In the summer of 1472 the Gonfalonier of Florence, Tanai de’ Nerli, received the Captain-General of the Florentine army, Count Federigo di Montefeltre, outside the city gates and escorted him, amid the acclamations of the citizens, to the Piazza, where the magistrates thanked him for his services in conquering rebellious Volterra, and presented him with a richly caparisoned charger and a silver helmet studded with jewels and chased in gold by Pollajuolo, with Hercules trampling on a griffin (the device of Volterra) as its crest. The grateful Republic also bought Rusciano of Luca Pitti and bestowed it on their victorious general together with the freedom of the city. But he does not seem to have inhabited his Florentine villa long, for in the following year it was let to Giuliano Gondi, and towards the end of the fifteenth century Federigo’s successor, Guidobaldo, Duke of Urbino, sold it to the Frescobaldi. After this Rusciano changed hands every few years and was owned by the Covoni, Usimbardi, Capponi, Gerini and many other less illustrious Florentine families, until in 1825 it came into the possession of an Englishman, Mr Baring, and after three more sales the noble old villa now belongs to Baron von Stumm. The Baron is a master in the art of landscape gardening, and with a northerner’s love for trees has transformed the grounds into a veritable earthly paradise, whence lovely views of Florence, framed by rare conifers and bays, are like so many glimpses of a fairy city. When seen on a morning with deep snow lying on every mountain, while a pale tinge of colour among the vineyards tells of coming spring in the valley of the Arno, and the city, usually so brown and strongly defined upon the river banks, shines white as though reflecting the dazzling snow peaks around, one is tempted to exclaim with Rogers, “Of all the fairest cities of the Earth None is so fair as Florence. ’Tis a gem Of purest ray.” All the town lies below us, but unlike the vast unbroken bird’s-eye view from Bellosguardo or San Miniato, here we only feel her presence, and while listening to the midday bells we see, between two clumps of slender bamboo, Palazzo Vecchio looming like some enchanter’s castle out of the thick atmosphere and suffused with rosy hues. The mysterious feeling of the building is enhanced, for the bay and olive trees hide the houses around it and nothing of the modern town is visible.