ITALY 



The Boboli Gardens, Florence 



TN i5 49 BUONACCORSO PITTI,the great- 



* grandson of Luca, the founder of the Pitti 

 Palace, sold the villa of Cyclopean walls, with its 

 surrounding orfo, to the Medici for a sum of nine 

 thousand golden florins, and in May 1 550 Cosimo 

 and Eleanora, with their seven young children 

 and Court, moved into residence in the palace. 

 The gardens, which took their name of Boboli 

 from the Boboli hill, on the side of which they 

 stood, were laid out by Tribolo and Buontalenti 

 in the same geometric pattern which we see to 

 this day. 



And here Cosimo introduced the scientific 

 culture of fruit trees, while Eleanora had rare 

 plants and flowers brought from Naples and 

 Sicily, the homes of her childhood. 



Very soon a real Italian garden sprang up 



2 E 217 



