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Grand Duchess Maria Luisa of Bourbon18th century luxury...

The Duchess’s Bathroom
[Susan Glasspool]

As you will very probably be going to the Palatine Gallery and the Pitti Palace during your stay in Florence, try and visit a delightful newly restored area, situated between the apartments of the Grand Duchess and those of the Grand Duke. This series of rooms, known as the Grand Duchess’s Ritirata (or Toilet), are arranged around a pretty little courtyard and boast some very practical and refined artistic and technical solutions.
They belonged to the Grand Duchess Maria Luisa of Bourbon and were composed of two rooms with two bathrooms attached. Created behind the kitchens in the period of the Regency, they were described in the 1761 inventory as servant’s rooms in a very bad state of repair.
In 1774-75 the Grand Duchess had them transformed into two small sitting rooms and a round bathroom cum swimming pool. The bathroom was covered by a small cupola decorated with a fake lacunar ceiling and illuminated by a lantern. The large circular pool, with steps leading down to it, communicated with her bedroom.
The solutions used for the plumbing are documented in a plan dated 1794, the year in which Luigi Catani decorated the rooms with views of ruins of Roman baths and delicate mythlogical subjects linked to the theme of water.
The Grand Duchess’s Toilet can be visited by prior arrangement only. Phone 055.2388614 on Wednesdays from 9am to noon for reservations.


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