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Torre di Bellosguardo
Florence, Italy · Independent · Accessible Luxury
Guido Cavalcanti, the poet Dante addressed in his sonnets, raised the tower here in the thirteenth century as a hunting lodge, and Galileo later climbed this hill to watch the sky. The Roti Michelozzi marquises turned it into a villa from 1583, hiring Bernardino Poccetti to fresco the entrance hall and Pietro Francavilla to carve the Charity that still stands over the door. Sixteen rooms, no chain behind it, and a pool set in the formal garden so that the Duomo seems close enough to touch while you swim.
- 16 rooms
- Neighborhood: Bellosguardo
About Torre di Bellosguardo
- Ugo Foscolo stayed in the house and wrote the core of his poem Le Grazie there. Elizabeth Barrett Browning put the place into verse as the Tuscan Bellosguardo where Galileo stood at night to take the vision of the stars.
- The hill drew a whole literary colony: Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote The Marble Faun at a villa on it, and Henry James wrote The Aspern Papers a few doors along the same lane.
- One family has held the house since 1913, when the current owner's grandmother bought it. Between the wars it ran as a salon for aristocrats and writers from across Europe.
- Bernardino Poccetti, whose work also hangs in the Pitti Palace, frescoed the entrance hall on the unusual theme of Charity in biblical stories.
- Kate Moss, Emma Thompson and Daniel Day-Lewis have all stayed, and the grounds still run to orchards, vineyards, olive groves, three donkeys and a pony.
History
The oldest part of the building is the tower, dated to the thirteenth century and traditionally held to have been built by the poet Guido Cavalcanti, Dante's friend and the subject of his sonnet beginning "Guido, i' vorrei che tu e Lapo ed io". Cavalcanti is said to have used it as a hunting seat and a family refuge. It later passed through Medici hands and then to the Michelozzi family.
From 1583 the marquises Roti Michelozzi enlarged the tower into a proper villa and brought in the artists who still define its rooms. Bernardino Poccetti painted the frescoes of the entrance salon on the theme of Charity in the stories of the Bible, an unusual programme built around the passages of the Hymn to Charity. Pietro Francavilla carved a figure of Charity, in place above the entrance since around 1603, which is the first thing arriving guests meet at the end of the cypress avenue. Galileo is associated with Bellosguardo, where he observed the night sky, and Ugo Foscolo stayed at the villa long enough to compose the substance of Le Grazie.
Between the end of the nineteenth century and the start of the twentieth the house was restored in a way that deliberately played up its medieval character, in the romantic taste of the period. The current owning family bought it in 1913, and in the decades that followed it became a gathering place for European nobility and men and women of letters. It has been a hotel for roughly the last three decades and is still privately held and family-run, with sixteen rooms of widely varying size and shape, four-poster beds, vaulted ceilings, fifteenth-century frescoes in places, and a Tower Suite inside the fortified tower itself. The estate keeps orchards, vineyards, olive groves and a kitchen garden that feeds breakfast, along with farm animals for children.
The setting
Bellosguardo is the quieter hill of Florence, rising straight out of the Oltrarno south of the Arno and giving a closer, more intimate view over the city than the famous one from Fiesole. The name means beautiful view. Its lanes run between high garden walls and the gates of old villas, and the roll of former residents is remarkable even by Florentine standards: Galileo lived in a villa on Piazza di Bellosguardo, Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote The Marble Faun at the Villa di Montauto on Via San Carlo, Henry James wrote The Aspern Papers at Via di Bellosguardo 20, and Florence Nightingale was born in a villa on the hill and named for the city below it. The centre of Florence is about fifteen minutes downhill on foot, ten minutes by car.
Experiences
- Garden strolls among flowers and secret passages — Stroll through the large garden, secret passages and hidden corners.
- Guided tours — Guided tours available upon request.
Amenities
- Large garden
- Small organic vegetable garden
- Pet collection of farm animals (three donkeys, a pony, ducks and hens)
- Free underground garage for guests' cars
- Fax service at reception
- Wi-Fi
- Computer with Internet
- Daily newspapers
- Transfer services
- Guided tours (upon request)
- Entirely air-conditioned
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