In 1447 the Cavalcanti sold Villa Bellosguardo to Tommaso, son of Gino Nerii de’ Capponi, for 1500 golden florins. After in vain trying on a hill lacking both springs and wells to make lakes and build brick kilns, “which have not turned out what I wished and have cost me fifty florins more than I encashed,” as Tommaso writes to his brother, he soon sold the place again to its old owners the Cavalcanti. Whether they destroyed the villa of their own free will in 1530 when Florence was besieged, or whether the Prince of Orange, or the German commander, Felix von Werdenberg, wilfully made a target of it, is unknown, but in some of the chronicles of that time it is mentioned as being in ruins. Cosimo I confiscated Bellosguardo with other property of the Cavalcanti in 1559 and gave it to one of his servants for life. Eight years afterwards it reverted to the Medici and was bought from them by Lionardo Marinozzi, another of Cosimo’s favourites. His son sold it in 1583 to Girolamo di Antonio Michelozzi, whose descendants still own it. It was then described as “una torre ad uso di palazzo,” which would seem as though Lionardo had added the magnificent tower on to an already existing villa instead of building, as was usually done, a dwelling-house round an old tower. It has been immortalised by Mrs Browning as— “... a tower that keeps A post of double observation o’er The valley of the Arno (holding as a hand The outspread city) straight toward Fiesole And Mount Morello and the setting sun.” The front of the villa is ornamented with _grafite_, and over the front door is a Pietà by Francavilla, a Dutch pupil of Giovan Bologna, while the large entrance hall contains damaged frescoes said to be by Poccetti. The fine old place is now inhabited by Lady Paget, who has converted an orangery into a most picturesque and delightful sitting-room, and restored Villa Bellosguardo to its pristine splendour. All parts of the town can be seen from the terrace; only the Arno lies hidden between two endless rows of palaces, until it reaches the long line of trees in the Cascine, whence its course can be traced for many miles along the valley. From here Florence seems to be closely set between olive-clothed hills, with villas spreading like endless chains as far as the eye can reach, up to the summits above Fiesole, on to the slopes beyond Prato, and behind us towards the Val di Pesa, where the pine woods stand like sentinels against the sky. Straight in front, towards the north, are the heights of Monte Senario, three serrated peaks black even in the sunlight, with the Servite convent lying like a streak of snow among the fir woods. On clear days the point of the Falterona, where the Arno takes its rise, can be seen to the right of the long hill of Vallombrosa on the east.