The Villa San Donato is a Palladian palace built by Russian industrialist Nikolay Demidov on 42 hectares of marshland to the north of Florence at Polverosa which he had bought from the Catholic church, after he was made Russia's ambassador to the court of Tuscany. The first stone was laid on 27 June 1827 and construction was completed in 1831. It includes an estates with rivers, lakes, churches, a menagerie, a silk factory, a zoo, gardens and a railway. The designs were by Giovan Battista Silvestri, architect to the Uffizi.