Orti Oricellari: The Garden Where Machiavelli Talked Republics
Why is it significant?
Along this stretch of Via della Scala, behind high walls and gates, lie the Orti Oricellari, the Rucellai gardens. Oricellari is simply the Latin form of the family name.
Key Facts
| Place | Orti Oricellari: The Garden Where Machiavelli Talked Republics |
|---|---|
| Address | Via della Scala 115, 50123 Firenze FI, Italy |
| Geo Coordinates | 43.77600, 11.24400 |
| Part of Walk | The Medici Quarter of Florence: Palaces, Tombs and Rivals from San Lorenzo to Santa Maria Novella |
| Generated | Generated |
Along this stretch of Via della Scala, behind high walls and gates, lie the Orti Oricellari, the Rucellai gardens. Oricellari is simply the Latin form of the family name. The garden belongs to a private palace today, so most of this story happens behind those walls... which is exactly how its first visitors liked it.
The garden was laid out in the late 1400s by Bernardo Rucellai, a man who had married into the Medici: his wife Nannina was Lorenzo the Magnificent's sister. After Lorenzo's death in 1492, scholars and poets who had gathered around the Medici began meeting here instead, under the trees, to talk about Plato, ancient Rome and how a city ought to be governed.
A generation later, in the 1510s, Bernardo's grandson Cosimo Rucellai hosted a circle of young Florentines here, and one of their regular guests was Niccolò Machiavelli, out of office and out of favour. He dedicated his Discourses on Livy to two of these friends, and his dialogue The Art of War, published in 1521, is set in this very garden, in the shade.
But talk about ancient republics can turn into something else. In 1522 some members of the circle were caught plotting against Cardinal Giulio de' Medici, who then governed Florence. One was executed, others fled into exile, and the gatherings in the garden came to an end. The Medici had a way of noticing who was talking about liberty, and where.
Later owners reshaped the gardens, and in the seventeenth century a giant stucco statue of Polyphemus, the one-eyed Cyclops, was set up among the trees, several times taller than a person. A Cyclops guarding the garden of free speech... Florence does love a symbol. Now head south through the quiet streets towards the river, to a church that opens onto a square beside the Arno.