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Villa Bottini dates back to the XVI century: built by the Buonvisi family, it was later purchased by Elisa Bonaparte, Napoleon’s sister, in the early XIX century. Featuring the shape of a parallelepiped, it is surmounted by a belvedere loggia and has two green spaces of different sizes, enclosed by walls.
The ground floor is decorated with a series of frescoes with mythological and allegorical scenes by Ventura Salimbeni; in the basement, there’s the old kitchen and several service rooms.

In the widest part, the garden was initially made of four flower beds intersected by two avenues. To the north, a portal gives access to the nymphaeum: an area arranged as a lawn, shaded by holm oaks (Quercus ilex), and fitted with a fountain against a wall.
In the XIX century, the rectangular flower beds were replaced by a bending series the new avenues, which were then embellished with rounded patterns of flower beds.

The rear part of the garden is divided by orthogonal avenues intersecting at an octagonal basin, forming four rectangular lawn beds. In the center, there are yews (Taxus baccata), horse chestnuts (Aesculus hippocastanum), magnolias (Magnolia spp. ), holm oaks (Quercus ilex), plane trees (Platanus spp. ), and Lebanon cedars (Cedrus libani). There are also some small round tanks flushed with the ground. A wide avenue divides the garden in front of the entrance into two green spaces decorated with many alders and surrounded by magnolias (Magnolia grandiflora) and conifers.

Today, the villa is used for official representation by Municipality and it’s the seat of the Culture Office which organizes exhibitions and conferences in this beautiful venue.

This post is also available in: Italiano (Italian)