This was young Doge Cosimo I’s favourite home. So he figured it might as well be his prettiest. There are two main draws about the villa. First, the insides, which naturally, were opulently decorated and furnished to rival the best of Medici homes in the city:

• Two floors and Renaissance design
• 16th courtyard century with Tuscan lodges and pillars
• A hall of landscape frescoes

But it’s really the garden that changed the world of architecture. Though it was one of the first Italian gardens in the world, it is today acknowledged as the finest example of that style second only to the Boboli gardens. Here are the highlights:

• Simple, geometric design of three terraces.
• The Cave of Animals, a beautiful Mannerist grotto.
• Fountain of Hercules and Anteus by Bartolomeo Ammannat.
• 16 flower beds on the first terrace.
• 500 plants in the second terrace’s Citrus Garden.
• The Fountain of January by Bartolomeo Ammannati on the highest terrace, with English Garden influences.

• Closed on the 2nd and 3rd Monday of each month.

• 2, 28, 301A, 360A stop Sestese 06 - Leo France.

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