Casa Callot
CASA CALLOT is a small apartment on the first floor of a Tuscan farmhouse, consisting of a bedroom with bathroom, a living room with kitchenette and a small bathroom.
It owes its name to the famous French engraver who worked at the Medici court in the mid-1600s. His engraving work is grandiose, contemporary with Stefano della Bella, he ventured into religious and secular subjects. On the walls of the apartment you can appreciate some of the most beautiful engravings: the Gobbi, the Mendicanti and the Impruneta Fair.
The marble fireplace with streaked yellow veins, French, from the 1800s, placed in the living room, has the coat of arms of the Medici family above it and below it a “Parigina” clock, contemporary with the fireplace.
In the living room, in addition to Callot’s engravings, some paintings embellish the walls: a view of the Medici Port by the painter Pietro Ciafferi; a painting by Gherardo and Giuseppe Poli, landscape painters of the 1700s, imitators of the Callottian style; a landscape by a contemporary Flemish author of Callot.
Apart from the entrance door, the doors between the rooms are painted with the representation of the Gobbi taken from the engravings. The habit of depicting funny characters was widely used in the past and engravers, painters and sculptors often managed to produce works in which the funny, the grotesque was a way to ironize any defects.
The ceramics of the Ginori factory that can be admired on the small bookcase date back to the end of the 1800s and depict some “Caramogi”, characters that are somewhat reminiscent of the imaginative humans in Bocchi’s paintings.
The apartment, which contains paintings and engravings, is however equipped with much more practical things such as a cooking point, a refrigerator, a television, a dishwasher and an air conditioning system. The heating system follows the canons of energy saving by running under the floor.
Above the headboard, the bedroom has a Florentine copper frame contained in a 1600s cartouche frame, the second of which hangs in the living room. The wardrobe is a “Piedmontese” from the end of the 19th century, not particularly large but nice. On the wall opposite the bed stands out the collection of 21 engravings representing “I Gobbi” whose frontispiece is depicted in ceramic in the large shower in the bathroom. The en-suite bathroom is bright.