Address: Piazza dei Medici, 12- Tel. 055/877012 Poggio a Caiano (Prato)
How to get there: by car state highway 66 Florence-Pistoia - by
bus COPIT bus
Designed by Giuliano da Sangallo for Lorenzo the Magnificent
and built around 1480, this is the best known of the Medici
villas.
Preceded by a garden redesigned in the nineteenth century, the
villa with its unusual
"H" - shaped ground plan stands on a porticoed base. A
loggia with Ionic columns and a broad pediment with a glazed
terra-cotta frieze by Andrea Sansovino (the original is in a room
inside) is situated at the center of the harmonious classicizing
facade. The double curving staircase however was added in the
late eighteenth century to replace the original rectilinear
flights of stairs. Of particular note in the marvelously
furnished interior is the splendid "Salone di Leone X"
(which takes its name from the famous pope, son of Lorenzo the
Magnificent) with important sixteenth-century frescoes: episodes
from Roman history, with obvious allusions to the life of
Lorenzo, were begun by Andrea del Sarto and finished by
Alessandro Allori. The finest work, however, is the lunette
frescoed by Pontormo, depicting the rural divinities Vertumnus
and Pomona, one of the masterpieces of Florentine Mannerism.
