COUNTRY BANDIT: [ITALY][Pratolino] Exploring the Tuscan Countryside w/Ruralia

Florence in the American Imagination/Professor Lisa Cesarani
6/7/06
“Assignment #2: Location” by Tara Rose Stromberg

A few miles north of Florence, nestled amongst a cradle of Apennine hills, there lies 74 acres of a land perfectly at peace with both forces of man and nature. For centuries it has remained a haven of green, harboring the carved efficacies of ancient gods, and the humble cultivators of its vast meadows and livestock. Traveling uphill along the Via Bolognese, one can track the sloping of these giant hills, the sun above casting long shadows across the patches of trees that cover their surface, and gradually ease into the quiet calm that surrounds Pratolino.

It is a garden harmonized between the natural beauty of the Tuscan countryside and a simplified, yet strikingly breathtaking, Renaissance vision. To enter its wooded enclosure and immediately capture the hills and meadows in their seemingly endless layers before your eyes is an experience that is indescribable and yet infinitely describable all at once. It’s as if the gods themselves had crafted the winding curves of the valleys with their own hands, and then created a rich surrounding of foliage to shield it from the ever-changing outside world. And indeed it seems to have never changed at all, since the 16th century, when Francesco I, son of Cosimo III, ordered Pratolino to be designed as a garden and a grandiose villa to be constructed. The great Bernardo Buontalenti himself took on the task, and thus the lush Eden was born, and a part of the Tuscan country was preserved for years to come.

And yet, despite its royal beginnings, it still maintains its natural grace. It seems to welcome any traveler - come beggar or king, traveler or native, man or beast - and entice with the same seductive scent of pine and nectar, and the flowing current of tall grass in the breeze. Far away from the industrial noise of the city and the neurosis of everyday life, time itself seems to stop. Instead of the chatter of tourists there is the chirping of crickets, the rustling of leaves,

the buzzing of insect wings. The clean air inflates the lungs in such a way that the body seems to float along the pebbled paths, as if sprouting feathered wings. The eyes adjust to the slow pace of Mother Nature’s pastoral scene and focus on the unseen: the hollow of a tree, a lizard basking in the afternoon sun, a single flower in a bed of clovers. In an instant, it seems they are all you need to know.

Venturing further into the meadow, one can uncover what appears to be the ruins of a lost mythological place. Each corner hides another treasure of its departed dwellers. Buontalenti’s octagon chapel is all but cloaked in branches and leaves, its dome peeking ever so slightly above the dense canopy. Dry fountains, decorated by ivy-covered creatures and maidens have been built into the slopes, and now lay mysteriously cracked and empty.

A giant of stone juts out

from the trees at the other end of a lily pond, his hair and whiskers heavy and thick, crouching over large calf spewing water from his mouth. Such a sight is enough to stop one in their tracks, to gape in awe at Giambologna’s gigantic masterpiece, a guardian Colossus that seems to stare out into the meadow with an expression of stern devotion.

And this small patch of heaven is open to all that wish to find it, and many who are fortunate enough to stay. The Villa Demidoff, restored as a poggeria in the late 1800’s, houses an inn for visitors to dine and sleep, whilst they enjoy the pleasures of its tranquil grounds. Each building located in Pratolino is within its own wooded fortress: an army of tall, lush trees that enclose the small stone paths and maze of tiny gardens that decorate the attractive grounds.

However, these always remain modest in their appearance, for the people themselves are of modest upbringing. Mostly farmers and cultivators, they are servants to the land and its rich treasures. They respect the countryside’s original shape and quality, and in turn reap the benefits of its fertile soil, plentiful produce and healthy animals. In this way, man and nature are joined together in an equal partnership, and the beauty of its organic atmosphere is echoed in the kind and composed demeanor of its inhabitants. Even its visitors, who only stay for a moment’s time to take in the quiet whisper of nature unfolding before them, are affected forever by its overwhelming ability to bring the human spirit to a better understanding of its natural harmony with the eternal symphony of the earth.