The Palazzina Reale, also known as the Villa Granducale, stands at the exact centre of the Cascine park. It faces the square marked by four lioness-sphinxes, late-eighteenth-century neo-Egyptian ornaments, at the entrance to Viale degli Olmi, which crosses the square.
Giuseppe Manetti designed it in 1765 for Grand Duke Pietro Leopoldo of Lorraine. It forms the architectural centrepiece of the grand-ducal farm, recalled by the cattle depicted in medallions on the façade.
Since 1936 it has housed the University of Florence’s Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry.