page_title: Villa di Poggio a Caiano
section_title: The Gardens
hierarchical_section_title: Villa di Poggio a Caiano / The Gardens
caption_attribution_description: Italiano: fontana English: fountain
context_page_description: The Medici Villa of Poggio a Caiano, also called Ambra, is one of the most famous Medici villas and is located in Poggio a Caiano. Today it is state owned and it houses two museums: one of the historic apartments and the Museum of Still Life.
  The villa is perhaps the best example of architecture commissioned by Lorenzo il Magnifico, in this case to Giuliano da Sangallo towards 1480. It is no coincidence that this is a private building, where there are elements that later modeled for the future developments of the type of villas: internal and external penetration through filters such as loggias, symmetrical distribution of environments around a central salon, dominant position in the landscape, conscious recovery of classical architectural elements.
context_section_description: The gardens around the villa date back to the nineteenth century and are very interesting.
  Up until the 17th century, the villa's garden was quite simple compared to those of Castello or Petraia: garden areas and wooded areas with an Italian garden on the right, all without fountains and sculptural decorations, as appears from the painting of Giusto Utens. In the eighteenth century some areas of the garden were restored, extending the hunting ground, the so-called 'phagianaia'. In the Italian garden area, a fountain is placed in the center instead of a grove of trees, fed by a new water tank.
  In 1813 Louis-Martin Berthault noted the desolation of the square in front of the villa and proposed to remedy the fact that the various highlights of the park, which would be vast, are actually isolated From the other: the villa and the backyard are adjacent, but the Italian garden is cut off from the road to Prato and Barco mediceo di Bonistallo (not to be confused with the much bigger "Barco Reale" placed on the Montalbano ridge), a hunting forest that still rises on the hill in front of the villa to the church of San Francesco, from the road to Pistoia; The "Pavoniere", in addition to the Cascine and still existing ones, are separated from the Ombrone river.
  In order to remedy these disadvantages several steps were taken: the road to Prato was defeated, the numerous walls that separated the seating areas and unified in one fence were cut down, while on the square of the villa were made some serpentine driveways with Various vegetable decoration; The Umbrella course was straightened and a new ironable bridge was built to connect with Cascine di Tavola and Pavoniere. The garden thus came to be an irregular shape. The kitchens, the watercourse and the chapel were hidden by new tree groups.
caption: The fountain at the center of the Italian garden
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "", "Image Make": "NIKON", "Image Model": "COOLPIX S230", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "PhotoScape", "Image DateTime": "2011:09:17 17:21:09", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "233", "EXIF ExposureTime": "5/1493", "EXIF FNumber": "23/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "80", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2011:09:17 17:21:09", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2011:09:17 17:21:09", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "33/10", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, auto mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "63/10", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3648", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2736", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "8367", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "0", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "35", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "None", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0"}