Villa Medicea del Poggio Imperiale: Florentine royal villa with a bloody past

Villa Medicea del Poggio Imperiale, a grand ducal villa in Arcetri just south of Florence, is a neoclassical villa with a rich and intriguing history. Originated as the villa of Bancelli of Florence, it was seized by the Medici in the 15th century and became the property of the Grand Dukes of Tuscany. In the 1540s, Pietro Salviati, an ancient Florentine noble, owned the villa and embellished it with Andrea del Sarto's Assumption of the Virgin in its chapel.

The villa was owned by Isabella de' Medici, a Medici princess who was murdered by her husband in 1576. The villa was completely rebuilt between 1622 and 1625 under the design of Giulio Parigi, who doubled its size, and linked the villa to the city by a monumental tree-lined avenue. The villa was redesigned and renovated in 1776 by Gaspare Maria Paoletti for Leopold I, and its popularity and use waxed and waned among Tuscany's ruling families. At the end of the 18th century, Grand Duke Ferdinand III leased the villa to King Charles Emmanuel IV of Sardinia.

Although Charles Emanuel lived in the villa for only one month in 1799, it was here that he infamously uttered the phrase ‘Voici votre tyran’ upon meeting Count Vittorio Alfieri. The present monumental principal façade was created in 1807 for the newly elevated Grand Duchess of Tuscany, Elisa Bonaparte. The villa was converted to an exclusive girls' boarding school in 1865 under the patronage of Leopold II and his wife, and the state rooms in the villa are open by appointment to the public.

Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons