Villa Baruchello or Villa Fonteserpe was built in the second half of the 1700s. The name Fonte Serpe. which appears on the support columns of the entrance gate, is due to the stone source that is located to the right of the building. It stands elegantly in the Marina Picena district. Belonged until the last years of the 19th century to the Bonafede of Monte San Giusto, the residence was acquired by the local municipal administration in 1980.
Currently it houses a rich botanical garden that is not only protected for the floral varieties present, but is open daily to the public so that everyone can enjoy the rich natural heritage guarded with rare devotion. Following a long avenue, shaded by bushy elm trees, the villa finally becomes visible and shows the elegant severity of the two bodies, joined by a gallery erected on a piled portico. Based on some written evidence, the structure facing north was mainly used as an agricultural warehouse, while the southern one was used as a dwelling. At the back of the eighteenth-century residence there is a quadrangular courtyard adorned with an elliptical fountain enclosed by four grassy handkerchiefs, which are enhanced by spectacular ornamental plants such as palm trees and cycas that echo the nineteenth-century taste for the exotic. At the end of the garden, a staircase guarded by two Carrara marble sphinxes leads into a small oriental oasis, decorated with dwarf palms and slender bamboo, which precedes a luxuriant park of holm oaks and magnolias. Very interesting, for the numerous plant species and for their importance, the Villa Park which, like all the parks of the period, is divided into two parts: the Garden and the Wood. It is accessed through a long avenue of monumental oaks (Quercus ilex), some of which, however, in poor condition, and then enter the actual garden. Here it is not possible to describe in detail the various plant species present in it and for this the reader is referred to other works that, over the years, have dealt with the vegetation of the Villa; in these lines it will be useful to underline how many are the types of exotic plants planted by the first owners, in particular several species of common Palms, such as the Canary Island Palm (Phoenix canariensis) and the Dwarf Palm (Chaemerops humilis), less common, like Washingtonia (Washingtonia filifera) and very rare like the Coconut Palm (Cocos australianum). But there is no lack of plants with a more temperate climate such as Cedar, present in two species: Cedrus libani and Cedrus atlantica; like the Pine, present in four forms: Domestic Pine (Pinus picea), Aleppo Pine (Pinus halepensis), Black Pine (Pinus nigra) and Maritime Pine (Pinus pinaster) in addition to all the most common and typical species of the area Mediterranean such as Laurel (Laurus nobilis), Sycamore (Platanus hybrida), Cypress (Cupressus sempervirens), Linden (Tilia cordata), Badger (Taxus Laccata) and others. Going up the stairway of the Sphinxes, you enter the wood which is almost completely formed by Holm oaks, even if occasionally you encounter isolated specimens of Plane tree, of Badger, of Roverella (Quercus pubescens), of Cypress of the Marshes (Taxodium distichum), of Pine d ‘Aleppo, of Spruce (Picea eccelsa), of Pino Domestico, of Tiglio, to mention the most important.
Finally, very interesting is the presence in the Villa of several sources of water, water that has been historically exploited over the centuries by the population and which certainly connects the area where the Villa is currently located to the archaeological area of Sprofondati Marina located only a few hundred meters to the southwest.