The Villa Medici at Careggi is a patrician villa in the hills near

Florence Florence ( ; ) is the capital city of the Italy, Italian region of Tuscany. It is also the most populated city in Tuscany, with 362,353 inhabitants, and 989,460 in Metropolitan City of Florence, its metropolitan province as of 2025. Florence ...

Tuscany Tuscany ( ; ) is a Regions of Italy, region in central Italy with an area of about and a population of 3,660,834 inhabitants as of 2025. The capital city is Florence. Tuscany is known for its landscapes, history, artistic legacy, and its in ...

central Italy Central Italy ( or ) is one of the five official statistical regions of Italy used by the National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT), a first-level NUTS region with code ITI, and a European Parliament constituency. It has 11,704,312 inhabita ...

. It is part of the

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO ) is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) with the aim of promoting world peace and International secur ...

World Heritage Site World Heritage Sites are landmarks and areas with legal protection under an treaty, international treaty administered by UNESCO for having cultural, historical, or scientific significance. The sites are judged to contain "cultural and natural ...

inscribed as Medici Villas and Gardens in Tuscany.

History

The villa was among the first of a number of

Medici villas The Medici villas are a series of rural building complexes in Tuscany which were owned by members of the Medici family between the 15th century and the 17th century. The villas served several functions: they were the country palaces of the Medic ...

, notable as the site of the

Platonic Academy The Academy (), variously known as Plato's Academy, or the Platonic Academy, was founded in Classical Athens, Athens by Plato ''wikt:circa, circa'' 387 BC. The academy is regarded as the first institution of higher education in the west, where ...

founded by

Cosimo de' Medici Cosimo di Giovanni de' Medici (27 September 1389 – 1 August 1464) was an Italian banker and politician who established the House of Medici, Medici family as effective rulers of Florence during much of the Italian Renaissance. His power derive ...

, who died at the villa in 1464. Like most villas of Florentine families, the villa remained a working farm that helped render the family self-sufficient. Cosimo's architect there, as elsewhere, was

Michelozzo Michelozzo di Bartolomeo Michelozzi (; – 7 October 1472), known mononymously as Michelozzo, was an Italian architect and sculptor. Considered one of the great pioneers of architecture during the Renaissance, Michelozzo was a favored Medici ...

, who remodelled the fortified villa which had something of the character of a castello. Its famous garden is walled about, like a medieval garden, overlooked by the upper-storey

loggia In architecture, a loggia ( , usually , ) is a covered exterior Long gallery, gallery or corridor, often on an upper level, sometimes on the ground level of a building. The corridor is open to the elements because its outer wall is only parti ...

s, with which Michelozzo cautiously opened up the villa's structure. Michelozzo's Villa Medici in Fiesole has a more outward-looking, Renaissance character. The property was purchased in 1417 by Cosimo de' Medici brother, Lorenzo. At the death of Giovanni di Bicci, Cosimo il Vecchio set about remodelling the beloved villa around its loggia-enclosed central courtyard. His grandson Lorenzo extended the terraced gardens and the shaded ''boschi''.

Marsilio Ficino Marsilio Ficino (; Latin name: ; 19 October 1433 – 1 October 1499) was an Italian scholar and Catholic priest who was one of the most influential humanist philosophers of the early Italian Renaissance. He was an astrologer, a reviver of Neo ...

, who died at the villa in 1499, was a central member of the Platonic Academy.

Lorenzo de' Medici Lorenzo di Piero de' Medici (), known as Lorenzo the Magnificent (; 1 January 1449 – 9 April 1492), was an Italian statesman, the ''de facto'' ruler of the Florentine Republic, and the most powerful patron of Renaissance culture in Italy. Lore ...

died at the villa in 1492, after which it was ignored for a time until about 1615, when Cardinal Carlo de' Medici undertook extensive projects to remodel the interior, and bring the garden up to date. The villa property was purchased from the Lorraine heirs of the Medici in 1779 by Vincenzo Orsi; the Orsi heirs sold it to an Englishman, Francis Sloane, in 1848: Sloane planted exotics in the landscape: Cedar of Lebanon and Himalayan cedars, Californian sequoias,

arbutus ''Arbutus'' is a genus of 12 accepted speciesAct. Bot. Mex no.99 Pátzcuaro abr. 2012.''Arbutus bicolor''/ref> of flowering plants in the family Ericaceae, native to temperate regions of the Mediterranean, western Europe, the Canary Islands a ...

from the eastern Mediterranean and palms, which give the grounds their feeling of an

arboretum An arboretum (: arboreta) is a botanical collection composed exclusively of trees and shrubs of a variety of species. Originally mostly created as a section in a larger garden or park for specimens of mostly non-local species, many modern arbor ...

. Today the villa belongs to the Tuscan public administration. It is currently in the process of restoration and is still closed to the public as of December 2024.Medici Villa di Careggi
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Notes

References

Villa Medicea Careggi
{{Coord, 43, 48, 33.88, N, 11, 14, 58.28, E, type:landmark_source:frwiki, display=title Houses completed in the 15th century Gardens in Tuscany

Careggi The Villa Medici at Careggi is a patrician villa in the hills near Florence, Tuscany, central Italy. It is part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site inscribed as Medici villas, Medici Villas and Gardens in Tuscany. History The villa was among the f ...