CAREGGI. 
339 
A large gate with stone lions on the pilasters, and a neat lodge 
beside it, is the entrance to the grounds of the Medicean Villa of 
Careggi. The fragrant smell from pine and cypress groves, min¬ 
gled in spring and summer with the scent of roses and other 
plants, perfumes the air, as the visitor drives up the approach to 
the house between shrubs and trees, and carefully-tended grass 
with beds of flowers. The Villa of Careggi was purchased many 
years ago, when it was in a ruined condition, by an English 
gentleman, the late Mr. Sloane, who having succeeded in 
making a large fortune by Italian mines near Volterra, spent his 
money munificently in Italy, and gave generous contributions 
towards the completion of the façades of Santa Croce, and of 
the Florentine Cathedral. He bought up other old villas 
in a state of decay, and restored them as nearly as possible to 
their primitive condition. 
Careggi was built by Cosimo, Pater Patriae, and converted 
by his favourite architect Michelozzo Michelozzi into a fortified 
castle. The pleasant situation, on an elevated part of the plain, 
not too far removed from Florence, made it a favourite residence 
of the first Medici. Here Cosimo, and afterwards his grandson 
Lorenzo, collected their literary friends, and held conversazioni or 
meetings of the so-called Platonic philosophers, whose readings, 
recitations, and discussions—however pedantic and wearisome 
they appear in later ages—revived a knowledge and love of 
classical learning, for which posterity may be grateful. 
These meetings were presided over by the Greek scholar, 
Marsilio Ficino ; Cosimo had rescued him from poverty, edu¬ 
cated him, and appointed him tutor to the youthful Lorenzo, 
whom Ficino initiated in the wisdom of Plato. On every seventh 
of November a feast was held at the Villa, to celebrate the birth 
of Plato ; on which occasion nine philosophers (the number 
of the Muses) met to read and discuss the works of the Greek. 
Cosimo died at Careggi, at the age of seventy-six, in 1464 ; he 
had presented Ficino with a small villa on the hill above, but 
the philosopher preferred ending his days at Careggi, where he 
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