BOBOLI GARDENS | Find Out Why It Is Florence's Most Spectacular Open-Air Museum

More than a garden, more than just a “green lung” in Florence, the Boboli Gardens are one of the greatest open-air museums in Florence that embraces another site of culture in Florence, the Pitti Palace.

The park hosts centuries-old oak trees, sculptures, fountains and offers peaceful shelter from the warm Florentine sun in summer, the beautiful colors of the changing foliage in the fall, and smells of blooming flowers in the spring.

The Boboli Gardens are a spectacular example of “green architecture” decorated with sculptures and the prototype which inspired many European Royal gardens, in particular, Versailles.

History

The Boboli Gardens are directly behind Pitti Palace. The Medici family established the layout of the gardens, creating the Italian garden style that would become a model for many European courts.

The vast green expanse with a regular layout is a real outdoor museum, populated by ancient and Renaissance statues. The Gardens are also adorned with grottos, the most important of which is the famous grotto realized by Bernardo Buontalenti, as well as large fountains, such as the Fountain of Neptune and the Fountain of the Ocean.

The subsequent Habsburg-Lorraine and Savoy dynasties further developed the layout, extending the boundaries that flank the ancient city walls until Porta Romana.

In the stunningly beautiful terraced area, there is an 18th-century pavilion called the Kaffeehaus, a rare example of Rococo architecture in Tuscany, and the Lemon House built by Zanobi del Rosso between 1777 and 1778.

The tour of Boboli Gardens completes the Pitti Palace visit of which is an integral part, allowing the spirit of court life to be fully appreciated and the gardens to be enjoyed, which, although constantly updated, remain true to their original project.

Its creation and development span four hundred years, from the 15th and 19th centuries.

The original fields and gardens were laid out behind Santa Felicita in the Oltrarno by the Borgolo family, the name from which Boboli is thought to derive, and was bought in 1418 by Messer Luca Pitti.

In 1549, the property was purchased by Cosimo I’s wife Eleonora di Toledo and was greatly enlarged to become the Medici family’s new city residence.

The original plan at that time was drawn by Niccolò Tribolo, although the complete works were completed only after his death in 1550 by other court architects, including Giorgio Vasari, Bartolomeo Ammannati, and Bernardo Buontalenti under the reign of Francis I, who succeeded his father Cosimo.

The Medici and the Lorraine families continued to enrich and enlarge the garden in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries generating an outdoor museum, a scenic setting to exhibit both Roman and Renaissance statues.

When you visit the garden, you will discover the highlights of the gardens, in particular the Amphitheatre, the “Viottolone”, the Garden of the Cavaliere, the Koffeehouse, and the Grotta Grande.