A villa in Florence

Photographs and text by Marc Levoy
November 13, 1999

The decision to spend my sabbatical year in Italy pursuing the Digital Michelangelo Project meant not only building a temporary graphics laboratory in Florence, but also relocating my family there for a year. Unfortunately, looking for a place to live in the city on the Arno can be a frightening experience. Apartments vary widely in size and quality, availability is low, and rents are high. However, due to the high-tech boom in Silicon Valley during the late '90's, rents in Palo Alto are higher, so for what we could rent out our modest 3-bedroom home on the Stanford Campus, we could live well in Florence. A complicating factor for us was the location of schools, since we intended to send at least two of our three children to the local public school. After months of searching and several frustrating trips to Italy, we got lucky. Here's what we found.

This is a 1650 lithograph of Florence ("Florentia" in Latin), drawn by Matteo Merian for the travel guide "Itinerarium Italiae". Visible in this slightly fanciful view are the city walls, the Arno River (labeled "Arnus Flv."), and in the middle of the city, the cathedral (Duomo) topped by Brunelleschi's dome. Behind the city and slightly to the left of the Duomo is the hilltop village of Fiesole, where the ruins of a Roman amphitheatre can still be found. On the next hill to the west, just off the current-day Via Bolognese, is the villa Il Poderino, meaning Small Farm. I've denoted its location by a red circle. Is the villa really the building inside the circle? I doubt it.

A modern postcard drawing of Il Poderino, The villa is one of the oldest Renaissance dwellings built outside the city walls that is still standing. As an indication of its historical importance, it is labeled on most maps of Florence. Built in the 1400's, renovated and enlarged by the Counts d'Elci in the 1800's, the house was eventually sold into the Emo family. The Emos, an ancient and noble family, also own the Villa Emo in Fanzola (near Venice), the only house designed by the Renaissance architect Palladio that is still owned by the family who built it. The most recent Count Emo, whose Canadian wife Barbara still lives at Il Poderino, worked with Earnest Lawrence on the Berkeley synchrotron and with Enrico Fermi on the Manhattan Project.

Like many houses of the Italian aristocracy, the villa is now subdivided into apartments. The Contessa lives in the front half (pictured in the drawing above). Due partly to their Canadian and American roots, the Contessa and her daughter Andreana often rent the remaining apartments to visiting Americans. From July of 1998 through June of 1999, my family occupied the back half of the villa, whose facade is shown in this photograph. By the way, this facade was the backdrop for the embarrassingly smug photo of me in Wired magazine.

Here are some photographs of the interior. This is the living room. The ceilings are 15 feet tall, which made the villa very expensive to heat in the winter. This fireplace, like the others in the villa, was, sadly, inoperable.

The grand stairway, which probably dates from the 1800's. The ornately carved bench to its left is inscribed with the year 1653. We were afraid to sit on it.

A bedroom on the 2nd floor. The door in the back leads to a terrace that overlooks the city and...

60 acres of orchards and gardens. Aside from providing a quiet retreat from the busy city, its trees produce peaches, pears, persimmons, and, of course, olives.

In addition to the upstairs terrace, our apartment also included this classic Italian courtyard: open to the sky, shaded from the sun, and full of the fragrances of the Tuscan countryside. On warm winter evenings we ate here, and on cool summer days I set up my carving workbench here. One magic evening in May, we hosted an Italian folkdance here. On a less romantic note, beneath the courtyard is an elaborate system of gutters, tunnels, and giant vaulted cisterns that, from the Renaissance until the beginning of this century, collected and stored water for domestic use.

No sojourn in Italy is complete without a "motorino". Ours sported a 4-cycle engine, which is quieter and less polluting (but more expensive) than the ubiquitous 2-cycle scooters favored by most Florentines. Although easier to navigate through the narrow streets than a car, there were places even the motorino couldn't go. I commuted by bicycle most days. But I loved that motorino.

levoy@cs.stanford.edu

	This is a 1650 lithograph of Florence ("Florentia" in Latin), drawn by Matteo Merian for the travel guide "Itinerarium Italiae". Visible in this slightly fanciful view are the city walls, the Arno River (labeled "Arnus Flv."), and in the middle of the city, the cathedral (Duomo) topped by Brunelleschi's dome. Behind the city and slightly to the left of the Duomo is the hilltop village of Fiesole, where the ruins of a Roman amphitheatre can still be found. On the next hill to the west, just off the current-day Via Bolognese, is the villa Il Poderino, meaning Small Farm. I've denoted its location by a red circle. Is the villa really the building inside the circle? I doubt it.
	A modern postcard drawing of Il Poderino, The villa is one of the oldest Renaissance dwellings built outside the city walls that is still standing. As an indication of its historical importance, it is labeled on most maps of Florence. Built in the 1400's, renovated and enlarged by the Counts d'Elci in the 1800's, the house was eventually sold into the Emo family. The Emos, an ancient and noble family, also own the Villa Emo in Fanzola (near Venice), the only house designed by the Renaissance architect Palladio that is still owned by the family who built it. The most recent Count Emo, whose Canadian wife Barbara still lives at Il Poderino, worked with Earnest Lawrence on the Berkeley synchrotron and with Enrico Fermi on the Manhattan Project.
	Like many houses of the Italian aristocracy, the villa is now subdivided into apartments. The Contessa lives in the front half (pictured in the drawing above). Due partly to their Canadian and American roots, the Contessa and her daughter Andreana often rent the remaining apartments to visiting Americans. From July of 1998 through June of 1999, my family occupied the back half of the villa, whose facade is shown in this photograph. By the way, this facade was the backdrop for the embarrassingly smug photo of me in Wired magazine.
	Here are some photographs of the interior. This is the living room. The ceilings are 15 feet tall, which made the villa very expensive to heat in the winter. This fireplace, like the others in the villa, was, sadly, inoperable.
	The grand stairway, which probably dates from the 1800's. The ornately carved bench to its left is inscribed with the year 1653. We were afraid to sit on it.
	A bedroom on the 2nd floor. The door in the back leads to a terrace that overlooks the city and...
	60 acres of orchards and gardens. Aside from providing a quiet retreat from the busy city, its trees produce peaches, pears, persimmons, and, of course, olives.
	In addition to the upstairs terrace, our apartment also included this classic Italian courtyard: open to the sky, shaded from the sun, and full of the fragrances of the Tuscan countryside. On warm winter evenings we ate here, and on cool summer days I set up my carving workbench here. One magic evening in May, we hosted an Italian folkdance here. On a less romantic note, beneath the courtyard is an elaborate system of gutters, tunnels, and giant vaulted cisterns that, from the Renaissance until the beginning of this century, collected and stored water for domestic use.
	No sojourn in Italy is complete without a "motorino". Ours sported a 4-cycle engine, which is quieter and less polluting (but more expensive) than the ubiquitous 2-cycle scooters favored by most Florentines. Although easier to navigate through the narrow streets than a car, there were places even the motorino couldn't go. I commuted by bicycle most days. But I loved that motorino.