Laid out behind the Pitti Palace by the Medici family in the mid sixteenth century, the Boboli Gardens are one of the largest and most influential historic gardens in Italy, climbing the hillside south of the Arno in central Florence. The fifty-hectare grounds remain a model for the formal Italian garden, shaping the great parks of Versailles and many other European royal palaces. The work began in the 1550s under Cosimo I de Medici, who had acquired the palace from the Pitti family and wanted a grand setting for ducal entertainments. The first phase was directed by Niccolo Pericoli, known as Il Tribolo, with later additions by Bartolomeo Ammannati, Bernardo Buontalenti and others over the following two hundred years. The plan is built around a central axis running uphill from the rear of the Pitti Palace, with formal terraces, ornamental basins, an open-air amphitheatre and a wealth of sculpture, fountains and grottoes scattered along the way. Many of the sculptures are reused antique works, others are commissioned pieces by Renaissance and baroque sculptors. The Buontalenti Grotto, near the Pitti entrance, is one of the more theatrical features, with its dripping stucco stalactites and statues of figures emerging from the rocks, originally housing copies of Michelangelo unfinished Prisoners. The great open-air amphitheatre behind the palace was used for some of the earliest opera performances in the seventeenth century. The upper reaches of the garden, beyond the formal areas, give way to long avenues of cypresses, secluded copses and quiet viewpoints, including the Forte di Belvedere and the Knight Garden, where a small ornate villa is tucked among rose beds. The Kaffeehaus pavilion offers one of the most photogenic spots in Florence for a quiet break. Reached by a single ticket combining the Pitti Palace and the gardens, the Boboli are a vast change of pace from the dense streets of central Florence and provide some of the finest views of the city across the rooftops, including unfamiliar angles on the famous dome of the cathedral away to the north.

Type: Outdoors

Address: Piazza Pitti 1, Florence, Italy

Website: https://www.uffizi.it/giardino-boboli

Opening Date: 01/01/1550