Villa Medicea di Cerreto Guidi

Cosimo I built this hunting lodge in 1556 to be near the game-rich wetlands of the Padule di Fucecchio. Its most elaborate feature, the grand double brick stair ramp leading up to the villa, is attributed to his favourite architect, Bernardo Buontalenti.

In 1576, Cosimo's beloved daughter Isabella, one of the most beautiful and independent women of her time, famous for her patronage of the arts and her parties, was in all likelihood murdered here by her husband, the Roman nobleman Paolo Giordano Orsini, Duke of Bracciano. Six days previously her cousin Leanora had been strangled by her husband—Isabella's brother Pietro—at the Villa di Cafaggiolo.

Isabella, like Leanora, was unhappily married. Rather than move in with her spendthrift husband, her father Cosimo was happy for her (and her dowry) to stay at his side in Florence, where she played the role of first lady of Tuscany after the death of her mother. She did bear Paolo a son and daughter, but as the couple became estranged, she took a lover, her husband's cousin Troilo Orsini.