Villa La Matronaia – Wikipedia

Villa La Matronaia , O Casino Ginori , is a building in Florence, located in via della Martonaia 34, 36, 38, 40, 44.

The building documents what remains of the Casino di Delizia dei Ginori, to occupy the large plots of land already owned, together with a lord house, of the Guardi family, spent by extinction of the same in the early eighteenth century at the hospital of the Innocenti. In particular, Lorenzo Ginori (who had obtained the property in 1761 and then purchased it in 1781) the transformation of this ancient house in a large villa erected on a project by the architects Gasparo Maria Paoletti and Giulio Mannaioni, alla senator, al project Famous time precisely for the fine and fruit plants grown in the gardens behind it, isolated in an area still inevitable and therefore, although within the walls, with a decidedly country character.

Two reports from 1792 of the architects Giuseppe Salvetti and Gasparo Maria Paoletti himself allow to reconstruct the character assumed by the building in recent years with extreme precision, also informing about the numerous extravagant mechanisms that populated it (including a self -propelled chair to go up to the plans Superiors of the casino, background of today’s elevators) and which made it a delicious place of leisure for the owner and for his numerous guests. The fountains of the park were fed by a complex water system, which collected the waters of the Arno on the top of the tower of the mint and then, along pipes that ran along the walls, they reached the gardens of the brick.

Limited to the outsiders, a radical transformation was worth mentioning how this suffered: “The facade at noon overlooking the garden was decorated with lacenings around the doors and windows; the side of the house face to the east was expanded considerably, building above the ancient room of Vases two floors of a building, and the facade of this wing exposed to the East was adorned with an eighteenth -century pediment with a large clock at the top, in the center, and the bell that marked the hours (…). From the center of the garden, a Viale who ended up at the Muraglione of the border with the cloistered vegetable garden of the nuns of Santa Teresa and probably above the same border wall a perspective was painted with a gate, pillars and urns on the front, and, in the background, the view of A Bersò in the distance “(Ginori Lisci).

Inside, the ancient splendor remain some marble medallions, a hall with a frescoed vault, stucco ceilings and ceramic systems.

Among the personalities who attended the villa was the Olympic chorilla, which with its poetic improvisations delighted the guests and the owner of the villa, which in the meantime had become Arcadian shepherd with the name of “Teodamante Mantineo”.

With the death of Lorenzo Ginori in 1791 the property was rented, mostly to foreigners, to then pass through inheritance to the Torrigiani. At the time of Florence Capital (1865-1871) is documented as partially transformed into a public bathroom, and in any case progressively and conspicuously reduced by the development of the Martonaia district. In those years he was visited by Vittorio Emanuele II, as a walled plaque recalls in the internal portico. In 1880 he was remembered as used by the American Livingstone who held the stables of his famous horses here. In the early twentieth century, the horticulture plant managed by the nurseryman Raffaello Mercatelli has contributed for several decades to renewing the importance of the place for the Florentine botany, with splendid collections of Camelie and Azalee.

• Leonardo Ginori Lisci, The martonaia, a mess of delight of the eighteenth century , Florence, The art of the press, 1955.
• Piero Bargellini, Ennio Guarnieri, The streets of Florence , 4 VOLL., Florence, Bonechi, 1977-1978, III, pp. 255-256;
• Franco Cesati, The streets of Florence. History, anecdotes, art, secrets and curiosities of the most fascinating city in the world through 2400 streets, squares and songs , 2 voll., Rome, Newton & Compton Editori, 2005, I, pp. 383–384;
• Claudio Paolini, Houses and buildings in the Santa Croce district in Florence , Florence, paideia, 2008, pp. 121-122, n. 174;
• Claudio Paolini, Florentine architecture. Houses and buildings in the Santa Croce district , Florence, paideia, 2009, PP. 188-189, n. 253.