Villa Garzoni

At the foot of Collodi Castello, Villa Garzoni rises on the ruins of the medieval castle, its baroque garden making the estate famous across Europe. The villa is central to Collodi's story: here the mother of Carlo Lorenzini, author of Pinocchio, worked as a young woman and met her future husband.

Why it matters

The Garzoni villa is the historic hinge of this destination. It ties three narratives together: the ambition of a noble Tuscan family, the invention of a grand terraced garden now protected as a national monument, and the childhood memories that led Carlo Lorenzini to sign his masterpiece with the name of this village. The villa was recognised as a national monument under laws enacted in 1909 and 1912.

What to notice

The estate combines three elements: the borgo above, cascading down the slope; the villa in the middle, flanking and in part overlooking the garden; and the Storico Giardino Garzoni below, developing vertically so that the Fama at its crest aligns with the skyline of the hill. The villa's facade closes the garden composition, while its roofline forms part of the hillside ensemble.

The human history deserves equal attention. Angiolina Orzali, mother of Carlo Lorenzini, served here as a young girl and met her future husband Domenico Lorenzini on the estate; the author's father worked at the villa as a gardener. Lorenzini spent periods of childhood in the village with his maternal grandparents and later adopted "Collodi" as his pen name.

Context and history

The villa was the country residence of the Garzoni family, the Ghibelline dynasty whose rivalry with Guelph Florence pushed them into exile in Lucca in 1339 and whose later wealth returned to shape the valley. The house rose on the ruins of the medieval castle that once guarded the borgo, converting a military site into a seat of leisure. Its greatest era belongs to the garden, whose statuary, staircases and water machinery are described in the estate's own presentation as an eighteenth-century enchantment. Ownership left the family in the second half of the 1920s, when the final Garzoni descendant sold the property. National-monument recognition under the laws of 1909 and 1912 formalised the estate's cultural status, but by the end of the twentieth century the villa had fallen into poor condition. Later restoration forms part of the villa's modern history.