Villa La Loggia, Renaissance villa in Via Bolognese, Florence, Italy

Villa La Loggia is a Renaissance building on Via Bolognese in Florence featuring a U-shaped layout with the main structure running parallel to the street. A two-level loggia with round arches and Corinthian capitals forms its most notable architectural element.

Built in the 15th century by the Pazzi family, the villa replaced an earlier country house that belonged to Brunetto Latini, the teacher of Dante. Giuliano da Maiano, a prominent Renaissance architect, designed the structure.

The villa takes its name from the internal two-storey loggia, whose ground floor has round arches with Corinthian capitals and small medallions. A second three-arched loggetta attached to the building is frescoed with maps of the continents and grotesques on its vaults. In the 19th century the singer Angelica Catalani turned the villa into a gathering place for high society.

The villa has been leased to the publisher Giunti Editore since 1992 and is not open to public visits. The whole property is enclosed by a high wall, so the two-level loggia and the three-arch loggetta with frescoed continent maps can only be seen from outside. The park holds old trees, a limonaia and an eclectic-style villino.

In spring 1478 the Pazzi conspirators met in this villa to decide how to kill Lorenzo and Giuliano de' Medici. After the plot failed, the villa was confiscated from Jacopo Pazzi and sold in 1495 to Geronimo d'Hauteville and the Ufficiali del Monte. In 1490 the Pazzi hosted René of Anjou here while he was bishop of Aix-en-Provence and ambassador of Charles VIII.