Villa medicea La Ferdinanda

The Medici Villa of Artimino, also known as "La Ferdinanda", is located in the hills of Carmignano, and was built by the will of the Grand Duke Ferdinando I de 'Medici, who entrusted the task to Bernardo Buontalenti: the construction took place in just 4 years, from 1596 to 1600, and contributed to the fame of the Florentine architect.

Ferdinando I and his successors did not actually used the villa very often, until Cosimo III who restored it to its original splendor. Abandoned again for the entire Lorraine period, the Grand Duke Pietro Leopoldo di Lorena was in the end forced to sell it to the Marquis Bartolomei. The Villa then passed from family to family: from the Bartolomei to the Passerini and, in 1911, to the Maraini.

The building has a rectangular plan and a facade characterized by corner bastions, which suggest the image of a fortress, and by a staircase leading to the first floor, built in 1930 by the architect Enrico Lusini, based on a sketch by Buontalenti. The military aspect disappears in the spacious loggia, supported by four columns.