Description
Forte Belvedere is a 16th-century fortress on the Boboli hill, in Florence, at the highest point above Palazzo Pitti. It is a fort, but also one of the finest viewpoints: its bastions look on one side at the city, on the other at the countryside.
It has a star-shaped plan, with two-level bastions, and a portal with a large Medici coat of arms. A steep covered ramp, once used to haul cannons, climbs to the upper terrace, where the Palazzina del Belvedere stands: white, more villa than barracks, it dominates the complex.
The view is the reason to go. From the terraces you take in all of Florence: the Duomo, Palazzo Vecchio, the bridges over the Arno. And within these walls great art exhibitions have been held, from Henry Moore to Fernando Botero.
The fort rose between 1590 and 1591 for Grand Duke Ferdinando I, designed by Bernardo Buontalenti. It was meant to protect Palazzo Pitti and the Oltrarno, to show the power of the Medici and to give the grand duke a refuge in case of revolt, the last stop of the Vasari Corridor.
A crypt at the bottom of a shaft dug into the hill, with deadly traps connected to the door for anyone who tried to force it. In all likelihood this was where the Medici planned to keep the family treasure.
And yet the fort never suffered a siege, and its cannons never fired in battle. They only made a great din at noon: for the Florentines it was “the pasta cannon”.
The palazzina was also a house of refuge: Ferdinando II withdrew there during the plague of 1630. At the end of the 18th century Grand Duke Peter Leopold opened the ramparts to the Florentines.
The official name is the Fortezza di Santa Maria in San Giorgio, dedicated to the Madonna and to Saint George because of its nearness to the gate of the same name. But soon people called it “del Belvedere”, for its spectacular view.
Buontalenti chose a “pincer” front, futuristic for the time, inspired by drawings of Antonio da Sangallo the Younger. The white palazzina, by contrast, does not obey military principles: it is a visible sign of Medici rule.
It has a star-shaped plan, with two-level bastions, and a portal with a large Medici coat of arms. A steep covered ramp, once used to haul cannons, climbs to the upper terrace, where the Palazzina del Belvedere stands: white, more villa than barracks, it dominates the complex.
The view is the reason to go. From the terraces you take in all of Florence: the Duomo, Palazzo Vecchio, the bridges over the Arno. And within these walls great art exhibitions have been held, from Henry Moore to Fernando Botero.
The fort rose between 1590 and 1591 for Grand Duke Ferdinando I, designed by Bernardo Buontalenti. It was meant to protect Palazzo Pitti and the Oltrarno, to show the power of the Medici and to give the grand duke a refuge in case of revolt, the last stop of the Vasari Corridor.
A crypt at the bottom of a shaft dug into the hill, with deadly traps connected to the door for anyone who tried to force it. In all likelihood this was where the Medici planned to keep the family treasure.
And yet the fort never suffered a siege, and its cannons never fired in battle. They only made a great din at noon: for the Florentines it was “the pasta cannon”.
The palazzina was also a house of refuge: Ferdinando II withdrew there during the plague of 1630. At the end of the 18th century Grand Duke Peter Leopold opened the ramparts to the Florentines.
The official name is the Fortezza di Santa Maria in San Giorgio, dedicated to the Madonna and to Saint George because of its nearness to the gate of the same name. But soon people called it “del Belvedere”, for its spectacular view.
Buontalenti chose a “pincer” front, futuristic for the time, inspired by drawings of Antonio da Sangallo the Younger. The white palazzina, by contrast, does not obey military principles: it is a visible sign of Medici rule.