Robert Langdon Lifestyle - Boboli Gardens

NM: Last thursday, June 19th, our class visited the Boboli Gardens in Florence. The Boboli Gardens are located just behind the Pitti Palace, the residence of the famous Medici family, who ruled Florence for several centuries. The Pitti Palace is now basically just a museum showing the immense wealth and power that the Medici family had. The Boboli Gardens had less diversity than the Vatican Gardens, and they were also not as well kept, but I enjoyed them much more. The vast corridors of tree cover and acres of symmetry were beautiful. It would have taken several hours to explore every little path that the Gardens had to offer. The above picture is of the Grotto inside the Boboli Gardens, the sight of a scene in Dan Brown's novel Inferno, where Robert Langdon and Sienna take cover to avoid the Consortium's Agents. The Boboli Gardens are also home to one of the first ever greenhouses in the world. The particular greenhouse is mostly known for housing many famous works of art that were damaged in the tragic flooding of Florence in 1966. One thing I found very interesting was a fountain in which water would cascade down through the head of a different animal depicted by statues, that the Medici would use for hunting purposes. Essentially game birds would be attracted to the rushing water on the far wall and they would be trapped by the surrounding wall of shrubbery and trees, caught by the hidden nets. The Medici would use their prey as food, so it wasn't all just for fun.