Italy - Medici Villas and Gardens

"Twelve villas and two pleasure gardens spread across the Tuscan country side make up this site which bears testimony to the influence the Medici family exerted over modern European culture through its patronage of the arts. Built between the 15th and 17th centuries, they represent an innovative system of rural construction in harmony with nature and dedicated to leisure, the arts and knowledge. The villas embody an innovative form and function, a new type of princely residence that differed from both the farms owned by rich Florentines of the period and from the military might of baronial castles. The Medici villas form the first example of the connection between habitat, gardens, and the environment and became an enduring reference for princely residences throughout Italy and Europe. Their gardens and integration into the natural environment helped develelop the appreciation of landscape characteristic Humanism and the Renaissance. 

There are 12 villas and 2 gardens:
- Villa de Cafaggiolo - Villa de Il Trebbio - Villa de Careggi - Villa Medici de Fiesole - Villa de Castello - Villa de Poggio a Caiano - Villa de la Petraia - Jardin de Boboli - Villa de Cerreto Guidi - Palais de Seravezza - Jardin de Pratolino - Villa La Magia" 

Source: UNESCO World Heritage