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Villa Caruso di Bellosguardo is located on the hills of Ponte a Signa (FI). Erected in the XVI century, it was purchased by the noble Pucci family in 1540. Fifteen years later, the refined Abbot Alessandro Pucci wanted to make it his private retreat and asked the architect and antiquarian Giovanni Antonio Dosio from Florence to transform the manor house and the farms into a “park of delights”.

The facade, vaults and rooms were frescoed by the painter Giovanni Balducci; the exteriors, of which only a few elements are still visible – such as the large double staircase and the kneeling windows in “serena stone” – were designed by the architect Giovanni Antonio Dosio.

Romolo del Tadda, engaged in the same years in the construction of Boboli park, enriched the garden with several statues of animals. The abbot’s heirs continued to decorate the villa with statues inspired by mythological tales and the forces of nature.
The garden layout dates back to the last twenty years of the XVII century and was probably designed by Giuliano Ciaccheri (1644-1705), an architect and engineer from Florence.

At the end of the XIX century, the villa was purchased by the Campi family and in 1906 by the famous tenor Enrico Caruso: he had it restored and enlarged in 1915, thanks to the architect Vittorio Sabatini. The latter built the bodies of the two pre-existing symmetrical buildings, joining them with a long portico, and giving them the typical appearance of Tuscan villas. He employed simple plastered walls, fireplaces and stone doors.

Inside, the villa was sumptuously furnished, while the garden was arranged like a theatre.

When the tenor died in 1921, the property passed first to his son Rodolfo and his brother Giovanni, then to the engineer Bianchi. Eventually, it was bought by the Count de Micheli, who restored the Renaissance style of the garden.
In 1990, to the Gucci family purchased the whole estate, later to become a property of the Municipality of Lastra a Signa in 1995.

Today, the loggia of the villa leads to the boxwood parterre, with the typical geometric division of the XVI century Tuscan-Roman gardens. The avenues of the garden are scattered with different sculptures depicting ancient divinities and zoomorphic figures.
The villa is home to the “Villa Caruso Association”, which was established in December 1996 in order to promote study, documentation and dissemination activities in the artistic and cultural fields – mainly music and the opera. As a matter of fact, concerts and other musical events are often organized in this beautiful venue.

This post is also available in: Italiano (Italian)