Cosimo's architect there, as elsewhere, was Michelozzo, who remodelled the fortified villa which had something of the character of a castello.

[2] At the death of Giovanni di Bicci, Cosimo il Vecchio set about remodelling the beloved villa around its loggia-enclosed central courtyard.

Marsilio Ficino, who died at the villa in 1499, was a central member of the Platonic Academy.

[3] Lorenzo de' Medici died at the villa in 1492,[4] after which it was ignored for a time until about 1615, when Cardinal Carlo de' Medici undertook extensive projects to remodel the interior, and bring the garden up to date.

The villa property was purchased from the Lorraine heirs of the Medici in 1779 by Vincenzo Orsi; the Orsi heirs sold it to an Englishman, Francis Sloane, in 1848: Sloane planted exotics in the landscape: Cedar of Lebanon and Himalayan cedars, Californian sequoias, arbutus from the eastern Mediterranean and palms, which give the grounds their feeling of an arboretum.