If you have a nose for history, you’ll like this one. The Polo Museale della città di Firenze (Florence’s state museums) are releasing a new scent called Giardini del Granduca. “Through this perfume that was created purposefully with scents inspired by Florence’s historic gardens,” declares superintendent Cristina Acidini, “one enters into direct contact with the memory of the Medici dynasty, and especially with their magnificent legacy in the field of art and gardens.” The perfume commemorates the entry of the Medici Villas into the UNESCO world heritage monument list.
Under the scent consultancy of Simonetta Giurlani Pardini and produced by Sillabe, the perfume is based on studies of the Medici’s historic plant collections. The dominant notes are citrus (lemon and bitter orange, cultivated in the Limonaia in Boboli Gardens) with essential oils of rose petals (for the historic rose collection) and peach blossoms (for the urban fruit and vegetable gardens of the Medici). A cinnamon undertone recalls Cosimo I’s love of medicinal plants, while there’s also a musk base and a bit of cypress and cedar.
If you’ve ever walked through the gardens of a Medici Villa on a wet morning and thought “I love this smell”, chances are you’ll want to pick up a bottle for the memory of the occasion at the state museum bookshops in Florence (€45), where the frangrance will be for sale starting August 2, 2014.
