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Willa Medycejska w Pratolino uratowana...

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Waźbiński Z.

Ochrona Zabytków

1992

issue 1-2

65-70

The great villa and park ensemble of the Medicis in Pratolino near Florence was built in the years 1569-1584 upon the initiative of Francis I, the second grand duce of Tuscany. The peak period of this undertaking was the end of the sixteenth and the entire seventeenth century. Subsequently, Pratolino was ruined by the Lorraine dynasty, the heirs of the Mecicis. In the years 1820-1824 the devastated villa was taken apart and although as late as 1830 it was still planned to rebuild it, in 1872 the premises were sold to the Demidoffs, an aristocratic Russian family. The new owners erected a palace and completed changes in the park, inaugurated already during the first half of the nineteenth century, by transforming the Manneristic „giardinio italiano" into a Romantic-era „English garden". In 1969 the Demidoff family auctioned off the villa and park which were purchased by a real estate company interested in raising flats. This step was a threat to the entire property. Thanks to a campaign carried out by Italian and foreign historians of art, the building was saved from inevitable destruction. Professor Luigi Zangheri, from the Florence Institute of Architecture and Restoration, took upon himself the greatest burden in this campaign for the purchase of the monument, due to its exceptional historical and cultural value; he organized financial means and a staff of specialists who conducted thorough scientific investigations and prepared a programme of conservation. Professor Zangheri is also the author of the first scientific monographic study dealing with the villa and park complex (1979). His energetic efforts made it possible to reconstruct all the elements of Pratolino and its park. The greatest difficulties were, and still are caused by questions concerning the meaning of the complicated ensemble of caves, fountains, artifical mounds, water mirrors etc. Present-day scholars and in particular Professor L. Berti saw in it an illustration of the cognitive interests of the Medici ruler, based on two mutually supplementing topoi: Nature and Art. It has been impossible to determine up to now the identity of the author of the Pratolino programme. The indubitable accomplishment of Zangheri and his team was fact that they preserved from the former Medici „theatrum" all that which was still worthy of saving. The future of Pratolino remains an open question. Will the idea of organizing exhibitions of modern art prove to be a dissonance vis a vis art of days bygone?

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1 Ochrona Zabytków

1 Waźbiński Z.

1 1992

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Willa Medycejska w Pratolino uratowana...