Tel.
0572 952140 www.museoilrenatico.it
museoarte@comune.monsummano-terme.pt.it |
Villa Martini, situated in the area known as the Renatico,
has hosted the Museum of Contemporary and 20th Century Art since 1999 with
paintings by P. Annigoni and V. Berti. It was constructed in 1887 for Ferdinando
Martini, a man of letters, journalist and statesman, who was thus able to
leave the town of his birth a tangible sign of his cultural eclecticism on
his death. His eclecticism can be seen from the architectural structure of
the building, the significant design of the garden, and the documentation
on the surviving furnishings and the decorations inside the house.
The building was conceived in Renaissance style, with a rusticated ashlar
base and other rows of stones higher up, further enforced by the presence
of rectangular windows with centred openings inscribed within noticeably jutting
frames in the upper cornice. A three-light window with round arches, topped
with circular “eye” windows, was carried out on the rear facade,
as opposed to the main one, and, from a functional point of view, serves to
illuminate the internal winding staircase that leads up to the second floor.
Five outside staircases - a double flight of steps on the main facade and
four symmetrically placed steps on the two sides - create a sort of side wing.
Thus the villa is always kept in close contact with its garden, the interior
with the exterior and the architectural space with that of nature.
The grounds are planted with valuable plants and species of trees like the
Horse Chestnut, the Plane Tree, the Lime Tree, the Cedar of Lebanon and the
Atlas Cedar, the Sequoia, as well as the Viburnum, Mahonia and Box, etc.
