Villa Favard

Baroness Favard, who acquired the villa in the second half of the nineteenth century, commissioned Giuseppe Poggi to modernise and embellish the building and garden. He designed stables, a new entrance avenue from Via Aretina and a chapel, later decorated with frescoes by Annibale Gatti and Giovanni Duprè. The park was redesigned in the English style. Alongside many native oaks and holm oaks, exotic trees such as cedars of Lebanon and magnolias were planted. Two iron-and-glass greenhouses sheltered lemons and tropical plants. After the baroness’s death in 1889, decline set in, culminating in occupation by German troops during the Second World War. In the 1970s the opening of Via Rocca Tedalda and division of the property permanently changed its original layout, separating the villa from its grand Via Aretina approach, family chapel and park. The villa now houses Florence’s Cherubini Conservatory.