Villa San Donato

The Villa San Donato is a Palladian palace built by Russian industrialist Nikolay Demidov on 42 hectares of marshland to the north of Florence at Polverosa which he had bought from the Catholic church, after he was made Russia's ambassador to the court of Tuscany.

Villa San Donato is a Palladian style palace built north of Florence at Polverosa, Italy, for the Russian industrialist Nikolay Demidov, its first stone laid on June 27, 1827 and the building completed in 1831 to designs by architect Giovan Battista Silvestri, who also worked for the Uffizi. The estate covered forty two hectares and included rivers, lakes, churches, a menagerie, a silk factory, a zoo and gardens, along with a private fourteen room museum built to house the Demidov family's art collection. The dome of the palace carries a fresco painted in 1827 by Domenico Morelli and repainted in 1841 by the French painter Jean Baptiste Fortune de Fournier. The palace suffered serious damage during the Second World War, and an adjoining chapel, the Demidoff Chapel of San Donato, is now owned by the Church of Christ.

The Villa San Donato is a Palladian palace built by Russian industrialist Nikolay Demidov on 42 hectares of marshland to the north of Florence at Polverosa which he had bought from the Catholic church, after he was made Russia's ambassador to the court of Tuscany. The first stone was laid on 27 June 1827 and construction was completed in 1831. It includes an estates with rivers, lakes, churches,

The Villa San Donato is a Palladian palace built by Russian industrialist Nikolay Demidov on 42 hectares of marshland to the north of Florence at Polverosa which he had bought from the Catholic church, after he was made Russia's ambassador to the court of Tuscany. The first stone was laid on 27 June 1827 and construction was completed in 1831. It includes an estates with rivers, lakes, churches,