Cosimo III, decorated the villa with numerous paintings of animals and flowers by the two Scacciati and by Bartolomeo Bimbi of Settignano, which no longer exist. He seldom went there, perhaps on account of its proximity to the high road, or else because of the wind “which blows there, and will blow to all eternity,” as his doctor, the well-known poet Redi, wrote to a friend. The last record of court festivities I can find in connection with the Ambrogiana is on April 1791, when Ferdinando III, second son of the Grand Duke Pietro Leopoldo, who succeeded his brother as Emperor of Austria after governing Tuscany with wisdom and liberality for twenty-five years, met his bride Louisa Maria of Bourbon at the villa and escorted her to Florence. Now the fine old villa has fallen from its high estate and is used as a prison. The forests where Ferdinando I, shot and hunted have long since been destroyed, and the picturesque little hill-village of Capraja has forgotten that her name was really _Cerbaria_, from the thick and wild woods surrounding the hill whence she frowns defiance at her enemy Montelupo on the opposite side of the river. Cerbaria is first mentioned in a concession by the Emperor Otho III, to the Bishop of Pistoja in 998, and again in 1155 in a diploma of Frederic II. It must have been well nigh impregnable in those days, and the narrow, steep tortuous streets, which are only practicable to mules in single file, are most picturesque. Gradually the name was changed to Capraria, then to Capraja (Capra, a goat), and when the Republic of Florence built the castle of Montelupo on the heights opposite, the proverb arose: “Per distrugger questa Capra, non vi vuol altro che un Lupo.” (To destroy this Goat, a Wolf is necessary.) [Illustration: (Drawing looking up from lake to village going up hill)] The ruined church and castle of Montelupo on the opposite side of the river is well worth a visit, and the view thence is very fine. Down by the Arno the potteries still exist where those quaint plates with straddling men at arms and wonderful purple horses, and the _bocale_ or wide-mouthed jugs inscribed with pithy sentences, were once made. These jugs were in such common use that they gave rise to the proverb: “E scritta nei bocale di Montelupo” (It is written on the jugs of Montelupo), to indicate that a thing is of public notoriety. FOOTNOTES: [55] See _Don Antonio de’ Medici al Casino di San Marco_, by Count P. F. Covoni. Firenze, 1892. [Illustration: VILLA DI PRATOLINO.] [Illustration: (View of Villa from garden, with statue)] VILLA DI PRATOLINO