Boboli Gardens

Eleonora di Toledo, wife of Grand Duke Cosimo I de' Medici, commissioned this hillside garden in 1550, shortly after the couple bought the neighbouring Palazzo Pitti as their new residence. She hired the sculptor and architect Niccolò Pericoli, known as Il Tribolo, to lay out its first terraces on the slope rising behind the palace, beginning a project that later generations of the Medici family would keep expanding for the next two centuries.

Successive additions included an amphitheatre carved directly from an old stone quarry on the hillside, the Neptune fountain crowning the garden's summit, and the eccentric Buontalenti Grotto, its rough, cave-like walls designed to look almost unfinished. The grotto originally concealed unfinished sculptures by Michelangelo — the same Prisoners now on display at the Accademia Gallery — hidden there by the Medici before the family eventually gave them to the grand-ducal collection.

Boboli is widely considered the model for the grand, symmetrical Italianate garden style that later spread across European courts, influencing designs as far away as Versailles and Vienna's Schönbrunn Palace — a striking legacy for a garden that began as one family's private hillside retreat.

The Vasari Corridor, the secret elevated passageway that let the Medici walk from Palazzo Vecchio to Palazzo Pitti without stepping outside, actually ends inside Boboli, emerging near the Buontalenti Grotto — meaning the garden was, for centuries, also the final stretch of one of Florence's most unusual commutes.

Boboli is large and mostly uphill, so allow at least an hour, more if you want to linger; sturdy shoes are worth it for the gravel paths and slopes. The reward for the climb is the Kaffeehaus terrace near the top, a rococo pavilion with one of the best rooftop views over Florence.

Boboli can be visited on its own ticket, but it's also included in the combined ticket covering Palazzo Pitti's museums and the Bardini Garden, worth considering if you plan to see more than the garden alone; the gardens are closed on the first and last Monday of each month.