The construction of the villa, likely designed by Baldassarre Peruzzi, dates back to the 16th century as evidenced by the stucco decorations in the first-floor hall, datable to the mid-1500s.
In the mid-1700s, the villa became the property of the Brandi family who, in 1767, had a small chapel built in front of the main building with a dedicatory inscription to the Virgin.
The building is developed over two floors, consisting of a single body with a square plan featuring a corner loggia with three arches and batter walls, preserving the original appearance of a rural Sienese noble residence outside the city. The garden’s layout dates to an intervention in the early 1900s.
Cesare Brandi (1906-1988), the villa’s last owner, spent long periods in his youth at the family home in Vignano: having started a career as an official in the Administration of Antiquities and Fine Arts, he left Siena to stay in various Italian and foreign cities, but continued to frequent the villa in the Sienese countryside as his favored retreat and as a permanent residence in his later years; he died here in 1988, leaving the villa as inheritance to the Italian State.
The interior is furnished with furnishings, artwork, and furniture dating from the 16th to the 18th century.
Cesare Brandi’s collection includes many works donated to him by artist friends and represents a kind of compendium of 20th-century Italian figurative culture, featuring the most significant names of that period: De Pisis, Morandi, Manzù, Guttuso, Mastroianni, Scialoja, Burri, and many others.
In addition to the artwork, the Brandi bequest includes a rich library, a manuscript archive of over thirteen thousand letters, and a photographic collection of about seven thousand images. From the archive dedicated to family photos, artists, writers, and scholars, over seventy shots were chosen illustrating a human story full of interests and passions, such as art, literature, restoration, music, and travel. This collection is exhibited in the “tinaia” at the entrance of the villa, where it is possible to see Cesare Brandi in one of his last interviews filmed right in Vignano, in the library, surrounded by his books and the artworks to which he was most attached.
Information about Villa Brandi
Strada di Busseto, 42
Siena (Siena)
057741246
sbsae-si.urp@beniculturali.it
https://www.spsae-si.beniculturali.it/index.php?it/200/villa-brandi-a-vignano
Source: MIBACT
