View of the Villa La Petraia, in Vedute delle ville, e d'altri luoghi della Toscana (page 33)

Giuseppe Zocchi

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

At the center of Tuscan villa culture were the acclaimed, originally sixteenth-century villas of the Medici family in and around Florence. In addition to the Villa La Petraia (1575–90) and neighboring Villa Castello, the best-known surviving villas of the family are the magnificently situated Villa Medici at Fiesole (1460s), the stately villa at Poggio a Caiano (ca. 1479), and the unusual villa-park at Pratolino (1569–86). The Villa La Petraia, with its central belvedere overlooking the Arno valley, was built on the spot of an old manor by Bernardo Buontalenti (ca. 1570), architect of the Tuscan Grand Ducal Court. Zocchi's refined drawing, after which the prints were made, shows the hazy atmosphere of villa and garden in the warm light of a Tuscan afternoon. A popular collector's item throughout the eighteenth century, Zocchi's beautiful book encouraged many Englishman and other Northern Europeans to visit Italy and not only study but experience firsthand villa life and the art and architecture.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.

Metropolitan Museum of Art