Frederick Stibbert (1838-1906), an avid collector, founded Museo Stibbert in his villa in the Florentine hills. During his lifetime, he transformed his home into a museum, exhibiting his finds from across the world: weapons, objects of art and daily life from European, Islamic and Far Eastern civilizations. The exceptional collections bequeathed to the city upon his death, are a testimony to the cultural values of the last century: interest in the past, exaltation of art and passion for the exotic.

Stibbert stylised the villa on a Neo-Gothic castle, with large rooms on the ground floor housing the collections and the rest of the building houses the sumptuous private apartments, decorated according to 19th century criteria; Neo-Renaissance for the ballroom, Rococo for the sitting rooms, Empire for the bedrooms. The same eclectic taste, curiosity for the past and the exotic characterises the park surrounding the villa. Groves, pavilions, statues, false ruins and a small Egyptian temple fill the garden.