Villa Il Roseto, Villa in Florence, Italy

Villa Il Roseto stands at via Pian dei Giullari 78 in Florence, on the hillside of Arcetri. The 16th-century house was raised above its grounds and linked to them by two staircases until Pietro Porcinai, working between 1962 and 1965 for the Benelli family, built a hanging terrace that brought the garden level with the house. Beneath the terrace are vaulted rooms on concrete pillars: entrance filter, garage and party hall, paved in black and white pebble mosaic.

The garden was created between 1962 and 1965 by Pietro Porcinai for the Benelli family around a 16th-century building, whose structure and relation to its grounds were heavily altered. The house originally stood raised above the terrain, linked by two staircases; the hanging terrace brought the garden up to the house's level. A series of drawings from the early 1960s documents the long design process.

The garden's name comes from the rose garden Porcinai planted to match the property's name, Il Roseto. The formal part near the house uses traditional Tuscan planting — holm oaks, cypresses, olives and aromatic shrubs — while the tennis court is screened by a hedge of evergreens recalling Renaissance garden hedges.

Villa Il Roseto stands at via Pian dei Giullari 78, on the Arcetri side of Florence rather than at Fiesole. The garden is private and tied to the villa, so visits depend on access arranged with the property; the hillside road and the terraced levels involve steps and sloping ground.

The hanging terrace hides a large vaulted room beneath it, supported by reinforced concrete pillars, used as an entrance filter, a garage and a party hall. Its floor is a mosaic of black and white pebbles, and circular openings in the terrace let air and light down to this lower level.