Attention to the seasons is common to villas and villa gardens from ancient Roman times to the present day -- from the seasonal dining rooms recommended by Vitruvius to our own use of water and dense vegetation to create cool spaces for summer repose. In the Renaissance and Baroque periods, the iconography of Central Italian villa decoration, stucchi, and garden statuary often reflected its setting with respect to these seasonal features. In many cases, representations of the seasons themselves attested to the relationship of the villa and garden to nature's changes. At the Villa Gamberaia, Settignano, full-figure seasonal allegories are placed along the 'great wall' (figure 1) and seasonal busts populate, the gabinetto rustico behind this wall (figure 2). The purposes of this paper are to review the current placement of the statues in relation to the available historical documentation and to show how these seasonal representations relate to their local environments and contribute to the larger iconographic programme. In the process of this discussion, I shall examine traditional uses and meanings of seasonal imagery in Central Italian villas and gardens.
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