A green oasis encircled by tall crenelated walls. At the time of the Medici, it was a luxuriant garden decorated with geometrical flower beds and ornamental boxwood hedges, sculpted in imaginative shapes, and with ancient and contemporary masterpieces, including the majestic sculptural group representing Judith and Holofernes by Donatello.
When the Medici moved to Palazzo della Signoria (also known as Palazzo Vecchio), the garden was devoted to other functions, and later the Riccardi family remodelled it. In this period, the three-arched loggia on the southern end was walled up and turned into a ground-floor Gallery, and a male statue with features reminiscent of Cosimo Riccardi was placed inside the niche on the opposite end. Thanks to a thorough restoration project launched in 1912, the garden took on the layout that visitors appreciate today, with a fountain opposite the Gallery and green areas interspersed with pebbled lanes adorned with the coats of arms of the Medici and Riccardi families.