Villa La Quiete was the favored residence of several important women from the Medici family. In the 17th century, Grand Duchesses Cristina of Lorraine and Vittoria della Rovere frequently visited La Quiete, which, from 1650, housed the prestigious Montalve women's college.
In the 18th century, Anna Maria Luisa, Electress of the Palatinate (wife of Johann Wilhelm, Elector Palatine) and the last descendant of the Medici lineage, indelibly linked her name to this Medici Villa. After returning widowed from Germany following a happy but childless marriage, Anna Maria chose to retire to Villa La Quiete to spend her final years living within the female community of the Montalve college. It was during this time that Anna Maria prepared to bequeath the entire Medici heritage to the city of Florence for the “ornament of the State, for the benefit of the Public, and to attract the curiosity of Foreigners”, as we read on the “Family Pact” document (1737).
The guided tour of the Villa includes the frescoed apartment of the Electress Palatine, the Church of the Holy Trinity with the Lower Choir, the 17th-century Pharmacy, and a collection of works by Renaissance artists such as Sandro Botticelli and Ridolfo del Ghirlandaio. Notably, the Italian Garden is in the 18th-century form envisioned by the Electress Palatine and it will be opened to the public for the first time in spring 2025, after a careful restoration made possible thanks to EU PNRR funding.