Parco del Neto, Public park in Settimello, Calenzano, Italy

Parco del Neto lies on via Vittorio Emanuele in the Settimello locality of Calenzano and covers about 8 hectares. It is a remnant wetland of the larger lake system that once drained the floods of the Arno, kept intact by its position at the foot of Monte Morello. Its marshy ground was turned into the romantic garden of a patrician villa.

The Neto area survived as a wetland because it lay against the first slopes of Monte Morello, and was later turned into the romantic garden of a patrician villa. Its owners included Ilario Ronillè, Marquis of Boissy, a peer of France and senator under Napoleon, Count Alessandro Guiccioli, husband of Countess Teresa Gamba, and the poet Lord Byron. Calenzano and Sesto Fiorentino later bought the property.

The Neto takes its name from the wetland area that survived beside the first slopes of Monte Morello, where a marshy zone was turned into the romantic garden of a patrician villa. The main paths are bordered by lime, plane and horse chestnut trees planted in the nineteenth century, while the large bald cypresses date probably from the early twentieth century.

The park entrance is on via Vittorio Emanuele in the Settimello locality of Calenzano. The grounds sit at the foot of the first slopes of Monte Morello, and the wetland character of the soil means paths can be soft after rain. The lime, plane and horse chestnut avenues are the main routes through the grounds.

The park's most prized tree is the Taxodium distichum, called "swamp cypress" for its liking for wet ground, "bald cypress" because in winter it loses not only its leaves but also its twigs, and "Virginia tree" for its North American range. The large specimens were probably planted at the start of the 20th century.