Cosimo de' Medici chose a quiet slope just north of Florence for his country house, and in the late 1450s he had the architect Michelozzo rebuild an older castle-like farmhouse at Careggi into a villa. It was not a grand showpiece. It was a working retreat where a banker who ran a city without holding office could think, farm, and entertain scholars. Cosimo died here in 1464, and so did his grandson Lorenzo the Magnificent in 1492, which makes the walls rather weighty with Florentine history.
The house is best known for what happened inside it. Cosimo gave Marsilio Ficino a home nearby and encouraged him to translate Plato and the Neoplatonists into Latin, and the circle of friends that gathered here to read, argue and dine became what later generations called the Platonic Academy. Whether it was ever a formal institution is debated, but the idea of rich merchants spending an evening on Greek philosophy tells you much about the early Renaissance. The villa belongs to the group of Medici villas that UNESCO lists together, and the building is today part of the grounds of a large hospital, which gives the visit a slightly odd texture: ambulances at the gate, cypresses and a formal garden beyond. Access is limited, and the villa has been opened to visitors only on certain days, so check before riding out.
For a motorcyclist this is city-edge Florence, three kilometres from the centre, and the roads are the usual busy suburban ones, with hospital traffic, buses and parked cars squeezing the lanes. It rewards going early. Fiesole, a small hill town of under three thousand people, is only a few kilometres north, and the climb up to it through villas, walled gardens and olive terraces is one of the best short rides in Tuscany, with bends tight enough to keep you awake and views that open out over the dome of the cathedral. Weekend traffic can slow it, and in midsummer the heat sits heavily in the walled lanes.
Fuel, food and coffee are no problem in Florence itself, with plenty of stations on the ring road and bars on every corner. Take a short break at a bar for a coffee at the counter, and ask about the schiacciata, a flat, oily, salty bread that makes a good second breakfast. Remember the ZTL restrictions in the centre if you drift south into the old city.