Photo: sailko · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Villa medicea di Careggi

Fifteenth-century Medici villa at Careggi, remodelled by Michelozzo, seat of the Platonic Academy and the place of death of Lorenzo the Magnificent.

Temporarily closed

Website Directions

Temporarily closed. The villa is under restoration and is still closed to the public; for updates on openings, consult the Regione Toscana.

About the museum

Giovanni di Bicci de’ Medici bought the Careggi estate in 1417: it was the family’s third country villa, after Cafaggiolo and the Trebbio, and the closest to Florence. After his death in 1429, Cosimo the Elder commissioned Michelozzo to remodel it, giving it the appearance of a palace rather than a fortress, with the trapezoidal loggia of the courtyard and the loggias of the upper floor. Cosimo moved the library and the art collections there and, according to tradition, in 1459 he founded the Platonic Academy there, attended by Marsilio Ficino, Cristoforo Landino and Pico della Mirandola.

Lorenzo the Magnificent, born and died at Careggi (1449–1492), made it his favourite residence and one of the centres of Florentine Renaissance culture. After the expulsion of the Medici in 1498 and a fire in 1529 the villa was restored; after 1615 Cardinal Carlo de’ Medici began a wide renovation with frescoed rooms. In the 18th century it passed to private owners, and in 1848 the Englishman Francis Sloane bought it and created a romantic park with exotic trees and an orangery.

In 1936 the Arcispedale di Santa Maria Nuova bought the complex, and on its land the Careggi hospital rose, while the villa housed offices. After the offices left in 2008 it was largely abandoned. In 2013 the Regione Toscana acquired it and began restoration, and in the same year the villa was added to the UNESCO World Heritage list together with the other Medici villas and gardens.