Villa Puccini, commonly renowned as “Il Villone” (Big Villa), was built at the beginning of the 18th century by order of Tommaso Puccini, the court physician of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, who used it as his country residence. The villa was designed by Francesco Maria Gatteschi and frescoed by the most important Tuscan painters of the time, then Giuseppe Puccini commissioned the Pistoia engineer Buonsignori to renovate the building according to the Neoclassical taste.

The most important element of the whole complex is the park, which was realized between 1825 and 1845 by order of Niccolò Puccini. The park features two artificial ponds and some statues representing famous artists and scientists, such as Dante, Francesco Ferrucci, Michelangelo and Linnaeus; at the same time, the Emiciclo di Galilei (Galilei’s Hemicycle) and the Tempio Pitagorico (Pythagorean Temple) were built.

In the park, under some oaks, planes, lindens, pines, cedars of Lebanon and American cypresses stand a church and a medieval castle in miniature, two examples of the Gothic revival in fashion in the 19th century.