Though no longer concealed by woods, many villas conserve the name of "Selve" or "Selva". This is also the case of the villa (15th century) that in the 16th century belonged to the Strozzi family, and later to the Salviati family.

Galileo was on many occasions guest of his friend Filippo Salviati, Florentine gentleman and Lincei academic, to whom he dedicated his Lettere sulle macchie solari [Letters on Sunspots] (the first and third, dated 1612, were conceived at the Villa delle Selve). In his Racconto istorico della vita di Galileo, Vincenzo Viviani also narrates of the «most scrupulous observations on sunspots» performed at the Villa. Galilean documents, however, also report many other scientific considerations meditated in the tranquillity of "Le Selve".

Galileo celebrated the memory of Salviati, who died in 1614, inserting him as one of the three interlocutors in his Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo [Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems] (Florence, 1632).