San Piero a SieveThis villa castle was built on the ruins of an earlier feudal fortress by Michelozzo Michelozzi at the request of Cosimo de' Medici.
This imposing structure stands at 500 metres above sea level on a hill that dominates the entire Mugello territory and which, in the past, was the intersection of important communications routes.
The building is made of a massive square central body with a display of projections and is overlooked by a tower with a crenelation and a sloping base. Today, it is surrounded by tall monumental cypress trees and continues to hold a typical Italian garden on the west side, and spacious terraced kitchen-gardens to the south with a splendid 17th century pergola supported by red brick columns.
Lorenzo the Magnificent greatly loved to hunt there; the famous captain of fortune Giovanni dalle Bande Nere, his wife Maria Salviati and his son Cosimo I, the future Grand Duke of Tuscany, resided there.
In 1476, the young Amerigo Vespucci, who was running from Florence and the plague, sojourned there. The Trebbio Castle belonged to the Medici family until, in 1644, Ferdinand II sold it to Giuliano Serragli for 113,500 scudos.
