It and the park date back to the beginning of the 16th century. The owners then were the powerful Buonvisi family. During the first half of the 17th Century Villa Torrigiani was purchased by Marquis Nicolao Santini, the ambassador of the Republic of Lucca to the court of Louis 14th (the sun King), who wanted to transform it into a sumptuous dwelling, with a garden of flowering parterres and grand basins, into which the facade would reflect. The garden was to be built according to the plans done by Le Notre for the royal home of Versailles.

Theater of Flora with grottoes and water works which still function and which are visible in the Grotto of the Winds. There is an exceptional example of a round grotto with stone mosaics and the niches surrounding with remarkable statues of the winds, fountains serving as basins, and above them a dome from which great rain pours down.

We saw splendid examples of Liliodendron Tulipifera, Taxodium Disdreum, Olsmanthus Fragrans, Atlas Cedar and many varieties of magnolias and Camellia. ‘The garden was designed in accordance with strict Tuscan canons of symmetry and geometry, which also call for continuity with the surrounding countryside.’ It is likely that when you take the tour of the inside, that you will be taken around by one of the current owners, although they may not tell you that!

Written by  Donna Dawson.

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