THE HISTORY OF VILLA ULIVELLO

The villa originated in the 19th century as the "holiday home" of the landowners who owned the estates that still surround the villa to the east, south and west, beyond Via Chiantigiana. The villa underwent several changes of ownership until in 1917 it was purchased by the internationally renowned historian Guglielmo Ferrero together with his wife Gina Lombroso, a writer and scholar of psychiatry and anthropology in the footsteps of her father, Cesare Lombroso, known for his studies on criminal anthropology.

The Villa

From the documents in our possession, the villa dates back to the first decades of the 19th century.

In the contracts that accompany its various transfers of ownership, which until 1917 were quite frequent, we note that it is always referred to as a "holiday home," we therefore understand that it is one of those very numerous architectures of Tuscan territory and that already since the fourteenth century give substance to the ideal of “life in villa" In fact, the custom for wealthy Florentine families to employ their wealth in the acquisition of land in the countryside and in the construction or purchase of villas to be used as a place of escape and refuge from the worries and anxieties of city life was already affirmed in that period.

The example of the best-known family, the Medici, with their villas at Careggi, Cafaggiolo, Il Trebbio, La Petraia, Castello, and so on, which we can still admire today with their magnificent gardens, is worth all. They were also places where art, philosophy and anything else that could help enrich the spirit could be cultivated. For this purpose, poets, writers, artists and philosophers were invited there.

Estates were usually attached to the villas. A farm was defined as an area of land of sufficient size to be cultivated by a family of peasants, and capable of producing at least twice as much as was necessary for the family's subsistence. In fact, the sharecropping system, which lasted for many centuries until the middle of the last century, provided that each harvest, minus the seeds, was divided into two parts of which one went to the farmer's family and the other half to the landowner. In this way the landowner derived what he needed to maintain his estate.

Four farms were attached to the Ulivello villa: Ulivello, Paretaio I and II, and Sant'Ilario in Petigliolo. The building where Ulivello in Chianti farmhouse with its administration and direct sales rooms is located was precisely the farmer's house (the word for “farmer” was “colono”, hence "colonica") of the Ulivello estate. This included land that was partly on this side of Via Chiantigiana (where the olive grove still exists) and partly on the side beyond Via Chiantigiana. Paretaio I and II were beyond via Chiantigiana, further south, while still to the south but on the villa side of Via Chiantigiana was Sant'Ilario in Petigliolo.

Another important aspect, each villa always had a garden, an area detached from productive cultivation to be used for the enjoyment of the landowner who resided there.

Green areas around the villa

The outdoor areas are composed of several distinct parts, in each of which we find evergreen essences:

Italian garden located in front of the villa, westwards, with the box hedge that reframes a central flowerbed where there were once tall trees, a cedar of Lebanon and a magnolia. This is the part most directly connected to the house, almost an extension of it: in early twentieth-century photographic images, in fact, we see the owners of the house sitting in this part of the garden intent on reading.

The Park to the north with prime trees for protection from the winds and a kind of "labyrinth" formed by shady beds of holm oak and laurel, with the paths marked by rows of stones, a place where it was pleasant to walk on hot summer days.

Beyond the driveway we find a path bordered by two rows of cypress trees that in a scenic way allows us to reach a viewpoint that offers an extraordinary view of the valley that descends to the Ema stream, where the agrarian landscape is practically intact, without invasive artifacts that disfigure its original appearance. There are vineyards and olive groves of "Torraccia di Presura" winery, alternating with pine forests and Mediterranean scrub. Here, the landscape or rather its "view" becomes an integral part of the park and completes its beauty.

Returning towards the villa, we notice to the south beyond the cypresses a square-shaped grassy area, which in spring is covered with wild flowers: it was the tennis court where the youngest among the villa's residents used to spend their free time with friends.

Finally, along the east side of the villa in front of an olive grove, an aromatic garden has been recreated, with the plants to be used in the kitchen; various types of sage, rosemary, thyme, laurel, oregano... all essences that today contribute to enrich the farmhouse kitchen.

The interiors: the decorations

Inside the villa are rooms with decorated walls and ceilings.

On the ground floor, in what used to be the entrance, we find a trompe l'oeil decoration on the walls and ceiling in neo-Gothic style, with a nearly fairy-tale taste (entering the room you have the feeling of being inside the scene of an imaginary Middle Ages setting). In the dining room a trompe l'oeil with views of seaside and lake towns (similar decorations are found in other villas in the area, for example in the villa La Tana in Candeli, although there the paintings date from an earlier period). In the hall, once occupied by a large billiard table then by Guglielmo Ferrero's impressive library, a ceiling with mannered floral decorations.

There are decorated ceilings on the first floor as well: in the master bedroom there is a grotesque decoration of fine workmanship that we find in other villas and historic palaces such as Palazzo Vecchio and the Uffizi in Florence; in the first room a typical Art Nouveau decoration with plant elements, birds and four small portraits of people, probably members of the owner's family that had commissioned the work; on the ceiling of the bathroom in the sixth room a decoration with a book, stylus and ruler suggests a previous use as a "study" of that room.

Passages of ownership

But who were the owners of this villa?

There wasn’t a single family, but many changes of ownership. Between the second half of the nineteenth century and the early twentieth century we also find several non Italian names, testifying the period when a large colony of foreigners (mainly English) took up residence in Chianti (as well as in Firenze) attracted by the climate and the beauty of the landscape and also by the property prices that were decidedly advantageous for them.

One family in particular has linked its name to this villa: the one of the historian, writer and sociologist Guglielmo Ferrero and his wife Gina Lombroso, a physician and writer. Names that now are almost forgotten but who in the period between the early twentieth century and World War II had wide notoriety throughout European cultural world and even in America.

Guglielmo distinguished himself in particular for a celebrated essay on the history of ancient Rome that had a vast echo throughout Europe and gave him notoriety in the United States as well, "Grandeur and Decadence of Rome" (1902-1907).

They were not Florentine by origin: both were from Turin (although he was born in Portici, near Napoli, as his father, a railroad engineer, used to travel for work), and settled in Florence during the years of the First World War.

Gina was the daughter of Cesare Lombroso, the psychiatrist and anthropologist considered the father of criminal anthropology, who in the age of positivism had great notoriety throughout Europe for his studies linking the physical traits of individuals with criminal behavior. Guglielmo Ferrero collaborated for a time with Cesare Lombroso, and it was at the latter's home that he met Gina.

They lived in Florence on viale Machiavelli, and in 1917 they bought this "holiday home" with its associated farms, choosing it precisely because the wine and oil produced here were the best in the entire area.

In the interwar period, when fascism began to take hold, Guglielmo was immediately a staunch opponent of it. This led to much trouble for him: he was constantly being watched, spied on, his movements monitored by the police. His passport was even withdrawn.

Because of this, at one point the owner of their house on viale Machiavelli grew tired and decided to terminate the lease. Thus it was that they moved to villa Ulivello.

We can read their son Leo's account of this period in his autobiographical book "Diary of a Privileged under Fascism."

Controls and surveillance became more and more pressing until in 1929 the Ferrero family, thanks to an invitation received by Guglielmo for a lecture series in Switzerland, was able to get their passports back and leave Italy for good, and then moved to the United States.

Guglielmo and Gina never returned to the villa, nor did Leo, who died in his thirties in New Mexico in 1933. The villa remained with their daughter Nina who continued to use it as a vacation home, then upon her death it passed to her heirs also living in the US.

When the latter decided to sell it, in 2013, the property was purchased by Paolo Osti, a civil engineer and owner of the neighboring winery "Torraccia di Presura," who designed and oversaw its careful conservative restoration both in distribution and in the materials used. In the course of the restoration, many of the previously described decorations were recovered, which, according to a custom of the period, had been covered in the early 1900s, fortunately with removable tempera. Currently, the villa and the rooms of the farmhouse are used for the agritourism activity of "Torraccia di Presura," and offer guests an experience deeply connected to the territory in particularly evocative environments.