It is probably from 1694 onwards, when Bindo di Simone Peruzzi inherits the Monsoglio estate from his uncle, along with two younger brothers, and marries Maria Maddalena Grifoni, that the villa is expanded and decorated with frescoes, especially in its main rooms: the central hall and the gallery that runs across the entire width of the building, “from chest to loins.”
The first room to be completed seems to be the large hall, featuring a frieze that runs along the upper walls, depicting cherubs riding on vines and foliage. This is interrupted at the center of the short walls by a flying Fame (towards the facade) and three cherubs wrapped in a veil (towards the garden). Later, at the center of the long walls, an clock and the coat of arms of the Pasquali family of Cepperello were added.The rest of the decorations are around the doors and windows, which are topped by busts of mythological deities set within shells and framed. The doors on the short sides are adorned with telamones depicting Turkish slaves (a clear reference to the “four Moors” chained to the monument of Ferdinand I de’ Medici in the port of Livorno), while those at the center of the long sides feature herms with human heads and feet. The corner doors are decorated with putti riding dolphins.
On the arched doors of the short side at the rear, which provided access to the stairs leading to the upper floor, there are two images of villas: Monsoglio itself in a project-style view, with two chapels and loggia-like ends, and another villa (Peruzzi or Grifoni?) that remains unidentified. The works could be attributed to Atanasio Bimbacci (Florence 1649–1734), documented in 1693 as working at the Peruzzi palace in the city. It was common for nobles to employ the same artists both in the city and in the countryside, often compensating them more with goods rather than money: food, lodging, and farm products, perhaps even for their families.
The style of decoration, which was influenced by the work introduced in Florence in the 1640s by the Bolognese artists Colonna and Mitelli in the Pitti and Niccolini palaces, was spread by Jacopo Chiavistelli as early as 1650 (Palazzo Cerretani) and enjoyed great popularity in the two decades around the turn of the century. This was further enhanced by the “Turkish vogue” (finely analyzed by S. Rudolph in 1976 and F. Fiorelli in 1989), which swept across Europe after the Siege of Vienna in 1683.More recently, L. Fornasari has brilliantly extended these influences to Arezzo, where Giovanni Battista Biondi (1645-1698) similarly decorated several palaces, including those “delle Statue,” Subiano, and Ciocchi del Monte.
The gallery in the new expansion of the palace toward the chapel was frescoed at the same time, or shortly thereafter, by Giovan Camillo Ciabilli (1675–1746), who is documented in 1710 as working for the Peruzzi family and who was a pupil of Sagrestani. The layout is similar: on the eight overdoors, between putti and garlands, appear the portraits of eight of the nine gonfaloniers of the family. The jambs are outlined with herms and telamones; between them hang illusionistic faux landscapes, framed alternately in oval and rectangular shapes.
In addition to two minor frescoes around two doors in the rooms immediately south of the grand hall, the last major pictorial intervention (aside from minimal 20th-century additions) was in the alcove, whose large French window is symmetrical to that of the gallery. This decoration can be dated between the purchase of the villa by Francesco Pier Maria Capponi in 1744 and his death in 1753. In the part facing the window (on the exterior), a coat of arms of the family is depicted on the ceiling, supported by cherubs and flanked by a Maltese cross and a cardinal’s hat, clearly alluding to the only cardinal of the family, Luigi (1583–1659). On the interior walls, four delightful ovals depict the main saints named Francesco (St. Francis of Assisi, St. Francis of Paola, St. Francis de Sales, and St. Francis Xavier), and these works could be attributed to the little-known Giuseppe Nobili, the Capponi family’s court painter at the time.
— Silvia Meloni Trkulja
