Villa Panna, Renaissance villa in Scarperia e San Piero, Italy.
Villa Panna is a Renaissance residence in Scarperia e San Piero set on a hilltop with surrounding gardens featuring an English-style park, an artificial lake, and decorative statues throughout the grounds. The property currently houses the Acqua Panna mineral water production facilities.
The Medici family commissioned architect Michelozzo in 1427 to transform a farmhouse into this grand villa with hunting grounds and gardens attached to it. This conversion marked the establishment of a pleasure residence for Florence's most powerful family during the Renaissance.
The chapel, in its present form dating from the 16th century, has two entrances: one from inside the villa and one from outside. It keeps a Robbiana image and a balcony enclosed by glazing from which the noble family followed services. The name Panna, it is said, comes from the cream colour of the villa's plaster.
The villa stands in the Panna locality near Scarperia, about 40 km north of Florence; the Italian source gives this distance, while the Portuguese one says 25 km. The estate is now almost entirely absorbed by the Acqua Panna bottling plants, so the historic rooms and the 16th-century chapel are seen as part of the working site rather than as a free-standing monument.
The camels kept here as a menagerie adapted badly to the Apennine winter and were moved to San Rossore, near Pisa. The estate also imported Swiss bulls and cows for breeding. The name Panna, shared by villa and hamlet, is said to come from the pale cream colour of the plaster.
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