Villa Schifanoia is a villa in Fiesole

Fiesole

Fiesole is a town and comune of the province of Florence in the Italian region of Tuscany, on a famously scenic height above Florence, 8 km NE of that city...

, Tuscany

Tuscany

Tuscany is a region in Italy. It has an area of about 23,000 square kilometres and a population of about 3.75 million inhabitants. The regional capital is Florence ....

, central Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

, near the boundary with the communal territory of Florence

Florence

Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....

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History

The villa, whose name refers to its leisure nature (its name means literally "Avoiding-boredom"), was built over the remains of a farm house in the Villa Palmieri. The central nucleus, dating to the 15th century, belonged to the Cresci family until 1550, when it was acquired by Bartolomeo di Bate di Zaccheria. After a series of property changes, in 1927 it was bought by the Myron Taylor, American ambassador to the Vatican during the reign of Pope Pius XII. Taylor restored the villa to house his art collection, and created in the southern area of the household an Italian garden.

After his death the villa went to the Vatican and, for some time, it served as a home for American women who studied in Florence. In 1986 it was acquired by Italy as home to the European University Institute. Alexandre Dumas sojourned in the villa and dedicated one of his books to it.