Something truly great just happened in the hills outside of Florence! A completely restored Baroque garden at the Villa La Quiete has recently been opened to the public for the first time.

See this garden below which frames the buildings? It was created around 300 years ago by the last surviving Medici family member but was subsequently owned and managed by other entities and allowed to decay.

But, it has just been restored–within an amazing period of under 2 years!–to its former glory. And I was one of the first people to see it in its new state.

With a little effort, I could imagine that I was strolling through a space certified by Annamaria Luisa de’ Medici herself!

First, enjoy this video in Italiano. Even if you don’t comprehend the words, you’ll get a great overview of the garden and many beautiful details.

So, let’s have a look. Aside from the photo reproduced below from The Florentine magazine, all the photos and videos are mine, taken last week.

Villa La Quiete garden opens to the public for the first time

The historic garden of Villa La Quiete has opened to the public for the first time in its nearly 300-year history. The inauguration marks the University of Florence’s centennial celebrations and reveals a long-hidden jewel of Medici history and landscape architecture.

And the following pix and videos are mine.

The garden, a rare surviving example of 18th-century Medici landscape architecture design, was created between 1724 and 1727 at the behest of Anna Maria Luisa de’ Medici, the last descendant of the Florentine dynasty. She envisioned the garden as a green refuge for the villa and its adjacent girls’ school.

Thanks to extensive restoration work led by the University of Florence and funded by Italy’s Ministry of Culture with European Union support via theNextGenerationEU program (PNRR), the garden has been carefully returned to its original splendor. The project received a grant of €1.8 million, allowing for both botanical and architectural restoration, including the repair of historic fountains, stone seating, terraces, and decorative elements.

Above, one enclosed section of the garden has been used to create what the French call a potager, which in Italian is orto. Both words designate a kitchen garden. And our guide told us that the researchers in charge of this newly created garden used all the plants that the records show were planted by the Medici gardeners way back when.

Below: directly opposite the orto is a similar space set aside for wild flowers. Again, pains were taken to recreate what would have grown in the original 18th century garden. This will attract and provide homes for all kinds of insects like ladybugs (called coccinelle in Italian) bees (api), and butterflies (farfalle).

Villa La Quiete, located in the hills north of Florence, has a rich history intertwined with Medici women. Figures such as Cristina of Lorraine, Vittoria Della Rovere, and especially Anna Maria Luisa, made the villa a favored residence. From the 17th to the early 20th century, it also hosted the Montalve, one of Europe’s most progressive lay congregations dedicated to the education of young noblewomen. Interestingly enough, it was Cosimo il Vecchio who first acquired the villa in the early 1400s for the Medici family. What with all his holdings around Tuscany, he eventually gave this villa away, but after a couple of centuries, Anna Maria Luisa de’ Medici bought it back. And she transformed it.

The newly reopened garden retains its original Baroque structure, featuring ten geometric flower beds, two main intersecting pathways, and a central pool. Signature elements include the “Samaritan Woman” and “Noli Me Tangere” fountains, a grotto with cascading water features, and terracotta vases from Impruneta. An adjoining ragnaia—a tree-lined enclosure once used the capture of birds for food—offers shaded green rooms for relaxation. More on the ragnaia in a later post. It is so interesting, it deserves its own post!

Regional President Eugenio Giani hailed the project as “a testament to what can be achieved when culture is supported by vision and resources.” Florence Mayor Sara Funaro emphasized the garden’s connection to Anna Maria Luisa de’ Medici, whose commitment to preserving Florentine art left a lasting legacy.

The garden will be open to the public on weekends through October of this year, with guided tours available by reservation.

Above and below, the Good Samaritan fountain.

Below, the formal gardens have a marvelous planting of trees that are pruned to create some hidden walkway. Can you imagine how much fun the schoolgirls would have had here?

For the best way to get to the Villa by public transport, take the #20 bus out of Florence and go to this pasticceria. From there it is about a 15 minute walk up hill, and up some narrow streets. But, it’s doable.

Walking from the villa to the pasticceria to catch the bus on the way back home, we passed this gorgeous shrub with spectacular blossoms. I looked it up on PlantNet app and, as I suspected, its from the pomegranate family. Lovely!

I’ll be posting more about the villa and a special feature of this garden soon. Alla prossima!