The intimate and romantic Corsi Garden

Just cross the street and the doors open, thanks to the friendly kindness shown by Cosimo Pagliai, the current owner-conservator, of the first romantic park to be created in the Tuscan capital. It was the architect Giuseppe Manetti between 1801 and 1810, commissioned by the marquis Tommaso Corsi, who gave life to this vegetal wunderkammer composed of botanical rooms inhabited mainly by yews, holm oaks, bagolariums, magnolias and Judas trees, located precisely where the fortifications built by Cosimo I during the war against the Sienese had been, and under which tunnels had been dug to allow the lord of Florence an easy and unnoticed escape route. The hedges now form a pattern in the shape of the letters S and C, while the statue of Mercury from its loggia still welcomes travellers arriving from Via Romana. Stone inscriptions, terracotta statues of the muses inhabit this delicate and seemingly impenetrable microcosm, set on a hanging embankment. The most inviting inscription reads 'To friendship'.