Villa La Pietra is a

renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (800 BC to AD ...

villa in the hills outside

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany Regions of Italy, region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilan ...

, in

Tuscany it, Toscano (man) it, Toscana (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = Citizenship , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = Italian , demogra ...

in central Italy. It was formerly the home of

Arthur Acton Arthur Mario Acton (1873–1953) was a British architect, art dealer and collector. Early life Arthur Acton was the illegitimate son of Eugene Arthur Roger Acton (1836–1895), counsellor to the Egyptian Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce. ...

and later of his son

Harold Acton Sir Harold Mario Mitchell Acton (5 July 1904 – 27 February 1994) was a British writer, scholar, and aesthete who was a prominent member of the Bright Young Things. He wrote fiction, biography, history and autobiography. During his stay in C ...

, on whose death in 1994 it was bequeathed to

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then- Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, th ...

. The villa is now home to NYU Florence.

History

Villa La Pietra was bought and somewhat modified in the 1460s by the Florentine banker

Francesco Sassetti Francesco Sassetti (9 March 1421 – April 1490) was an Italian banker. Biography Born in Florence, the youngest son of Tommaso Sassetti. He is first recorded as joining the famous Medici bank in either 1438 or 1439 (at seventeen or eighteen ...

. In 1545 or 1546 it was sold to the . The villa was given its present form in the seventeenth century by the cardinal Luigi Capponi, possibly with the assistance of

Carlo Fontana Carlo Fontana (1634 or 1638–1714) was an Italian architect originating from today's Canton Ticino, who was in part responsible for the classicizing direction taken by Late Baroque Roman architecture. Biography There seems to be no proof tha ...

. During the brief period from 1865 to 1871 when Florence was capital of the

Kingdom of Italy The Kingdom of Italy ( it, Regno d'Italia) was a state that existed from 1861, when Victor Emmanuel II of Sardinia was proclaimed King of Italy, until 1946, when civil discontent led to an institutional referendum to abandon the monarchy and f ...

, the villa was used as the embassy of

Prussia Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an ...

. In 1903 Arthur Acton, an Anglo-Neapolitan art dealer, rented it after his marriage to Hortense Mitchell, the daughter of John J. Mitchell a banker from

Chicago, Illinois (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

. With money from her family, the couple bought the villa in 1907. The villa contains the art collection assembled by the Actons, which reflects twentieth-century Anglo-American taste. It is used for didactic purposes by New York University. The collection includes works from the circle of

Giotto Giotto di Bondone (; – January 8, 1337), known mononymously as Giotto ( , ) and Latinised as Giottus, was an Italian painter and architect from Florence during the Late Middle Ages. He worked during the Gothic/ Proto-Renaissance period. G ...

, Romanesque sculptures, a relief of the ''Virgin and Child'' by

Donatello Donato di Niccolò di Betto Bardi ( – 13 December 1466), better known as Donatello ( ), was a Florentine sculptor of the Renaissance period. Born in Florence, he studied classical sculpture and used this to develop a complete Renaissance s ...

, and fifteenth-century

tapestries Tapestry is a form of textile art, traditionally woven by hand on a loom. Tapestry is weft-faced weaving, in which all the warp threads are hidden in the completed work, unlike most woven textiles, where both the warp and the weft threads may ...

made for the de' Medici family. Between 1905 and 1930 the gardens of the villa were substantially altered by the Actons, only the walled lemon garden to the north-west of the villa remaining mostly unchanged since the time of Luigi Capponi. The Actons laid out a formal Baroque Italian garden with extensive stonework, including almost two hundred statues, many of them by the Venetian sculptors

Orazio Marinali Orazio Marinali (1643–1720) was an Italian late- Baroque sculptor, active mainly in the Veneto or Venetian mainland. He trained with Josse de Corte. He is best known for over 150 statues produced by him and his studio for the estate and garde ...

and Antonio Bonazza, brought to Florence from the villas of the Brenta. The gardens were restored in the early years of the twenty-first century.

References

External links

* {{Authority control Houses completed in the 15th century La Pietra Pietra New York University Renaissance architecture in Florence La Pietra Historic house museums in Italy