Parco Tozzoni

On the first hills above Imola, Parco Tozzoni preserves the outline of a country estate planned by the Tozzoni family, who bought the land in 1880 for a villa in an English-style park. Open lawns, old trees and woodland still shape the hillside.

Why it matters

Parco Tozzoni is Imola's hillside park, the place where the city's grid of streets gives way to grass clearings and woodland on the slopes of the Pedagna district. The Tozzoni family bought nearly eight hectares in 1880 with the intention of building a country villa in an English-style park. Although the villa was never realised as planned, broad lawns framed by tall trees became part of the landscape. The park carries the name of one of Imola's most consequential families, the dynasty whose city palace below the hill is now the Casa Museo di Palazzo Tozzoni, so park and palace read together as the estate's two halves: the formal, furnished town residence and the green slope above it.

What to notice

The park's paths cross woodland, grassy clearings and clusters of evergreen trees. Among its plantings are century-old oaks, cypresses, firs and cedars. The hillside overlooks Imola and the plain beyond.

Context and history

The Tozzoni family acquired the land in 1880 with plans for a villa and English-style park. The design shaped its landscape: prato all'inglese clearings edged by tall trees, with paths winding between wooded sections. The Tozzoni themselves arrived in Imola from Tuscany in the late fifteenth century and kept close ties with Florence for five centuries, rising through law, church and civic office; by the nineteenth century Count Francesco Giuseppe Tozzoni sailed around the world with the corvette Vettor Pisani and served the House of Savoy. The family's city palace at the foot of the hill passed to the municipality through the donation of Sofia Serristori Tozzoni, who wanted the palace's rooms and her family's history to become public heritage — the decision that created the house museum below and secured the green hillside above as the estate's public remnant. The park remains part of Imola's public green space.