HISTORY
HISTORY
GONDI FAMILY ( 1100-1700 )
The San Cresci estate has belonged until 1100 to the Gondi family whose coat of arms still has an arm holding a mace, which dominates the real coat of arms, with two maces the cross of Sant 'Andrea with the scroll bearing the family motto "non sine labore" underneath.
The Gondi Marquises built the first settlement in San Cresci in Valcava in 1100 in Vitignano , in one of the 8 farmhouses of the San Cresci Agricultural Estate , to move in 1300 to the Spedale farmhouse with agricultural outbuildings and finally in 1500 to the Villa Marchesi Gondi called Villa La Quiete as it is today, with a farm and a farmhouse next to it .
In 1449 it appears that the Marquises Carlo and Mariotto Gondi saved themselves from the plague, which struck Florence, claiming countless victims, because they took refuge in their San Cresci estate in Valcava.
The family of the Marchesi Gondi held the property until the mid- 1700s when the two daughters of Ferdinando Alessandro Gondi , Elisabetta and Caterina entered the convent of the congregation of the "Minime Ancille della SS Trinità" known as Montalve in 1.759, bringing as a dowry all the property of SAN CRESCI , larger than the one remaining today, with a deed drawn up by the notary Giuseppe Maria Gamucci, which thus became the summer residence of the boarding school and sources of food supplies for agriculture and woodland activities exercised there. The two sisters disappeared in 1770 and the estate remained the property of the Montalve .
The history of the Gondi family, both in Italy and in France, was published in a recent volume entitled
GONDI A FLORENTINE DYNASTY AND ITS PALACE
published in 2013 by Polistampa - Florence by Gabriele Morolli and Paolo Fiumi.
The volume contains at the bottom a large bibliography useful for those who intend to deepen the subject.
THE HISTORY OF THE ESTATE AND OF THE VILLA MARCHESI GONDI, CALLED VILLA LA QUIETE
ETRUSCAN PERIOD
The San Cresci Agricultural Estate in Valcava has been populated by the Etruscans since the years 400-300 BC documented by the findings on Monte Giovi, on whose slopes the Estate is located, of the finds of significant settlements whose excavations are still in progress by the Superintendence for Archaeological Heritage.
Sarcophagus of the spouses
ROMAN PERIOD
After the Etruscans the area was passed by the Romans and in the opposite direction by Hannibal with his Elephants.
In 280 AD San Cresci was beheaded, recognized as the Christianizer of Mugello and killed for failing to abjure his Faith.
In the following year 281 AD, his successor San Cerbone was beheaded for the same reasons.
San Cresci
Verrazzano bridge - New York
MEDIEVAL PERIOD
In Sagginale on the Sieve river, the bridge that crosses it is still called the “Ponte Annibale” today and the road that climbs from Sagginale to San Cre sci is a Roman road that continued to Florence - Siena - Viterbo - Rome. After the Middle Ages, the Estate gave birth to the Marquises Gondi.
Bridge of Hannibal in Sagginale
RENAISSANCE PERIOD
According to tradition, the Gondi family descends from the Filippi, whom Dante counts in Paradise, among the oldest inhabitants of Florence. They were invested with the office of Knights by Charlemagne.
He was the progenitor of the Orlando di Bellicozzo family which in 1197 was part of the council of the municipality.
The family took its surname from one of his great-grandsons Gondo di Ricovero who we find among the signatories of a treaty between the Florentine Republic and Genoa in 1241, originally from San Cresci in Valcava, in Mugello.
They reached the highest offices, 18 priors between 1436 and 1530, up to the supreme one of Gonfaloniere di Giustizia, in Florence, while in the province they were Podestà of Prato, Pistoia, Scarperia, Castelfiorentino, Val d'Era and Montepulciano.
In 1460 Giuliano the Elder was ambassador to Urbino and served, as treasurer, King Alfonso of Naples. In 1468 he obtained the Supreme Magistracy of High Prior and Lord of the Republic.
The King Alfonso of Naples lent his favorite architect, Giuliano da Sangallo for the design and construction of the Palace and the Chapel in Santa Maria Novella. The King also granted him the title of Duke but Giuliano refused, only accepted to use the ducal crown in memory of this episode.
Dante Alighieri
VERRAZZANO BRIDGE - NEW YORK
Giuliano also accepted that his son born on January 8, 1468 was baptized by Alfonso of Aragon, eldest son of the King of Naples Ferdinand I. Since Alfonso could not go to the ceremony, he delegated Lorenzo the Magnificent in his stead, so the son of Giuliano was baptized Alfonso, Lorenzo Gondi.
In the same period the family had a great exchange of letters between Girolamo Savonarola and various members of this family, some in favor and others not. The fortunes of the family continued to grow, and from goldbeater they became bankers based in Florence, Lyon, Naples, Lisbon and Naples and Seville.
Guido Baldo Antonio twelfth son of Antonio, was the founder of the French branch, and moved to Lyon to take care of the branch of the family bank, here he married Marie Caterine de Pierrevive, daughter of Nicola de Pierrevive, Chamberlain of the French court. Catherine de 'Medici, future queen of France, took both of them into her service, especially Antonio who was her administrator and also Master of the Palace of the Duke of Anjou, her husband. Antonio kept this position even when the Duke was crowned king with the name of Henry II.
Antonio became famous also because he financed the first voyage of Giovanni da Verrazzano with which the navigator "Captain of the Army for India" discovered the Bay of New York and Florida.
Precisely for this reason Giovanni da Verrazzano and his brother Gerolamo dedicated a small island at the mouth of the New York bay to Antonio Gondi's wife, Marie Caterine de Pierrevive, baptizing it "Pietra Viva" as found in a letter written on July 8, 1524. to King Francis I.
Verazzano bridge - New York
Saint-Cloud
THE MONTALVE CONGREGATION TRANSFERRED TO
THE GONDI OWNERS OF VERSAILLES
Palace of Versailles
Antonio's wife, on the other hand, helped Caterina de 'Medici in her life by advising her and designing for her the "Italian gardens" such as the Tuilleries Garden.
To Antonio and Marie Caterine was born in Florence on 4 November 1522, Alberto who on 4 September 1565 married Claudie Caterine of Clermont Dampierre, lady of Catherine, widow of Jean de Annabout Duca de Retz. This marriage brought wealth and titles to the Gondi, so much so that Alberto owned part of Versailles. The family therefore acquired a very respectable role in French society, so much so that Charles IX himself chose Albert, as his representative, in his marriage by proxy with Elizabeth of Austria, daughter of Emperor Maximilian II.
On July 10, 1573, the sovereign awarded him the title of Marshal of France, and he also became a private adviser to the King, the first gentleman of the palace.
The Valois offered the Florentine merchant-banker high administrative offices and great honors, tangible signs of the total loyalty offered to 5 kings: Henry II, Francis II, Charles IX, Henry III and Henry IV. Alberto's brother was Piero Gondi, first Archbishop of Paris, whose funeral monument, together with that of his brother, are in the Gondi Chapel in the apse of Notre Dame in Paris. Alberto's son was Filippo Emanuele Conte di Joigny, Captain of the Galeries, that is, Minister of the Navy, who took St. Vincent de Paoli as a tutor for his children. His son Gian Francesco Paolo Gondi was appointed Archbishop of Paris, later Cardinal by Pope Innocent X, but he is remembered above all because he organized the frond against Cardinal Mazarin and for his memoir.
THE GONDI OF FRANCE
Also belonging to the French branch belonged Girolamo Gondi who in 1543 enlarged the Hotel d'Aulnay and made it a castle with a garden of six hundred hectares, baptizing it Saint-Cloud.
Girolamo also had the tower of Santa Maria Maggiore in via dei Pecori in Florence enlarged, into a real palace and it is precisely for this reason that the palace now Orlandini del Beccuto is called dei Gondi di Francia. The French branch, famous in the history of France for having given a Counselor to the King, a Prime Minister of State, a Generalissimo of all armies, seven Knights of the Holy Spirit, a General of the Galeries, two Ambassadors, three Cardinals and four Bishops of Paris; ended at the end of the seventeenth century.
In Italy, however, the family continued to play an important role in Florentine society, it became related to the major families of Italy and France such as the Savoy and the Orleans, the Medici, the Albizi, the Antinori, the Strozzi. The last descendants are still owners of Palazzo Gondi in Piazza San Firenze in Florence and produce "Chianti Rufina" wine and "Extra virgin olive oil" in their ancient properties Tenuta di Bossi in Pontassieve and Fattoria di Volmiano in Calenzano in the province from Florence.
ELEONORA DE MONTALVO
Eleonora Montalvo - Napoleon Bonaparte
THE LITTLE ANCHILLAS OF THE HOLY TRINITY CALLED SISTERS MONTALVE
The Montalve nuns were born following the work carried out by the Venerable Eleonora Ramirez de Montalvo born on 6.7.1602 in Genoa. After the first experience from 1611 to 1620 in the monastery of the Poor Clares of Sant'Jacopo in Via Ghibellina in Florence and the marriage with Orazio Landi, a Florentine patrician, in 1626 he gathered a group of orphaned and poor girls, the first nucleus of the Pious house of the girls of the SS Sacrament.
In 1646 he officially founded the Congregation for the education of noble girls of the “Minime Ancille della SS Vergine” also known as “Della Divina Incarnazione” in the Conventino in Florence.
In 1650 he inaugurated the Conservatory of the Lord Montalve located in the Villa "La Quiete" in Florence decorated with frescoes by Giovanni da San Giovanni of 1633, commissioned by Christina of Lorraine, among which "La Quiete che pacifica the winds" stands out, the name of the Villa.
In 1659 Eleonora di Montalvo died in the Villa la Quiete in Florence on 10 August where she was buried in the church of the Convent.
After the death of Eleonora di Montalvo the disciples continued the work of boarding school for the daughters of noble families until the years following the end of World War II and until the 1990s when the Congregation dissolves due to the lack of vocations.
In these 300 years and beyond, the presence between the Ancille of the sisters Caterina and Elisabetta Gondi, who brought the Tenuta di San Cresci in Valcava di Borgo San Lorenzo (FI) as a dowry to the Congregation, was inserted.
The Montalve nuns were recognized as a Public Education establishment in 1815 following the economic and war situation deriving from the French revolutionary uprisings which ended with the restoration after the exile of Napoleon Bonaparte.
In 1943, following the war events, the nuns and boarders moved to the estate to escape the horrors of the war. In 1944 the whole estate was used as a refuge for the displaced population of Borgo San Lorenzo and Mugello.
In 1992 the estate passed to the University of Florence and on 11.11.2013, following the award of a public tender, the sale agreement was signed to Agricola San Cresci Srl .
UNIVERSITY OF FLORENCE
The lay order of the Montalve became religious in all respects in 1837 and with law n.176 of 5 February 1992 the extinction of the Conservatory of the Montalve alla Quiete in Florence was regulated.
With Ministerial decree of 15.9.1992 registered at the Court of Auditors on 9.12.1992, the assets of the Congregation of Montalve made up of active and passive elements were transferred to the University of Florence.
Having acquired the ownership of the San Cresci Agricultural Estate, the University of Florence had initially hypothesized to transfer some Institutes of the Faculty of Agriculture there, but over time, the limited funds available changed the original setting and started the divestment process.
On 27/12/2002 and 28/02/2003 the University Board of Directors approved the sale of the real estate complex of the San Cresci estate in Valcava di Borgo San Lorenzo (FI).
After the experiment of two public auctions, the Board of Directors of the University with a resolution of 15.12.2006 also rejected the two offers received, following the publication of a notice of sale by private negotiation, as they were deemed not appropriate.
On 9/28/2007 the Board of Directors of the University of Florence accepted the offer made by Agricola San Cresci Srl following a public tender.
In the period of time, from 1992 to 2013, of over 20 years, the estate was subjected to acts of vandalism, and the buildings were damaged and deprived of the most significant parts.
It is now necessary to carry out a profound recovery intervention to restore the estate to its former usability and splendor.
To make it economically sustainable, it is necessary to carry out significant renovations of the buildings, land and forests, existing access routes to adapt them to the safety standards currently envisaged.
The interventions will in any case be aimed at safeguarding the existing habitat to regenerate the lost environment and restore economic sustainability for the new inhabitants of the Estate.
