli. Also for the next owner, Grand Duke Peter Leopold, the future Emperor Leopold II, the preservation of the property was too expensive, so the park and the villa further disrepair.
Grand Duke Ferdinand III. gave the property back more attention, but the supply lines to the water games had developed leaks and had undermined the foundations of the villa. The Bohemian engineer Joseph Fiechs convinced Ferdinand III. of the hopelessness of a renovation, started in 1821 with the demolition of the villa and put on an English garden. In 1824, after the death of Ferdinand III. , The project was discontinued.
1872 Prince Paul Demidoff bought, Russian ambassador in Tuscany, owning and letting the remaining Page House ( Paggeria ) expand by the architect Emilio de Fabris to a villa. After the death of his daughter, the estate passed to Prince Paul of Yugoslavia, but he also failed due to the immense cost of its maintenance. Since 1981, the park is owned by the city of Florence.
The Park
Due to the numerous traditional descriptions, engravings and pictures we now have a pretty good idea of the appearance of the park. The lunette by Giusto Utens in Topographical Museum com'era Firenze in Florence shows the state of 1599th
Francesco I was a difficult man, who had retired here and the planning and improvement of water games gave, which were called miracles ( meravigilie ). One of the main attractions was the Viale degli Zampilli, an avenue lined by oppositely directed jets, which formed a water bower, in which sunlight conjured rainbow colors and through which one could walk through without getting wet. At the end of this avenue " is a woman of white marble, a laundress, the water from a piece of linen wrestling ," says the English traveler John Evelyn in his diary, who visited Pratolino 1645. At the other end of this avenue there was the Jupiter fountain.
On the left side of the painting Utens you see the Peschiera della Maschera, a chain of ponds, which led the water down on the hillside until it flowed into a fountain with bronze statues of satyrs of Giambologna. A variety of caves offered all kinds of wonderful surprises. There was the cave of the Flood - Grotto of the Tritons, the terrified with thunder and lightning, or the cave of the Samaritan woman, where a stone servants offered water to cool drinks or for cleaning the finger.
Many of these statues are gone, stolen or lost, but few of them found their way into other gardens such as the Boboli Gardens, and very few are left in the garden, such as the gigantic statue of the Apennine by Giambologna. This statue is so huge that you can climb inside and look out through their eyes.
1697 was created by the architect Antonio Ferri for Ferdinando de ' Medici ( 1663-1713 ), a theater, a musical meeting place was for a short time. Guest were so famous musicians like Alessandro and Domenico Scarlatti, Bernardo Pasquini and George Frideric Handel.