Villa La Rondinella Buonconvento

History of
The villa was built by the will of Louis Xavier Ricci as from 1910 (date appearing on the frieze at the cornice of rückpositif) designed by the architect Gino Clerics at the official monuments to the Superintendent of Siena.
The young owner, belonging to the rich bourgeoisie and culturally well updated, decided the construction of the villa returning from a trip to Paris, apparently drawing the idea of their homes by the architecture of magazines and directing the work of decidedly that until then had moved especially in the restoration.
The building work was carried out by Enterprise Paccagnini di Montalcino, while the contributions were used decorative craftsmen and artists including non-local: Works were forged wrought iron im Luciano Zalaffi in Siena, painted decorations are attributed to Prime Lavagnini -- in the same years that operated inside the near Buonconvento of child asylum - the ceramic inserts on the facades came from Manifattura Chini while Florence was recently advanced the name of the same as Galileo Chini author of paintings that decorate the vestibule of the villa.
It appears that the work was well under way in 1912, when it intervened to economic difficulties, the building was sold by Louis at Xavier uncle Joseph; after the sale was placed in the atrium the cherry staircase connecting the first floor, performed by local craftsmen Lello Masotti and Vittorio Piochi on the same project Xavier Luigi Ricci.
• Valorizzato the recent rediscovery of architectural production of the century device in the local reality thanks to the Superintendency of Architectural Heritage Siena and Grossetto, the building, which retains the overall setting house nineteenth entrusts its qualification liberty above all the combination of the details (see FRANCHINA 1996, p. 150-151).
In view of Siena is considered perhaps the best example of Art Nouveau architecture in which, albeit in a calm and not free from compromises, secessionist confluence models, suggestions of the Berlage and, in some decorative contributions, the most obvious stylistic Art Nouveau.
Description of
Isolated from the town and overlooking the Via Cassia, the keeping of Rondinella is bounded by a fence wall interrupted by two erased entry wrought iron the first of which placed in the center of a small exedra created in the corner of the street vicinale, located slightly behind the carriageway road. The style of cancelled, flanked by pillars wall with ceramic inserts in the frieze conclusive, announces the character of the villa and the taste of secession owner: Sienese work of Luciano Zalaffi, wrought iron appears forged according to a highly geometric design, in which elements spiraliformi oblique lines and interrupt the strict verticality of bars and where the call to the plant is only in stylized palmetta crowning of Central Asia.
From the main gate Error of the path through the garden leads to the gravel on the square in front of the villa. This, elevated on two floors above ground and crowned by a gutter strongly aggetto, presents an installation of a quadrangular with the avant-turret on the corner, in line with the main entrance erased. The brick walls weaving sight, "vibratile surface" (FRANCHINA 1996, p. 150) played on a dual tone color of the bricks proceed beyond high skirtings stone and marble and decorated blurs in the range under thoroughly monochrome, finally ended by a thick marble cornice modanato. The plot of the bricks is enriched by inserts in marble and ceramic around the openings of the first floor, the presence of murals of various inspiration from their traditional grounds Sienese riletti and modernised - like sgusci connecting the spallette windows and why Sawtooth arches in the crowning of the first floor windows replaced with piastrelline ceramics - featuring the construction of a key balancing between liberty and the neo-medievalismo, in the sense of an architecture "of surfaces and volumes" ( idem) entrusted mainly chromatic solutions.
Quoting the considerations expressed by Franchina, "the house is not symmetrical, then not a facade, but has a clear distinction between the three sides representation and back service, where the decoration is simplified, and there are ceramics Colored "(sd FRANCHINA,, p. 43).
The entrance, preceded by a brief marble staircase, it is located in secluded position on the wall between the facade to the street and the body on the back; interpreted in a breakaway, with the portal appears sovrapporta glass framed in marble and item engraved on a decorated written Hello, red ceramic inserts and various grooves enrich the door, protected by a roof with wooden frame and covered in flakes of green glazed earthenware on.
The door interrupted the high band marble scanalata running for the entire perimeter of the building and is the parapet of the ground floor windows, whose sill is connected to it through three small shelves and a smooth slab on which just raised a reason to leaves, pure-Art Nouveau style. On the left of the wall without openings, stands at the top of a decorative painting classical intonation, consisting of a female figure covered with veils in hand with a bouquet of ears of wheat and surrounded by branches of grape, characterized " colours from a few shades essential "(GUIDUCCI, sd, p. 47), attributed to Prime Lavagnini and currently in mediocre condition.
Other pictorial decorations, although extremely deteriorated, we sense that the entire range marks the high zone outside walls of the villa, offering thematic representation related to the plant - vases, branches, leaves - twisted tapes and alternated with medallions with Latin mottoes , almost illegible.
Reasons related to the more decorative tradition and the local repertoire - balzana and the lion rampant with tapes vsaki on a Pompeian red - were on hand frieze of the tower; precisely in a three-storey tower is strengthened to recall neo-medieval not only in the disappearance paintings but also in texture walls and in windows above tripartite perhaps triple allusive to the palace.
Beside the tower on the facade to the street, the balcony, supported by two marble pillars smezzati from a cut in the area and bearing a higher band wrought iron with the initial owner, instead qualifies as a "made-piece Art Nouveau "(FRANCHINA, sd) for the transcript of reasons modern classics - triglifi and metopes frame on the parapet marble - for decoration entrusted to ceramic tiles rectangular and square, for simplification in corbels leaf capitals of pillars and especially the slender proportions of the latter and the use of casual modanatura. On the walls of the small terrace also appear pictorial decorations still well preserved and updated with style, offering a lively band in white and red squares (perhaps the reason for return of the board in vivo red tiles placed at the base of the turret finestrine ), which are supported two vases with abundant racemi among which are interwoven ribbons with inscriptions ( "Towards the blue" and "Mosaic tangens") and on the second, the emblem of the family Ricci. If most of the issues adopted in the figurative paintings of the exterior are found in the repertoire of common - starting with the work of Galileo Chini - more free and original ceramic decoration appears that, from Manifattura Chini Florence, it appears especially commenting windows of the first floor: piastrelline color on (predominantly red and deep orange) stand out on the white marble pieces incorniciature higher while a metallic luster, changing between green and purple, are willing to band under sills, the sides novels modeled at the centre of marble parapet. Other details reveal the intonation liberty, such as wrought iron brackets of rain and almost disappeared under the painted decorations, where alternate in boxes scores by beams of wood, vegetable motifs, garlands, rosettes and pixellisation. Inside, the shaft entrance on the ground floor off the service left, turned on the back and currently occupied by guardians, and right both the living rooms overlooking the first side to the street and on the balcony, the second open on the front side with a large window tripartite kind of serliana extremely simplified, and again on the balcony, which also opens access to the tower.
All rooms of the villa still in the flooring tiles in grit with figures or colored ceramic chessboard approach with a board rigiro, fixtures and wooden doors cherry original, refined design with curvilinear frame, mouldings and vertical panels above in a small glass colored geometric patterns; environments are also embellished by decorative interventions, usually limited to friezes geometric paintings on the ceiling or on the high walls covered with light colours, more abundant and interesting instead into the entrance, which together with cupoletta closing stairwell is the most significant moment in the interior. The atrium is characterized by the staircase connecting the first floor with a ramp straight start and conduct a subsequent move up to the second floor.
Equally significant is the presence of a frieze painted on canvas applied to the upper walls using strips of wood, depicting puttini that immersed in a green flowered, flanked medallions with Latin inscriptions for the quality of painting, "made up of shots of color full of light "(GUIDUCCI sd, p. 49), the canvases have been approached recently to Galileo Chini. The second, a remarkable moment decorative unfortunately currently very deteriorated, is the cupoletta coverage of the stairwell, divided vertically in the drum by brief pilasters that continuing as glass inserts in the upper curvature finally closed by a skylight colored referred only remains today, in poor conditions, the central part. In boxes drum views of one another in a naturalistic landscapes, while top decoration merely campiture intense blue framed in white, with subtle friezes in red. Disimpegnato through two corridors to L and connected by a staircase service stone two ramps on the ground floor, first floor environments is not particularly valuable, but retains some of the rooms in the original furniture, carved wood, drawing heavily decorated. In the bathroom are still original equipment health, English origin, and the ceramic coating decorated with a frieze of color to the stylized palm.
The tower, with as has been said access from the balcony on the ground floor, keeps the inside the narrow wooden staircase that rises four ramps up to the scenic higher open on all sides by the tripartite windows and from which one can enjoy the splendid , a vast landscape of campaign Buonconvento.