The construction of the small villa of the Roman tailor Enrico Broggi, realized on a project of the architect Giovanni Michelazzi was begun in 1910 by the building company Pietro Gherardelli and was finished in 1911, as the date engraved together with the signature of the architect on the ceramic panel above the corner balcony testifies. In the realization of the villa the external ceramic decorations were carried out by the Manufacturing Furnaces of San Lorenzo, the stucco-decoration was the work of Angiolo Vannetti, the pictorial decorations were executed by Galileo Chini, the polychromatic stained-glass windows by Ezio Giovannozzi and the internal and external wrought iron was forged by the Michelucci Workshops of Pistoia.
The building rises in via Scipione Ammirato next to the villa Ravazzini, in the 19th-century quarter which is distinguished by the presence of numerous small villas, typical of the homes of the lower and medium middle-class of the early 20th-century, and by the homes of various Florentine artists like Chini, Tofanari, Vannetti who, in the first twenty years of the century, chose this quarter to establish their homes and studios. Surrounded by a small piece of land and separated from the street by an enclosing wall with a rail fence at the end, the Broggi - Caraceni villa rises up on two floors above ground and presents a trapezoidal structure, articulated on the inside around the fulcrum of a spiral staircase.
The interior, perfectly restored in the Seventies, entirely preserves the decorative scenery, the stained-glass windows, the doors and the floors. The rooms are arranged around the circular stairwell, covered with a dome and illuminated by a coloured lantern with a wrought iron structure in the form of a large spider. The main spiral staircase preserves the banisters in wrought iron modelled in the form of a stylized dragon at the beginning of the flight of stairs and terminating in a stem of a torch holder.
The dome is decorated with paintings of female figures dancing, the work of Galileo Chini. Frescos of Galileo Chini are also present on the walls and on the ceiling of the octagonal entrance hall and in the other living-rooms. The flooring of the stairwell is in mosaics, with the same patterns as that of the entrance hall, while in the other rooms on the ground floor one may find the original parquet, with inlaid geometrical motifs.
Some rooms on the ground floor and on the first floor preserve the painted stained-glass windows. The communication between the two floors is also assured by a service stairway at the back, which also communicates with the basement. The latter is composed of a vast octagonal environment on arriving, which gives free access to another two rooms and a small laundry. The large kitchen preserves the table with its pedestal in brickwork, the sink top and the original tiling of the period.
Itinerario Liberty - Planning and Realization - Stefano Pelosi - www.stefanopelosi.it
