On a ridge of the hills which rise above the fortress-convent built by Niccolò Acciajuoli for the monks of the Certosa, once stood a castle of the Buondelmonti; but all trace of it has long since disappeared and on the site stands the famous Florentine Villa I Collazzi, now belonging to Signor Bombicci-Pomi. When Messer Agostino Dini commissioned his architect to build him a house, the time for strongholds and mediæval castles had passed away, and the villa which rose upon the Tuscan hillside was characteristic of the century of Michelangelo. Such is the grandeur and beauty of I Collazzi, with its imposing double flight of steps leading from a broad terrace up to the courtyard, with its two wells crowned by fine old iron work, its lofty arcade and the large vaulted rooms wherein one feels a race of giants ought to live, that many have attributed its building to Michelangelo. But there are a few blemishes in the finish and detail of the decoration which, though by no means detracting from the general beauty of the whole structure, are easily recognised by a student of the Master, and lead him to suppose it to be rather a work of one of his scholars. The Dini papers have been lost, used to light the fires a century ago some say, and the only clue we have to the architect is from Baldinucci who tells us that Santi di Tito, scholar of Bronzino in painting and of Vasari in architecture, “worked for Agostino Dini at Giogoli ... for this same Agostino he also painted one of his finest altar pictures,” which is still in the chapel of I Collazzi. But those who support the theory that Michelangelo built the villa, say that Santi di Tito only completed the work begun by his great forerunner. The building raised upon the lonely Tuscan hill within a few miles of Florence, yet not within sight of her towers, is the finest villa of its kind to be found in all the countryside. There is nothing to spoil the impression of grandeur and beauty; the unfinished wing on the left of the courtyard only seems to give variety of line and grouping as one approaches between a long avenue of cypresses so closely planted together as to form a sombre green wall shutting out all else but the villa in front. Across the broad terrace, raised on high bastioned walls above the vineyards, the villa faces the valley of the Arno where villas are strewn like diamonds on the sunlit hills, and higher up towards the north the mountains behind Pistoja with their thick covering of snow show palely against the sky. The view opening out wider as the eye travels towards Prato seems even sunnier and more brilliantly coloured, for the country round here is subdued in tints, losing the sunlight early, and the shadows lie almost black on the ilex and pine woods near by. So striking is the monotonous scene of rounded pine-covered hills that the name I Collazzi (small hillocks) suggested itself to the Dini family for the fine villa they built in lieu of the modest abode which