A guide to Villa Capponi

“Leaving Poggio Imperiale behind and going up via del Pian dei Giullari, the first inkling we get of somewhere wholly unexpected behind a wall, which would otherwise go unobserved, is a superb eye-catching cypress. The severe elegance of the rear of the villa stretches out along the road front then continues sideways, uphill with the woodland wall and, along the wall enclosing the terraced gardens, downhill towards Florence. The old road network thus follows the outer boundaries of the house and garden which opens up unexpectedly to give magnificent views over the city. As we approach, we see an extraordinary barred window that hints at something ‘beyond the garden’. No visitor has ever been unaffected by the homely allure of villa Capponi, the sense of monumental intimacy which even today in the alchemy of its perfect proportions seems an impossible achievement in how the closed and open spaces interrelate and the way the different levels have been given evenness by the harmony of the inside with the outside, between countryside, garden and house. These areas, skilfully laid out around the house, are dominated by the walls with their extraordinary volute decoration which is echoed in the grand roundness of the cypress hedges that are part of the architecture.
It is no surprise that the garden of villa Capponi has been considered a model to copy and imitate by American and English landscape gardeners who visited it in the early decades of the twentieth century…”