A story of stone

When walking through the Boboli gardens, it seems almost impossible to believe that it was once a stone quarry of that same light brown stone used since the Middle Ages in Florentine civil and religious construction and, last but not least, for paving the streets.

Here, a quarry was even reopened to extract the sandstone required to renovate and rebuild the ancient towers of Oltrarno after the destruction that took place during the Second World War.

It is called pietraforte, a type of sandstone, and that of Boboli was only one of the many quarries located near the city. However, this one, more than the others, conceals an unusual story, because its stones were extracted for the construction of the Pitti palace. That's why it was said that the building was already under the ground and that it only needed to be "turned" upwards!

The splendid Boboli amphitheatre was in fact built out of the cavity created for extracting material for the Pitti palace. In summer, it was used as a venue for shows and it is the most ancient court theatre in Florence to have reached the present day.