By Stanley Chen
Photos by the author
This mini photo essay explores the great and small details of one of Florence’s most magical green spaces, starting from the above panoramic shot that fully captures how the garden and the city are entwined. Created for a Street Photography course by FUA study abroad alum Stanley Chen, these gorgeous shots show a resplendent and luminous Boboli Gardens.
The Boboli gardens, a site that formerly housed the famous Medici family of the Italian Renaissance era, is a large open-air museum that contains many forms of green architecture and represents what many would consider an ideal Italian Renaissance garden.
Though Neptune’s fountain, also pictured above, is one of the principal fountains, the garden is abundant with sculptural surprises such as this grotesque male harpy on top of sea creatures in the Isolotto section:
Another site of interest is the Giardino del Cavaliere, which sits atop of a wall built by Michaelangelo. A lovely hedge maze arranges flowers and shrubbery in sprawling yet geometrically harmonious deigns:
The hedges leads to the entrance of the main building, the Casino del Cavaliere built in 1700 and where the last Grand Duke Gian Gastone de’Medici kept rooms. The building today hosts the Porcelain Museum of the Pitti Palace museum complex, a showcase of porcelain works from many of the former ruling families of Tuscany:
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