The Trebbio Castle in Mugello. Land, History, Architecture

From archives of the early 1300s, the dawn of the fortune of the Medici family, to which the most visible and celebrated part of Trebbio is still linked today, the name Trebbio appears. Inventories, hitherto unpublished acts of notaries and minute study in the recesses of the castle now made it possible to determine the phases of construction prior to Michelozzo, clarifying Vasari’s cryptic comment: “E al Trebbio medesimamente fece, come si vede, molti altri acconcimi” (“And to Trebbio likewise he made many other embellishments, as can be seen,”}. For the first time we can measure the magnitude of Michelozzo’s interventions in terms of innovation-conservation and their relevance to today of his refined design. From a complex reconstruction of the Medici genealogy, we were able to link Trebbio with the grand duke’s branch of the family and offer glimpses of life in the villa at the time of the plague and city tensions. But Trebbio is also something other than this: its enigmatic name suggests another 2300 years of history. Atrivium is a rare intersection of three roads and therefore gives rise to five (or six) directions. At least two of the three roads were presumably important, since this is the only intersection along our trans-Apennine route that acquired the toponym trivium. The importance of the first road is well documented, but there was no evidence regarding the second. Our research uncovered physical traces, maps, archaeological findings and local knowledge which gradually revealed a link and a hidden plot. As in the best of mystery stories, the key to the puzzle lay in a celebrated painting and an equally celebrated part of the garden. It was necessary only to decipher the code which the book now offers to its readers.