THE VILLA
Villa Rey
The property includes three large villas with their annexes arranged on a ridge that embraces the entire Bugallo area, located at an altitude upstream of a private valley dotted with fields, olive trees, vines and woods and lakes which stretches out towards the sea, which is only 15 km away.
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The central Villa is the ancient residence of the Macchiaiolo painter Augusto Rey who erected and fully decorated it in 1895. The eighteenth-century Villa Santernetti, with frescoes by Giovanni Tempesti, crowns the south, and Villa Torre Alta del Bugallo, with frescoes to the north by Pietro and Giuseppe Della Valle.
Crespina and its enchanting hills have always been a place of choice for artists since ancient times but it was in the nineteenth century that the Macchiaioli (the Italian movement forerunner of all subsequent currents starting from impressionism) took up residence there, drawing inspiration for the their extraordinary artistic production.
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The landscape consists solely of gentle hills covered with woods, vines and olive groves interspersed with nineteenth-century villas and small villages. The territory is rich in wild native fauna consisting of foxes, fallow deer, roe deer, pheasants, woodcocks and wild boars which appear undisturbed among water springs, fields and lakes.
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The artists
Crespina and its enchanting hills have always been a place of choice for artists since ancient times but it was in the nineteenth century that the Macchiaioli (the Italian movement forerunner of all subsequent currents starting from impressionism) took up residence there, drawing inspiration for the their extraordinary artistic production. Giovanni Fattori, Silvestro Lega, Telemaco Signorini, Adolfo and Angiolo Tommasi lived and worked in these places, also representing a reference for other great later artists such as Giovanni Boldini, Antonio Modigliani and Oscar Ghiglia.
