The History

VILLA LA PIETRA is one of the grandest and most famous of all the villas of Florence. Preceded by a magnificent long cypress avenue and surrounded by an extensive estate with olive groves and fruit trees, it also boasts one of the loveliest gardens in Italy. Florence has been known for centuries for its villas on the low hills which surround the city. These were the country retreats of rulers and poets in the Renaissance, among them the Medici family and Humanist scholars. The villas are all beautifully sited in the countryside against the gentle contour of the low hills, and their green gardens extend into the carefully preserved landscape. At the beginning of the last century a number of distinguished Americans purchased villas in the environs when they decided to take up residence in Florence. These included Bernard Berenson at Villa I Tatti (and he bequeathed the property to Harvard) and Charles Augustus Strong at Villa Le Balze (now owned by Georgetown University), both just across the hills from the Actons’ Villa La Pietra. On the other side of the Arno the Cliffords lived at Villa Capponi where they created another wonderful garden next to Villa il Giullarino owned by Guy Mitchell, brother of Hortense Acton. The Spelman villa nearby is now owned by Johns Hopkins University. Recent studies have shown just how much these wealthy proprietors, with refined taste, contributed to the preservation of many historic Florentine villas. The new owners carefully restored, and in some cases rebuilt the villas and created their gardens.

Villa La Pietra was built in the 1460s for the Sassetti, a famous Florentine family. Francesco Sassetti was a manager of the Medici bank and a typical figure of Renaissance Florence who is commemorated in a chapel frescoed by Domenico Ghirlandaio in the church of Santa Trinita. His heirs sold the villa to Piero di Niccolò Capponi in 1545. Another member of this important Florentine family was Luigi Capponi, who became a cardinal and was director of the Vatican Library during the papacy of Innocent X.

In 1907 Arthur Acton’s wealthy American wife Hortense Mitchell purchased the property from the Incontri, a collateral branch of the Capponi. Hortense was the daughter of William H. Mitchell, President of the First National Trust Bank in Alton, Illinois. Arthur was a painter and he collaborated with the American architect Stanford White as his agent in Europe, purchasing works of art for the homes of wealthy clients in America. At La Pietra the Actons took some twenty years to recreate a 16th-century Tuscan garden, designed in a series of outside ‘rooms’ surrounding the villa, with terraces, parterres, and fountains, linked by hedged walks providing vistas of architectural features and 180 statues. It came to be recognized as one of the most beautiful gardens in Italy, and was featured in all important publications on the Italian garden from the 1920s onwards. The Actons spent the rest of their lives here, entertaining in grand style both Florentines and the numerous other English and American residents in the villas surrounding Florence. The Actons were also acknowledged as perceptive collectors and they put together a remarkable collection of paintings and sculpture which is preserved in the villa to this day.

After the death of Arthur in 1953 and Hortense in 1962 the property was inherited by their son Harold, who, as an historian, was author of important works on the later Medici grand-dukes, and the Bourbons of Naples. He had been celebrated as a poet during his brilliant days at Oxford, where he befriended Evelyn Waugh, Robert Byron, Cyril Connolly, and Graham Greene, all of whom went on to have distinguished literary careers. In the 1930s he lived in China where he taught at the university of Peking and translated poetry and drama from the Chinese. A self-acknowledged aesthete he also wrote two volumes of memoirs describing his interesting life. His friends who were frequent guests at La Pietra included Nancy Mitford (the subject of a biography by Acton), Evelyn Waugh, the Earl and Countess of Rosse, and the Sitwells.

In Florence Harold Acton was one of the most famous Anglo-American residents of the 20th Century. He was also a close friend of his neighbor Bernard Berenson, towards the end of the great art historian’s life, and often visited him at Villa I Tatti. Harold was an important benefactor of the British Institute in Florence, to whom he left the premises of its library (now named after him) on the Arno, and he was knighted in 1974 and made an honorary citizen of Florence in 1986. In later years he provided hospitality to the English royal family on their visits to Italy, including Princess Margaret and the Prince of Wales. He also carefully looked after the villa, garden, and estate and recognized the remarkable skills and culture of the local contadini who worked the land and tended the olive trees.

At the death of Sir Harold in 1994 he bequeathed La Pietra and his fortune to New York University, in order that the villa and its collections could be preserved, and the 57-acre estate, including four other villas, could be used for academic purposes. Currently the academic program is open to undergraduate students from NYU and other universities and covers many areas including economics, political science, business and sociology, as well as Italian Renaissance Art and Tuscan Gardens. NYU has carried out remarkable renovations at Villa La Pietra which have involved extensive maintenance work, as well as the restoration of works of art and furnishings, including the conservation of the wall hangings and tapestries which were in urgent need of attention. The villa is officially listed as part of the Cultural Heritage of Italy. The fine library of some 10,000 volumes has been catalogued and archivists are at work on the historic Acton family archives and photo collection. A careful restoration program is under way of the garden so that, in a few years time, it will regain the appearance it had at the height of its splendor in the late 1930s. Another historic villa on the estate, Villa Sassetti, has been carefully restored to provide a modern conference centre.