Villa La Pietra
La Pietra derives its name from a stone pillar, marking the distance of one Roman mile from the Florence city gate of San Gallo, today Piazza della Libertà. For many centuries, Villa La Pietra was the home of prominent Florentine families: the Macinghi in the 14th century; the Sassetti from 1460-1545; the Capponi from 1545-1877; and the Incontri until the 20th century. Francesco Sassetti was a banker and a humanist connected with Lorenzo de´Medici, and his included an important library.
My year living on the same estate was a rich experience. Ancient cypresses flank the long, pebbled drive to the Villa. It’s at its most beautiful when the Tuscan sun illuminates its time-mellowed ochre facade, once at sunrise and again at sunset. Scooters the color of sorbet park casually along its perimeter, cheery and immensely picturesque. The hills roll in the distance, and wisteria perfumes the air (or, on the rare occasion of retreating Mediterranean heat, dewy petrichor). I often spent mornings walking the grounds for inspiration, if not practicing my Italian over a breakfast of torn bread, egg and espresso, eaten outside with a view to the olive grove.
I reveled in the experience of entering the rooms holding the Acton Collection, comprised of early Italian panel paintings, Flemish tapestries, Renaissance polychrome sculptures, French dresses, Art Nouveau silver, Chinese ceramics, and Baroque furniture, sparkling jewelry for an already-beautiful home. Certain paintings in the collection — the seventeenth-century Villa d’Este with Garden View and Giorgio Vasari’s Holy Family — were hung such that they were visible from the outside, connecting the interior setting to the exterior gardens.
The sweeping theme: revival.
THE HISTORY
Villa La Pietra stands as the best-preserved example of an Anglo-American private collection in Florence from the early years of the 20th century still intact. The artworks, building, and garden have been officially listed as cultural heritage and fall under the protection of the Italian Ministry of Culture.
At the turn of the century, when Hortense and Arthur Acton took up residence at La Pietra, they joined a thriving community of culturally passionate expatriates, immersing themselves in a diverse Florentine society of writers, historians, artists and art collectors. A library of 10,000 volumes with many first editions, and an important collection of over 32,000 photographs are also part of the Acton legacy.
— Francesca Baldry, in Villa La Pietra and the Actons in 1908
