Villa Careggi

Perhaps the best-known Medici villa is Careggi, a fortified farmhouse that was enlarged for Cosimo il Vecchio by Michelozzo in 1434.

It became synonymous with the birth of Humanism when Cosimo founded his Platonic Academy here, which was eagerly continued by his grandson, the Magnificent Lorenzo. The greatest Latin and Greek scholars of the day, Marsilio Ficino, Poliziano, Pico della Mirandola and Argyropoulos, would meet here and hold philosophical discussions in imitation of a Platonic symposium; every 7 November they would hold a splendid banquet in honour of Plato’s birthday.

As Cosimo il Vecchio and Piero had both died at Careggi, when Lorenzo felt the end was near at age 43, he had himself carried out to the villa, with Poliziano and Pico della Mirandola to bear him company, and Savonarola to confess him. Five years later, Ficino died here as well.