Boboli Gardens

As soon as the Medici bought the Pitti Palace in 1550, work got under way to enlarge it; at the same time work also started on laying out the park behind the building, which was planned to occupy a scenographic setting on the slopes of the Boboli hill (covering 320.000 square metres) and also had access from the square. Its name probably came from the "Borgoli" or "Borgolini" family, who owned houses and land in this part of Oltrarno (literally "over the Arno"), close to the church of Santa Felicita. However the land and the farm that once stood on it belonged to the De' Rossi family when Luca di Bonaccorso Pitti bought it in 1418.