Visit Boboli’s Garden Florence | Antiche Dimore Fiorentine

Florence is a beautiful city of art, we know it, but its beauty is also given by the huge amount of green in which it is immersed: this time we’ll bring you to “Boboli’s Garden”.

In fact, inspired by Italian gardens scattered abroad, Cosimo I and his wife Eleonora – who resided at Palazzo Pitti – wanted to create a garden that represented the power of the Medici family, as well as the triumph of man on nature. In order to carry out this project they hired Niccolò Tribolo to drew a garden aligned with the courtyard of Palazzo Pitti.

In the centuries, of course, Boboli’s Garden underwent changes, in fact if Cosimo I made it fair with statues and fountains, it was Cosimo II to expand it. With a gradual gestation it was always the Tribolo to design the amphitheatre, intended for short court shows, then transformed years later by Giulio Parigi. Followed Vasari, Ammannati and Buontalenti, for example and it’s Grande Grotta (Great Cave), still today one of the greatest examples of architecture.

Here, between stalactites and water games, they swim many different species of fish and meet three rich environments of mannerist and classicising sculptures. It is impossible for all visitors tourists to avoid dwell in front of the sculpture of Dwarf Morgante (also known as “Il Bacchino”), sitting on a marble turtle and taking a picture with him. In the Lorena’s period, towards the end of 1700, Boboli Garden was enriched with new buildings, including la Limonaia and, between 1765 and 1790, the sundial building and the Kaffeehaus, and it was Pietro Leopoldo Lorena.

giardino boboli

In 1766 than since then, more than 800.000 visitors per year, and today the grand-Ducal garden is a protected property of Unesco and remains one of the most important and beautiful Italian Meadows in the world. The visit is pleasant, to turn it takes about 3 hours of a beautiful walk between trees, Holm Oaks, grass, fountains and statues that for hundreds of years make this place a good, not only of florentines or the Italians, but of all the people who come to you to visit the Viottolone, the meadow of the knight, the Ammannati courtyard or the artichoke Fountain (which would actually represent a lily, symbol from our city).

During your journey inside Boboli you can also admire the suggestive maze consisting of Holm Oaks, the numerous rows of cypress trees leading to the Giambologna‘s Fountain of the ocean, to the statue of Perseus, until you arrive at Koffeehouse. This resides in a 700 turret where, after a long restructuring completed in 2013, they can stop the lovers of good coffee.

It is advisable to ask our reception to book the visit for you, taking advantage that the garden is open every day and that hours are from 8:15 am to 16.30 pm (until 19.30 during the Summer months).