Villas in Florence: Villa Montalvo in Campi Bisenzio
Villa Montalvo is a big building dating back to the 14th century and surrounded by a wide park. The villa in mentioned for the first time in a document dated 1305. Scholars think that the Tornaquinci family, who owned the land, had previously built another structure at the time of the bloody struggles between Guelphs and Ghibellines. After the Ghibellines, to whom the Tornaquinci family belonged, were defeated, the villa was ravaged.
At the beginning of the 15th century, the Del Sodo family, the new owners, renovated and enlarged the villa, which then was sold to the Spinelli family.
In 1534 Ottaviano de` Medici bought the villa. The two bodies were united so as to form a single building and the garden was re-organised.
The name of the villa derives from the Ramirez de Montalvo family, which bought it in 1570. After a first period of splendours, during which the villa was renovated and enlarged for the second time, some years of decadence followed.
However, when don Ferdinando Montalvo inherited the villa in 1760, new decorations and stuccoes were added and precious and rare plants were bedded in the garden.
The Montalvo owned the villa until 1838, then it was sold to the family of engineer Matteucci, the husband of the last representative of the Montalvo family and creator-to-be of the internal combustion engine. The villa has then undergone several transfers of property.
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