Villa Schifanoia

History tells that this is the famous villa where, during the terrible plague of Florence in 1348, a group of young people sought refuge and, with their tales, gave birth to Giovanni Boccaccio’s Decameron.

The fifteenth-century villa belonged to the Cresci family until the mid-1500s; subsequently, it had different owners and underwent modifications and additions.

The renowned French writer Alexandre Dumas lived there for a period and wrote a book about the villa. In 1927, it became the property of Myron C. Taylor, the United States Ambassador to the Holy See, who restored the villa to house his art collection. Leveraging the landscape’s morphology, he created expansive classical gardens on three terraces at different levels. Fountains, statues, pools, still-functioning sundials, and many decorations enrich the environment. Later, the villa was donated to Pius XII and remained a Church’s possession for some time, hosting a college for young Americans studying in Florence. Since 1986, it has belonged to the Italian State, which has made it one of the locations of the European University Institute..