Herr Cornel von Fabriczy[27] considers that only the eastern side of the villa is Brunelleschi’s work, the western being the original building, while the southern façade dates from late in the sixteenth century. One of the glories of Rusciano, much written about by critics, is a most beautiful window looking into the courtyard, but lately covered in. It is said by some to be by Brunelleschi, but the exaggerated consoles ornamented with acanthus leaves, and the pillars at the sides with Corinthian capitals, are not like the work of the great master. The garlands of flowers at the sides, tied in here and there, remind one of those on the monument to Marsuppini by Desiderio da Settignano, as does the delicate frieze at the top. Herr von Fabriczy suggests that this lovely window, which recalls those of the palaces at Urbino and at Gubbio, may perhaps have been designed by Luciano da Laurana, architect to Federigo di Montefeltre, to whom, as we shall see, the villa belonged for a short time. Anyhow this one richly ornamented piece of architecture contrasts strangely with the absolute simplicity, almost amounting to bareness, of everything else in the courtyard. Dr Carl von Stegmann, in his _Architekten der Renaissance_ thinks the frieze and the shape of the capitals are in the style of Desiderio da Settignano, while the garlands of flowers remind him more of the work of Benedetto da Majano. The rooms of the villa are of huge size, and many still retain their fine old wooden ceilings, gigantic beams resting on simply-shaped consoles with curved outlines. [Illustration: (Detail of carved window frame)] [Illustration: (Drawing of overlook of town from a garden)] Luca Pitti would have been a happier man had he taken to heart the wise words of Cosimo de’ Medici. “You,” said Cosimo, “strive towards the indefinite, I towards the definite; you aspire to reach the heavens with your ladder, I place mine on the earth so that I may not climb so high as to fall: and if I desire that the honour and reputation of my house should surpass yours, it seems to me but just and natural that I should favour rather mine own than what belongs to you. Nevertheless let us do as big dogs, which meeting, sniff one at the other and then, both having teeth, separate and go their ways: you to attend to your concerns, I to see after mine own.” But the character of Luca was correctly gauged by that acute and charming lady, Alessandra Macinghi, married to a Strozzi, who calls him, in her letters to her exiled sons after their father’s death which give so vivid a picture of what wives and mothers endured in the good old times, “a vain ambitious man and a weathercock, moreover badly surrounded.” After intriguing against the Medici, and even plotting to assassinate Cosimo’s son Piero, Luca Pitti abandoned the anti-Medicean faction and accepted pardon at the hands of Piero, after which his old friends scorned him and avoided meeting him in the streets.