Boboli Garden, Florence

The center of the fountain is Pieta Serena in white marble with 3 bronze monkeys at the bottom created by sculptor Camillo Marian for the Duke of Urbina, Francesco Maria II della Rovere.

The Rose ‘Chapeau de Napoleon’ is a centifolia type belonging to the moss rose family. It was discovered by chance in 1826 by a Swiss botanist in Fribourg, in an abandoned garden near the tower of a medieval castle.

The ‘Chapeau de Napoleon’, in particular, is a rose characterized by an intense pink color and is incredibly fragranced and blooms once a year.

This rose is one of the oldest and most famous among the 156 types we can be admired in the Boboli Gardens.

View of a typical Tuscany scenery from up here. Way in the back the back (center) you can see the bell tower of Fort Belvedere.

Fort Belvedere view from the Garden.

The fort was built for the Grand Duke Ferdinando de Medici to protect the city. It protected the Pitti Palace, held the treasury of the Medici and was the final shelter for the Medici if the city was attacked.

We are now done and leaving this area.

This area is called the chestnut lawn.

This is the center garden with a sculpture of Tindaor Screpolato (cracked) by Igor Mitoraj.

Polish born sculptor Mitoja named his work after a figure from the Greek mythology: Tyndareus, King of the ancient city of Sparta

The work was donated by the artist to the Uffizi Galleries to mark the important monographic exhibition

Mitoraj drew extensively from the classical world and characters of the Greek legends, creating a repertoire of figures through which he developed his own unique mythology. Heads, faces, eyes and mouths are developed and returned to the observer as fragments delicately reconstructed by the sculptor, as seen here in Tindaro Screpolato (Cracked). These fragments serve as a strong reminder of the passing of time and our fragility as humans, yet are also a symbol of the enduring nature of classical beauty and the moral and aesthetic values it represented; above all, they are an expression of the sculptor's yearning desire for a world that remains mysterious and distant in its exquisite and grandiose perfection.

We passed by this building with orange trees lining the front.

Pathway lined with beautiful trees.

Tree branches archways, interspersed by evergreen shrubs.

Water lily in the Upper botanical garden.

The Limonaia (lemon house) was built around 1778 during a general reorganization of the garden commissioned by the Grand Duke Pietro Leopoldo. The building was created to carry on the custom, introduced by the Medici, of cultivating citrus fruits in the gardens. This type of plant could not be grown in Tuscany because it does not withstand the cold of winter, which is why citrus fruits were considered almost like exotic fruits.

The rarity of certain plants in Tuscany combined with their beauty, triggered a mania for collecting that could only be satisfied by having adequate spaces to guarantee the necessary heat for their growth. This is how the so-called “limonaie” were born.

Flowers bed

Spanish pink bells

NEXT.... Day 2-Dinner at Golden view