This is an antique farm of the Servite Fathers of the Holiest Lady of the Annunciation, depending from the Convento of Montesenario and bears the traces of numerous restructuring episodes undergone in the course of the centuries. Confiscated by the State Property Office following the religious suppression in 1867, the villa was purchased in the following year by the cavalier Evaristo Piani, who adapted it to a private residence. In the oratory called St. Mary of Valdastra, separated from the villa by a small vegetable garden and recently restored in the structure, what was the first intervention of Pietro Chini in the area, according to the testimony of Father Lino Chini, is preserved, going back to 1824, that is when the complex of Valdastra was still the property of the Servites. In the dome of the major chapel, dedicated to the Madonna of the Rosary, is portrayed the Eternal in glory among Angels and Cherubs; in the pendetives, on the other hand, monochromatic medallions appear portraying the Immaculate Conception, the Annunciation, the Visitation and the Assumption.
The decoration is completed by two figures of the Blessed of the Order of the Servites, Ubaldo Adimari e Giovanni Angelo Porro, still painted in monochrome at the sides of the altar. The inspiration is generically neo-seventeenth-century and privileges the “trompe l’oeil” effect of the dome which, framed by mock golden plaster, simulates the open sky. In a small sitting-room on the inside of the villa, one may also admire some beautiful painting of the ceiling in Liberty style, with a continuous frieze of tulips, interrupted in correspondence to the windows and to the glass doors which put the environment in touch with a larger sitting-room, above which a panel is painted with two Swans confronted in a small lake of water lilies.
This motif was very dear to Galileo Chini, who could be the author of this decoration, stylistically similar to his production in the years between the last century and ours. In fact, this painting may go back to the early years of the twentieth century, that is when Galileo resumed the relationship with Mugello and after the villa of Valdastra had been a gentlemanly residence for some time.
Itinerario Liberty - Planning and Realization - Stefano Pelosi - www.stefanopelosi.it
