Villa Cetinale, Siena 🇮🇹 read more below 👇 @matteocoltro_weddings via @weddingsintuscany @chinoiserieandchintz @melissa_penfold Villa Cetinale is a 17th-century Baroque villa and Italian garden in Tuscany. The property is located in the hamlet of Cetinale near Sovicille, about 12 kilometres (7.5 mi) west of Siena, in Tuscany, Italy. The property is best known for the expansive gardens, arrayed in classic symmetry, as well as for its woodland gardens. Described by @archdigest as ‘The most beautiful villa in Tuscany’, Cetinale is an architectural marvel with a world famous garden, its own chapel, hermitage, and holy wood. The park contains seven votive chapels, sixteen full length statues and 29 busts, as well as many stone animals and monsters. What makes it unique however, is that it has been a centre for horse racing, hunting, sacred pilgrimages, and lavish entertaining; a combination that can be found nowhere else. Villa Cetinale is a grand, yet unpretentious Tuscan country villa built in the Roman Baroque style. Surrounded by beautiful gardens and a holy wood known as the Thebaid, it is overlooked by a hermitage known as the Romitorio, which was once inhabited by monks, and forms the northern end of a long straight line that bisects the villa before reaching a monumental statue of Hercules at the southern end of the estate. The villa in its present form was completed in 1680 by Cardinal Flavio Chigi (1631-1693), who inherited it from his Uncle, Fabio Chigi, who became Pope Alexander VII in 1655. Cetinale lies some 10 kms to the west of Siena on the edge of a large expanse of wooded hills, known as the Montagnola Senese, a largely untamed region historically inhabited by bandits. The bandits have long since moved on and the remaining tenants are wild boar, deer, foxes, badgers, hares, porcupines, hedgehogs and squirrels, as well as a wide range of migratory birds and wild mushrooms. ✅ follow @italy24h ✅ follow @italy24h Follow @italy24h —————————————————- #Tuscany#portofino #portofinoitaly #liguriagram #italy #italian #italia #italy🇮🇹 #italytrip #italygram #italyiloveyou #visititaly #igersitalia #italia🇮🇹 #italy❤️ #italylovers #italytour #ita