ABSTRACT
As in Tuscany almost every hill is crowned with a villa, a small town, a castle, a monastery or a farmstead, with the result that the whole countryside whether fertile or not seems man-made and functional; so round Florence every hill and rise is coronetted with villas, a crowd of family life. Michelozzo’s great summer palace for the Medici family under Fiesole costs a million lire a year to heat inadequately; and the interior has been much altered since the days when Donatello and Pico della Mirandola came to supper with Lorenzo de’ Medici. Nor are its vast chambers easy to make comfortable. But it was found convenient some years ago by a French consul, because it gave him room for the archaeological collection he had made in the Middle East.
