Buontalenti Grotto (Grotta del Buontalenti) Tours and Tickets

Visiting the Buontalenti Grotto requires the purchase of a Boboli Gardens ticket, which costs €10 (plus an extra €3 if you book online). You can also add the Pitti Palace to your visit for a total of €22. To see the Buontalenti Grotto on a guided Boboli Gardens tour, expect to pay at least US$50.

The Buontalenti Grotto is located in the Boboli Gardens in Florence’s Oltrarno neighborhood. It’s at the northern end of the gardens near the entrance to the Vasari Corridor. To find it, enter the gardens at the main entrance by the Pitti Palace, then make a left on Viale della Meridiana.

Starting in 1583, Bernardo Buontalenti transformed a former reservoir in the Boboli Gardens into a highly decorative grotto. A few different artists added paintings, sculptures, and nature-inspired carvings to the grotto’s three rooms and facade, and now the focal point is a Venus statue by Giambologna.

Yes, you can go inside the Buontalenti Grotto and walk through its three rooms when it’s open, though the site is often gated shut for restorations. Fortunately, the facade’s sculpted stalagmites are still well worth admiring from the outside, and you can still see Giambologna’s Venus statue from a distance.

Yes, most Boboli Gardens tours highlight the Buontalenti Grotto, which is one of the garden’s most important architectural masterpieces. Booking a private tour of the Pitti Palace and Boboli Gardens is the best way to learn about the paintings and outdoor artwork that interest you most.

Designed to look like a natural cave, the facade and interior rooms of the Buontalenti Grotto are decked out with sculpted shells, sponges, and stalagmites, as well as frescoes featuring birds, animals, and trees. Giambologna’s 16th-century Venus statue and the Helen and Theseus sculpture by Vincenzo de’ Rossi are highlights.