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The British have long been entranced by Italy,

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its beautiful countryside,

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the enduring traditions of art and culture,

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and, of course, its extraordinary gardens.

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I'm taking a journey throughout the whole of Italy,

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visiting beautiful gardens everywhere I go.

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You come and immediately you feel inspired.

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I'll be in Florence, where gardens grew from the Renaissance ideals.

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In every direction, you see balance, order and harmony.

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And Naples, with unexpectedly intimate glimpses behind displays

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of astonishing grandeur.

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This is a peek at her bum, and I like the sense of what the butler saw.

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I'll be looking in on the gardens of the rich and the famous.

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So, what's this one here?

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- Mr Clooney's place.
- Yeah, I can see why he might want to live there.

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As well as meeting local Italians growing some of the best food in the world.
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It's very good.

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But my journey begins in Rome, the seat of emperors and popes, to visit

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gardens that are amongst the most flamboyant ever created in history.

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Tourists have been flocking to Rome for hundreds of years,

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to feast on the astonishing architectural richness of its classical past.

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But many also come to see its great gardens,

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most of which originate from a brief but golden age of gardening.

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In a 50-year period from about 1550, there was suddenly an explosion of garden-making -

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extraordinary, magnificent gardens -

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and you have to wonder, why then?

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Why round here, Rome?

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And also, why gardens?

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To find out, I'm going to visit the most spectacular of the gardens from this period,
in and around Rome.

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As well as getting to know these iconic gardens, I'll also be exploring the lives

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and the turbulent times of the enormously powerful and wealthy men that made them.

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Now, the greatest wealth and power in 16th-century Italy

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was not in the hands of bankers or kings, but of the church.

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The most powerful group of people in Rome in the 16th century

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were the cardinals, and they all had their eyes fixed on just one seat of power,

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and that was the papacy.

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The Pope was the most influential man in the Christian world.

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Every living soul in 16th-century Europe was either fiercely for or against him.

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He had the greatest art collection in the world,

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the greatest power, and access to vast wealth.

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This intoxicating combination

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was the prize that every aspiring cardinal greedily desired.

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You have to picture Rome round about the middle of the 16th century

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as a place that was asserting itself, and they were saying,

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"We are the powerful people, this is God's city."

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And right here in the Vatican, the single most powerful place on the planet,

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God's representative ruling it,

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and that gave the cardinals and the people working around the Vatican

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an extraordinary sense of power, and brashness and confidence,

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and that's the context in which you have to set these gardens that they were making.

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When a pope died,

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the cardinals elected one of their members to succeed him.

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However, in the 16th century,

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this was less a measure of their spiritual qualities

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and more a result of how influential, rich and cultured they were,

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and one way to demonstrate these attributes was by making an awe-inspiring garden.

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I'm heading off an hour north to Villa Farnese in Caprarola,

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which is a small town in the province of Viterbo, about 40 miles

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from the centre of Rome, to visit one of these great gardens made by a power-hungry
cardinal.

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I've come to Villa Farnese mainly because I've always wanted to see it

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but the reason why people have come here in such great numbers

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is because it is generally reckoned to be one of the most perfect examples

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of a surviving Renaissance garden.

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This was the home of Cardinal Alessandro Farnese II, of the distinguished Farnese
family.

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His grandfather was Pope Paul III.

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Pope Paul had originally commissioned the building

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as a fortified castle, at a time when Rome was almost constantly at war.

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But by the time the cardinal inherited it, in 1549,

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all that had been built of this fortress

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were the five-sided footings.

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So in 1556, Farnese hired the architect Giacomo Vignola

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to built an enormous palace on these existing foundations and to create the latest
fashionable accessory -

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a beautiful Renaissance garden.

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There's no doubt that we have this idea that Italian gardens are all formality, clipped
hedges, green -

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at best a very mannered, calm, stately type of garden, but at worst

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rather bleak, even hard and harsh, compared to our love of flowers,

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and I think that's one of the things I want to know, what were they like?

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How have they evolved? And is what we're seeing now

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a true picture of Italian gardens as they've developed through history?

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By the 1560s, when this garden was made, the Renaissance had been in full swing for
over 100 years

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and had produced an unprecedented flowering of new ideas in art,

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architecture, literature, science and philosophy,

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with artists such as Raphael,

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Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo.

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But this wasn't just about paintings and sculpture.

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The Renaissance also launched the idea that a garden could be a work of art.

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To find out more about this garden in particular,

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and Renaissance gardens in general, I meet Giorgio Galletti,

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a garden historian who's restored a number of Renaissance gardens

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like Villa Farnese.

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The ideas of order, and symmetry and harmony

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were key parts of Renaissance thought, weren't they?

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Vignola used pure geometry, and also he designed his garden

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on pure geometry according to a square grid.

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Architecture, not only gardens,

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should be based on a pure geometry.

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The idea of, the man should recreate the harmony of the universe,

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and it has to be very simple

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and very feasible to be understood by man.

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Right.

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This grid-like formality might appear constraining

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to modern British gardeners, but it was designed to create order

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out of chaos, placing man in controlled, and controlling,

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harmony with nature.

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As you climb steep steps to the top of the garden,

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you leave the ordered formality behind and enter the bosco,

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which was a wood designed for the cardinal and his guests

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to indulge in his greatest pleasure -

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hunting prey ranging from wild boar to songbirds.

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It's best to think of the garden as a process, or a journey.

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So you've gone from the ordered gardens down by the villa,

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then up through the bosco - this place of excitement, of hunting,

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of wild animals and nature red in tooth and claw, but controlled -

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and then, as you come through the end of the bosco, there's a clearing, and in front of
you...

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is this apparition.
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It's a fairy palace, it's an extraordinary, rich creation

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rising up out of the ground,

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and you've reached this state of absolute beauty.

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This is where Alessandro Farnese entertained his fellow cardinals

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and anyone - and in truth, that was everyone - that he wished to impress.

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It is an astonishing ethereal fantasy that is built from stone,

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water, vast riches and an even greater ambition.

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The water features and sculpted cascades pointedly demonstrate

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his culture and sophistication and,

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at every turn, you can see clear symbols celebrating the greatness

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of the Farnese dynasty.

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All this fun and games was really part

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of power play.

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The most important thing that this is saying is, "I am a powerful man".

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Think of this water being channelled down

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in this marvellous staircase of water, made by dolphins.

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Well, any visitor would have known the dolphin was the crest

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of the Farnese family.

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Alessandro's grandfather had been here.

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He'd tasted it, he'd been close to the seat of power,

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so he had about him this sense of right,

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and the garden expresses that.

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The river gods, the water coming from their cornucopias, go into a glass.

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This is the fountain of the glass.

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The idea of taking rivers, drinking them, holding them in your hand -

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this wouldn't have gone unnoticed.

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So the symbolism is almost as important as the aesthetic beauty.

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Despite the jostling for position that went on between cardinals,

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it was a very small world that they moved in,

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and many would dine and hunt together as friends.

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So when Farnese created this garden, fully ten years after the lower gardens were
completed,

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he turned to a fellow cardinal,

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who himself had made a great garden nearby, for some advice.
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This palazzina, a rather grand building up here at the top,

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was recommended to Farnese by his neighbour, Cardinal Gambarra,

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at Villa Lante, who fundamentally said,

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"Look, old chap, you've got gout.

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"Like me you find it a bit tricky when you're having your dinners outside on a summer's
evening.

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"Build yourself a shed at the end of the garden." So he did.

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Very nice shed it is, too, and it was up here that they would relax.

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The power play would be done and there would be wine and song,

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if not women.

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This garden is formed from an elaborate parterre

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of crisp box hedging, superb sculptures

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and the delightful play of water.

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However, there is a notable absence of flowers of any kind.

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Yet, according to Giorgio Galletti, Renaissance gardens like Farnese

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would originally have been filled with colour.

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There was a kind of symbolic flower garden,

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particularly a lot of lemon pots.

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When there was the fashion of the bulbs, all the cardinals and princes,

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they were in competition to buy the rarest bulb.

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Right. I you talk to most people in England now, they will say,

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"But there are no flowers, it's all just evergreens and shapes and it's very beautiful,
but limited".

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So what you're saying is that was never the case?

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Not in the Renaissance. There were jasmines, crocuses, lilies,

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that was very important for the Farnese family,

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because it was in their coat of arms,

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and parts of small topiary in box.

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So what happened to all the flowers?

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Villa Farnese became abandoned and overgrown

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when garden fashions changed and it wasn't restored

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until the 20th century.

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In many gardens like Farnese,

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the only planting to survive was the box hedging, which in fact was often not original,

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so restorers assumed that Renaissance gardens were flowerless.
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It is quite a shock when you realise that the image of the Renaissance garden is
actually inaccurate.

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It wasn't like that, and that they wouldn't have used box

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and it wouldn't have been green, and they would have had flowers.

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And when I came to this top section,

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I stood here for a bit thinking, "Well, I don't get it,

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"I just don't feel any response to this rather flat open space and the green grass."

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And it wasn't until I learnt that actually it wasn't like this,

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it was full of flowers, it was like a physic garden with beds, with beautiful specimens

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that they were gathering and were being given as presents.

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When you think about it, why shouldn't Renaissance gardeners

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have enjoyed flowers every bit as much as we do?

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And I need to undo these preconceptions I have

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of Italian gardens as being all about shape and structure and form,

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and start to fill in the gaps with flowers and the pleasure of flowers,

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just like I have in my own garden.

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Alessandro died in 1589, just a few years after the palazzina was completed,

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but his garden remained hugely influential, particularly

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to his fellow cardinals, vying to outdo each other with the magnificence of their
gardens.

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The great outpouring of art and culture in the Renaissance,

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with its emphasis on harmony and order,

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was in part a reaction to centuries of chaos.

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Throughout the whole medieval period, Italy was a patchwork of warring states,

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and it had also been particularly devastated by the Black Death,

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wiping out a third of its population, so by the beginning of the 15th century,

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the Renaissance was inspired by looking back to the glories

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of ancient Rome, which until then

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had been almost completely ignored.

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So I am now heading 15 miles east of Rome to an archaeological site

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that had an enormous influence

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on the great 16th-century burst of garden making.

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This is Villa Adriana, which was built almost 2,000 years ago

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by the Western world's most powerful man, the Emperor Hadrian.

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The reason I've come to Hadrian's villa is not so much to admire
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the garden, because that hasn't survived 2,000 years.

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This hasn't been quietly growing for all that period, it's all recreated.

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But there is enough evidence, enough of the layout,

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to provide the spark that lit the fire for Renaissance gardens.

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Although you can go to Renaissance gardens and you'll enjoy it -

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you don't need to know everything about it, it's just lovely -

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if you want to know the story and to understand it,

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you have to pick up the threads, starting here in Hadrian's villa.

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Hadrian built his villa in the early decades of the 2nd century AD,

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at the same time as his famous wall was being built across the border between England
and Scotland.

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This was the emperor's palace,

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his court, and the military headquarters for Rome's vast empire.

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Hadrian travelled more widely than any other emperor

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and his gardens were directly inspired

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by ancient Greek and Egyptian architecture and mythology.

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For hundreds and hundreds of years, the ruins just lay there,

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ignored, and people didn't pay them any mind,

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and it wasn't till the beginning of the Renaissance that people began reading the
literature

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and looking at the ruins, putting two and two together

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and realising that there was something special here,

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and gradually the columns, and the statues, and the water features

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began to be potential that they could use in their own gardens and their own houses.

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Now, if you think about it, we still take it for granted

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there are columns and statues and temples in grand gardens.

239
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But none of that existed

240
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before the Renaissance rediscovered the classical world.

241
00:18:32,360 --> 00:18:35,840
The part of this enormous, sprawling site

242
00:18:35,840 --> 00:18:39,880
that most excited Renaissance visitors was the canopus,

243
00:18:39,880 --> 00:18:44,440
which was a long colonnaded pool with statues all the way around,

244
00:18:44,440 --> 00:18:49,560
culminating in a large banqueting hall with a great arched and domed opening.

245
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I've arranged to meet Marina de Franceschini here,

246
00:18:58,360 --> 00:19:02,320
an archaeologist who's been studying the villa for the last 20 years,

247
00:19:02,320 --> 00:19:07,560
to find out just why the canopus was so important for Renaissance artists and
architects.
248
00:19:09,200 --> 00:19:15,480
I feel like dwarf, because if I think that here all the greatest architects of all
times have come.

249
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Palladio, Pirro Ligorio, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael

250
00:19:19,400 --> 00:19:23,920
- and everybody else, so you...
- Yeah, yeah.

251
00:19:23,920 --> 00:19:27,400
But everybody was coming here to take inspiration

252
00:19:27,400 --> 00:19:30,840
and also because they were looking for measurements.

253
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They were looking for the magical formula that would give them

254
00:19:35,040 --> 00:19:37,320
the perfect proportion of buildings

255
00:19:37,320 --> 00:19:41,440
and also they were trying to understand the secret of building

256
00:19:41,440 --> 00:19:45,840
a place like this, that is still standing after so many centuries,

257
00:19:45,840 --> 00:19:48,080
a thousand years of neglect.

258
00:19:53,120 --> 00:19:54,520
The visiting 16th-century architects

259
00:19:54,520 --> 00:19:59,360
came here not just to admire the aesthetics of the building,

260
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but to re-discover practical engineering knowledge

261
00:20:01,880 --> 00:20:06,840
that had been lost since the fall of the Roman Empire.

262
00:20:06,840 --> 00:20:10,840
One vital lost skill was how to transport vast quantities of water.

263
00:20:10,840 --> 00:20:15,640
Hadrian used a ten-mile long aqueduct just to supply
264
00:20:15,640 --> 00:20:18,880
the villa's countless pools and fountains,

265
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and the sheer volume of water needed for pools designed to cool

266
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and reflect light into buildings

267
00:20:25,840 --> 00:20:30,840
was a clear demonstration of the emperor's knowledge and power.

268
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- You must imagine the water was flowing down.
- Down here?

269
00:20:34,080 --> 00:20:35,640
- Down there.
- Yeah.

270
00:20:35,640 --> 00:20:42,320
And then was flowing in these channels, and the middle water in this inner channel
coming down.

271
00:20:42,320 --> 00:20:45,760
So water playing, water moving and overflowing and...

272
00:20:45,760 --> 00:20:49,720
Oh, yeah. Water was a way to show the power of the emperor, because

273
00:20:49,720 --> 00:20:54,320
we know that there was an aqueduct to bring in water from the Aniene River.

274
00:20:54,320 --> 00:20:56,720
But the water was part of the garden.

275
00:20:56,720 --> 00:21:00,400
In a sense, it wasn't a practical purpose, it was for decorating.

276
00:21:00,400 --> 00:21:04,240
- Yeah.
- And where did they eat? How did that happen?

277
00:21:04,240 --> 00:21:08,280
- So they were lying here...
- On here?
- On this.
- So you lie on top of here?

278
00:21:08,280 --> 00:21:13,840
Yeah, you must imagine that there were cushions. Pillows. Yeah.
279
00:21:13,840 --> 00:21:16,000
And then there were the servants

280
00:21:16,000 --> 00:21:17,800
bringing food, bringing drinks

281
00:21:17,800 --> 00:21:20,720
and also I believe that over there,

282
00:21:20,720 --> 00:21:23,640
there was a place for the emperor,

283
00:21:23,640 --> 00:21:26,520
because that was the best place.

284
00:21:26,520 --> 00:21:31,120
Imagine Hadrian, what kind of nice garden parties he was having here.

285
00:21:31,120 --> 00:21:34,080
- Yeah, yeah.
- Really something exceptional.

286
00:21:34,080 --> 00:21:39,120
And the lake and the water itself, would they have had boats or anything like that?

287
00:21:39,120 --> 00:21:44,440
There were small boats, with people having feasts and orgies,

288
00:21:44,440 --> 00:21:47,240
but mainly the beauty of the lake

289
00:21:47,240 --> 00:21:50,040
was the reflection of the landscape.

290
00:21:50,040 --> 00:21:54,720
You must imagine also a dinner party in the evening with candlelight.

291
00:21:54,720 --> 00:21:58,880
With just the sound of music, dancers.

292
00:21:58,880 --> 00:22:03,640
It was really something beautiful to see, and something impressive.

293
00:22:03,640 --> 00:22:06,600
No, I'm impressed. Definitely.

294
00:22:15,000 --> 00:22:17,920
Now, round the back of these seating areas is a doorway

295
00:22:17,920 --> 00:22:20,480
and the public aren't allowed in here, but they've let me in

296
00:22:20,480 --> 00:22:23,560
because it leads to the emperor's private quarters,

297
00:22:23,560 --> 00:22:26,200
and presumably there were guards in here.

298
00:22:30,920 --> 00:22:36,000
Now, this is where Hadrian would have his dinner, so all his guests

299
00:22:36,000 --> 00:22:39,600
reclining down below, and remember these are just the selected few,

300
00:22:39,600 --> 00:22:44,800
but he was on his own up here, and there was water and a pool here,

301
00:22:44,800 --> 00:22:48,560
and in the alcoves you've got gods, you've got statues.

302
00:22:48,560 --> 00:22:50,840
Now, you have to imagine this lined with marble,

303
00:22:50,840 --> 00:22:54,280
so light spangling off the walls, white marble,

304
00:22:54,280 --> 00:22:58,520
and this god-like emperor bathed in a halo of light.

305
00:22:58,520 --> 00:23:03,280
And it would have been really powerful stuff, so that the garden,

306
00:23:03,280 --> 00:23:07,440
the emperor, delicious food and song and entertainment and light, water,

307
00:23:07,440 --> 00:23:12,760
all coming together and you can see, if you take that leap of imagination

308
00:23:12,760 --> 00:23:14,880
and then apply it to the Renaissance

309
00:23:14,880 --> 00:23:18,200
and these powerful cardinals, they want some of that magic.

310
00:23:18,200 --> 00:23:20,440
They want Hadrian's magic, best of all.

311
00:23:34,640 --> 00:23:36,280
1,400 years later,

312
00:23:36,280 --> 00:23:41,560
one man set out to recapture the emperor's magic with his garden,

313
00:23:41,560 --> 00:23:44,160
or even to outreach it.

314
00:23:44,160 --> 00:23:48,120
The setting for this is just a mile up the hill from Hadrian's villa,

315
00:23:48,120 --> 00:23:50,080
in the small town of Tivoli.

316
00:23:59,200 --> 00:24:01,360
The garden I'm about to visit

317
00:24:01,360 --> 00:24:08,360
was made by the most powerful, the most ambitious and the richest of all that pack of
powerful cardinals

318
00:24:08,360 --> 00:24:10,960
that were milling around the papacy

319
00:24:10,960 --> 00:24:14,520
and he was given the governorship of Tivoli as a reward.

320
00:24:14,520 --> 00:24:17,560
But it was a double-edged sword, because it kept him out of Rome.

321
00:24:17,560 --> 00:24:23,280
And he poured his wealth and his ambition and, to some extent his frustration, into his
garden.

322
00:24:25,800 --> 00:24:29,200
This man was Cardinal Ippolito d'Este,

323
00:24:29,200 --> 00:24:33,560
and his garden harnessed water and made it dance and perform

324
00:24:33,560 --> 00:24:36,320
like no other before or since.

325
00:25:01,000 --> 00:25:04,520
I've been to Villa d'Este a few times before.

326
00:25:04,520 --> 00:25:07,760
You come in from the top but originally, it was designed

327
00:25:07,760 --> 00:25:13,240
to arrive at the bottom of the garden, and then the visitor would slowly climb up this
hill,

328
00:25:13,240 --> 00:25:16,240
amazed at all the wonders they were seeing and thoroughly puffed

329
00:25:16,240 --> 00:25:18,440
by the time they reached the top.

330
00:25:18,440 --> 00:25:22,760
And that's how it was originally designed, so that it would unfold and reveal itself
and, by the time

331
00:25:22,760 --> 00:25:28,880
you reached the top, which is where the cardinal would have been, you were in a state
of breathless awe.

332
00:25:32,680 --> 00:25:34,560
Cardinal d'Este had vast wealth,

333
00:25:34,560 --> 00:25:37,520
and an overwhelming desire to become pope.

334
00:25:37,520 --> 00:25:40,800
When he failed in his first attempt in 1549,

335
00:25:40,800 --> 00:25:45,720
he hired Rome's most distinguished architect, Pirro Ligorio,

336
00:25:45,720 --> 00:25:50,560
to create the biggest and most ambitious water garden since Hadrian's villa.

337
00:25:52,080 --> 00:25:57,080
Ligorio demolished whole streets to make room for the garden on the steep hillside,

338
00:25:57,080 --> 00:26:02,080
and built a sophisticated system to bring water from a nearby aqueduct.

339
00:26:02,080 --> 00:26:08,280
In today's money, all this would cost a cool £100 million.

340
00:26:10,760 --> 00:26:14,000
But this wasn't just a matter of d'Este displaying his wealth

341
00:26:14,000 --> 00:26:16,680
and artistic taste, although it was certainly that.

342
00:26:16,680 --> 00:26:21,760
He also intended to impress visitors with the depth of his scientific knowledge.

343
00:26:21,760 --> 00:26:26,800
And these were truly astonishing feats of hydro-engineering.

344
00:26:39,320 --> 00:26:42,920
The scale of the water is just ridiculous, really.

345
00:26:42,920 --> 00:26:47,880
Miles over the top, but what d'Este did was re-channel the water supplying the town,

346
00:26:47,880 --> 00:26:52,440
and took a third of it - a third of the town's water supply -

347
00:26:52,440 --> 00:26:57,480
to make his garden, so having done that, then he was determined

348
00:26:57,480 --> 00:27:00,800
to do something big with it,

349
00:27:00,800 --> 00:27:04,320
so he had an enormous hydro-technical display

350
00:27:04,320 --> 00:27:07,520
and it still remains the most impressive I've ever seen,

351
00:27:07,520 --> 00:27:11,000
and it all comes from one source, and there's no pumps at all.

352
00:27:11,000 --> 00:27:15,160
The whole thing is powered by pressure, so they knew what they were up to.

353
00:27:28,120 --> 00:27:29,880
By studying Villa Adriana,

354
00:27:29,880 --> 00:27:32,880
Renaissance architects re-discovered ways of taming water

355
00:27:32,880 --> 00:27:36,760
that had been lost for a thousand years.

356
00:27:36,760 --> 00:27:41,000
They found they could control the water's speed and movement using

357
00:27:41,000 --> 00:27:44,960
different size pipes and spouts and, with this new knowledge,

358
00:27:44,960 --> 00:27:47,480
the artistic ambition of gardens

359
00:27:47,480 --> 00:27:51,480
rose to new and astonishing creative heights.

360
00:27:55,200 --> 00:27:58,960
This is the Terrace of 100 Fountains.

361
00:27:58,960 --> 00:28:00,560
Took five years to make.

362
00:28:02,080 --> 00:28:07,760
It uses water that comes from a single source, no pump, all the fountains have the same
velocity,

363
00:28:07,760 --> 00:28:12,520
the same rhythm, the same sound, and it builds up as we walk along.

364
00:28:12,520 --> 00:28:15,320
It's like a musical instrument.

365
00:28:29,160 --> 00:28:32,800
Now, poor old Cardinal d'Este, he hardly saw this.

366
00:28:32,800 --> 00:28:37,240
It took five years at the end of his life and then was completed,

367
00:28:37,240 --> 00:28:39,960
and behind this beauty is a nagging pain for him,

368
00:28:39,960 --> 00:28:43,840
because the three layers of water represent rivers leading to Rome,

369
00:28:43,840 --> 00:28:50,160
and of course, that's where d'Este wasn't, and that's where d'Este most of all wanted
to be.

370
00:28:54,960 --> 00:28:57,760
In the two decades it took to construct his garden,

371
00:28:57,760 --> 00:29:03,720
Cardinal d'Este made five failed bids for the papal throne.

372
00:29:03,720 --> 00:29:07,560
At every setback, his garden got grander and grander,

373
00:29:07,560 --> 00:29:11,280
and the coded messages it sent out became ever more pointed.

374
00:29:14,040 --> 00:29:15,920
The waters of the 100 Fountains

375
00:29:15,920 --> 00:29:21,240
flow down here to a garden called Rometta and the story behind it is

376
00:29:21,240 --> 00:29:25,320
that the Pope forbade Cardinal d'Este to build a palace in Rome,

377
00:29:25,320 --> 00:29:28,360
because he knew that he would challenge his power,

378
00:29:28,360 --> 00:29:30,720
so d'Este petulantly said,

379
00:29:30,720 --> 00:29:34,240
"OK, I can't have my palace in Rome,

380
00:29:34,240 --> 00:29:37,160
"I'll have Rome in my palace"

381
00:29:37,160 --> 00:29:39,320
And so he built a model of Rome.

382
00:29:41,480 --> 00:29:45,120
Rometta was originally more than twice its current size,

383
00:29:45,120 --> 00:29:48,080
but most of it was demolished in the 19th century.

384
00:29:48,080 --> 00:29:50,000
However, in the 16th century,

385
00:29:50,000 --> 00:29:54,520
d'Este's guests would have been able to see an elaborate model

386
00:29:54,520 --> 00:29:58,880
encompassing the whole of Rome, and thus the power of the papacy

387
00:29:58,880 --> 00:30:02,800
in his garden, with its own Pantheon and a Coliseum,

388
00:30:02,800 --> 00:30:06,160
and they certainly would have understood the message intended

389
00:30:06,160 --> 00:30:10,960
by this statue of Romulus and Remus, the founding fathers of Rome.

390
00:30:12,920 --> 00:30:15,280
I think what this garden really displays -

391
00:30:15,280 --> 00:30:20,200
they didn't really go for meditative calm or obvious floral beauty in the way that we
do.

392
00:30:20,200 --> 00:30:23,800
What they wanted were fun and games, they wanted drama,

393
00:30:23,800 --> 00:30:26,240
and apparently this was d'Este's favourite bit of the garden,
394
00:30:26,240 --> 00:30:30,720
and he used to put on theatrical performances here and there were all sorts of things
going on.

395
00:30:30,720 --> 00:30:35,720
There were fountains, there was allegory, there are people prancing about dressed up,
no doubt.

396
00:30:35,720 --> 00:30:39,120
The whole thing is busy with drama, and that's the way they liked it.

397
00:30:42,600 --> 00:30:46,680
The simplicity, symmetry and harmony of early Renaissance gardens

398
00:30:46,680 --> 00:30:51,240
were being replaced by a new fashion for the dramatic.

399
00:30:51,240 --> 00:30:56,600
Gardens now engaged and entertained the visitor with spectacular,

400
00:30:56,600 --> 00:31:01,240
highly theatrical displays, and there was a new spirit of playfulness,

401
00:31:01,240 --> 00:31:04,640
with a constant intent to surprise and delight,

402
00:31:04,640 --> 00:31:09,600
typically with water jokes, designed to give you a good soaking when you were least
expecting it.

403
00:31:16,360 --> 00:31:19,680
This fountain, by the way, is meant to surprise you.

404
00:31:19,680 --> 00:31:22,640
It suddenly springs up and I have actually been here before when

405
00:31:22,640 --> 00:31:26,840
it became even more playful, so it may happen any minute.

406
00:31:26,840 --> 00:31:31,120
But the whole point was to have jokes. Gardens were places to delight, and surprise,

407
00:31:31,120 --> 00:31:35,760
and amaze and entertain you, and if you'd got money,

408
00:31:35,760 --> 00:31:39,240
then of course that entertainment can get very elaborate indeed,

409
00:31:39,240 --> 00:31:42,680
and this whole square can fill with water.
410
00:31:44,360 --> 00:31:48,640
To the modern eye, d'Este's garden seems somewhat kitsch and garish,

411
00:31:48,640 --> 00:31:53,360
but this was a world where moneyed good taste ran easily

412
00:31:53,360 --> 00:31:55,920
from Palestrina masses and Michelangelo

413
00:31:55,920 --> 00:31:58,240
to musical water fountains.

414
00:32:01,160 --> 00:32:04,960
There's a common perception that Cardinal d'Este built this garden

415
00:32:04,960 --> 00:32:10,600
out of anger and frustration because he couldn't be pope, but I think, I'm not sure
that's right.

416
00:32:10,600 --> 00:32:15,440
I think that, obviously, he did want to be pope and he was very cross about it,

417
00:32:15,440 --> 00:32:20,240
but I think the really interesting thing is that he lived in an age

418
00:32:20,240 --> 00:32:22,640
when very powerful, very rich men

419
00:32:22,640 --> 00:32:26,960
expressed that power and that creative energy

420
00:32:26,960 --> 00:32:29,520
by building a garden.

421
00:32:29,520 --> 00:32:33,720
I mean, just as now an oligarch buy himself a football team

422
00:32:33,720 --> 00:32:39,120
or a newspaper, it seems to be that it was acceptable to make a garden,

423
00:32:39,120 --> 00:32:41,640
and that would impress other rich men.

424
00:32:41,640 --> 00:32:46,000
And so what we have is a flowering, where wealth and power

425
00:32:46,000 --> 00:32:50,200
expressed itself in gardens, and I can't think of another age when that was true.

426
00:32:57,760 --> 00:33:01,560
Despite all his wealth and all his power,

427
00:33:01,560 --> 00:33:05,160
d'Este ran up huge debts creating his garden,

428
00:33:05,160 --> 00:33:07,800
and he never did become pope.

429
00:33:13,560 --> 00:33:18,880
Back in the centre of Rome, the Borghese Gardens were originally built for the Borghese
family

430
00:33:18,880 --> 00:33:25,160
in Renaissance times, but are today managed by the state, and are the city's most
popular public space.

431
00:33:35,200 --> 00:33:38,800
There are a few great public gardens in Rome, and my favourite of these,

432
00:33:38,800 --> 00:33:42,120
the ones at Villa Borghese, come here on a Sunday -

433
00:33:42,120 --> 00:33:47,360
I'm losing my ice cream - or a Bank Holiday, they're packed,

434
00:33:47,360 --> 00:33:53,040
mainly with local people using them, playing, enjoying, walking in these exquisite
gardens.

435
00:33:56,360 --> 00:34:00,200
It's just a lovely place to come and relax with the local Romans,

436
00:34:00,200 --> 00:34:04,040
and it's certainly worlds apart from the Rome of 500 years ago.

437
00:34:04,040 --> 00:34:10,320
The confidence and even arrogance displayed by the 16th-century cardinals through their
gardens

438
00:34:10,320 --> 00:34:16,880
superficially exudes a sense of invincibility, but in fact, it was a turbulent and
uneasy period.

439
00:34:16,880 --> 00:34:20,360
Just a few years earlier, Rome had endured one of the worst traumas

440
00:34:20,360 --> 00:34:26,320
of its entire history at the hands of the Holy Roman emperor, the Spanish King Charles
V.

441
00:34:27,840 --> 00:34:32,440
It's all too easy to build up this picture of high Renaissance Rome
442
00:34:32,440 --> 00:34:36,600
as this glorious place, untroubled, with great and grand men in control,

443
00:34:36,600 --> 00:34:40,720
but in fact in 1527, there was the Sack of Rome,

444
00:34:40,720 --> 00:34:46,840
and 30,000 troops of Charles V came in and pillaged and raped

445
00:34:46,840 --> 00:34:48,720
and destroyed the city.

446
00:34:48,720 --> 00:34:50,200
Beautiful gardens were lost,

447
00:34:50,200 --> 00:34:54,360
buildings burnt down and that wasn't just a loss of material,

448
00:34:54,360 --> 00:34:56,520
it was a crisis of confidence,

449
00:34:56,520 --> 00:35:01,520
and all these great cardinals and leaders, with their money and their power,

450
00:35:01,520 --> 00:35:04,800
knew that they could lose the whole thing at a stroke.

451
00:35:04,800 --> 00:35:08,160
Life was very tenuous,

452
00:35:08,160 --> 00:35:13,280
and the next garden I'm going to tells that very vividly and graphically,

453
00:35:13,280 --> 00:35:17,520
all in a relatively small garden, tucked away in woodland.

454
00:35:23,560 --> 00:35:26,680
The garden I'm about to see is unlike any other.

455
00:35:29,040 --> 00:35:33,240
And certainly completely different from the other great gardens of the age.

456
00:35:35,800 --> 00:35:41,400
To get to it, I'm heading back north again, to a small hilltop town not far from
Caprarola called Bomarzo.

457
00:35:46,840 --> 00:35:50,680
The town is dominated by a large palace

458
00:35:50,680 --> 00:35:54,480
belonging to the noble and ancient Orsini family.

459
00:35:54,480 --> 00:35:57,880
In 1552, one of the family created

460
00:35:57,880 --> 00:36:01,280
a Renaissance garden like no other.

461
00:36:01,280 --> 00:36:03,080
But it's separate from the palace,

462
00:36:03,080 --> 00:36:06,320
down in the valley below, hidden within a nearby wood.

463
00:36:13,840 --> 00:36:18,400
This is the Sacro Bosco, or sacred wood, and everything about

464
00:36:18,400 --> 00:36:24,840
it is completely different from the other great gardens of the period.

465
00:36:24,840 --> 00:36:28,120
Harmony and symmetry are replaced by twisting pathways.

466
00:36:29,640 --> 00:36:35,400
It's full of fantasies and visions that loom out of the trees,

467
00:36:35,400 --> 00:36:38,840
and for an age that believed absolutely in goblins,

468
00:36:38,840 --> 00:36:44,560
ghosts and woodland sprites, they are spiced with real horror.

469
00:36:52,680 --> 00:36:55,240
If you think of the more conventional gardens,

470
00:36:55,240 --> 00:36:58,840
they're laid out, they're imposed on the landscape.

471
00:36:58,840 --> 00:37:02,880
Streets are moved, areas are flattened, water is brought in

472
00:37:02,880 --> 00:37:08,320
by aqueducts, an enormous effort to bring mankind to dominate it.

473
00:37:08,320 --> 00:37:14,200
But you can't help having a feeling here that they walked round, had a look at it, saw
the trees,

474
00:37:14,200 --> 00:37:17,920
saw these enormous lumps of rock and thought, "Oh, we could do something with that"
475
00:37:17,920 --> 00:37:21,840
and it is extraordinary that these great lumps of stone like this

476
00:37:21,840 --> 00:37:25,440
were just there, and they hacked into it on the spot.

477
00:37:34,520 --> 00:37:37,560
The Sacro Bosco was created by Duke Vicino Orsini.

478
00:37:37,560 --> 00:37:41,320
The Orsini family had included three popes and dozens of cardinals,

479
00:37:41,320 --> 00:37:46,840
but Vicino Orsini was a man of action - a soldier and a poet,

480
00:37:46,840 --> 00:37:49,600
as well as being distinctly hard-up.

481
00:37:49,600 --> 00:37:53,080
He married into the wealthy Farnese family, which did enable him

482
00:37:53,080 --> 00:37:56,240
to make the garden, but his resources remains limited.

483
00:37:56,240 --> 00:38:01,280
However, although his garden lacked in elaborate engineering or architecture,

484
00:38:01,280 --> 00:38:03,600
he loaded it with anarchic riddles

485
00:38:03,600 --> 00:38:07,400
and visual puns which no-one has ever fully deciphered.

486
00:38:20,080 --> 00:38:23,440
At the garden's heart is a giant mouth of hell.

487
00:38:23,440 --> 00:38:26,160
It's a reference to Dante's Inferno,

488
00:38:26,160 --> 00:38:32,000
but the inscription advises the visitor to abandon all "thought", rather than hope.

489
00:38:32,000 --> 00:38:36,440
There is this grotesque mouth with nostrils like cannons,

490
00:38:36,440 --> 00:38:40,440
and it's like a child going, "Grrrr!"

491
00:38:40,440 --> 00:38:42,440
And then when you go inside,

492
00:38:43,960 --> 00:38:46,880
it's rather charming. It's like a little picnic house.

493
00:38:49,960 --> 00:38:54,840
And you can imagine the Duke and his chums coming down here

494
00:38:54,840 --> 00:38:59,680
and having a bottle of wine and some cheese in this cool,

495
00:38:59,680 --> 00:39:02,000
rather elegant room.

496
00:39:02,000 --> 00:39:05,800
There is a building in the garden -

497
00:39:05,800 --> 00:39:11,280
a solid two-storey house, but it leans drunkenly into the hillside.

498
00:39:12,800 --> 00:39:14,680
Ooh.

499
00:39:14,680 --> 00:39:20,200
It has been suggested that it symbolises the collapsing fortunes of the house of
Orsini.

500
00:39:33,600 --> 00:39:37,280
The house has been built at a slope.

501
00:39:37,280 --> 00:39:39,440
It's leaning.

502
00:39:39,440 --> 00:39:42,880
It's falling, and certainly the 16th-century visitor

503
00:39:42,880 --> 00:39:47,280
would've appreciated the pun on house, household, family,

504
00:39:47,280 --> 00:39:51,680
the name, you know, at a tilt.

505
00:39:51,680 --> 00:39:57,240
And of course, one of the ironies is that this falling, leaning house

506
00:39:57,240 --> 00:40:00,360
is still standing strong after 500 years.

507
00:40:00,360 --> 00:40:04,920
Try and stand up, and I get the wobblies.
508
00:40:04,920 --> 00:40:07,680
Really, really weird!

509
00:40:14,360 --> 00:40:18,280
What I absolutely love is the green.

510
00:40:18,280 --> 00:40:22,480
The way that you go from earth to stone to tree,

511
00:40:22,480 --> 00:40:27,320
with this one green that goes up through it and then, you know, a sculpture comes along
too,

512
00:40:27,320 --> 00:40:29,800
but wood and natural stone and ground and sculpture

513
00:40:29,800 --> 00:40:33,280
all become part of the same thing, and that's just lovely.

514
00:40:33,280 --> 00:40:37,480
Presumably it wasn't like that when it was made, of course.

515
00:40:37,480 --> 00:40:40,920
Again, it's where time changes the garden for the better.

516
00:40:44,720 --> 00:40:47,880
It certainly would've originally looked very different,

517
00:40:47,880 --> 00:40:52,560
because all these beautiful, mossy and weather-worn sculptures

518
00:40:52,560 --> 00:40:56,280
would originally have been painted in bright, gaudy colours.

519
00:41:02,000 --> 00:41:05,840
Look how lovely this is. It's a good gardening lesson.

520
00:41:05,840 --> 00:41:10,560
If you want moss, you've got to have poor drainage, ie stone or bark,

521
00:41:10,560 --> 00:41:13,600
shade and water and then it'll flourish.

522
00:41:23,720 --> 00:41:25,840
Orsini was a soldier of fortune.

523
00:41:25,840 --> 00:41:30,240
A mercenary, fighting for the Pope amongst others,

524
00:41:30,240 --> 00:41:33,960
so it's no surprise that one of his main themes is the abuse of power.

525
00:41:33,960 --> 00:41:38,160
Here, the colossal figure of Hercules takes his righteous,

526
00:41:38,160 --> 00:41:44,120
if deservingly rapacious revenge on Cacus, who has stolen his cattle.

527
00:41:44,120 --> 00:41:46,880
And one message comes through loud and clear

528
00:41:46,880 --> 00:41:52,360
in this garden, which is that Orsini is challenging the over-weening confidence and
pride

529
00:41:52,360 --> 00:41:55,880
displayed in the grand gardens of Rome's ruling class.

530
00:41:57,880 --> 00:42:00,200
I think this garden -

531
00:42:00,200 --> 00:42:05,280
it's almost a revolt against the attempt to apply order

532
00:42:05,280 --> 00:42:09,160
that the Renaissance had done to gardens and life in general.

533
00:42:11,280 --> 00:42:14,000
This idea that if you make everything symmetrical, then somehow life will become
controlled.

534
00:42:14,000 --> 00:42:17,440
And what Orsini's doing here, I think, he's saying,

535
00:42:17,440 --> 00:42:19,720
"Well, life isn't like that."

536
00:42:19,720 --> 00:42:22,400
Life is uncontrollable and strange, and there's war and there's violence

537
00:42:22,400 --> 00:42:27,680
and, you know, you can be married and you love your wife, but you can have lots of
lovers, which he did.

538
00:42:27,680 --> 00:42:33,560
You can lust after other people, you can...be a man of peace and of art,

539
00:42:33,560 --> 00:42:36,880
but go to war and kill people.

540
00:42:36,880 --> 00:42:41,560
And it's almost a stab at early psychology,

541
00:42:41,560 --> 00:42:43,480
and so he's built this place,

542
00:42:43,480 --> 00:42:47,120
which has some beauty, but then suddenly...

543
00:42:47,120 --> 00:42:49,960
looming out of the mist is a monster,

544
00:42:49,960 --> 00:42:53,000
a monster of the imagination, and I suspect that's a bit too

545
00:42:53,000 --> 00:42:55,800
fanciful, trying to interpret the whole thing in that way,

546
00:42:55,800 --> 00:42:58,640
but certainly, that element seems to be here.

547
00:43:01,480 --> 00:43:07,880
In the end, Bomarzo remains an enigma, and rightly so.

548
00:43:08,840 --> 00:43:13,800
It's a beautiful and disturbing tangle that would be diminished if it were unravelled.

549
00:43:22,160 --> 00:43:26,640
Bomarzo's eccentricity was a reaction against the pretension and pomp of the cardinals,

550
00:43:26,640 --> 00:43:30,960
and they were becoming political loose cannons,

551
00:43:30,960 --> 00:43:33,720
hell-bent on creating increasingly ostentatious gardens.

552
00:43:39,920 --> 00:43:44,800
I'm now heading 12 miles south of Rome, to the town of Frascati.

553
00:43:49,760 --> 00:43:53,800
Its cooler climate made it a popular spot for the cardinals to escape Rome's burning
heat

554
00:43:53,800 --> 00:43:57,240
and build their summer villas.

555
00:43:57,240 --> 00:43:59,720
And this, of course, meant making gardens.

556
00:44:02,280 --> 00:44:05,760
But there was a major problem -
557
00:44:05,760 --> 00:44:07,280
insufficient water.

558
00:44:07,280 --> 00:44:11,360
The fashion for ambitious water features, like those of Villa d'Este,

559
00:44:11,360 --> 00:44:14,040
were literally running Frascati dry.

560
00:44:14,040 --> 00:44:18,120
The battle over water rights that followed was highly un-Christian.

561
00:44:19,640 --> 00:44:23,120
We think of cardinals as being good men,

562
00:44:23,120 --> 00:44:26,680
holy men, but actually, power corrupted them spectacularly

563
00:44:26,680 --> 00:44:29,480
throughout this period,

564
00:44:29,480 --> 00:44:32,720
and some of them were warlords, they were murderers, they were robbers.

565
00:44:32,720 --> 00:44:36,560
Every venial sin they could commit, they had a go at it.

566
00:44:36,560 --> 00:44:42,240
And in fact, they used to scupper each other's gardens by destroying the water supply.

567
00:44:42,240 --> 00:44:45,640
If you couldn't have water, you couldn't have a decent garden.

568
00:44:49,040 --> 00:44:52,680
In 1598, Pope Clement VIII gave his nephew,

569
00:44:52,680 --> 00:44:56,640
Cardinal Pietro Aldobrandini, this site,

570
00:44:56,640 --> 00:45:01,360
dominating the town, on which to build himself a villa,

571
00:45:01,360 --> 00:45:05,160
and critically he also provided the money - 50,000 scudi,

572
00:45:05,160 --> 00:45:07,600
£5m at today's value,

573
00:45:07,600 --> 00:45:09,640
to fund a brand new aqueduct
574
00:45:09,640 --> 00:45:14,000
that gave the town a reliable water supply, but only after the garden

575
00:45:14,000 --> 00:45:15,720
had taken its fill.

576
00:45:26,920 --> 00:45:29,040
I arrive on hedge-trimming day.

577
00:45:29,040 --> 00:45:33,040
The Italians are invariably expert when it comes to pruning trees.

578
00:45:33,040 --> 00:45:34,840
This 200-yard-long tunnelled avenue,

579
00:45:34,840 --> 00:45:37,520
whose exterior has been clipped

580
00:45:37,520 --> 00:45:40,040
to a monstrous hedge,

581
00:45:40,040 --> 00:45:43,560
is, I think, topiary at its finest.

582
00:45:43,560 --> 00:45:48,400
From the outside, this looks like a solid block of hedge.

583
00:45:48,400 --> 00:45:51,880
Now, from the inside, these are great big trees,

584
00:45:51,880 --> 00:45:56,800
and I'm pretty sure they were planted as a hedge and they've been allowed to grow out
massively for,

585
00:45:56,800 --> 00:45:59,760
I don't know, 100 years or something, I suspect,

586
00:45:59,760 --> 00:46:02,200
and then have been clipped back, so what you have is a halfway house.

587
00:46:02,200 --> 00:46:06,640
You've got great oak trees and inside all the bones showing,

588
00:46:06,640 --> 00:46:09,880
like the inside of a beached whale

589
00:46:09,880 --> 00:46:14,040
and then on the outside, this box front of foliage...

590
00:46:15,560 --> 00:46:18,080
..and only time will bring this.

591
00:46:18,080 --> 00:46:22,480
Only time and neglect can make something as beautiful as this.

592
00:46:32,040 --> 00:46:37,400
The heavy skies open, and the rain sends me on up to the shelter of the villa.

593
00:46:37,400 --> 00:46:40,720
This was given to Cardinal Aldobrandini as a reward

594
00:46:40,720 --> 00:46:43,480
for negotiating a peace treaty with France.

595
00:46:43,480 --> 00:46:45,640
It was an extremely generous gift,

596
00:46:45,640 --> 00:46:50,200
and also a canny one because popes aren't allowed to own property.

597
00:46:50,200 --> 00:46:54,360
So it was a way that Clement was able to keep it in the family.

598
00:46:54,360 --> 00:46:58,240
The peace treaty gave Rome control of the key town of Ferrara,

599
00:46:58,240 --> 00:47:02,280
along with a sizeable chunk of the d'Este family fortune.

600
00:47:02,280 --> 00:47:06,720
These spoils allowed Aldobrandini to create a villa and a garden

601
00:47:06,720 --> 00:47:10,360
to outshine all those of his Frascati neighbours.

602
00:47:10,360 --> 00:47:14,040
The villa isn't usually open to the public,

603
00:47:14,040 --> 00:47:18,560
so it's a rare privilege to be allowed inside.

604
00:47:18,560 --> 00:47:21,920
Inside the villa is a painting

605
00:47:21,920 --> 00:47:25,040
of Cardinal Aldobrandini.

606
00:47:26,880 --> 00:47:30,800
And there he is - a surprisingly young man really.
607
00:47:30,800 --> 00:47:36,960
Apparently, he was a man of great power and intellect and organisational skills...

608
00:47:36,960 --> 00:47:40,120
and this was all made for him.

609
00:47:48,800 --> 00:47:53,480
By the time Cardinal Aldobrandini came to build his villa,

610
00:47:53,480 --> 00:47:56,440
a new movement had replaced the Renaissance.

611
00:47:56,440 --> 00:47:58,240
This was the Baroque.

612
00:48:02,160 --> 00:48:05,240
Baroque was a style of architecture

613
00:48:05,240 --> 00:48:09,480
and garden design that was dramatic, elaborate, triumphant

614
00:48:09,480 --> 00:48:14,200
and very confident, and was underpinned by the desire

615
00:48:14,200 --> 00:48:19,120
to re-assert the supremacy of the Catholic Church over Protestant enemies.

616
00:48:24,840 --> 00:48:29,160
One of the interesting things when you look at gardens is that you obviously do your
homework.

617
00:48:29,160 --> 00:48:32,960
You see photographs, you look at books...but nothing,

618
00:48:32,960 --> 00:48:35,520
nothing prepares you for the reality.

619
00:48:37,480 --> 00:48:41,160
And, of course, the honest response

620
00:48:41,160 --> 00:48:43,600
is to be flabbergasted.

621
00:48:43,600 --> 00:48:46,840
Can't really think of anything sensible to say,

622
00:48:46,840 --> 00:48:49,640
because just the scale of the thing...

623
00:48:52,640 --> 00:48:55,920
Whilst at first glance, the water theatre might seem to be decorated

624
00:48:55,920 --> 00:49:00,520
with a series of anonymous mythical characters from classical Rome,

625
00:49:00,520 --> 00:49:05,080
it is in fact a celebration of papal ,power and the Aldobrandini name...

626
00:49:05,080 --> 00:49:11,680
with a symbolism all of their contemporaries would have recognised immediately.

627
00:49:11,680 --> 00:49:15,720
So Atlas bearing the world on his shoulders represents Pope Clement...

628
00:49:18,200 --> 00:49:21,480
and at his feet, triumphantly rising out of the sea,

629
00:49:21,480 --> 00:49:24,840
is the heroic head of Hercules,

630
00:49:24,840 --> 00:49:28,120
symbolising Cardinal Aldobrandini.

631
00:49:30,240 --> 00:49:35,560
They loved this idea of masque, which was one-off theatre.

632
00:49:35,560 --> 00:49:41,800
Enormously expensive, put on as a performance to impress those in power. And this is
what this is.

633
00:49:46,080 --> 00:49:50,200
It's gardening as grand display for a select few,

634
00:49:50,200 --> 00:49:53,240
and it's very symbolic that it's not open to the public.

635
00:49:53,240 --> 00:49:58,840
It's still just you and I looking at this and a handful of other people, and the
performance is for us.

636
00:50:10,280 --> 00:50:14,760
Above the water theatre, a cascade flows and bounces down steps

637
00:50:14,760 --> 00:50:16,840
to the balustrade below,

638
00:50:16,840 --> 00:50:20,320
with a tall pair of columns flanking it.

639
00:50:29,960 --> 00:50:33,560
It was designed so that it is wider at the top,
640
00:50:33,560 --> 00:50:37,000
and the foreshortening makes it appear steeper and more dramatic,

641
00:50:37,000 --> 00:50:39,120
especially when viewed from the villa.

642
00:50:44,960 --> 00:50:49,320
Pietro Aldobrandini and his guests would look across

643
00:50:49,320 --> 00:50:52,480
and applaud the water spiralling down the columns into the balustrades

644
00:50:52,480 --> 00:50:54,400
either side of the cascade,

645
00:50:54,400 --> 00:50:58,960
and then down into the theatre as a performance and spectacle

646
00:50:58,960 --> 00:51:02,080
as dramatic and entertaining as any opera.

647
00:51:06,440 --> 00:51:10,200
The cascade as it stands is impressive.

648
00:51:10,200 --> 00:51:13,520
A roar of water coming down, but actually it's only half the action,

649
00:51:13,520 --> 00:51:17,720
because the two columns at the top have got spirals,

650
00:51:17,720 --> 00:51:22,760
and originally water came out the top, worked its way round,

651
00:51:22,760 --> 00:51:24,720
came splashing down,

652
00:51:24,720 --> 00:51:28,560
spilling into the pool below.

653
00:51:33,400 --> 00:51:35,520
And so you had the central cascade,

654
00:51:35,520 --> 00:51:39,200
you had the spirals at the top whizzing around like firecrackers

655
00:51:39,200 --> 00:51:42,400
made out of water, and then the balustrades coming over the edge.

656
00:51:42,400 --> 00:51:48,640
So the whole thing... was wildly over the top, very kitsch and probably really good
fun.

657
00:51:54,720 --> 00:51:58,600
Huh! Here we go.

658
00:51:58,600 --> 00:52:03,000
You see the channel...

659
00:52:03,000 --> 00:52:06,320
that comes round, it's really quite big.

660
00:52:06,320 --> 00:52:11,120
So quite a lot of water would come down here, picking up speed as it went, throwing
light onto the mosaic

661
00:52:11,120 --> 00:52:14,520
and coming down to go down these balustrades and...

662
00:52:16,120 --> 00:52:21,400
the important thing is that you have that fantastic aspect of the villa,

663
00:52:21,400 --> 00:52:25,600
that they have a brilliant view of what's going on, particularly from the top,

664
00:52:25,600 --> 00:52:29,120
which was the viewing platform for the cardinal and his friends,

665
00:52:29,120 --> 00:52:34,320
because it wasn't just the theatre down below they wanted to see, but also this.

666
00:52:35,840 --> 00:52:39,760
Up here on this level is as much again, if not more.

667
00:52:47,320 --> 00:52:51,040
The top of the garden has been derelict since the Second World War,

668
00:52:51,040 --> 00:52:56,960
when it was badly damaged by American bombers during the Allied invasion.

669
00:52:56,960 --> 00:52:58,800
That's enchanting.

670
00:53:02,480 --> 00:53:06,840
This is the only grand papal garden not owned by the state.

671
00:53:06,840 --> 00:53:08,520
It remains in private hands,

672
00:53:10,560 --> 00:53:15,840
still owned and still lived in by the Aldobrandini family.
673
00:53:15,840 --> 00:53:19,720
Looking after a garden and villa like this is a mammoth undertaking,

674
00:53:19,720 --> 00:53:23,040
however, the current owner Prince Camillo Aldobrandini

675
00:53:23,040 --> 00:53:27,720
is embarking on the formidable job of restoration.

676
00:53:27,720 --> 00:53:29,920
Well, you see, there is some scaffolding

677
00:53:31,440 --> 00:53:38,200
and we are hoping to make a quite important work of restoration, especially for the
fountains,

678
00:53:38,200 --> 00:53:41,800
which are in a very bad state.

679
00:53:41,800 --> 00:53:46,360
- It was bombed during the war.
- Yeah.

680
00:53:46,360 --> 00:53:50,520
My father restored it, but having new cement, it's now in a very bad state.

681
00:53:52,040 --> 00:53:55,120
Everything has to be repaired again.

682
00:53:55,120 --> 00:53:57,080
- And of course, the water...
- Yes.

683
00:53:57,080 --> 00:54:00,720
..is a huge issue because it's still quite a big thing

684
00:54:00,720 --> 00:54:04,680
- to have that water running, isn't it?
- Yes. We have an aqueduct,

685
00:54:04,680 --> 00:54:07,960
actually, and the water then was used for this villa,

686
00:54:07,960 --> 00:54:11,520
and we sell the water to the villages around here.

687
00:54:13,040 --> 00:54:16,160
Right. So does the garden always have a good supply of water?

688
00:54:16,160 --> 00:54:20,560
No. There are some moments in autumn when there is no water in the fountains.

689
00:54:20,560 --> 00:54:24,760
- Right.
- We're now starting to put a recycling outfit,

690
00:54:24,760 --> 00:54:28,840
so that the same water can be used over and over again.

691
00:54:28,840 --> 00:54:32,760
And to what extent would you ever consider restoration

692
00:54:32,760 --> 00:54:34,520
to a particular date?

693
00:54:34,520 --> 00:54:38,680
Are you putting the garden back to the 16th century, or...?

694
00:54:38,680 --> 00:54:41,800
I wouldn't. It would be a pity to cut down trees.

695
00:54:41,800 --> 00:54:45,240
In the Italian mentality, countryside villas

696
00:54:45,240 --> 00:54:49,200
were usually a repetition of urban houses,

697
00:54:49,200 --> 00:54:51,520
and so they didn't want to have too many trees,

698
00:54:51,520 --> 00:54:54,480
just wanted to have a house,

699
00:54:54,480 --> 00:54:57,880
and very low gardens and statues.

700
00:54:57,880 --> 00:55:02,160
And presumably, some things have been lost from this?

701
00:55:02,160 --> 00:55:07,800
Yeah. There were statues all over this balustrade, and they were taken by Napoleon.

702
00:55:07,800 --> 00:55:12,200
Napoleon took all the statues and belongings of his brother-in-law,

703
00:55:12,200 --> 00:55:14,440
and his brother-in-law's brother,

704
00:55:14,440 --> 00:55:18,040
which was my great-grandfather, and he said he would pay them
705
00:55:18,040 --> 00:55:20,640
after he would come back from Russia.

706
00:55:20,640 --> 00:55:25,800
Unfortunately, things didn't turn out...as planned.

707
00:55:25,800 --> 00:55:29,120
Not quite. It's a very good story.

708
00:55:33,720 --> 00:55:38,000
At the garden's highest point is the main water supply, still flowing

709
00:55:38,000 --> 00:55:43,240
from the same aqueduct Cardinal Aldobrandini built 400 years ago.

710
00:55:46,560 --> 00:55:51,440
The last cascade is the most natural and, I think, the most charming, too.

711
00:55:51,440 --> 00:55:54,560
It's got real elegance, and of course, that was the idea -

712
00:55:54,560 --> 00:55:56,880
that as you got away from the palace,

713
00:55:56,880 --> 00:56:02,480
everything became more natural and blended into the wild, but very, very controlled.

714
00:56:02,480 --> 00:56:05,520
This was wilderness absolutely under the thumb of man.

715
00:56:05,520 --> 00:56:10,920
In the 21st century, nature's taken over, places have been cleared,

716
00:56:10,920 --> 00:56:17,800
trees have grown, they've decayed, and because it's a private garden, it feels
intimate.

717
00:56:17,800 --> 00:56:21,320
It feels that you're seeing something very personal,

718
00:56:21,320 --> 00:56:24,720
and I'm not sure I'd like this to be fully restored and made public

719
00:56:24,720 --> 00:56:27,680
and gleaming, and a historical document.

720
00:56:27,680 --> 00:56:31,680
I think part of the magic is that it almost feels

721
00:56:31,680 --> 00:56:34,600
like it could disappear at any time.

722
00:56:34,600 --> 00:56:37,080
So it's more precious.

723
00:56:46,160 --> 00:56:50,240
Villa Aldobrandini is still astonishingly grand,

724
00:56:50,240 --> 00:56:53,520
but age has given it an air of engaging scruffiness

725
00:56:53,520 --> 00:56:56,520
that I think makes it all the more charming.

726
00:57:05,800 --> 00:57:09,120
On my tour around these great gardens of Rome,

727
00:57:09,120 --> 00:57:12,640
I've seen gardens designed to entertain and to shock,

728
00:57:12,640 --> 00:57:14,600
but above all, to impress.

729
00:57:16,480 --> 00:57:19,360
And how they succeeded,

730
00:57:19,360 --> 00:57:22,880
although not perhaps as they intended,

731
00:57:22,880 --> 00:57:27,600
as they continue to impress and influence gardeners and tourists for the next 400
years.

732
00:57:27,600 --> 00:57:30,800
And it remains an astonishing thought

733
00:57:30,800 --> 00:57:34,600
that they were all made within such a brief period of time.

734
00:57:36,640 --> 00:57:40,720
During this 50-year period at the end of the 16th century,

735
00:57:40,720 --> 00:57:44,840
the cardinals vied with each other for the papacy like dogs in a pack,

736
00:57:44,840 --> 00:57:50,120
and the gardens that they were making were not for a love of plants or horticulture, as
such.

737
00:57:50,120 --> 00:57:53,560
They were primarily to impress each other, to show their power
738
00:57:53,560 --> 00:57:57,520
in order that they could become the Pope themselves, and the irony is,

739
00:57:57,520 --> 00:58:01,560
of course, that none of them, none of these great garden makers

740
00:58:01,560 --> 00:58:03,920
ever made it to the top table.

741
00:58:03,920 --> 00:58:07,680
But what they left behind were not so much a piece of history

742
00:58:07,680 --> 00:58:09,440
showing how powerful they were,

743
00:58:09,440 --> 00:58:12,680
but a set of some of the most beautiful gardens

744
00:58:12,680 --> 00:58:15,160
the world has ever seen.

745
00:58:17,480 --> 00:58:19,880
Next time, I'll be in Florence,

746
00:58:19,880 --> 00:58:24,680
where the creative revolution of the Renaissance not only changed art

747
00:58:24,680 --> 00:58:29,920
and architecture, but also transformed gardens of every kind.

748
00:58:38,320 --> 00:58:42,680
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

749
00:58:42,680 --> 00:58:47,760
E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk

1
00:00:04,760 --> 00:00:09,040
'I have been travelling through Italy, exploring the country's loveliest

2
00:00:09,040 --> 00:00:12,800
'and most significant gardens, and the ideas and history that shaped them.

3
00:00:17,040 --> 00:00:20,920
'I've seen the astonishingly grand gardens of Rome, made by cardinals

4
00:00:20,920 --> 00:00:22,920
'vying for the papacy.'

5
00:00:22,920 --> 00:00:23,880
That's enchanting.

6
00:00:23,880 --> 00:00:31,160
'And discovered how the Renaissance made Florentine gardens into harmonious ordered
works of art.'

7
00:00:31,160 --> 00:00:32,800
Down there you can see a line of trees,

8
00:00:32,800 --> 00:00:36,520
along here you can see a line of trees, along this access there's a line of trees.

9
00:00:36,520 --> 00:00:40,000
'I'll also be visiting the playful baroque gardens of the North.'

10
00:00:40,000 --> 00:00:43,120
Oh. Dead end. You got me.

11
00:00:43,120 --> 00:00:45,640
Now have your wicked way.

12
00:00:45,640 --> 00:00:52,000
'But this week, I'm in the South, where the gardens are mostly more informal, the
planting more exotic,

13
00:00:52,000 --> 00:00:56,640
'and I get a glimpse into the glamorous hideaways of the rich and famous.'

14
00:00:56,640 --> 00:00:59,760
Keep out, unless you're invited you can't come in.

15
00:01:02,400 --> 00:01:04,320
'I'll be discovering how an 18th century

16
00:01:04,320 --> 00:01:08,640
'very English gardening movement utterly transformed Italian gardens.'

17
00:01:08,640 --> 00:01:11,760
Ah, that's just lovely.

18
00:01:11,760 --> 00:01:17,600
'And luxuriate in what's undoubtedly the most romantic garden ever made.'

19
00:01:17,600 --> 00:01:19,880
And then up here on the bridge

20
00:01:19,880 --> 00:01:23,280
you have one of the most stunning views in any garden, ever.

21
00:01:41,600 --> 00:01:45,680
I'm basing myself in Naples for this southern leg of my tour.

22
00:01:46,680 --> 00:01:51,680
It's a city that is a splendid tangle of anarchy, shabbiness

23
00:01:51,680 --> 00:01:55,040
and real architectural magnificence.

24
00:01:59,360 --> 00:02:02,760
Tourists have used Naples for centuries as a centre for exploring

25
00:02:02,760 --> 00:02:09,840
the area's classical history and the dramatic landscape set on the glorious bay of
Naples,

26
00:02:09,840 --> 00:02:15,200
as well as the more rugged Amalfi coast, just a little further south.

27
00:02:15,200 --> 00:02:20,520
I hardly know this area of the country at all, but I do know that many of the gardens
of the region

28
00:02:20,520 --> 00:02:25,960
are a radical contrast to most of the others I've seen elsewhere in Italy.

29
00:02:25,960 --> 00:02:30,120
Most people still think of Italian gardens as all being formal,

30
00:02:30,120 --> 00:02:33,440
symmetrical, straight lines and, above all, greenness.

31
00:02:33,440 --> 00:02:36,800
But actually, in the south, particularly around Naples, that isn't the case.

32
00:02:36,800 --> 00:02:39,200
There are an awful lot of gardens that are romantic and soft,

33
00:02:39,200 --> 00:02:46,160
and I want to see as many as I can and find out why are these gardens different in this
part of Italy.

34
00:02:49,280 --> 00:02:52,800
The gardens I visited around Rome and Florence were often exuberant

35
00:02:52,800 --> 00:02:59,040
and playful, but nature was always seen as something to be tamed and tightly
controlled.

36
00:03:03,600 --> 00:03:06,800
Here in the south, many gardens are comfortable with a wilder

37
00:03:06,800 --> 00:03:09,400
and more romantic vision of the natural world,

38
00:03:09,400 --> 00:03:13,440
matching the artistic freedom that the area inspired and nurtured.

39
00:03:16,400 --> 00:03:19,760
And reaching its sublimest expression

40
00:03:19,760 --> 00:03:23,320
in the garden created and in that the ruined medieval town of Ninfa.

41
00:03:25,000 --> 00:03:29,600
There is, rather surprisingly, a strong English persuasion at work here,

42
00:03:29,600 --> 00:03:35,800
and these very southern gardens have roots in the British landscape movement of the
mid-18th century.

43
00:03:42,520 --> 00:03:47,800
I'm starting my visits halfway between Rome and Naples, in the province of Latina,

44
00:03:47,800 --> 00:03:51,280
by visiting a contemporary garden that wears its English influences proudly,

45
00:03:51,280 --> 00:03:55,520
and which I have a slight personal link to.

46
00:04:00,040 --> 00:04:03,240
Set around the ruins of a medieval castle,

47
00:04:03,240 --> 00:04:06,920
Torrecchia belongs to the daughter of Prince Carlo Caracciolo,

48
00:04:06,920 --> 00:04:09,440
the founder of the newspaper La Repubblica.

49
00:04:20,840 --> 00:04:24,440
There is absolutely none of the sub-hotel formality

50
00:04:24,440 --> 00:04:28,040
that can be the default position for many houses of the very rich.

51
00:04:28,040 --> 00:04:33,200
Everything is slightly shaggy and gently overflowing with flower.

52
00:04:33,200 --> 00:04:39,160
The form and geometry that we all associate with Italian gardens has been replaced by a
sense

53
00:04:39,160 --> 00:04:43,400
of careless abandon, as though nature could reclaim it all at any moment.

54
00:04:46,720 --> 00:04:49,800
As someone who gardens in England, I can immediately

55
00:04:49,800 --> 00:04:54,320
see familiarities - the softness, the lushness, the greenness.

56
00:04:54,320 --> 00:04:57,360
But actually, as soon as you start to look closely,

57
00:04:57,360 --> 00:05:00,320
there are all kinds of things that couldn't happen in England.

58
00:05:00,320 --> 00:05:04,760
The quality of the light, for example, plant associations.

59
00:05:04,760 --> 00:05:10,480
Put all those elements together and what you get is a garden that belongs to the place.

60
00:05:15,200 --> 00:05:18,880
Torrecchia's very modern horticultural informality is the creation

61
00:05:18,880 --> 00:05:24,000
of an Italian, Lauro Marchetti, and the British garden designer, Dan Pearson.

62
00:05:24,000 --> 00:05:28,240
And today it's under the guidance of Stuart Barfoot,

63
00:05:28,240 --> 00:05:32,400
who was Dan's assistant and worked for me in my garden 17 years ago.

64
00:05:32,400 --> 00:05:35,200
This is the first time I've seen him at all those years.

65
00:05:37,600 --> 00:05:42,680
We have this idea that Italian gardens are crisp and formal

66
00:05:42,680 --> 00:05:47,840
and clipped. How do Italians feel in terms of letting things get loose?

67
00:05:47,840 --> 00:05:52,920
Some Italians would have a problem with this garden, I think, and I have had, we have
had guests come who

68
00:05:52,920 --> 00:05:58,040
sort of look at the plants growing out of the cracks in the paving, and they've
literally pulled them away.

69
00:05:58,040 --> 00:06:01,120
- Rushing after them to stop them. "Leave my garden alone."
70
00:06:01,120 --> 00:06:02,800
I had a very apologetic lady once who I stopped

71
00:06:02,800 --> 00:06:05,200
and she said, "Oh, I thought I was helping you."

72
00:06:10,920 --> 00:06:16,040
Although the plants might appear to grow untrammelled, self seeding themselves and
spilling freely,

73
00:06:16,040 --> 00:06:18,760
it's none the less a highly designed space.

74
00:06:18,760 --> 00:06:20,560
What appears to be a jumble of flowers

75
00:06:20,560 --> 00:06:25,400
actually follows a restrained and carefully controlled colour palate.

76
00:06:28,800 --> 00:06:32,520
A lot of people will use a colour theme in a garden,

77
00:06:32,520 --> 00:06:37,080
but to work most effectively you need to use three dimensions,

78
00:06:37,080 --> 00:06:41,040
and in a big garden like this, of course, that can be done on a grand scale.

79
00:06:41,040 --> 00:06:45,320
So in the foreground you can have mixed whites, and you get your little white garden.

80
00:06:45,320 --> 00:06:48,720
But then here, the Philadelphus picks it up in the middle ground.

81
00:06:48,720 --> 00:06:52,880
And right in the distance, climbing up a stone wall, is a white rose,

82
00:06:52,880 --> 00:06:58,800
so that white just bounces away through the garden like an echo disappearing.

83
00:06:58,800 --> 00:07:02,880
And it's very subtle but actually quite powerful.

84
00:07:10,480 --> 00:07:15,520
The southern Italian climate means that there are combinations of plants that are
familiar,

85
00:07:15,520 --> 00:07:19,960
but which you would rarely get to flower simultaneously in Britain,
86
00:07:19,960 --> 00:07:22,280
such as these foxgloves,

87
00:07:22,280 --> 00:07:26,040
aquilegias and tobacco plants.

88
00:07:32,200 --> 00:07:37,160
When Stuart arrived, he encouraged them to leave as much grass as possible to grow
long,

89
00:07:37,160 --> 00:07:39,840
just mowing paths where necessary.

90
00:07:39,840 --> 00:07:44,600
And his latest addition to the garden is a wild flower meadow.

91
00:07:44,600 --> 00:07:51,600
We sort of blitz this every autumn and we cut everything down, take it away, rotavate.

92
00:07:51,600 --> 00:07:57,160
- So it's an annual meadow.
- It's an annual meadow, yeah, mainly corn chamomile,

93
00:07:57,160 --> 00:07:59,840
cornflower and a few poppies.

94
00:07:59,840 --> 00:08:06,000
Obviously, a bit of the garden like this will only look at its best for what, three
weeks?

95
00:08:06,000 --> 00:08:08,760
A few weeks, yeah. But we've got a luxury in that sense

96
00:08:08,760 --> 00:08:13,240
because this space really wasn't being used and I thought, you know,

97
00:08:13,240 --> 00:08:20,040
let's do something that looks really amazing and it doesn't matter if it looks amazing
for only a few weeks.

98
00:08:20,040 --> 00:08:22,960
- And how does this go down?
- People love it. Yeah.

99
00:08:22,960 --> 00:08:28,600
- Do they? Oh, right, they don't think you're a barmy Englishman?
- No, most people love it, yeah.

100
00:08:31,240 --> 00:08:35,360
Although Torrecchia was begun in 1992, this informal

101
00:08:35,360 --> 00:08:39,760
style of gardening first appeared in southern Italy much earlier.

102
00:08:39,760 --> 00:08:43,120
It goes back over 200 years, when the Bourbon dynasty ruled over what

103
00:08:43,120 --> 00:08:50,200
was then Italy's largest kingdom, stretching from north of Naples right down to include
Sicily.

104
00:09:00,600 --> 00:09:02,800
This is Caserta.

105
00:09:05,800 --> 00:09:10,520
It was begun in 1751 for Don Carlos VIII, King of Naples,

106
00:09:10,520 --> 00:09:14,400
with the explicit aim of being the biggest and grandest garden in all Europe.

107
00:09:19,400 --> 00:09:22,680
It's certainly enormous and very grand.

108
00:09:22,680 --> 00:09:26,880
But it also contains one of the first examples of a new style

109
00:09:26,880 --> 00:09:29,680
that was to revolutionise Italy's formal gardens.

110
00:09:29,680 --> 00:09:34,080
By the time you've walked through the palace,

111
00:09:34,080 --> 00:09:38,760
it's so impressive that you're in a state of submissive shock, really,

112
00:09:38,760 --> 00:09:43,520
and then you come out into the light and the landscape,

113
00:09:43,520 --> 00:09:51,360
and everything is funnelled down to this extraordinary vista, just narrowed down to a
point.

114
00:09:51,360 --> 00:09:56,760
And it's as though it takes your natural impulse to look out and forces it in.

115
00:09:56,760 --> 00:10:00,840
And of course that's all about power. It's doing it because it can.

116
00:10:00,840 --> 00:10:03,560
And it's just saying, you know, "Be amazed".

117
00:10:03,560 --> 00:10:07,080
Well, you can't be anything else. It's amazing.

118
00:10:07,080 --> 00:10:13,200
Whilst all your attention is focused towards the cascade, three kilometres away at the
far end,

119
00:10:13,200 --> 00:10:19,240
to get down there and visit all the garden is a walk of over eight kilometres.

120
00:10:19,240 --> 00:10:22,120
So, I hire a bike to get around.

121
00:10:27,680 --> 00:10:32,080
These high walls of trimmed trees and hedges around the bosco,

122
00:10:32,080 --> 00:10:38,240
or ornamental woodland, are a regular feature in Italian gardens, but I never tire of
them.

123
00:10:38,240 --> 00:10:46,600
The view is so compelling and steers you on so much that it's easy to overlook how
wonderful the bosco is.

124
00:10:46,600 --> 00:10:50,080
And it's that combination of the clipped edge of the wood,

125
00:10:50,080 --> 00:10:55,040
like a hedge, and then the trees spilling over the top that is deeply satisfying.

126
00:10:55,040 --> 00:10:58,080
It's a lovely thing, a bosco.

127
00:11:05,240 --> 00:11:08,320
This is the epitome of high Baroque and rococo design.

128
00:11:08,320 --> 00:11:11,800
Dramatic, confident and elegant.

129
00:11:11,800 --> 00:11:16,160
And with nature always firmly under control.

130
00:11:16,160 --> 00:11:18,440
Do you know, I'm feeling quite excited about this.

131
00:11:18,440 --> 00:11:21,640
When I came here, I'd seen pictures and it looked very static.

132
00:11:21,640 --> 00:11:23,480
It had got this power statement.

133
00:11:23,480 --> 00:11:27,840
"Here I am, I can do this, admire it, now push off."

134
00:11:27,840 --> 00:11:29,640
It's not like that at all.

135
00:11:29,640 --> 00:11:32,200
It unfolds, and it's progressive.

136
00:11:32,200 --> 00:11:36,920
And as I'm cycling along there's a sense of a narrative,

137
00:11:36,920 --> 00:11:38,760
and I'm part of it.

138
00:11:38,760 --> 00:11:40,800
I'm not excluded.

139
00:11:45,960 --> 00:11:49,960
The scale of the garden is simply breathtaking.

140
00:11:49,960 --> 00:11:55,120
Just to bring the water into the canal and its fountains, Caserta's architect, Luigi
Vanvitelli,

141
00:11:55,120 --> 00:11:59,640
blasted through six hillsides and built a 33-kilometre-long aqueduct.

142
00:12:04,200 --> 00:12:09,080
But this was a final flourish, because Caserta was the last

143
00:12:09,080 --> 00:12:13,440
palatial garden to be built in Italy in the formal style.

144
00:12:13,440 --> 00:12:20,560
It took 25 years to make, and by the time it was complete, gardens across Europe were
being changed forever.

145
00:12:32,440 --> 00:12:36,280
The strange thing was that in 1786,

146
00:12:36,280 --> 00:12:41,160
just really little more than 10 years after the formal garden was finished,

147
00:12:41,160 --> 00:12:45,560
it was out of date and a new garden was started.

148
00:12:45,560 --> 00:12:51,400
And this new garden was exotic and absolutely the height of fashion,

149
00:12:51,400 --> 00:12:54,480
and it was called the English Garden.
150
00:13:00,760 --> 00:13:05,320
On a 50-acre plot, especially bought for the purpose, is a garden

151
00:13:05,320 --> 00:13:09,840
as different in style to its predecessor as could be imagined.

152
00:13:09,840 --> 00:13:13,960
It looks like nothing so much as an English country park.

153
00:13:24,120 --> 00:13:27,480
The whole style was based around taking the elements

154
00:13:27,480 --> 00:13:31,280
of the countryside and including them as part of the garden.

155
00:13:33,840 --> 00:13:36,400
This new style was based on the landscape movement.

156
00:13:36,400 --> 00:13:44,280
Rather than regulate nature in ordered ranks and lines, it set out to absorb and
replicate it.

157
00:13:49,920 --> 00:13:53,880
It actually takes as much control and as much skill to make things to look natural

158
00:13:53,880 --> 00:13:58,400
as it does to make the garden look formal,

159
00:13:58,400 --> 00:14:02,320
and one of the key things is parkland, where you have large

160
00:14:02,320 --> 00:14:06,080
trees with grass underneath. But, of course, this is the baking south.

161
00:14:06,080 --> 00:14:11,040
Grass doesn't grow easily, and the large trees are not the ones you'd normally expect
to see in England.

162
00:14:11,040 --> 00:14:20,240
I mean, I can see a huge Cork Oak, I think it is, and there are Cypresses, Stone Pines,
palms.

163
00:14:20,240 --> 00:14:26,160
None of the elements would you find in the average English garden, but the general feel

164
00:14:26,160 --> 00:14:28,280
is certainly true to the type.

165
00:14:36,680 --> 00:14:43,720
This type was begun by William Kent 50 years earlier and then made popular by
Capability Brown,

166
00:14:43,720 --> 00:14:48,120
and the new fashion transformed Britain's gardens before spreading across the
continent.

167
00:14:48,120 --> 00:14:52,360
Ironically, this style of gardening was based upon paintings

168
00:14:52,360 --> 00:14:56,640
of imagined classical landscapes and was known as the picturesque.

169
00:14:56,640 --> 00:15:04,200
As a result, classical temples and fake ruins became highly fashionable garden
accessories.

170
00:15:17,960 --> 00:15:23,560
To go down an overgrown path and come across a fully blown temple is a surprise,

171
00:15:23,560 --> 00:15:30,520
which is absolutely in the spirit of the Picturesque style, which this garden is based
on.

172
00:15:30,520 --> 00:15:33,640
Whereas in a formal garden you see everything literally for miles,

173
00:15:33,640 --> 00:15:37,280
and if you're going to have a temple, you put it on the top of a hill.

174
00:15:37,280 --> 00:15:40,440
Whereas with the new style, everything is a moving tableau.

175
00:15:40,440 --> 00:15:44,840
It's to delight you and surprise you or even horrify you, certainly to titivate you.

176
00:15:44,840 --> 00:15:49,640
So to brush through the undergrowth and come across a temple as though

177
00:15:49,640 --> 00:15:54,040
it's being lying there for years is exactly the required effect.

178
00:16:03,720 --> 00:16:09,840
This English garden at Caserta is contemporary with the New Romantic Movement that took
the frisson

179
00:16:09,840 --> 00:16:16,600
of raw nature and celebrated it as a reaction to the industrialisation that was taking
place.

180
00:16:20,320 --> 00:16:23,240
In the process, the romantic poets such as Wordsworth,
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Keats and Shelley created a new artistic language

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that valued the imagination and emotions

183
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as highly as the previous era had held rationality and the intellect.

184
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This is a nympheum,

185
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and any self-respecting English garden by the end of the 18th century had grottos

186
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and places where hermits might stay, and they were meant to evoke a response in the
visitor.

187
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And, in fact, this is where the Picturesque moves into the Romantic period

188
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where it's all about feelings rather than about thoughts.

189
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This carried on right through the 19th century

190
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and you'd have little places where you could wander.

191
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Inside this rocky, rather wild place there is a statue...

192
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Whoops! And a... Oh, look.

193
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A complete...abandoned, lost piece of classical world,

194
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but this is not a ruin that has evolved through time.

195
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This has been manufactured to look ruined.

196
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Look at these statues.

197
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And what's a real shame is that the people that wander through now do seem,
particularly around Naples,

198
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to have a desire to leave their mark,

199
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and nobody's stopping people do it, and no-one seems to clear it up. Maybe nobody
minds.

200
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The great discovery of the Renaissance was classicism,

201
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with its humanism and order.

202
00:17:51,280 --> 00:17:54,040
But a couple of hundred years later in the romantic garden,

203
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classical civilisation is depicted as picturesque ruins,

204
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designed to deliciously thrill you with a display of mortality and decay.

205
00:18:07,480 --> 00:18:10,720
But not all the thrills of the garden are solemn.

206
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I like that because there you have a nymph washing decorously, and from the front she's
covering herself up.

207
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But this is a peek at her bum and I like the sense of 'what the butler saw',

208
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that she doesn't know we're here and we're spying on her.

209
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The fashion for English landscape gardens lasted in Italy

210
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until the neo- Renaissance revival in Florence at the beginning of the 20th century.

211
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But the romantic influence remained particularly strong here in the south of the
country,

212
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attracting artists, writers and musicians to escape the restrictions of northern
Europe.
213
00:19:00,160 --> 00:19:04,600
And their influence in particular found its way into the gardens of the region.

214
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I'm now heading to the coast,

215
00:19:16,760 --> 00:19:20,480
for Sorrento on the far side of the Bay of Naples.

216
00:19:25,760 --> 00:19:29,680
Today, it's a popular modern resort, but it's ancient,

217
00:19:29,680 --> 00:19:35,280
and has been drawing of visitors here from all over the world for a very long time.

218
00:19:37,320 --> 00:19:41,280
Since Roman times, people have been building villas and houses in Sorrento

219
00:19:41,280 --> 00:19:44,080
because it's a lovely place. It's not hard to see why.

220
00:19:44,080 --> 00:19:46,920
But it's also attracted people from quite far afield.

221
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People come from northern Europe to this point because there's something

222
00:19:50,880 --> 00:19:54,920
about the place that gives them creative freedom, whether they're painters

223
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or artists or whatever, and I think it's because it's far enough south

224
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that suddenly you're liberated from all the ties of the north, and that applies to
gardens, too.

225
00:20:03,160 --> 00:20:05,760
People have come from far afield to make gardens,

226
00:20:05,760 --> 00:20:08,160
and the next garden I'm visiting is just here.

227
00:20:08,160 --> 00:20:11,040
And because the view is so important,

228
00:20:11,040 --> 00:20:13,960
the garden is right up there on the cliff top.

229
00:20:19,320 --> 00:20:24,400
In the 18th century, which was the heyday of the Grand Tour, Naples was the
southernmost

230
00:20:24,400 --> 00:20:29,720
point in Italy for the young and noblemen seeking out the visible remains of Italy's
classical past,

231
00:20:29,720 --> 00:20:34,200
and eagerly taking on what entertainment they could on the way.

232
00:20:34,200 --> 00:20:38,400
A Napoleonic wall's put a stop to that, but by the end

233
00:20:38,400 --> 00:20:43,560
of the 19th century the area started attracting wealthy foreigners again,

234
00:20:43,560 --> 00:20:46,440
who not only visited, but also began to make homes here.

235
00:20:50,360 --> 00:20:53,120
This private garden is one such.

236
00:20:53,120 --> 00:20:58,200
Although not open to the public, I'd been allowed in to take a look.

237
00:20:58,200 --> 00:21:01,280
- Ooh!
- 'Yes?'
- Hello, it's Monty Don.

238
00:21:01,280 --> 00:21:03,320
- 'Yes, the gate is open.'
- Whoops!

239
00:21:21,880 --> 00:21:25,600
It is called Villa Il Tritone.

240
00:21:29,080 --> 00:21:35,480
The 19th century villa was bought in 1905 by William Waldorf Astor -

241
00:21:35,480 --> 00:21:41,640
the American ambassador in Rome before becoming a British citizen and eventually a
viscount.

242
00:21:44,080 --> 00:21:50,640
Astor enlarged the grounds and much of the existing garden was laid out by him.

243
00:21:50,640 --> 00:21:56,280
He loved the place and used it as a very private retreat from public life.

244
00:21:56,280 --> 00:21:59,320
A place where he could truly relax and be free.

245
00:22:02,480 --> 00:22:05,080
It's interesting that this piece of the garden,

246
00:22:05,080 --> 00:22:09,280
which is right by the house, so you'd expect it to be formal

247
00:22:09,280 --> 00:22:13,560
and an Italian way to balance the architecture of the house.

248
00:22:13,560 --> 00:22:15,440
It almost immediately gets fuzzy.

249
00:22:15,440 --> 00:22:22,680
The plants are allowed to roam free and seed themselves where they will,

250
00:22:22,680 --> 00:22:26,840
and then towards the end of the boundaries of this bit of the garden, it gets almost
anarchic.

251
00:22:26,840 --> 00:22:29,200
And I think that's the key to the whole garden.

252
00:22:29,200 --> 00:22:34,120
It sort of bursts the constraints of the formal Italian garden, despite itself.

253
00:22:34,120 --> 00:22:36,280
It can't help itself but be free.

254
00:22:47,880 --> 00:22:51,960
Astor used Il Tritone's long history to make his garden.

255
00:22:54,360 --> 00:22:57,680
There had been a Roman villa on this side, looking out across

256
00:22:57,680 --> 00:23:04,920
the bay to Mount Versuvius and the town of Pompeii on the other side of the water.

257
00:23:04,920 --> 00:23:09,600
But in that spectacular view laid the Venus de Milos.

258
00:23:11,480 --> 00:23:18,680
When Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD, burying the town of Pompeii on the other side of the
bay,

259
00:23:18,680 --> 00:23:26,440
the tsunami that followed the quake swept across and knocked the villa straight into
the sea.

260
00:23:26,440 --> 00:23:30,200
Remains and artefacts from the villa were recovered and Astor used them

261
00:23:30,200 --> 00:23:35,440
when making his garden, but the result was anything but conventionally classical.

262
00:23:48,840 --> 00:23:53,880
The overriding impression you get in this garden is of a greenness, a soft light coming
through,

263
00:23:53,880 --> 00:23:58,200
and in this central avenue you have this tunnel of green.

264
00:23:58,200 --> 00:24:02,920
Most avenues are open to the sky, but this one, because it's closed over and with the
Banksia

265
00:24:02,920 --> 00:24:06,240
rose growing across the top, in fact you just get glimpses of the light.

266
00:24:06,240 --> 00:24:07,760
They're like skylights.

267
00:24:07,760 --> 00:24:12,480
I like the fact they've used wood and it's not some metal construction.

268
00:24:12,480 --> 00:24:16,680
It's slightly wonky and accidental and that looks lovely.

269
00:24:16,680 --> 00:24:22,040
It's soft, and yet there are avenues going out to other things.

270
00:24:22,040 --> 00:24:25,800
There's an avenue going down there, and at the end you go down to light

271
00:24:25,800 --> 00:24:32,960
and the sea, and look down there, the way this green path, which is just moss, and
bright sea beyond it,

272
00:24:32,960 --> 00:24:36,960
and it's designed in such a way as to make it seem much bigger than it is.

273
00:24:36,960 --> 00:24:41,840
These avenues radiate out simply to make the most of the space.

274
00:24:45,240 --> 00:24:52,040
In the early 1970s, the villa was bought by an Italian businessman - Mariano Pane and
his wife Rita.

275
00:24:52,040 --> 00:24:58,160
Then just in her early twenties with small children, Rita found herself the custodian
of the garden,
276
00:24:59,680 --> 00:25:03,600
although at the time, she wasn't fully aware of its historical significance.

277
00:25:03,600 --> 00:25:07,480
Luckily, I was so young when we came that I was not intimidated

278
00:25:07,480 --> 00:25:13,200
because otherwise, if I would have started now, of course I would feel intimidated.

279
00:25:13,200 --> 00:25:17,320
But as it grew slowly,

280
00:25:17,320 --> 00:25:21,720
I really absorbed the story of this garden, the past of this garden, the culture.

281
00:25:21,720 --> 00:25:24,720
What's your philosophy, in terms of gardening?

282
00:25:24,720 --> 00:25:27,080
My philosophy first of all is freedom.

283
00:25:27,080 --> 00:25:33,240
I think that at the end, you cannot fight against nature and in the end nature will
always win,

284
00:25:33,240 --> 00:25:36,840
so I think you have to choose the right plants for the right place.

285
00:25:36,840 --> 00:25:40,800
The spontaneous plant, they're so beautiful. You need to discover them.

286
00:25:40,800 --> 00:25:44,200
They are not imposing themselves.

287
00:25:44,200 --> 00:25:51,760
I like the idea of the romantic garden, the garden of the poets, modern, the garden of
the architects.

288
00:25:51,760 --> 00:25:55,200
Well, you've certainly achieved that, there's no doubt about it.

289
00:25:55,200 --> 00:25:57,600
This is about as romantic as a garden can get.

290
00:26:06,160 --> 00:26:07,960
William Waldorf Astor had commissioned

291
00:26:07,960 --> 00:26:11,720
the English garden designer Harold Peter to create his garden,

292
00:26:11,720 --> 00:26:16,000
and Peter build a wall, both as a screen to create privacy

293
00:26:16,000 --> 00:26:18,960
and simultaneously to intensify the burrowed landscape.

294
00:26:20,480 --> 00:26:26,080
I think this series of windows along the sea edge of the garden are a stroke of genius,

295
00:26:27,600 --> 00:26:32,640
because you might think that with this dramatic and beautiful landscape

296
00:26:32,640 --> 00:26:35,760
with the sea outside the garden, you want to have

297
00:26:35,760 --> 00:26:39,400
access to as much of it as possible, but actually by blocking it out

298
00:26:39,400 --> 00:26:47,160
and then revealing it in a carefully chosen series of framed pictures, you make it more
precious.

299
00:26:47,160 --> 00:26:51,760
And at the same time it keeps out the hurly-burly of the town below,

300
00:26:51,760 --> 00:26:53,600
so you get the best of both worlds.

301
00:26:53,600 --> 00:27:00,320
You get the landscape intensified and made more precious, AND you get increased
seclusion.

302
00:27:08,920 --> 00:27:12,600
Il Tritone is a green, green place.

303
00:27:12,600 --> 00:27:17,040
Even the paths are thick with a peachy green fuzz of moss

304
00:27:17,040 --> 00:27:21,200
and I couldn't resist slipping my shoes off to tread their delicious coolness.

305
00:27:22,560 --> 00:27:24,080
Ooh, it feels nice.

306
00:27:36,800 --> 00:27:39,320
It's attractive to see people doing things.

307
00:27:39,320 --> 00:27:43,760
I reckon the key to this garden is in the way that it's an escape from life,

308
00:27:43,760 --> 00:27:48,320
and think of who it was essentially made by, William Waldorf Astor,

309
00:27:48,320 --> 00:27:51,360
an ambassador in Rome, a rich American,

310
00:27:51,360 --> 00:27:54,480
beset all the time by the strangeness of the country,

311
00:27:54,480 --> 00:27:58,200
by diplomacy, politics and then money and art,

312
00:27:58,200 --> 00:28:05,360
and what that money bought him was a way of getting away from things when it got too
much.

313
00:28:05,360 --> 00:28:09,400
Too much sun, too much noise, too many other people he didn't want to be with.

314
00:28:09,400 --> 00:28:14,440
And with creating a green retreat with windows out on to that world,

315
00:28:14,440 --> 00:28:19,480
not only was it a kind of barrier and insulating there,

316
00:28:19,480 --> 00:28:21,680
but a beautiful one. A beautiful bubble.

317
00:28:30,200 --> 00:28:33,120
In the early years of the 20th century, the trickle of foreigners

318
00:28:33,120 --> 00:28:37,120
buying homes here became a full flow,

319
00:28:37,120 --> 00:28:39,680
as Europe's rail network made the Amalfi Coast,

320
00:28:39,680 --> 00:28:44,920
just south of the Bay of Naples, a popular holiday destination.

321
00:28:44,920 --> 00:28:49,240
These holiday-makers found an area that was a very poor

322
00:28:49,240 --> 00:28:57,200
with the only living to be had from the sea or the ravishingly beautiful but harsh
land.

323
00:28:57,200 --> 00:29:01,920
The hillsides above the sea are still cultivated in a thousand layered terraces -

324
00:29:01,920 --> 00:29:06,760
growing vegetables and fruit, but principally lemons, and the locals
325
00:29:06,760 --> 00:29:12,040
proudly claim that the lemons of Amalfi are the best in the world.

326
00:29:12,040 --> 00:29:14,160
I made a detour to visit Giovanni Ciuffi,

327
00:29:14,160 --> 00:29:18,320
who's been growing them here for 50 years.

328
00:29:22,400 --> 00:29:26,680
As you walk into the groves, every breath is zesty with lemon.

329
00:29:29,800 --> 00:29:31,120
That smells so good.

330
00:29:34,120 --> 00:29:36,840
SHE SPEAKS ITALIAN

331
00:29:36,840 --> 00:29:39,840
Ooh, I just squirted myself in the face.

332
00:29:39,840 --> 00:29:42,080
It's a...

333
00:29:42,080 --> 00:29:43,600
It's a joy!

334
00:29:43,600 --> 00:29:45,880
What makes them special? What is it about them?

335
00:29:45,880 --> 00:29:46,880
HE SPEAKS ITALIAN

336
00:29:51,440 --> 00:29:54,760
Lemon not round, but long.

337
00:29:54,760 --> 00:29:59,960
So if I want to grow lemons at home as good as yours, what is the secret?

338
00:29:59,960 --> 00:30:02,760
HE SPEAKS ITALIAN

339
00:30:02,760 --> 00:30:09,000
You have to choose the right plant from Amalfi,

340
00:30:09,000 --> 00:30:12,440
- and give it love.
- Amalfi and love!

341
00:30:12,440 --> 00:30:14,040
- And love.
- OK.

342
00:30:14,040 --> 00:30:16,080
HE SPEAKS ITALIAN

343
00:30:18,560 --> 00:30:22,720
You come next year and he prepare a plant for you.

344
00:30:22,720 --> 00:30:23,760
That's a date.

345
00:30:23,760 --> 00:30:30,640
The poverty of this region meant that comparatively wealthy foreigners could buy

346
00:30:30,640 --> 00:30:35,480
beautiful Italian estates for much less than their northern European counterparts.

347
00:30:37,080 --> 00:30:42,560
I'm on my way now to see one such place, perched high up above the cliffs at Ravello.

348
00:30:42,560 --> 00:30:47,000
Bought as a run-down farmhouse, it was transformed into a famous,

349
00:30:47,000 --> 00:30:52,240
but very private retreat for a fascinatingly eclectic mix of celebrities.

350
00:30:52,240 --> 00:30:56,640
You have to walk to get here. The streets get narrower and narrower.

351
00:30:56,640 --> 00:31:00,240
No swooshing up in your Bentley and making a grand entrance.

352
00:31:00,240 --> 00:31:02,160
But when you do get here,

353
00:31:02,160 --> 00:31:05,080
the entrance itself is about as grand as it could be.

354
00:31:05,080 --> 00:31:08,800
It's rather intimidating, actually, because it's like a castle.

355
00:31:08,800 --> 00:31:13,920
The steps leading up, this great big door, the thick walls. Now, all that's saying is,
"Keep out!"

356
00:31:13,920 --> 00:31:16,200
Unless you're invited, you can't come in.

357
00:31:35,760 --> 00:31:39,640
Villa Cimbrone was bought in 1904 by Ernest Beckett,

358
00:31:39,640 --> 00:31:43,760
Second Baron Grimthorpe, who was a banker and a Tory politician.

359
00:31:43,760 --> 00:31:48,720
Grimthorpe wasn't an especially great gardener, but he was a champion womaniser

360
00:31:48,720 --> 00:31:51,960
and is said to of been the father of Violet Trefusis,

361
00:31:51,960 --> 00:31:56,000
who famously became the lover of Vita Sackville-West.

362
00:31:57,240 --> 00:32:03,600
Grimthorpe was a wealthy man, but he bought Villa Cimbrone for 100 lire,

363
00:32:03,600 --> 00:32:09,520
which, in today's money, works out at the grand sum of just £300.

364
00:32:14,640 --> 00:32:17,160
Hiring a local architect, Nicola Mansi,

365
00:32:17,160 --> 00:32:22,320
Grimthorpe set about transforming the agricultural vineyard and walnut groves

366
00:32:22,320 --> 00:32:27,200
into a grand, glamorous garden, with breathtaking views and vistas,

367
00:32:27,200 --> 00:32:32,080
framed by a mix of temples, grottoes, balustrades and statues.

368
00:32:40,560 --> 00:32:45,120
The wisteria is absolutely lovely.

369
00:32:45,120 --> 00:32:48,120
What is a joy, and really the reason you come to Italy,

370
00:32:48,120 --> 00:32:51,560
is here you've got all the freshness of these flowers,

371
00:32:51,560 --> 00:32:55,320
weather that feels like the best English summer's day,

372
00:32:55,320 --> 00:32:59,480
fantastic scenery, and it's sort of distilled into a garden.

373
00:32:59,520 --> 00:33:03,280
Actually, what's interesting is to see a Judas tree,

374
00:33:03,280 --> 00:33:10,400
pruned right hard and then breaking from the stem, so you get this floral stick, bright
colour.

375
00:33:10,400 --> 00:33:15,000
I'm not sure whether it's as good as just a normal tree, but it's certainly dramatic.

376
00:33:28,960 --> 00:33:31,160
Grimthorpe died in 1917,

377
00:33:31,160 --> 00:33:36,680
but his daughter Lucille enlarged the garden and made it the centre on the Amalfi coast
for writers,

378
00:33:36,680 --> 00:33:39,800
such as DH Lawrence and at the Bloomsbury set,

379
00:33:39,800 --> 00:33:43,160
as well as musicians, politicians and film stars.

380
00:33:43,160 --> 00:33:51,000
It was a place where the very famous could come and be glamorously private and
uninhibited.

381
00:33:52,040 --> 00:33:55,480
And it was here in 1938 that Greta Garbo,

382
00:33:55,480 --> 00:34:00,520
the most famous film star of the age, holed up with her lover,

383
00:34:00,520 --> 00:34:02,840
the conductor Leopold Stokowski,

384
00:34:02,840 --> 00:34:09,640
and first issued her famous plea that she "wanted to be left alone".

385
00:34:14,480 --> 00:34:18,000
That's a long walk for a garden.

386
00:34:18,000 --> 00:34:20,640
There's sort of an element of a motorway about it

387
00:34:20,640 --> 00:34:21,960
and it's a bit themeless.

388
00:34:21,960 --> 00:34:25,520
But, actually, I get it now, because it's directing you down here.

389
00:34:25,520 --> 00:34:27,640
It's saying, "Come on, get down here,"

390
00:34:27,640 --> 00:34:30,080
because when you do get here, that's...

391
00:34:30,080 --> 00:34:32,160
Well, it's a pretty scary view,

392
00:34:32,160 --> 00:34:35,360
but it's just stunning, stunning, stunning!

393
00:34:35,360 --> 00:34:39,000
And I suppose if you've got a view as dramatic as this,

394
00:34:39,000 --> 00:34:42,720
then your garden is just funnelling the visitor,

395
00:34:42,720 --> 00:34:46,680
you know, "Through the gate and get down the end and have a look,"

396
00:34:46,680 --> 00:34:50,880
and it's stately, and the sky's blue, and it's just lovely in every way.

397
00:34:50,880 --> 00:34:56,360
And as I was walking down, I was thinking about, you know, Greta Garbo coming here,

398
00:34:56,360 --> 00:35:02,000
and if you want to be private, there's a sense of enclosure.

399
00:35:02,000 --> 00:35:05,960
And yet this garden, you know, is dramatically open,

400
00:35:05,960 --> 00:35:09,240
and standing on here feels a bit like a stage,

401
00:35:09,240 --> 00:35:11,120
and if the public aren't allowed in,

402
00:35:11,120 --> 00:35:13,760
you're completely private, but you can be seen.

403
00:35:13,760 --> 00:35:18,120
And I think there's something about that with celebrity.

404
00:35:18,120 --> 00:35:21,680
They WANT to be seen, they WANT to be noticed, but on their own terms.

405
00:35:21,680 --> 00:35:25,520
And, of course, this garden does that absolutely through and through.

406
00:35:25,520 --> 00:35:27,640
"Look at me, but from a distance."
407
00:35:32,600 --> 00:35:38,480
The garden juts out on a finger of land high above the rocky slopes to the sea.

408
00:35:38,480 --> 00:35:45,040
Magnificent stone pines and yew hedges grown anarchically free-form

409
00:35:45,040 --> 00:35:49,320
provide shelter, as do the pergolas laden with wisteria.

410
00:35:49,320 --> 00:35:52,760
It all creates a secluded, romantic setting,

411
00:35:52,760 --> 00:35:54,840
yet the backdrop and buildings

412
00:35:54,840 --> 00:35:57,680
are theatrical to the point of melodrama.

413
00:36:02,040 --> 00:36:06,120
There's no doubt this is a lovely garden and certainly worth visiting.

414
00:36:06,120 --> 00:36:10,560
It's such a dramatic location and the way that it's laid out is terribly theatrical,

415
00:36:10,560 --> 00:36:16,160
which is an irony really, because when you think of the people that came here, the
Greta Garbos

416
00:36:16,160 --> 00:36:19,920
and the DH Lawrences and the Salvador Dalis and Churchills,

417
00:36:19,920 --> 00:36:23,120
these are big, dramatic people, coming as an escape,

418
00:36:23,120 --> 00:36:26,040
but actually, they've come as a performance,

419
00:36:26,040 --> 00:36:30,240
and I think what would make this garden come alive would be a party.

420
00:36:40,560 --> 00:36:44,520
If you have this as a location to have a great big bash,

421
00:36:44,520 --> 00:36:49,880
the garden would join in, the setting would become absolutely perfect.

422
00:37:06,560 --> 00:37:12,160
By the 1960s, the Amalfi coast was becoming increasingly a tourist resort,

423
00:37:12,160 --> 00:37:14,800
and musicians, writers and artists

424
00:37:14,800 --> 00:37:17,440
coming here for a cheap sunny retreat

425
00:37:17,440 --> 00:37:19,640
had to travel further afield.

426
00:37:26,160 --> 00:37:31,680
So, I'm now taking the ferry across the Bay of Naples

427
00:37:31,680 --> 00:37:36,520
to the small volcanic island of Ischia, 15 miles from the mainland.

428
00:37:43,280 --> 00:37:47,120
Nowadays, Ischia is a popular day trip for tourists who come

429
00:37:47,120 --> 00:37:51,960
not just to enjoy the island's beaches, but to visit a world-famous garden.

430
00:37:56,240 --> 00:38:01,920
But as recently as 50 years ago, the island was remote, with no mains electricity or
water,

431
00:38:01,920 --> 00:38:08,880
and it was 60 years ago that a young woman in her 20s came here and began to create a
remarkable garden.

432
00:38:14,480 --> 00:38:16,880
Hello?

433
00:38:25,000 --> 00:38:29,640
Immediately you enter the garden, you're struck by the lushness of the planting...

434
00:38:31,160 --> 00:38:33,440
..which is flagrantly tropical!

435
00:38:37,520 --> 00:38:43,480
Which is something of a culture shock on this bone-dry Mediterranean island.

436
00:38:46,480 --> 00:38:51,280
La Mortella is the life's work of the Argentinian Susana Walton,

437
00:38:51,280 --> 00:38:54,320
who married the enormously successful English composer

438
00:38:54,320 --> 00:38:56,440
Sir William Walton when she was just 22.

439
00:38:56,440 --> 00:38:59,200
Looking to escape the English winter,
440
00:38:59,200 --> 00:39:03,640
they rented a house Ischia in 1949, neither of them ever having been there before,

441
00:39:03,640 --> 00:39:05,400
and fell in love with the island,

442
00:39:05,400 --> 00:39:09,400
deciding that it was the ideal place for Sir William to compose in peace.

443
00:39:24,600 --> 00:39:27,960
They bought the land for the garden in 1956.

444
00:39:27,960 --> 00:39:30,280
It was an old quarry with no water supply,

445
00:39:30,280 --> 00:39:35,280
but Susana, an instinctive plants woman, was undaunted,

446
00:39:35,280 --> 00:39:38,920
and started planting straightaway with exuberant enthusiasm.

447
00:39:38,920 --> 00:39:42,120
Following her instincts, she selected exotic plants

448
00:39:42,120 --> 00:39:46,640
from around the world and against all the odds, the garden quickly flourished.

449
00:39:46,640 --> 00:39:54,360
It's interesting that Ischia, with its volcanic rock and its heat and its moisture, is
so conducive

450
00:39:54,360 --> 00:40:00,600
to things growing fast, so you get this dramatic response, and the show is operatic.

451
00:40:00,600 --> 00:40:04,680
There's drama, there's colour, there's bigness, there's flamboyance,

452
00:40:04,680 --> 00:40:07,440
and you can't really have that in the north.

453
00:40:07,440 --> 00:40:11,920
It's to do with the south, and you needed someone from Argentina

454
00:40:11,920 --> 00:40:14,480
with Latin in her soul to make that come alive.

455
00:40:22,400 --> 00:40:25,400
From the first, it was a major undertaking.

456
00:40:25,400 --> 00:40:30,880
Russell Page, the pre-eminent English garden designer of the day, created the layout of
the garden

457
00:40:30,880 --> 00:40:36,120
and the landscape was on a heroic scale. Terraces were cut into the volcanic rock.

458
00:40:36,120 --> 00:40:39,000
75 lorryloads of topsoil were poured into the ravine

459
00:40:39,000 --> 00:40:45,560
and huge cisterns for irrigation were filled with water, shipped in by tanker from the
mainland.

460
00:40:47,760 --> 00:40:51,160
As the trees grew, it created a benign microclimate,

461
00:40:51,160 --> 00:40:57,280
which allowed Susana to create a subtropical garden with plants from all over the
world,

462
00:40:57,280 --> 00:41:02,320
where bromeliads happily rubbed shoulders with slipper orchids

463
00:41:02,320 --> 00:41:05,640
beneath a canopy of tree ferns and palms.

464
00:41:08,240 --> 00:41:14,080
La Mortella's head gardener, Alessandra Vinciguerra, came to Ischia in 1997

465
00:41:14,080 --> 00:41:18,800
and worked with Susana until her death in March 2010.

466
00:41:20,520 --> 00:41:25,560
From the start, the choice of plants was hers and this is why it is so tropical.

467
00:41:25,560 --> 00:41:27,880
She liked bold plants, she liked colours,

468
00:41:27,880 --> 00:41:30,520
she liked the plants that came from Argentina,

469
00:41:30,520 --> 00:41:34,200
plants that were different from what you would find in gardens

470
00:41:34,200 --> 00:41:35,720
at that time in this area.

471
00:41:35,720 --> 00:41:42,040
And when Susana saw a plant she liked, she HAD to have it and would go to extraordinary
lengths
472
00:41:42,040 --> 00:41:45,240
to bring it back to La Mortella, as the story behind

473
00:41:45,240 --> 00:41:48,800
this huge silk floss tree, Chorisia speciosa, displays.

474
00:41:49,760 --> 00:41:57,440
That was planted by Lady Walton in 1983 from a seed that she took in Buenos Aires.

475
00:41:57,440 --> 00:42:02,760
She went there for a concert and she noticed there were some chorisias growing there,
so anyhow,

476
00:42:02,760 --> 00:42:06,880
she climbed on top of a taxi and picked one of the fruits,

477
00:42:06,880 --> 00:42:10,680
and from that fruit, from that tree, came that plant.

478
00:42:15,680 --> 00:42:20,520
This story seems to have been entirely typical of her way of living and gardening,

479
00:42:20,520 --> 00:42:24,840
and that energy and vivacity runs like electricity through the garden.

480
00:42:24,840 --> 00:42:26,440
It is a performance.

481
00:42:26,440 --> 00:42:32,400
A garden wearing a stylish hat and a brilliant smile whilst talking 19-to-the-dozen!

482
00:42:34,040 --> 00:42:37,080
It is a very passionate garden. It's full of life,

483
00:42:37,080 --> 00:42:43,600
compared to the typical, formal, historical Italian garden that people sometimes don't
understand.

484
00:42:43,600 --> 00:42:47,680
This one is understood or is loved by everybody.

485
00:42:53,440 --> 00:42:58,200
Above the subtropical tree line, on the exposed old quarry walls,

486
00:42:58,200 --> 00:43:02,560
the garden transcends its recent history and becomes rooted deep in place.

487
00:43:02,560 --> 00:43:08,080
Although this garden is PACKED with plants, a lot of them unusual,

488
00:43:08,080 --> 00:43:13,480
I have to say, none are nicer than the Mediterranean natives like this rosemary,

489
00:43:13,480 --> 00:43:16,440
prostrate, drooping down the hillside.

490
00:43:16,440 --> 00:43:18,320
It's beautiful.

491
00:43:18,320 --> 00:43:23,600
And the cistus, and the myrtle, and of course La Mortella is taken from the name
"myrtle".

492
00:43:23,600 --> 00:43:28,920
These are native plants, as common as anything you'll find in the whole Mediterranean,

493
00:43:28,920 --> 00:43:32,160
but they absolutely look right at home.

494
00:43:32,160 --> 00:43:34,120
This is where they live,

495
00:43:34,120 --> 00:43:36,880
so they're comfy.

496
00:43:44,000 --> 00:43:50,640
The garden is an expression of one remarkable woman's flamboyance and deep passion for
plants.

497
00:43:50,640 --> 00:43:53,120
It sings with energy and colour.

498
00:43:53,120 --> 00:43:58,560
But the garden began and ends as a testament to the love of Susana

499
00:43:58,560 --> 00:44:02,400
for her husband William, who died in 1983.

500
00:44:02,400 --> 00:44:08,080
High up above the quarry, she created a monument overlooking his favourite view.

501
00:44:10,640 --> 00:44:14,800
Here is the rock which is the memorial to William Walton.

502
00:44:14,800 --> 00:44:16,440
His ashes are underneath here.

503
00:44:16,440 --> 00:44:19,160
But I think the real memorial is the garden itself.

504
00:44:19,160 --> 00:44:21,880
It's a memorial to both of them, William and Susana,

505
00:44:21,880 --> 00:44:25,720
and although Russell Page is always credited with designing the garden,

506
00:44:25,720 --> 00:44:31,160
which obviously he did, that was his job, but the thing that brought it to life was
Susana's planting.

507
00:44:31,160 --> 00:44:37,440
And I read that she quoted the famous remark that you consult the genius of the place
to inspire you.

508
00:44:37,440 --> 00:44:39,480
The genius of the place is the love.

509
00:44:39,480 --> 00:44:44,080
If you like, the whole garden is a monument to them and their love for each other.

510
00:44:55,080 --> 00:45:01,040
I headed back from the calm of Ischia to the chaotic streets of Naples.

511
00:45:03,200 --> 00:45:08,240
The overcrowded city seems to be spreading in an unregulated, predatory way,

512
00:45:08,240 --> 00:45:10,880
swallowing in its path scores of small farms

513
00:45:10,880 --> 00:45:15,040
on the outskirts that, for centuries, have supplied the city.

514
00:45:15,040 --> 00:45:20,040
There are now only a few survivors farming high on the slopes

515
00:45:20,040 --> 00:45:24,160
of an extinct volcano where it is too steep to build.

516
00:45:24,160 --> 00:45:31,800
Taking me to meet one of these last-remaining semi-urban farmers is the writer and
campaigner

517
00:45:31,800 --> 00:45:33,480
Bruno Brillante.

518
00:45:35,000 --> 00:45:38,800
- Hello, how are you?
- Nice to meet you.
- Nice to meet you. Bruno.

519
00:45:38,800 --> 00:45:43,280
Well, it's lovely to be here, but tell me what is special about this place?
520
00:45:43,280 --> 00:45:45,320
What makes it different to others?

521
00:45:45,320 --> 00:45:51,560
Because this is one of the last places where you can find the original farmers.

522
00:45:51,560 --> 00:45:55,960
They still work in the traditional way.

523
00:45:55,960 --> 00:46:03,440
No pollution, no chemical, and you can find the flowers and plants that you cannot find
in other places.

524
00:46:03,440 --> 00:46:07,920
- Pepino!
- 'Pepino Polverino farms ten acres of land on the hillside

525
00:46:07,920 --> 00:46:12,760
'behind his house, where he grows superb fruit and vegetables.'

526
00:46:12,760 --> 00:46:15,080
- Pepino.
- Nice to meet you.

527
00:46:15,080 --> 00:46:17,160
These are fantastic. Look at that.

528
00:46:17,160 --> 00:46:19,480
Lemon from this place.

529
00:46:19,480 --> 00:46:21,160
- You grow these?
- Yes.

530
00:46:21,160 --> 00:46:26,760
Beautiful. And look at all this. And all this grown on the land here?

531
00:46:26,760 --> 00:46:29,480
Those are broad beans. Wow.

532
00:46:29,480 --> 00:46:31,360
HE SPEAKS ITALIAN

533
00:46:31,360 --> 00:46:33,240
It's beetroot.

534
00:46:33,240 --> 00:46:35,720
- You will try after...
- Good. OK.

535
00:46:35,720 --> 00:46:37,880
- Very fresh.
- Very fresh.

536
00:46:37,880 --> 00:46:40,400
- I can't wait.
- Taste that.

537
00:46:40,400 --> 00:46:44,040
HE SPEAKS ITALIAN

538
00:46:44,040 --> 00:46:46,440
- It's very good.
- Bueno.

539
00:46:46,440 --> 00:46:49,800
Bueno. All this is harvested this season?

540
00:46:49,800 --> 00:46:52,960
Only fresh, and only seasons.

541
00:46:52,960 --> 00:46:54,480
So just up here?

542
00:46:56,280 --> 00:46:59,680
'Although almost sheer in places, the land on the slopes

543
00:46:59,680 --> 00:47:06,000
'has been worked for at least 300 years, but Pepino is one of the last remaining
growers here.'

544
00:47:06,000 --> 00:47:08,240
You won't get any machinery up here.

545
00:47:08,240 --> 00:47:10,120
HE SPEAKS ITALIAN

546
00:47:10,120 --> 00:47:11,520
He come with the tractors.

547
00:47:11,520 --> 00:47:14,960
Gosh, if he brings his tractor up here, he's a braver man than I!

548
00:47:14,960 --> 00:47:19,400
- So the soil here, what is the soil like?
- Volcanic.

549
00:47:19,400 --> 00:47:22,160
- Volcanic soil, so very fertile.
- Si, very fertile.

550
00:47:22,160 --> 00:47:29,200
I have visited a lot of allotments in my time, but this is certainly the steepest.
551
00:47:36,760 --> 00:47:39,120
The city is right there, isn't it?

552
00:47:39,120 --> 00:47:42,720
- Yes. Just...
- Right there, and there is Vesuvius.

553
00:47:42,720 --> 00:47:45,000
And how do you feel when you look out?

554
00:47:45,000 --> 00:47:46,440
HE SPEAKS ITALIAN

555
00:47:46,440 --> 00:47:49,240
Fortunately, it has now stopped.

556
00:47:49,240 --> 00:47:56,800
Only 20 years ago, there were fields of orange and lemon trees, cherry tree.

557
00:47:56,800 --> 00:48:02,080
'Is seems depressingly likely Pepino's land will sooner or later also disappear

558
00:48:02,080 --> 00:48:06,840
'under the remorseless, lava-like flow of urbanisation.'

559
00:48:06,840 --> 00:48:12,160
- Beans, plums, apricots, you know each individual plant.
- Si.

560
00:48:25,080 --> 00:48:29,080
Although the spread of Naples is eroding these allotments

561
00:48:29,080 --> 00:48:36,440
and market gardens, Pepino's land is no quasi-rural affectation. It is the real thing,

562
00:48:36,440 --> 00:48:40,200
And a perfect model for small urban farms of the future.

563
00:48:42,040 --> 00:48:47,880
This feels like a garden, even though it's ten acres of intensive veg, you could say.

564
00:48:47,880 --> 00:48:55,680
The fact that it's loved and cared for as much as any garden of any description, I
think does the trick.

565
00:48:55,680 --> 00:49:00,320
There is that kind of human magic that works, and it's been going on here for 200
years,

566
00:49:00,320 --> 00:49:03,600
but I wonder, really, how long this can last.

567
00:49:03,600 --> 00:49:10,520
There's Naples encroaching in, like an angry sea, and it would be a real shame if I
were to come back here

568
00:49:10,520 --> 00:49:15,400
in 20 years' time and find that where I'm sitting now is a block of flats.

569
00:49:20,800 --> 00:49:24,320
Pepino wouldn't let me leave without sharing a meal with his family,

570
00:49:24,320 --> 00:49:28,080
every scrap grown and harvested from his ten acres.

571
00:49:28,080 --> 00:49:34,200
Here, at the table, is the real heart and soul of Italian gardening.

572
00:49:35,840 --> 00:49:41,440
- This is your wine?
- Yes.
- So everything here is made by Pepino?

573
00:49:41,440 --> 00:49:45,320
- The wine too.
- The wine too.
- OK.
- To your very good health.

574
00:49:45,320 --> 00:49:47,680
- Cheers.
- Cheers.

575
00:49:47,680 --> 00:49:53,760
Naples is very different from the rest of Italy and so are its gardens,

576
00:49:53,760 --> 00:49:57,760
that have evolved over the past 200 years to become looser, softer

577
00:49:57,760 --> 00:50:02,120
and more obviously romantic than its northern Renaissance counterparts.

578
00:50:02,120 --> 00:50:05,720
But there is one garden here left to visit in the south

579
00:50:05,720 --> 00:50:10,280
that is not just more romantic than any other that I have EVER visited

580
00:50:10,280 --> 00:50:17,280
but simply one of the loveliest, most magical gardens of any kind anywhere in the
world.

581
00:50:19,640 --> 00:50:23,200
I'm travelling 120 miles north of Naples

582
00:50:23,200 --> 00:50:27,400
to the hilltop town of Sermoneta that lies above the marshy plain

583
00:50:27,400 --> 00:50:31,160
in which is set the gardens of Ninfa.

584
00:50:31,160 --> 00:50:35,080
When people discover that I've visited a lot of gardens, they suggest ones

585
00:50:35,080 --> 00:50:41,560
that I haven't been to, and a name that has cropped up over the years more than any
other is Ninfa.

586
00:50:41,560 --> 00:50:45,440
So last year, I did go and see it, and I was staggered.

587
00:50:45,440 --> 00:50:46,960
It is just simply gorgeous.

588
00:50:46,960 --> 00:50:52,360
And whilst, of course, there's great debate about which is the most beautiful garden in
the world,

589
00:50:52,360 --> 00:50:55,320
there's no doubt which is the most romantic.

590
00:51:05,440 --> 00:51:11,240
For 1,000 years, Ninfa was an important town on the main road between Naples and Rome.

591
00:51:11,240 --> 00:51:15,600
At its early-14th-century peak, before the Black Death

592
00:51:15,600 --> 00:51:20,280
ripped through Europe, it was owned by the Caetani family and had a castle,

593
00:51:20,280 --> 00:51:24,200
seven churches, 14 towers,

594
00:51:24,200 --> 00:51:30,680
a town hall, mills, 150 houses and around 2,000 inhabitants,

595
00:51:30,680 --> 00:51:33,200
all of which made it a substantial town.

596
00:51:34,800 --> 00:51:39,400
Then, disaster struck.

597
00:51:39,400 --> 00:51:45,600
In 1381, Ninfa was sacked by mercenaries and pillaged by neighbouring towns.

598
00:51:45,600 --> 00:51:48,680
The remaining inhabitants, much reduced by plague

599
00:51:48,680 --> 00:51:55,520
and riddled with malaria from the surrounding marshes, evacuated it for healthier,
safer ground.

600
00:51:55,520 --> 00:52:00,720
The Caetani family retained ownership, but for nearly six centuries,

601
00:52:00,720 --> 00:52:06,880
it lay abandoned, with the buildings submerged like sunken wrecks beneath the tangled
undergrowth.

602
00:52:10,680 --> 00:52:16,200
This is a town where people lived for hundreds and hundreds of years,

603
00:52:16,200 --> 00:52:19,000
where people died by the hundred,

604
00:52:19,000 --> 00:52:20,640
and there are ghosts in here.

605
00:52:20,640 --> 00:52:22,280
You're walking the streets

606
00:52:22,280 --> 00:52:27,760
where Romans walked, where medieval man, where people fought,

607
00:52:27,760 --> 00:52:31,760
and there are just layers upon layers of memories

608
00:52:31,760 --> 00:52:37,360
in amongst the buildings, just like there are layers upon layers of plants.

609
00:52:37,360 --> 00:52:39,320
You don't want to speak too loudly,

610
00:52:39,320 --> 00:52:44,720
not because you're disturbing other people, but you don't want to disturb your own
sensitivity.

611
00:52:48,200 --> 00:52:51,080
Ninfa was not wholly ignored.

612
00:52:51,080 --> 00:52:56,640
Visitors came to admire its melancholy decay and the nonsense writer and painter Edward
Lear

613
00:52:56,640 --> 00:53:02,280
described it in 1840 as "one of the most romantic visions in Italy".

614
00:53:06,080 --> 00:53:12,120
The transformation into a garden began in 1905, under the guidance of Prince Gelasio
Caetani.

615
00:53:12,120 --> 00:53:19,600
Gelasio took on the enormous task of clearing the buildings from the undergrowth.

616
00:53:19,600 --> 00:53:23,840
But the garden as we see it now was started by his sister-in-law,

617
00:53:23,840 --> 00:53:26,840
Marguerite, who planted on a grand scale.

618
00:53:26,840 --> 00:53:32,920
And her daughter Lelia expanded Ninfa into its modern state after the Second World War.

619
00:53:38,800 --> 00:53:42,360
In medieval times, they repeatedly would get plague,

620
00:53:42,360 --> 00:53:45,720
and this was a low-lying area, so there was lots of malaria,

621
00:53:45,720 --> 00:53:48,480
and the town would be isolated from time to time.

622
00:53:48,480 --> 00:53:51,440
And to get food in, it had to come by the river,

623
00:53:51,440 --> 00:53:53,840
but they couldn't come right through,

624
00:53:53,840 --> 00:53:57,880
so this bridge was adapted to cater for that eventuality.

625
00:53:57,880 --> 00:53:59,640
And if you come up here...

626
00:54:05,680 --> 00:54:08,000
You can see that they built into the bridge -

627
00:54:08,000 --> 00:54:11,280
and these are the town walls, so this is the edge of the boundary -

628
00:54:11,280 --> 00:54:13,520
no-one could go out, no-one could come in.

629
00:54:13,520 --> 00:54:17,320
But they built, in the bridge, these vents, these openings,
630
00:54:17,320 --> 00:54:20,840
and what they did was lower baskets down on ropes

631
00:54:20,840 --> 00:54:24,400
to boats that would come from nearby with supplies.

632
00:54:24,400 --> 00:54:27,200
And then up here on the bridge,

633
00:54:27,200 --> 00:54:29,480
from the edge of the town looking in...

634
00:54:31,440 --> 00:54:36,080
..you have one of the most stunning views in any garden, ever,

635
00:54:36,080 --> 00:54:37,200
in the world.

636
00:54:51,800 --> 00:54:55,680
The way that Ninfa is maintained is a brilliant balancing act.

637
00:54:55,680 --> 00:55:00,800
Preserving the picturesque sense of ruin and loss with great subtlety,

638
00:55:00,800 --> 00:55:05,000
whilst scrupulously maintaining the fabric of the place.

639
00:55:10,880 --> 00:55:15,640
I've gone off-piste a bit. If you visit the garden, you go on a set route

640
00:55:15,640 --> 00:55:22,440
and admire all the obvious best bits, but I like it if you can get behind the scenes a
little bit.

641
00:55:22,440 --> 00:55:27,080
The whole place is gardened really carefully, and in fact,

642
00:55:27,080 --> 00:55:30,320
all this, I know, is very carefully assessed and considered.

643
00:55:30,320 --> 00:55:32,520
You know, how much weed do you leave in it?

644
00:55:32,520 --> 00:55:35,280
They don't want it looking too spick-and-span,

645
00:55:35,280 --> 00:55:38,640
and that would lose that sense of history, but on the other hand,

646
00:55:38,640 --> 00:55:43,840
they don't want to damage the fabric of the buildings, and it's all carefully weeded
and selected

647
00:55:43,840 --> 00:55:49,320
and looked after, and what you get are these layers of perception.

648
00:55:49,320 --> 00:55:52,360
It's as though history's mulching the garden.

649
00:55:54,240 --> 00:55:58,600
Now, as I was talking to you just then, I looked up and there,

650
00:55:58,600 --> 00:56:04,280
in the oak tree, is the most beautiful rose.

651
00:56:04,280 --> 00:56:06,640
Ah, that's just lovely.

652
00:56:14,840 --> 00:56:21,760
I think that the secret of Ninfa, as perhaps with all truly great gardens, is that it
enlarges us.

653
00:56:21,760 --> 00:56:26,880
You go in to admire and enjoy, which of course you do, but you come out

654
00:56:26,880 --> 00:56:30,680
with a whole new set of parameters with which to measure life.

655
00:56:30,680 --> 00:56:33,040
It really is that good.

656
00:56:33,040 --> 00:56:39,440
It may well be that there are bits of Ninfa that you think could be improved or bits
you don't like,

657
00:56:39,440 --> 00:56:44,040
but, for my money, and I have visited an awful lot of gardens,

658
00:56:44,040 --> 00:56:48,280
this garden encapsulates the performance of a garden,

659
00:56:48,280 --> 00:56:52,440
the idea of a garden, better than anywhere else.

660
00:56:52,440 --> 00:56:56,720
And that's a result of this extraordinary partnership between

661
00:56:56,720 --> 00:57:01,200
1,000 years of history of mankind,

662
00:57:01,200 --> 00:57:05,200
and the creativity of plants, nature renewing itself all the time,

663
00:57:05,200 --> 00:57:11,520
of people nurturing it and responding to it, that can make a garden into high art,

664
00:57:11,520 --> 00:57:18,400
and I think that, where you have man making something beautiful in partnership with
nature,

665
00:57:18,400 --> 00:57:23,520
then it becomes something completely life-enhancing.

666
00:57:38,280 --> 00:57:45,160
These gardens that I have visited in the south have a very distinct character.

667
00:57:45,160 --> 00:57:48,080
They're quite different from the rest of the country.

668
00:57:48,080 --> 00:57:52,040
The combination of bright sunshine, a sense of freedom of expression,

669
00:57:52,040 --> 00:57:53,560
and a simpler way of life

670
00:57:53,560 --> 00:57:57,680
has been the inspiration for gardens of a more liberated, looser spirit,

671
00:57:57,680 --> 00:58:01,040
than I have seen anywhere else in Italy so far.

672
00:58:05,560 --> 00:58:09,480
Next time, I'll be in the Veneto and the lakes of the far north,

673
00:58:09,480 --> 00:58:12,360
visiting gardens rich with plants,

674
00:58:12,360 --> 00:58:16,760
as well as looking in on the gardens of the very rich and the very famous.

675
00:58:16,760 --> 00:58:22,240
- What's this one here?
- Mr Clooney's place.
- Yeah, I can see why he might want to live there.

676
00:58:30,600 --> 00:58:33,640
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

677
00:58:33,640 --> 00:58:36,680
E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk
1
00:00:02,000 --> 00:00:04,800
I am on the final leg of my journey through Italy,

2
00:00:04,800 --> 00:00:08,800
exploring the country's loveliest and most significant gardens

3
00:00:08,800 --> 00:00:11,320
and the ideas and history that shaped them.

4
00:00:13,720 --> 00:00:17,960
I have visited gardens that defy interpretation.

5
00:00:17,960 --> 00:00:20,760
It's like a child going, "Grrrr!"

6
00:00:20,760 --> 00:00:23,920
And I've seen others whose message couldn't be clearer.

7
00:00:23,920 --> 00:00:26,920
I've seen how the formality of the Renaissance was replaced

8
00:00:26,920 --> 00:00:30,560
by a much more natural, romantic style in the south.

9
00:00:30,560 --> 00:00:31,720
Oh, it feels nice.

10
00:00:33,600 --> 00:00:38,320
This time, I'm in the wealthy north, where the profits of trade were spent on making

11
00:00:38,320 --> 00:00:42,040
elaborate gardens, which became pleasure grounds for gentry at play.

12
00:00:42,040 --> 00:00:46,680
Oh, dead end. You've got me. Now have your wicked way!

13
00:00:46,680 --> 00:00:51,520
I'll discover how newly-introduced species helped lay the foundations

14
00:00:51,520 --> 00:00:54,200
of botany and medicine in Italy.

15
00:00:54,200 --> 00:00:57,240
And see how this influx of plants from across the world

16
00:00:57,240 --> 00:01:00,280
created gardens of high theatre.

17
00:01:00,280 --> 00:01:01,960
Fantastic!

18
00:01:17,680 --> 00:01:20,440
The north is by far the wealthiest part of Italy.

19
00:01:20,440 --> 00:01:25,000
500 years ago, it was one of the richest and most powerful regions in Europe,

20
00:01:25,000 --> 00:01:27,120
with highly productive agricultural land

21
00:01:27,120 --> 00:01:31,160
and well-established commercial links across the world.

22
00:01:31,160 --> 00:01:35,320
The north of Italy is where most of the trade has taken place from early times.

23
00:01:35,320 --> 00:01:39,480
And a lot of that trade has been in plants, particularly in the 16th and 17th century

24
00:01:39,480 --> 00:01:42,120
where they poured in from all over the world.

25
00:01:42,120 --> 00:01:44,800
They were studied extensively for their medical use,

26
00:01:44,800 --> 00:01:49,040
agricultural possibilities and, of course, just their beauty.

27
00:01:49,040 --> 00:01:52,760
So I shall be looking in particular in this trip at how plants,

28
00:01:52,760 --> 00:01:56,680
rather than politics or design, have shaped their gardens.

29
00:02:01,080 --> 00:02:04,200
The influences that helped define the gardens in the north

30
00:02:04,200 --> 00:02:06,240
were quite different to the rest of Italy

31
00:02:06,240 --> 00:02:10,400
and they take us from the 16th century right up to the present day.

32
00:02:10,400 --> 00:02:13,240
The principle garden makers of the Veneto and of Lucca

33
00:02:13,240 --> 00:02:16,040
were the hugely prosperous merchants.
34
00:02:16,040 --> 00:02:21,160
And their creations celebrate their own existence with undisguised pleasure.

35
00:02:21,160 --> 00:02:24,440
Further north, the lakes provide a dramatic setting

36
00:02:24,440 --> 00:02:30,080
and a benign microclimate to display collections of plants from all over the world.

37
00:02:44,000 --> 00:02:45,920
From the early medieval period,

38
00:02:45,920 --> 00:02:50,120
the crucial centre of Northern Italy's wealth was the independent Republic of Venice.

39
00:02:52,240 --> 00:02:54,920
As Europe's most important trading hub,

40
00:02:54,920 --> 00:03:00,040
Venice dominated the critical trade routes to the East for hundreds of years.

41
00:03:00,040 --> 00:03:04,440
Ships brought back fabulously valuable silks, gold and spices,

42
00:03:04,440 --> 00:03:09,520
and, from the early 16th century, goods and treasures also began to come in from the
Americas.

43
00:03:13,600 --> 00:03:17,080
Merchants and sailors returned with unfamiliar plants and fruits

44
00:03:17,080 --> 00:03:20,360
from as far away as China and Chile.

45
00:03:20,360 --> 00:03:24,040
Including wildly exotic plants,

46
00:03:24,040 --> 00:03:26,920
such as the potato

47
00:03:26,920 --> 00:03:28,880
and the tomato.

48
00:03:30,560 --> 00:03:33,080
- Grazie.
- Prego.
- Grazie.

49
00:03:33,080 --> 00:03:35,480
It seems extraordinary to us now,
50
00:03:35,480 --> 00:03:38,840
when we take tomatoes for granted, but when they came in,

51
00:03:38,840 --> 00:03:43,400
they were regarded as this extraordinary plant which had

52
00:03:43,400 --> 00:03:47,320
these slightly suspicious-looking fruits which no-one dreamed of eating.

53
00:03:47,320 --> 00:03:49,400
They assumed they were poisonous.

54
00:03:49,400 --> 00:03:53,760
It was ages before someone plucked up the courage and popped them in their mouth.

55
00:03:53,760 --> 00:03:57,680
And, of course, now, everywhere in Italy lives off tomatoes.

56
00:04:04,360 --> 00:04:07,800
I am in Padua, 50 kilometres inland from Venice,

57
00:04:07,800 --> 00:04:10,440
in the wealthy hinterland of the Venetian republic,

58
00:04:10,440 --> 00:04:12,440
known as the Veneto.

59
00:04:12,440 --> 00:04:16,120
Venice has always been the dominant city of the region,

60
00:04:16,120 --> 00:04:19,560
but the most significant garden was made here in Padua.

61
00:04:26,200 --> 00:04:31,520
The Orto Botanico, made in 1543 as part of Padua University,

62
00:04:31,520 --> 00:04:34,520
is thought to be the world's oldest botanical garden.

63
00:04:34,520 --> 00:04:38,120
Initially, it was set up to study and collect "simples",

64
00:04:38,120 --> 00:04:42,440
which is the description which was then given to medicinal plants.

65
00:04:44,160 --> 00:04:48,920
The original garden lies behind this beautiful circular wall.

66
00:04:48,920 --> 00:04:52,360
But when it was first laid out, the wall wasn't there.
67
00:04:52,360 --> 00:04:55,640
And people very quickly cottoned on to the fact that these plants

68
00:04:55,640 --> 00:05:00,080
that they were laying in the beds, were potentially enormously valuable.

69
00:05:00,080 --> 00:05:02,840
They were medicinal plants, so if a cure could be found,

70
00:05:02,840 --> 00:05:05,120
somebody was going to get very rich indeed.

71
00:05:05,120 --> 00:05:10,160
So people came in and then nicked them and flogged them at great profit.

72
00:05:10,160 --> 00:05:13,960
So they put up the wall, so, what you've got to see is, actually, it's a fortress

73
00:05:13,960 --> 00:05:16,960
and the purpose of the wall is to keep people out.

74
00:05:28,960 --> 00:05:34,280
At the same time that art and architecture were being transformed in Renaissance
Florence,

75
00:05:34,280 --> 00:05:39,600
scientists were laying the foundations of modern botany in Padua.

76
00:05:42,920 --> 00:05:46,080
The Orto Botanico was dedicated to studying the properties

77
00:05:46,080 --> 00:05:50,720
of newly-introduced as well as indigenous plants,

78
00:05:50,720 --> 00:05:53,200
so that they could be used safely and effectively.

79
00:05:56,440 --> 00:05:59,240
This was revolutionary, because up to that point,

80
00:05:59,240 --> 00:06:03,800
plant-based remedies had largely relied on superstition and folklore.

81
00:06:09,360 --> 00:06:12,200
Most medicine was based on the doctrine of signatories

82
00:06:12,200 --> 00:06:16,600
which basically meant that if a plant looked like an aspect of the human body,

83
00:06:16,600 --> 00:06:18,000
then it would cure it.

84
00:06:18,000 --> 00:06:21,240
So, for example, a walnut - it looks like a brain,

85
00:06:21,240 --> 00:06:24,640
so it was used to try and cure diseases of the brain,

86
00:06:24,640 --> 00:06:29,680
or Pulmonaria, lungwort that we grow, was used for lung diseases.

87
00:06:29,680 --> 00:06:32,640
In practice, that killed as many people as it cured.

88
00:06:32,640 --> 00:06:36,920
The whole point of the Renaissance was to explore and discover

89
00:06:36,920 --> 00:06:40,600
and apply the mind to science.

90
00:06:40,600 --> 00:06:44,600
So by 1533, when the Chair of Botany was set up here in Padua,

91
00:06:44,600 --> 00:06:47,840
they wanted to collect as many plants as possible,

92
00:06:47,840 --> 00:06:51,080
not just say, "It looks as though it will do this", but to find out.

93
00:07:01,640 --> 00:07:06,520
The head of the Orto Botanico, Professor Francesco Bonafede,

94
00:07:06,520 --> 00:07:11,240
realised that the first step towards understanding medicinal plants

95
00:07:11,240 --> 00:07:15,160
was to identify and classify each specimen accurately.

96
00:07:24,760 --> 00:07:27,280
You know, it's really strange,

97
00:07:27,280 --> 00:07:30,200
because this is fundamentally a filing system.

98
00:07:30,200 --> 00:07:35,040
It's a laboratory, and there is no attempt to make a beautiful garden,

99
00:07:35,040 --> 00:07:39,280
the important thing is the order and the sequence
100
00:07:39,280 --> 00:07:42,600
and the display of plants so they can be studied. And yet,

101
00:07:42,600 --> 00:07:46,880
there's a magic here, there's a real charm.

102
00:07:46,880 --> 00:07:50,320
You walk in and you're seduced, it feels wonderful,

103
00:07:50,320 --> 00:07:52,480
it's the most beautiful garden.

104
00:07:52,480 --> 00:07:56,160
I know I'm biased, of course. Of course I'm bound to love it,

105
00:07:56,160 --> 00:07:58,920
but I defy anybody not to feel that magic.

106
00:08:05,520 --> 00:08:09,080
As new plants came in, they were given a specific position

107
00:08:09,080 --> 00:08:11,520
in an elaborate network of borders.

108
00:08:12,920 --> 00:08:15,560
To learn how it works, I met the former prefect,

109
00:08:15,560 --> 00:08:17,600
Professor Elsa Cappalletti.

110
00:08:20,000 --> 00:08:22,720
This book was the first exercise book for students,

111
00:08:22,720 --> 00:08:26,560
it was a pocket book,

112
00:08:26,560 --> 00:08:31,240
in which there was the plan of the garden.

113
00:08:31,240 --> 00:08:34,640
- So this is the plan of the garden here.
- With the four squares.

114
00:08:34,640 --> 00:08:36,840
Yes.

115
00:08:36,840 --> 00:08:40,640
In the past, students had to identify plants

116
00:08:40,640 --> 00:08:47,520
only observing their shape, the flowers and so on.

117
00:08:47,520 --> 00:08:53,800
And then they had to write the correct name of the plant.

118
00:08:53,800 --> 00:09:00,240
- Oh, I see.
- The identity. Perhaps there was a bella donna.
- OK.
- And they had to write,

119
00:09:00,240 --> 00:09:02,080
"bella donna".

120
00:09:02,080 --> 00:09:04,960
So if they knew which bed the plant was in,

121
00:09:04,960 --> 00:09:07,560
- then they would know which plant it was?
- Yes, yes.

122
00:09:07,560 --> 00:09:10,280
So the pattern was, if you like,

123
00:09:10,280 --> 00:09:14,760
- an aide to memory as much as anything else?
- Yes, yes.

124
00:09:28,000 --> 00:09:31,800
It may be a simple system compared to our electronic wizardry,

125
00:09:31,800 --> 00:09:35,920
but actually, it's beautifully effective because you can see how, if a student

126
00:09:35,920 --> 00:09:40,760
who had studied here, came across a plant in the field, perhaps on the other side of
the world,

127
00:09:40,760 --> 00:09:44,160
wasn't quite sure what it was, but they vaguely remembered it,

128
00:09:44,160 --> 00:09:49,200
all they had to do was think back to where they'd seen it in this garden, which
particular bed.

129
00:09:49,200 --> 00:09:54,320
And because each bed only had one plant, they'd hone in on that,

130
00:09:54,320 --> 00:09:58,480
look up in their book, bed number 36, block number two - bingo,

131
00:09:58,480 --> 00:10:00,160
they've got the name.

132
00:10:06,560 --> 00:10:10,440
The 16th century saw an increasing flow of new arrivals.

133
00:10:10,440 --> 00:10:13,600
The very first foreign plant introduced into the garden

134
00:10:13,600 --> 00:10:16,960
was in 1561, and was the Agave from Mexico,

135
00:10:16,960 --> 00:10:22,280
where it was prized by the Mayans for its wound-healing properties.

136
00:10:24,800 --> 00:10:27,000
The oldest surviving plant in the garden

137
00:10:27,000 --> 00:10:31,040
is the Mediterranean fan palm, Chamaerops humilis.

138
00:10:31,040 --> 00:10:36,480
This is the original specimen, that has been growing here since 1585.

139
00:10:41,600 --> 00:10:45,080
It's hard to exaggerate the importance of this garden.

140
00:10:45,080 --> 00:10:48,040
There were other botanic gardens around the same time,

141
00:10:48,040 --> 00:10:51,080
the one in Pisa was just about the same period,

142
00:10:51,080 --> 00:10:55,800
but this was where the study of plants really took on importance.

143
00:10:55,800 --> 00:11:01,600
And that appreciation of plants first of all as an aide to medicine

144
00:11:01,600 --> 00:11:04,960
and then as an end in itself, was slowly,

145
00:11:04,960 --> 00:11:09,520
but inexorably shaping the way that we viewed our gardens.

146
00:11:16,280 --> 00:11:18,600
As well as studying medical plants,

147
00:11:18,600 --> 00:11:22,920
the botanical garden in Padua played an important role in testing out

148
00:11:22,920 --> 00:11:26,840
the cultivation of newly introduced agricultural species

149
00:11:26,840 --> 00:11:30,880
that were to prove essential to feed the growing population.

150
00:11:50,480 --> 00:11:55,720
I'm now taking a boat trip along the canal that connects Padua to Venice.

151
00:11:55,720 --> 00:11:57,800
And perhaps more importantly,

152
00:11:57,800 --> 00:12:02,200
links Venice to the agricultural interior of the Veneto.

153
00:12:02,200 --> 00:12:08,000
Today, this is a charmingly gentle escape from the modern hurly-burly.

154
00:12:08,000 --> 00:12:11,280
But in the 16th century it would have been the quickest way

155
00:12:11,280 --> 00:12:15,200
to come inland and used regularly by the Venetian merchants and nobility,

156
00:12:15,200 --> 00:12:19,760
who were buying land in the region and building summer villas.

157
00:12:19,760 --> 00:12:23,720
These agricultural entrepreneurs planted the new crops

158
00:12:23,720 --> 00:12:27,160
like maize that had arrived from the Americas

159
00:12:27,160 --> 00:12:30,360
and immediately they thrived and proved highly profitable.

160
00:12:30,360 --> 00:12:34,280
This is the Brenta Canal, and very quickly it became the main route

161
00:12:34,280 --> 00:12:38,120
between Venice and Padua, and a lot of trade went up and down it.

162
00:12:38,120 --> 00:12:41,920
And also it was used by the merchants to get to their holiday homes,

163
00:12:41,920 --> 00:12:44,600
which they had built along the banks of the canal.

164
00:12:44,600 --> 00:12:47,080
Particularly at Stra which had very good soil.
165
00:12:47,080 --> 00:12:50,120
Those little farms that they first had became big estates

166
00:12:50,120 --> 00:12:53,120
and then finally really rather grand villas.

167
00:12:53,120 --> 00:12:57,480
And the place I'm going to visit now is the grandest of them all.

168
00:13:05,760 --> 00:13:08,640
The wealthy merchants and their guests would have been

169
00:13:08,640 --> 00:13:11,040
transported here to Stra in great style,

170
00:13:11,040 --> 00:13:13,240
travelling from their Venetian palazzo

171
00:13:13,240 --> 00:13:19,200
in a luxurious hybrid of gondola and barge known as a burchiello.

172
00:13:33,360 --> 00:13:37,120
I arrive at my destination just as they would have done,

173
00:13:37,120 --> 00:13:38,880
although in slightly less style,

174
00:13:38,880 --> 00:13:44,000
at the grandest holiday home in the Veneto, Villa Pisani.

175
00:13:45,400 --> 00:13:48,560
The Pisani family were Venetian bankers

176
00:13:48,560 --> 00:13:52,800
and merchants that had been wealthy and powerful since the 14th century.

177
00:13:52,800 --> 00:13:56,040
Villa Pisani started as a late 16th century farmhouse,

178
00:13:56,040 --> 00:14:00,720
but in 1720 it was pulled down to build a grand country palace

179
00:14:00,720 --> 00:14:05,000
where the Pisani family could entertain during the summer months.

180
00:14:07,760 --> 00:14:12,560
Look at that. You could set the scene, can't you?

181
00:14:12,560 --> 00:14:16,040
These visitors would come down the Brenta in a glorious barge,
182
00:14:16,040 --> 00:14:19,560
they'd get out, they'd see this enormous building,

183
00:14:19,560 --> 00:14:22,960
the biggest and the best in the area and be suitably impressed,

184
00:14:22,960 --> 00:14:25,560
come into it, it's all rather magnificent.

185
00:14:25,560 --> 00:14:27,880
And they pushed the doors and then boom,

186
00:14:27,880 --> 00:14:32,480
it expands beyond anything they've ever seen before.

187
00:14:32,480 --> 00:14:36,520
That's it, they've won. Pisanis have bowled them over.

188
00:14:44,960 --> 00:14:47,720
Alvise Pisani had been the Venetian Ambassador

189
00:14:47,720 --> 00:14:50,600
at the court of Louis XIV at Versailles

190
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and wanted his new garden at Stra to emulate that of the Sun King.

191
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But whereas Versailles stretched for 250 acres,

192
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Pisani had just 10 to play with.

193
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It's very grand, there are a number of these avenues that arrive

194
00:15:12,040 --> 00:15:16,720
at gates and it's a trick that was used actually a lot in gardens

195
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in the 18th century, these eye-catchers that draw the eye out of the garden.

196
00:15:22,120 --> 00:15:25,880
Cos the gardens here are obviously grand, but they're not that big.

197
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What you see is all there is.

198
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So by cutting through the woods and then arriving at this gate or gap

199
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in the fence, what it makes it feel is much bigger than it actually is.

200
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So the guests would come here,

201
00:15:39,120 --> 00:15:43,720
see it and feel as though it was owning as far as the eye could see.

202
00:15:49,240 --> 00:15:53,200
As with all Baroque gardens, the intention was to delight,

203
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amaze, surprise and entertain, as well as parade the owner's wealth

204
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and power in a triumphant display of mastery over nature.

205
00:16:04,240 --> 00:16:09,520
When you look on this from the entrance, it's absolutely magnificent.

206
00:16:09,520 --> 00:16:12,280
And it's pretty magnificent when you get here,

207
00:16:12,280 --> 00:16:16,560
but that's the road right there.

208
00:16:16,560 --> 00:16:21,920
It's about 10 metres thick and there's nothing here.

209
00:16:21,920 --> 00:16:26,160
It's built just for show, just to impress you, which is fine,

210
00:16:26,160 --> 00:16:27,360
cos it does.

211
00:16:43,680 --> 00:16:49,280
But this vast palace was only ever intended for the summer season.

212
00:16:49,280 --> 00:16:52,000
It was a place of play rather than work

213
00:16:52,000 --> 00:16:55,560
and life for a wealthy Venetian in the mid-18th century involved

214
00:16:55,560 --> 00:17:00,680
a very great deal of glamorous, not to say, amorous play.

215
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And the maze which was the first thing

216
00:17:05,200 --> 00:17:08,440
to be planted in the garden, was the perfect playground.

217
00:17:11,560 --> 00:17:14,080
I do like a nice, crisp hedge.

218
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The thing about a maze is just sort of a hedge lover's delight.

219
00:17:21,360 --> 00:17:22,680
Right, let's go in.

220
00:17:25,480 --> 00:17:27,680
- HE SNIFFS
- Love the smell of box.

221
00:17:27,680 --> 00:17:31,360
This was planted in 1720 and it's remained pretty much the same,

222
00:17:31,360 --> 00:17:33,480
other than the change of hornbeam for box.

223
00:17:33,480 --> 00:17:37,320
But very different to the labyrinths that you got in mediaeval gardens,

224
00:17:37,320 --> 00:17:39,880
because in a labyrinth, we'd be wandering along here

225
00:17:39,880 --> 00:17:41,520
and I'd be composing myself

226
00:17:41,520 --> 00:17:45,880
and solemnly thinking about the tortuous route of life.

227
00:17:45,880 --> 00:17:50,240
Let's go this way. But by 1720, it'd become a game.

228
00:17:50,240 --> 00:17:54,600
So what you've got to imagine is people in lovely, great silk dresses

229
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and tricorn hats, and it was all flirty,

230
00:17:58,080 --> 00:18:02,000
so it was round the corner and you'd try and find me and chase me

231
00:18:02,000 --> 00:18:04,360
and all sorts of malarkey going on in the maze.
232
00:18:04,360 --> 00:18:06,440
And that's really the spirit of Pisani.

233
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Now. Left, I think.

234
00:18:17,360 --> 00:18:18,880
I can't see over the top.

235
00:18:18,880 --> 00:18:21,200
Ah, I'm getting near.

236
00:18:21,200 --> 00:18:23,200
Aha!

237
00:18:27,600 --> 00:18:29,200
Oh, dead end.

238
00:18:30,480 --> 00:18:34,000
That is deeply frustrating. Oh, well.

239
00:18:36,280 --> 00:18:38,320
I have a feeling...

240
00:18:38,320 --> 00:18:41,920
Oh, there's a cul-de-sac. I am actually genuinely lost.

241
00:18:41,920 --> 00:18:44,160
HE LAUGHS

242
00:18:44,160 --> 00:18:46,960
I don't know, we'll get out somehow.

243
00:18:46,960 --> 00:18:51,000
I think the secret of a good maze is there has to be

244
00:18:51,000 --> 00:18:54,000
a genuine sense of panic.

245
00:18:56,080 --> 00:18:58,880
And there's all sorts of recorded stories,

246
00:18:58,880 --> 00:19:02,360
particularly of grand tours, Englishmen who'd come and visit

247
00:19:02,360 --> 00:19:05,640
mazes in the 18th century and then get lost and be calling for help

248
00:19:05,640 --> 00:19:08,720
and these dreadful Italians wouldn't come and let them out.

249
00:19:08,720 --> 00:19:12,080
Probably delighted to keep the English lords shut away for a bit.

250
00:19:14,320 --> 00:19:17,680
Oh, dead end, you've got me.

251
00:19:17,680 --> 00:19:20,160
Now have your wicked way.

252
00:19:25,360 --> 00:19:28,520
Aha! Bull's-eye.

253
00:19:37,600 --> 00:19:41,160
Whilst the central tower would be a remarkably unapproachable place

254
00:19:41,160 --> 00:19:44,000
for a secret assignation, nowadays it serves only

255
00:19:44,000 --> 00:19:48,960
as a viewing platform, presided over by a decidedly unromantic guard.

256
00:19:51,480 --> 00:19:56,360
The thing about a maze, it's almost the ultimate sort of pleasing object.

257
00:19:56,360 --> 00:19:58,000
But of course as a gardener I think,

258
00:19:58,000 --> 00:20:02,560
"Blimey, can you imagine clipping that? And then collecting it all up,

259
00:20:02,560 --> 00:20:05,520
"and also the problem of letting light into it,

260
00:20:05,520 --> 00:20:07,200
"so it stays nice and thick."

261
00:20:09,200 --> 00:20:11,800
I doubt the Pisanis' sportive 18th century guests

262
00:20:11,800 --> 00:20:13,960
would have troubled over such things.

263
00:20:13,960 --> 00:20:17,120
However they might well have found their way to the coffee house

264
00:20:17,120 --> 00:20:20,200
to cool down after so much amorous excitement.

265
00:20:20,200 --> 00:20:24,200
This arcaded pavilion sits on a mound housing an ice house,

266
00:20:24,200 --> 00:20:27,920
which in winter was filled with blocks of ice cut from the moat that rings it.

267
00:20:29,000 --> 00:20:32,040
Right through summer the deliciously chilled air would waft

268
00:20:32,040 --> 00:20:34,240
upstairs into the building.

269
00:20:34,240 --> 00:20:36,440
Oh, yes, there's the vent, the open space,

270
00:20:36,440 --> 00:20:38,520
connecting to the cool air from the ice.

271
00:20:38,520 --> 00:20:42,000
So you'd sit up here with your great big frocks with cold air

272
00:20:42,000 --> 00:20:45,640
coming up underneath them, feeling elegant but cool.

273
00:20:51,920 --> 00:20:56,920
Sometimes it's easy to feel a bit overwhelmed by all the symbolism

274
00:20:56,920 --> 00:21:01,640
and allegory and metaphor that you get in Renaissance and Baroque gardens.

275
00:21:01,640 --> 00:21:06,080
But this garden is dead simple, it's just one message that counts

276
00:21:06,080 --> 00:21:09,560
and from the very beginning the Pisani brothers intended it

277
00:21:09,560 --> 00:21:12,600
to impress, and it's worked through the ages.

278
00:21:12,600 --> 00:21:15,840
Napoleon came along, saw it, loved it, bought it,

279
00:21:15,840 --> 00:21:19,040
stayed one night, dished it out to a member of his family.

280
00:21:19,040 --> 00:21:22,520
The Tsar of Russia chose to stay here above all the other places

281
00:21:22,520 --> 00:21:25,040
that he could have had in the Veneto.
282
00:21:25,040 --> 00:21:27,640
The Hapsburgs put their court here.

283
00:21:27,640 --> 00:21:31,160
And, to this day, every single person that walks through that door

284
00:21:31,160 --> 00:21:34,280
comes in, has a look and goes, "Wow".

285
00:21:40,280 --> 00:21:44,760
I'm leaving the Veneto to take a detour southwest to Lucca -

286
00:21:44,760 --> 00:21:46,440
once an independent city state,

287
00:21:46,440 --> 00:21:49,920
and another wealthy centre of trade and agriculture.

288
00:21:55,440 --> 00:21:58,960
I'm coming to visit a garden that was built on the proceeds

289
00:21:58,960 --> 00:22:01,840
of a very specialised, very local product.

290
00:22:05,360 --> 00:22:08,400
The reason why I'm making this journey to Lucca is that

291
00:22:08,400 --> 00:22:10,840
it shares lots of similarities with the Veneto,

292
00:22:10,840 --> 00:22:13,160
because it's an independent state

293
00:22:13,160 --> 00:22:15,440
that had a lot of wealth, but it was tiny.

294
00:22:15,440 --> 00:22:18,120
Despite this, it had its own ambassadors to the court

295
00:22:18,120 --> 00:22:19,840
of St Petersburg and Versailles

296
00:22:19,840 --> 00:22:22,080
and that wealth was based on two sources.

297
00:22:22,080 --> 00:22:25,600
One was banking and the other was silk.

298
00:22:35,440 --> 00:22:39,680
Today, visitors come to Lucca to admire its mediaeval architecture.
299
00:22:39,680 --> 00:22:43,080
It is a calm, beautifully-preserved town.

300
00:22:45,000 --> 00:22:48,920
But its history is founded on hard trade.

301
00:22:48,920 --> 00:22:51,760
800 years ago, Lucca led the world in silk production

302
00:22:51,760 --> 00:22:54,280
and pioneered new spinning technology.

303
00:22:56,920 --> 00:22:59,840
Lucca's silk merchants such as Giovanni Arnolfini,

304
00:22:59,840 --> 00:23:02,240
seen here in the famous painting by Jan van Eyck,

305
00:23:02,240 --> 00:23:04,480
grew enormously rich on the trade

306
00:23:04,480 --> 00:23:07,000
of the finest silks and silk velvets.

307
00:23:14,680 --> 00:23:19,280
These merchants built themselves summer houses outside the city.

308
00:23:19,280 --> 00:23:23,560
And by the middle of the 17th century, these villas in the hills

309
00:23:23,560 --> 00:23:26,560
increasingly sported superb gardens.

310
00:23:40,600 --> 00:23:44,720
In 1651, one of Lucca's wealthiest silk merchants of all bought himself

311
00:23:44,720 --> 00:23:49,720
the title of Count Orsetti and built this stupendous villa and garden.

312
00:23:51,280 --> 00:23:54,080
But despite the newly noble Count Orsetti's wealth,

313
00:23:54,080 --> 00:23:56,520
and despite the opulence of his gardens,

314
00:23:56,520 --> 00:24:00,000
the villas of these Lucchesi merchants were still

315
00:24:00,000 --> 00:24:05,320
essentially highly-productive farms, and they all shared the same layout.

316
00:24:05,320 --> 00:24:09,720
They're all north-south, they all have their good

317
00:24:09,720 --> 00:24:13,720
cereal ground below, going down, sweeping down gently in a slope.

318
00:24:13,720 --> 00:24:16,840
Behind them they had their olive trees and their orchards

319
00:24:16,840 --> 00:24:19,600
and their woods, and then right in front of the house

320
00:24:19,600 --> 00:24:22,960
and to the side they grew vegetables. It was a format they all followed,

321
00:24:22,960 --> 00:24:26,000
and in the middle of the farmhouse, they all have one big room

322
00:24:26,000 --> 00:24:27,880
with windows to the front and the back

323
00:24:27,880 --> 00:24:30,840
so they could look out on their land, because it's all about money.

324
00:24:30,840 --> 00:24:34,960
But in the kernel of all these places, they're working farmhouses.

325
00:24:38,920 --> 00:24:41,600
Villa Marlia, then known as Villa Orsetti,

326
00:24:41,600 --> 00:24:44,960
follows the Baroque fashion for a series of garden rooms,

327
00:24:44,960 --> 00:24:49,320
each designed to surprise, delight and entertain the visitor.

328
00:24:52,280 --> 00:24:57,120
But nothing delights or entertains me more than these breathtaking hedges.

329
00:25:03,240 --> 00:25:05,520
That is fantastic.

330
00:25:05,520 --> 00:25:11,080
Incredible canyon created by the hedges and the path.

331
00:25:11,080 --> 00:25:15,240
It's an unlikely comparison, but it's exactly the same impression

332
00:25:15,240 --> 00:25:17,120
you get when you first go to New York

333
00:25:17,120 --> 00:25:18,760
and these enormous buildings

334
00:25:18,760 --> 00:25:23,480
flanking the street and it changes the way that you view a street...

335
00:25:23,480 --> 00:25:26,560
or, here, a garden path.

336
00:25:26,560 --> 00:25:29,960
If you look at the trees, they're full-blown oak trees,

337
00:25:29,960 --> 00:25:31,600
clipped to hedge form.

338
00:25:34,080 --> 00:25:38,280
You see, for me this is worth crossing the world just to see this.

339
00:25:38,280 --> 00:25:40,200
Last for the rest of my life.

340
00:25:48,600 --> 00:25:50,400
The language of Baroque symbolism

341
00:25:50,400 --> 00:25:54,760
and allegory would have been readily understood by all educated Europeans

342
00:25:54,760 --> 00:25:58,360
of the period, which was essentially the 17th and 18th centuries.

343
00:25:58,360 --> 00:26:02,760
So I have seen a number of similar river gods to these in the pool

344
00:26:02,760 --> 00:26:07,800
and the citrus garden in other gardens around Rome and Caprarola.

345
00:26:10,640 --> 00:26:13,560
I've seen quite a few citrus gardens now,

346
00:26:13,560 --> 00:26:15,600
but I think this is my favourite.

347
00:26:15,600 --> 00:26:16,800
I love it.

348
00:26:16,800 --> 00:26:19,480
Just trying to work out what it is and I think the rhythm
349
00:26:19,480 --> 00:26:22,200
is important, you have the balustrades playing along

350
00:26:22,200 --> 00:26:26,320
and then the pots equally spaced and the colour of the lemons.

351
00:26:26,320 --> 00:26:30,840
And it's like a sort of Baroque fugue that's picked up and played on.

352
00:26:30,840 --> 00:26:34,040
But it's very practical - they would have sold the lemons

353
00:26:34,040 --> 00:26:36,760
and, you know, they're Luccans, they're merchants,

354
00:26:36,760 --> 00:26:39,320
and this is based upon an agricultural background,

355
00:26:39,320 --> 00:26:42,520
so you grow lemons and you sell them and it's a harvest

356
00:26:42,520 --> 00:26:45,720
and the water was for growing fish, if you like, it's a fish tank.

357
00:26:45,720 --> 00:26:50,240
And it fed them. So the beauty is always practical.

358
00:27:03,560 --> 00:27:07,440
Marlia, like all the gardens of the Italian Baroque,

359
00:27:07,440 --> 00:27:10,280
was a place of performance and display.

360
00:27:10,280 --> 00:27:13,640
And perhaps that is the central key to understanding all the great

361
00:27:13,640 --> 00:27:15,560
Italian gardens throughout history.

362
00:27:15,560 --> 00:27:18,840
And here at Marlia there is a perfectly preserved

363
00:27:18,840 --> 00:27:23,280
teatro di verdura - a theatre created entirely from topiary.

364
00:27:25,920 --> 00:27:27,160
This is terrific.

365
00:27:30,040 --> 00:27:35,200
This great building made out of yew and a little bit of box.
366
00:27:37,160 --> 00:27:40,920
And I know that it was really used, it's a real theatre,

367
00:27:40,920 --> 00:27:43,840
it's not a topiary-pretend theatre.

368
00:27:43,840 --> 00:27:46,440
They had performances here and there is backstage

369
00:27:46,440 --> 00:27:48,880
and seats probably sat here.

370
00:27:48,880 --> 00:27:52,600
And you could imagine those wonderful ladies with their enormous

371
00:27:52,600 --> 00:27:56,880
great silk dresses, local silk, I suspect, sweeping in,

372
00:27:56,880 --> 00:28:01,560
and you can get... Whoops, be careful on there.

373
00:28:01,560 --> 00:28:04,880
I come up here, getting soaked.

374
00:28:09,280 --> 00:28:11,080
I suppose this is the upper circle.

375
00:28:12,840 --> 00:28:17,760
Yes, in here, we've got backstage area.

376
00:28:17,760 --> 00:28:20,920
And I bet this is wonderfully cool in summer.

377
00:28:22,720 --> 00:28:27,520
And here we've the wings with all the different entrances.

378
00:28:28,840 --> 00:28:32,960
So we come through onto the stage and make my entrance.

379
00:28:34,000 --> 00:28:35,240
Da-nah!

380
00:28:44,840 --> 00:28:47,720
The terracotta statues date from 1700

381
00:28:47,720 --> 00:28:51,480
and represent the stock characters from the commedia dell'arte.

382
00:28:51,480 --> 00:28:55,160
These plays were frequently bawdy in tone and dramatised

383
00:28:55,160 --> 00:29:00,240
stock themes such as adultery, love and the futility of old age.

384
00:29:05,000 --> 00:29:09,840
And I have to say, it's just completely fabulous

385
00:29:09,840 --> 00:29:12,640
and I want one in my garden and I want it now.

386
00:29:20,160 --> 00:29:23,920
For Count Orsetti and his descendants, parties and plays

387
00:29:23,920 --> 00:29:28,040
continued at Villa Marlia right up to the end of the 18th century.

388
00:29:29,120 --> 00:29:32,120
Then their world collapsed.

389
00:29:32,120 --> 00:29:36,840
In 1796, Napoleon Bonaparte crossed the Alps

390
00:29:36,840 --> 00:29:38,880
and swept through northern Italy.

391
00:29:42,320 --> 00:29:45,960
His army captured Venice, ending 1,100 years of independence,

392
00:29:45,960 --> 00:29:49,720
and in 1799 took Lucca.

393
00:29:56,840 --> 00:30:00,840
The opening lines of Tolstoy's War And Peace are, roughly,

394
00:30:00,840 --> 00:30:02,560
"Well, prince,

395
00:30:02,560 --> 00:30:08,360
"I see that Lucca and Genoa are now just estates of the Bonaparte family."

396
00:30:08,360 --> 00:30:10,960
And that was based on what happened here,

397
00:30:10,960 --> 00:30:15,240
because in 1805, Napoleon, dishing out provinces

398
00:30:15,240 --> 00:30:21,520
like the gangster chief he was, gave to his sister the state of Lucca.

399
00:30:21,520 --> 00:30:25,480
And she came down, had a look and decided that this villa,

400
00:30:25,480 --> 00:30:27,440
which was then called Villa Orsetti,

401
00:30:27,440 --> 00:30:29,720
was where she wanted to base herself.

402
00:30:29,720 --> 00:30:32,760
And she more or less turfed out the owners - she did pay them

403
00:30:32,760 --> 00:30:35,400
and gave them an offer they couldn't refuse.

404
00:30:35,400 --> 00:30:40,480
And the count, Count Orsetti, in his fury and fear, I suspect,

405
00:30:40,480 --> 00:30:45,600
had her silver money melted down, made into a huge dinner service,

406
00:30:45,600 --> 00:30:48,640
which he then put on a cart and trundled

407
00:30:48,640 --> 00:30:50,920
across the front of the villa

408
00:30:50,920 --> 00:30:54,240
so that Elisa could see Marlia disappear.

409
00:30:58,840 --> 00:31:01,040
It might have made him feel better,

410
00:31:01,040 --> 00:31:03,320
but it didn't get him his house back.

411
00:31:03,320 --> 00:31:06,360
And Elisa turned her back on his baroque formality,

412
00:31:06,360 --> 00:31:09,840
and created instead an English landscape garden.

413
00:31:09,840 --> 00:31:13,400
Its much more natural, informal style was then sweeping

414
00:31:13,400 --> 00:31:17,760
the continent and made greater use of imported plants and trees.

415
00:31:24,400 --> 00:31:27,880
Although the changes that Elisa made here were highly fashionable
416
00:31:27,880 --> 00:31:31,920
at the time, actually, gardening was changing in a very profound way.

417
00:31:31,920 --> 00:31:36,600
And it was because new plants were pouring in from all over the world.

418
00:31:36,600 --> 00:31:40,320
And up till the 19th century, in Italy at least, architects

419
00:31:40,320 --> 00:31:44,240
and landscape designers controlled the way that gardens looked.

420
00:31:44,240 --> 00:31:48,360
But with this new material it was plants themselves became

421
00:31:48,360 --> 00:31:50,840
the most interesting thing.

422
00:31:50,840 --> 00:31:55,600
And we go from the age of the formal designer to the age of the plantsman.

423
00:32:03,560 --> 00:32:06,800
I'm now heading north to an area where plantsmen made perhaps

424
00:32:06,800 --> 00:32:11,960
the biggest impact on the country's gardens, the Italian lakes, which

425
00:32:11,960 --> 00:32:15,640
lie up on the country's mountainous border with Switzerland and France.

426
00:32:36,840 --> 00:32:41,160
This is Lake Como, where the freshly kindled 19th-century

427
00:32:41,160 --> 00:32:45,040
passion for plants combined with a surge of new exotic species

428
00:32:45,040 --> 00:32:47,880
to create some spectacular gardens.

429
00:32:52,600 --> 00:32:55,240
The dramatic alpine setting, purity of the air

430
00:32:55,240 --> 00:32:59,040
and the clarity of the light, all combine to make this area feel

431
00:32:59,040 --> 00:33:02,600
distinctly different to the rest of Italy.

432
00:33:02,600 --> 00:33:06,600
In the early 19th century, it certainly chimed with the new romantic movement,
433
00:33:06,600 --> 00:33:09,440
and inspired poets such as Shelley and Wordsworth

434
00:33:09,440 --> 00:33:11,880
and composers like Verdi and Liszt.

435
00:33:14,240 --> 00:33:17,040
And at the same time in the early 1800s,

436
00:33:17,040 --> 00:33:19,720
Como's shores were being transformed

437
00:33:19,720 --> 00:33:23,360
as wealthy Italians queued up to build lakeside villas.

438
00:33:28,560 --> 00:33:32,960
- I'm taking a boat trip along Lake Como with Judith Wade.
- Hello.

439
00:33:32,960 --> 00:33:36,920
'Judith founded the Grandi Giardini Italiani which has helped

440
00:33:36,920 --> 00:33:41,520
'and coordinated scores of Italy's finest historic gardens

441
00:33:41,520 --> 00:33:43,600
'to open to the public.'

442
00:33:58,080 --> 00:34:00,760
They are incredibly splendid villas.

443
00:34:00,760 --> 00:34:04,360
Very ornate, all the gardens of course are waterfront

444
00:34:04,360 --> 00:34:08,000
and have been designed so that you can appreciate them

445
00:34:08,000 --> 00:34:13,120
from the waterfront rather than from the back of the city.

446
00:34:13,120 --> 00:34:16,760
There are dozens of very impressive villas, aren't there?

447
00:34:16,760 --> 00:34:18,880
Just one after the other, all the way along.

448
00:34:18,880 --> 00:34:21,560
- I think there are more than 100.
- Really? Really?
449
00:34:24,480 --> 00:34:27,840
'In recent years, many of Como's lavish villas have been bought

450
00:34:27,840 --> 00:34:33,200
'by oligarchs, film stars and super-rich fashion designers.'

451
00:34:36,880 --> 00:34:39,720
- This used to belong to Versace and...
- This one here?

452
00:34:39,720 --> 00:34:41,160
Yes, and that's where...

453
00:34:41,160 --> 00:34:43,480
And does the garden run all the way down?

454
00:34:43,480 --> 00:34:45,720
- All the way down here.
- Marvellous garden.

455
00:34:45,720 --> 00:34:48,680
And I believe that Madonna and Shakira

456
00:34:48,680 --> 00:34:51,680
and all the people in the pop world would turn up here often.

457
00:34:53,040 --> 00:34:56,080
So what's this one here?

458
00:34:56,080 --> 00:34:58,400
Mr Clooney's place.

459
00:34:58,400 --> 00:35:02,800
- Ah, very beautiful, yes, I could see why he might want to live there.
- Yes.

460
00:35:13,360 --> 00:35:16,640
This is Mr Branson's home, it's rather particular,

461
00:35:16,640 --> 00:35:18,240
very beautifully kept.

462
00:35:18,240 --> 00:35:20,200
- Yes.
- Almost groomed.

463
00:35:20,200 --> 00:35:24,440
And Mr Branson can only fly in here or come in here by boat,

464
00:35:24,440 --> 00:35:26,640
because it has no access by road.
465
00:35:28,000 --> 00:35:33,280
- It is immaculately kept, isn't it?
- And beautifully clipped Cyprus trees.

466
00:35:33,280 --> 00:35:35,440
Does he spend much time there?

467
00:35:35,440 --> 00:35:39,600
- I really don't know, he's never invited me over, but...
- Has he not?

468
00:35:39,600 --> 00:35:41,960
- How rude.
- Ha-ha!
- How appalling.

469
00:35:45,600 --> 00:35:50,760
And now we're coming along to Balbianello, but this is on a slope,

470
00:35:50,760 --> 00:35:54,640
so you couldn't make a proper Italian garden. Well, you come in here,

471
00:35:54,640 --> 00:35:57,800
you can look up the slope and it looks as though it is a garden.

472
00:36:02,080 --> 00:36:05,720
There is a lot of topiary there. It's beautifully groomed and clipped.

473
00:36:05,720 --> 00:36:08,960
They take four months, just two men,

474
00:36:08,960 --> 00:36:12,080
who've been there for the last 30 years, they're the same.

475
00:36:12,080 --> 00:36:15,520
- Do you know they use scissors on it?
- Do they? Ha-ha!

476
00:36:27,040 --> 00:36:31,200
In the early 19th century when many of these villas and their gardens

477
00:36:31,200 --> 00:36:35,200
were made, there was a burgeoning of colonial expansion and trade,

478
00:36:35,200 --> 00:36:39,960
which, in turn, created and fuelled a craze for exotic new plants,

479
00:36:39,960 --> 00:36:41,960
both from the east and the Americas.

480
00:36:43,240 --> 00:36:46,440
The climate of the lakes, with its high rainfall, hot summers

481
00:36:46,440 --> 00:36:50,680
and surprisingly mild winters, was perfect for the new arrivals.

482
00:36:56,360 --> 00:37:01,400
Everybody has lovely glass houses because they were plant collectors.

483
00:37:01,400 --> 00:37:03,520
So they were bringing plants in,

484
00:37:03,520 --> 00:37:05,880
I mean, that was quite a new thing, wasn't it?

485
00:37:05,880 --> 00:37:09,640
- That was the fashion way through Europe at the time.
- Yes, yes.

486
00:37:09,640 --> 00:37:12,400
It was your status symbol - it wasn't having a Ferrari,

487
00:37:12,400 --> 00:37:14,160
it was buying rare plants.

488
00:37:14,160 --> 00:37:19,680
And then of course when Napoleon turned up of course there was

489
00:37:19,680 --> 00:37:23,360
a lot of boats going round Europe bringing plants in and out -

490
00:37:23,360 --> 00:37:27,640
that was an exciting part, he was going to exotic parts of the world.

491
00:37:27,640 --> 00:37:32,680
And so with the mild climate and ericaceous soil they could have plants from the
Himalayas

492
00:37:32,680 --> 00:37:34,160
or China or wherever.

493
00:37:36,640 --> 00:37:39,480
- Goodbye, have a nice day.
- Thank you very much indeed.

494
00:37:39,480 --> 00:37:42,800
'On the shore of the little village of Bellagio is Villa Melzi,

495
00:37:42,800 --> 00:37:46,440
which is one of Lake Como's finest gardens.

496
00:38:03,560 --> 00:38:07,360
At the turn of the 19th century, this garden started a bitter

497
00:38:07,360 --> 00:38:11,320
horticultural rivalry between two of Italy's most prominent men.

498
00:38:13,200 --> 00:38:17,840
Melzi was the home of Francesco Melzi d'Eril, a Milanese aristocrat

499
00:38:17,840 --> 00:38:23,080
who Napoleon appointed vice president of Italy after the French invasion.

500
00:38:23,080 --> 00:38:28,040
In 1808 he began to make his garden in the new English landscape style,

501
00:38:28,040 --> 00:38:31,600
and from the first it was open to views of the lake

502
00:38:31,600 --> 00:38:33,520
and the mountains beyond.

503
00:38:33,520 --> 00:38:37,120
However, like all natural-looking gardens, this involved huge work

504
00:38:37,120 --> 00:38:41,280
to make and needs intensive maintenance to keep looking natural.

505
00:38:42,720 --> 00:38:45,760
When you first walk round the garden it seems to just sort of be

506
00:38:45,760 --> 00:38:47,800
rather soft and like a country park.

507
00:38:47,800 --> 00:38:52,320
But when you analyse it the design has got really particular and strong elements.

508
00:38:52,320 --> 00:38:54,600
For a start, you've got this steep slope,

509
00:38:54,600 --> 00:38:58,040
tied together by the immaculate grass and these sculpted rather

510
00:38:58,040 --> 00:39:02,200
abstract forms both of the shape of the land and also the shrubs.

511
00:39:02,200 --> 00:39:05,480
And then there's trees growing up which give it some verticals.

512
00:39:05,480 --> 00:39:07,720
And then you have this path,
513
00:39:07,720 --> 00:39:11,040
this great long path just running the whole length of the garden

514
00:39:11,040 --> 00:39:13,640
and the series of the plane trees, open to the lake.

515
00:39:14,960 --> 00:39:18,560
And it's a vast plane, this great horizontal expanse,

516
00:39:18,560 --> 00:39:20,840
which sets it all into balance.

517
00:39:20,840 --> 00:39:25,120
And I don't think that first part, the soft, abstract, sculptural bit,

518
00:39:25,120 --> 00:39:28,800
would work nearly so well without the severity of the lake.

519
00:39:34,640 --> 00:39:37,840
Directly across the water at Villa Carlotta

520
00:39:37,840 --> 00:39:43,040
lived Gian Battista Sommariva, another highly ambitious politician.

521
00:39:43,040 --> 00:39:47,440
And Sommariva deeply resented Melzi for beating him to the top job

522
00:39:47,440 --> 00:39:50,920
and there was no love lost between the neighbours.

523
00:39:50,920 --> 00:39:56,080
This fuelled both men's gardens as they vied to out-do each other.

524
00:40:07,560 --> 00:40:10,760
Melzi appointed a botanist and started filling his garden

525
00:40:10,760 --> 00:40:13,560
with the latest plants from around the world.

526
00:40:22,400 --> 00:40:24,120
Sommariva followed suit,

527
00:40:24,120 --> 00:40:27,800
buying up more land to make room for his growing collection.

528
00:40:35,600 --> 00:40:40,040
Melzi fired a salvo of Rhododendron indicum, imported from Japan.

529
00:40:44,240 --> 00:40:45,320
Not to be outdone,
530
00:40:45,320 --> 00:40:49,560
Sommariva responded by planting hundreds of them.

531
00:40:55,480 --> 00:40:57,840
But Melzi wasn't going to take that lying down.

532
00:40:57,840 --> 00:41:00,960
He did his own exotic planting right on the waterfront,

533
00:41:00,960 --> 00:41:04,760
and Sommariva could see that across the water

534
00:41:04,760 --> 00:41:08,640
it was like a horticultural bullet fired straight at him.

535
00:41:14,200 --> 00:41:17,400
Melzi upped the stakes and planted ever more trees and shrubs

536
00:41:17,400 --> 00:41:20,880
rarely seen in Italy at that time,

537
00:41:20,880 --> 00:41:24,240
but daily visible to Sommariva.

538
00:41:25,760 --> 00:41:28,560
For my money, it's Villa Melzi that wins

539
00:41:28,560 --> 00:41:30,680
this rather frantic gardening duel.

540
00:41:30,680 --> 00:41:33,640
Unlike Carlotta, it has a sweep and a line to it,

541
00:41:33,640 --> 00:41:36,720
and the inclusion of the landscape is clever and generous.

542
00:41:54,360 --> 00:41:56,560
But nevertheless, I can't help but notice that

543
00:41:56,560 --> 00:41:59,680
Melzi sited his greatest treasures

544
00:41:59,680 --> 00:42:02,440
where they would admired by the maximum number of people.

545
00:42:06,120 --> 00:42:09,640
The garden here is planted with wonderful specimen trees

546
00:42:09,640 --> 00:42:11,320
like the cedar of Lebanon,

547
00:42:11,320 --> 00:42:15,600
and there are zelkovas and all sorts of trees from all over the world.

548
00:42:15,600 --> 00:42:20,440
But none of them are the same as the trees on the wooded slopes,

549
00:42:20,440 --> 00:42:22,040
none of them are natives.

550
00:42:22,040 --> 00:42:26,000
And actually, if you look along the lake, you have this fine seam of

551
00:42:26,000 --> 00:42:30,840
exotic planting, like a strip of gold showing off people's wealth.

552
00:42:48,760 --> 00:42:51,840
Napoleon's rule lasted less than 20 years.

553
00:42:51,840 --> 00:42:56,360
And finally, in 1861, for the first time in its history,

554
00:42:56,360 --> 00:42:59,400
Italy was unified into a single political state.

555
00:43:01,480 --> 00:43:03,920
Railways were built, businesses prospered,

556
00:43:03,920 --> 00:43:08,240
and throughout this new Italy, and especially here in the north,

557
00:43:08,240 --> 00:43:12,320
a new middle class started to emerge, and they began to take up

558
00:43:12,320 --> 00:43:16,240
the hitherto-aristocratic pastime of gardening.

559
00:43:18,760 --> 00:43:23,440
Going past miles of nurseries, mainly for trees.

560
00:43:23,440 --> 00:43:26,040
And these nurseries really began in the 19th century,

561
00:43:26,040 --> 00:43:27,400
particularly in the north -

562
00:43:27,400 --> 00:43:30,080
there was money developing, for the middle classes.

563
00:43:30,080 --> 00:43:33,880
And that meant that they could have gardens that weren't

564
00:43:33,880 --> 00:43:36,080
just for food, and for the very first time,

565
00:43:36,080 --> 00:43:38,920
there were gardening magazines, there were plant suppliers,

566
00:43:38,920 --> 00:43:40,800
there were societies,

567
00:43:40,800 --> 00:43:43,840
so that horticulture became a common activity.

568
00:43:47,240 --> 00:43:51,480
Before I visit my last garden, I'm stopping off in Milan to visit

569
00:43:51,480 --> 00:43:55,920
one of Italy's oldest nurseries, established 130 years ago.

570
00:43:59,160 --> 00:44:02,600
In the spirit of the 16th-century botanists in Padua,

571
00:44:02,600 --> 00:44:06,160
the Ingegnoli brothers collected plants from all over the world

572
00:44:06,160 --> 00:44:08,320
and propagated them for their seeds,

573
00:44:08,320 --> 00:44:11,880
feeding the new market for exotic flowers and fruits.

574
00:44:14,000 --> 00:44:16,960
The business is now run by Francesco Fadini,

575
00:44:16,960 --> 00:44:19,480
the sixth generation of Ingegnolis.

576
00:44:25,640 --> 00:44:28,640
The railway was very, very important for us.

577
00:44:28,640 --> 00:44:34,120
In 1861, to send our product, the seeds, the plants,

578
00:44:34,120 --> 00:44:37,920
in all Italy, from Milano to Sicily.

579
00:44:37,920 --> 00:44:42,120
- So by this stage, the whole of Italy was buying from you?
- Yes.
580
00:44:42,120 --> 00:44:46,560
- So you could issue a catalogue?
- Yes. This is the catalogue for 1893.

581
00:44:50,600 --> 00:44:52,240
Great pictures, too.

582
00:44:52,240 --> 00:44:55,440
Look at all these different varieties of pear, it's amazing.

583
00:44:55,440 --> 00:44:56,920
We don't have this now.

584
00:44:56,920 --> 00:45:00,200
I like the squared paper, so people could write their notes.

585
00:45:00,200 --> 00:45:02,280
- Make their notes, yes.
- It's such a good idea.

586
00:45:02,280 --> 00:45:06,400
And presumably there was a genuine increase in interest?

587
00:45:06,400 --> 00:45:09,440
The new type of plants were very important.

588
00:45:09,440 --> 00:45:15,040
Francesco Ingegnoli, in 1880, he went to Japan, to China,

589
00:45:15,040 --> 00:45:16,840
he returned with the caco.

590
00:45:16,840 --> 00:45:20,800
- I don't know in English the translation of the "caco".
- I think it's persimmon.

591
00:45:20,800 --> 00:45:24,160
So people must have been excited by these new plants coming in.

592
00:45:24,160 --> 00:45:28,240
- To taste the first time, like a caco...
- Yes, yes.
- Is incredible.

593
00:45:28,240 --> 00:45:33,360
We also have a letter of 1888. It's the thank letter.

594
00:45:33,360 --> 00:45:40,200
"I received six caco. Thanks very much. And I hope that in the future,

595
00:45:40,200 --> 00:45:46,840
"this variety of caco will be very famous in Italy, best regards, Giuseppe Verdi."

596
00:45:46,840 --> 00:45:48,760
So you had famous customers.

597
00:45:48,760 --> 00:45:51,880
There were these new fruits coming in, new varieties,

598
00:45:51,880 --> 00:45:54,600
there's a kind of energy.

599
00:45:54,600 --> 00:46:00,640
It was very important. They wanted to see flower, the colour, something different.

600
00:46:00,640 --> 00:46:02,800
Now I understand, I understand.

601
00:46:15,480 --> 00:46:19,520
I have headed north from Milan to Lake Maggiore,

602
00:46:19,520 --> 00:46:22,760
and my final destination on this horticultural journey through Italy.

603
00:46:24,080 --> 00:46:30,520
And this is perhaps the ultimate expression of the baroque love of extravagance and
drama.

604
00:46:32,200 --> 00:46:37,680
At the western end of Lake Maggiore lie three islands collectively called the
Borromeos.

605
00:46:47,160 --> 00:46:52,920
They're named after the aristocratic banking family who bought land on them in the 16th
century.

606
00:46:57,360 --> 00:47:00,720
The island that I'm visiting is called Isola Bella,

607
00:47:00,720 --> 00:47:06,560
and for centuries it has attracted garden visitors like moths to the flame.

608
00:47:06,560 --> 00:47:11,160
Indeed this is now my own third visit. I hope it won't be my last.

609
00:47:18,640 --> 00:47:22,800
The Isola Bella is just not like anywhere else you've ever seen.

610
00:47:22,800 --> 00:47:25,080
When I first saw it, I remember thinking

611
00:47:25,080 --> 00:47:28,720
that it's like a sort of mad battleship wearing a party frock.

612
00:47:28,720 --> 00:47:30,640
It's extravagant, it's hysterical,

613
00:47:30,640 --> 00:47:34,840
It's like a drag ball parading as a garden.

614
00:47:34,840 --> 00:47:39,080
And yet it's a really good garden and perhaps the best surviving

615
00:47:39,080 --> 00:47:41,440
baroque example of a garden in the whole of Italy.

616
00:47:52,840 --> 00:47:57,600
In 1632 Carlo Borromeo, the governor of Lake Maggiore,

617
00:47:57,600 --> 00:48:02,520
commissioned this entire rocky island to be transformed into a pyramid of terraces.

618
00:48:09,080 --> 00:48:15,120
Towering 100 feet up into the sky, he wanted it to look like a great galleon floating
on the lake.

619
00:48:17,080 --> 00:48:19,360
It took 40 years to complete,

620
00:48:19,360 --> 00:48:23,680
and huge quantities of soil, marble and granite were shipped in.

621
00:48:25,280 --> 00:48:29,040
Whilst this work proceeded, Borromeo set about trying to buy up

622
00:48:29,040 --> 00:48:32,840
the houses of the fishermen who lived on the island.

623
00:48:44,240 --> 00:48:49,400
But it wasn't all plain sailing, because a lot of the villagers couldn't be coerced
into selling.

624
00:48:49,400 --> 00:48:53,720
They just stayed put, which meant that the garden had to be made around them,

625
00:48:53,720 --> 00:48:55,760
which is why it's such an odd shape.

626
00:48:55,760 --> 00:48:59,480
Now, gradually over a long period of time, some did sell,

627
00:48:59,480 --> 00:49:02,920
and pockets of the garden were able to be extended.

628
00:49:20,400 --> 00:49:25,760
This is classic High Baroque drama.

629
00:49:25,760 --> 00:49:31,360
Everything slightly hysterical, but in a very elegant, controlled way.

630
00:49:34,480 --> 00:49:40,320
And I love these high hedges above the balustrade, they're bay hedges.

631
00:49:41,320 --> 00:49:44,520
So enormous height, I mean what's that, 30 feet tall?

632
00:49:44,520 --> 00:49:47,120
And you know something's up there but you don't know what,

633
00:49:47,120 --> 00:49:49,920
so of course you're led, and then look at, oh!

634
00:49:51,880 --> 00:49:55,960
These steps curve round and then that's ficus repens on the wall,

635
00:49:55,960 --> 00:50:02,880
and then more bay above it, so you have this immaculate green, curving wall.

636
00:50:05,040 --> 00:50:09,120
Very simple but immediately incredibly powerful.

637
00:50:10,880 --> 00:50:14,320
MUSIC: "Eine Kleine Nachtmusik" by Mozart

638
00:50:16,520 --> 00:50:22,840
There's a tendency to think of baroque as all twiddles and over-ornamentation.

639
00:50:22,840 --> 00:50:26,480
But this staircase does show that just texture and colour

640
00:50:26,480 --> 00:50:34,440
and very, very strong shape and form with that little strip of stone is just as
dramatic.

641
00:50:36,680 --> 00:50:40,440
And the main purpose of the staircase is to compress the views

642
00:50:40,440 --> 00:50:42,680
and heighten the sense of anticipation.

643
00:51:10,520 --> 00:51:18,480
And there, this is the most incredible, theatrical,
644
00:51:18,480 --> 00:51:21,480
completely dotty thing I've ever seen in a garden.

645
00:51:21,480 --> 00:51:26,160
And it's... What is it? It's operatic.

646
00:51:27,920 --> 00:51:30,520
And white peacocks, it's like a dream,

647
00:51:30,520 --> 00:51:34,520
like walking through a door in a dream and suddenly seeing

648
00:51:34,520 --> 00:51:41,560
this scalloped, vast stage set with figures.

649
00:51:41,560 --> 00:51:45,160
It's like walking round the corner in your garden

650
00:51:45,160 --> 00:51:48,680
and going onto the L'Escala or the Opera House at Covent Garden.

651
00:51:51,240 --> 00:51:52,680
Fantastic!

652
00:51:52,680 --> 00:51:56,160
MUSIC: "The Queen of the Night" from "The Magic Flute" by Mozart

653
00:52:10,800 --> 00:52:16,160
The Massimo theatre is an operatic triumph of baroque kitsch and power play.

654
00:52:18,000 --> 00:52:21,480
The statues of Roman gods, obelisks, scallops, waving putti,

655
00:52:21,480 --> 00:52:24,760
all overlooked by the Borromeos' symbol, the unicorn.

656
00:52:37,000 --> 00:52:40,920
Guests would have been entertained by music drifting up from choirs

657
00:52:40,920 --> 00:52:43,640
and orchestras hidden in the garden below.

658
00:52:49,280 --> 00:52:55,280
Whilst albino peacocks, imported from south-east Asia, strutted and posed archly.

659
00:53:05,960 --> 00:53:10,320
The impulse to entertain, impress and show off

660
00:53:10,320 --> 00:53:13,960
reaches its high point on the highest terrace.
661
00:53:23,920 --> 00:53:27,920
Big open space. It's like walking into an empty ballroom.

662
00:53:31,880 --> 00:53:35,840
And these amazing views on each side.

663
00:53:37,320 --> 00:53:39,920
So that it couldn't be lighter and airier,

664
00:53:39,920 --> 00:53:42,640
and yet these whopping great statues, and...

665
00:53:46,120 --> 00:53:50,240
..there, the Borromeo symbol, the unicorn, bigger than anything else.

666
00:53:53,880 --> 00:53:55,880
No doubt about who's the daddy here!

667
00:53:57,200 --> 00:54:01,560
So if you come to the Borromeo party, you end up here, with all the guests in their
finery

668
00:54:01,560 --> 00:54:05,680
and people can see that you're having a party,

669
00:54:05,680 --> 00:54:07,760
they can see you dressed in your finery,

670
00:54:07,760 --> 00:54:12,000
you know, the Borromeos are having another do.

671
00:54:12,000 --> 00:54:14,720
But they're not invited, that's the key thing.

672
00:54:14,720 --> 00:54:17,360
This is a fortress of privilege.

673
00:54:17,360 --> 00:54:21,760
It's the perfect platform for display.

674
00:54:29,760 --> 00:54:34,720
Originally dominated by Mediterranean plants and the inevitable citrus,

675
00:54:34,720 --> 00:54:38,320
Isola Bella underwent a transformation in the 19th century

676
00:54:38,320 --> 00:54:43,240
when the plant-mad Count Vitaliano Borromeo imported a mass of exotic species

677
00:54:43,240 --> 00:54:48,680
from China, India, the Americas, Himalayas and Australia.

678
00:54:59,520 --> 00:55:03,200
This Camphor is truly enormous, it's...

679
00:55:03,200 --> 00:55:07,400
ooh, it's a tree on a heroic scale.

680
00:55:07,400 --> 00:55:09,640
But it started life as a rooted cutting.

681
00:55:09,640 --> 00:55:14,240
The count bought it in with lots of other exotics that he'd collected and bought into
the garden,

682
00:55:14,240 --> 00:55:16,040
and was grown in a pot, and admired.

683
00:55:16,040 --> 00:55:20,360
And it got bigger and bigger and then was planted out. And it's never stopped growing.

684
00:55:20,360 --> 00:55:23,320
And at a rate that far exceeds any other tree in the garden.

685
00:55:23,320 --> 00:55:27,520
And, in fact, most other trees altogether. It is now just colossal.

686
00:55:28,640 --> 00:55:32,960
And it's very beautiful, and it's got this lovely billowing silhouette.

687
00:55:42,200 --> 00:55:49,520
For all its brash ostentation, there are some secret corners of Isola Bella that are
less flamboyant,

688
00:55:49,520 --> 00:55:52,240
but to my mind, every bit as dramatic.

689
00:55:58,280 --> 00:56:03,360
The public aren't allowed into here. I've been let in specially.

690
00:56:05,360 --> 00:56:08,360
And it's my favourite bit, it's absolutely wonderful.

691
00:56:08,360 --> 00:56:11,880
These great buildings of green,

692
00:56:11,880 --> 00:56:17,920
and some of them are Camellia, and these great pillows of azaleas.

693
00:56:19,280 --> 00:56:24,840
And there's Rhododendrons, so of course in spring, that will just explode out into
colour.

694
00:56:24,840 --> 00:56:29,080
I like it green, actually, I love this austerity of colour

695
00:56:29,080 --> 00:56:33,160
and yet ambition on scale.

696
00:56:33,160 --> 00:56:36,080
And I think you come in and immediately feel inspired

697
00:56:36,080 --> 00:56:39,200
and everything's lifted up a notch or two.

698
00:56:48,640 --> 00:56:53,600
Although there are marvellously elegant and sculptural parts of the garden,

699
00:56:53,600 --> 00:56:59,240
from the south here and as you approach by boat and look up at this view,

700
00:56:59,240 --> 00:57:01,840
what you see is totally brash.

701
00:57:03,200 --> 00:57:05,240
Totally kitsch.

702
00:57:05,240 --> 00:57:08,800
Completely without any taste at all.

703
00:57:09,600 --> 00:57:11,040
And I love it for that.

704
00:57:21,480 --> 00:57:27,320
Who could not love the way that Isola Bella is an unashamed carnival of a garden?

705
00:57:27,320 --> 00:57:29,280
It's quintessentially baroque,

706
00:57:29,280 --> 00:57:33,280
and that desire to put on an outward show is quintessentially Italian.

707
00:57:33,280 --> 00:57:36,280
Certainly I've never visited any garden like it.

708
00:57:36,280 --> 00:57:41,680
And it feels like the perfect place to end my tour of the great Italian gardens.

709
00:57:41,680 --> 00:57:48,040
Isola Bella is a performance, and it's kitsch and it's brash and at times completely
barmy,
710
00:57:48,040 --> 00:57:49,320
but I think it's heroic.

711
00:57:49,320 --> 00:57:55,120
But then, I think you must appreciate that gardens fall under that Italian spell of
bella figura.

712
00:57:55,120 --> 00:57:58,480
This need to create a good impression,

713
00:57:58,480 --> 00:58:02,680
to look really good, and it doesn't really matter what's behind it.

714
00:58:02,680 --> 00:58:05,640
And travelling through this beautiful country,

715
00:58:05,640 --> 00:58:09,720
seeing amazing gardens all along the way, has been a joy.

716
00:58:19,280 --> 00:58:22,320
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

717
00:58:22,320 --> 00:58:25,360
E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk

1
00:00:07,960 --> 00:00:10,560
I'm on the second leg of my trip around Italy,

2
00:00:10,560 --> 00:00:14,760
exploring the country's loveliest and most influential gardens

3
00:00:14,760 --> 00:00:21,040
and the ideas, landscape and history that shaped them.

4
00:00:24,440 --> 00:00:29,880
I began my journey with the grand gardens of Rome, made by cardinals vying for the
papacy.

5
00:00:29,880 --> 00:00:35,640
I'm heading south to Naples, where the sun has inspired gardens of poetry and romance.

6
00:00:35,640 --> 00:00:39,320
Ah, that's just lovely.

7
00:00:39,320 --> 00:00:44,600
And right up to the north of the country, where the gardens are magnificently dramatic.

8
00:00:44,600 --> 00:00:48,200
I am actually genuinely lost.
9
00:00:48,200 --> 00:00:55,080
This time I'm in Florence, where the creative flowering we now know as the Renaissance

10
00:00:55,080 --> 00:01:01,080
promoted for the first time in modern history the idea that a garden could be a work of
art.

11
00:01:01,080 --> 00:01:06,520
In every direction, you see balance, order and harmony.

12
00:01:09,320 --> 00:01:12,760
I'll be visiting both public and private gardens

13
00:01:12,760 --> 00:01:19,000
in order to find out what it is about them that still has such a powerful resonance
with us today.

14
00:01:19,000 --> 00:01:24,320
It does feel like the most extraordinary, dramatic gesture to have at the bottom of the
garden.

15
00:01:24,320 --> 00:01:30,200
I'll also discover how British and American garden makers reinvented Renaissance
gardens

16
00:01:30,200 --> 00:01:36,200
at the beginning of the 20th century, spreading the myth that they were always a flower
free zone.

17
00:01:36,200 --> 00:01:40,200
It's all the same colour and yet building this symphony of green.

18
00:01:55,280 --> 00:01:59,080
In the 15th century, the Tuscan city state of Florence

19
00:01:59,080 --> 00:02:02,360
became the artistic and intellectual centre of the Renaissance,

20
00:02:02,360 --> 00:02:06,360
which was a profound artistic and cultural revolution,

21
00:02:06,360 --> 00:02:10,920
that over two centuries, took medieval Europe into the modern era.

22
00:02:10,920 --> 00:02:14,280
Florentine artists like Botticelli, Michelangelo and Leonardo,

23
00:02:14,280 --> 00:02:16,800
and architects such as Brunelleschi and Vasari,

24
00:02:16,800 --> 00:02:22,040
produced some of the most glorious art and architecture the world has ever seen.

25
00:02:23,480 --> 00:02:29,200
The Renaissance also developed the concept that had lain dormant since classical times,
that a garden,

26
00:02:29,200 --> 00:02:36,040
just as much as a painting or a piece of sculpture, could also be a profound artistic
expression.

27
00:02:36,040 --> 00:02:42,320
In the 15th century, there was this extraordinary flowering of art and science and
literature,

28
00:02:42,320 --> 00:02:48,720
and from that came this idea that gardens could be places that were beautiful in their
own right,

29
00:02:48,720 --> 00:02:52,720
that expressed power and pleasure as well as just utilitarianism.

30
00:02:52,720 --> 00:02:56,280
And it does seem to me extraordinary that 500 years later,

31
00:02:56,280 --> 00:03:03,360
we're still finding those gardens have something in them that is deeply attractive to
us.

32
00:03:03,360 --> 00:03:05,800
And if you want to discover what that is

33
00:03:05,800 --> 00:03:11,200
and what Renaissance gardens were all about, then you need to come here to Florence.

34
00:03:20,440 --> 00:03:26,720
The gardens in and around Florence are among the most beautiful anywhere in the world.

35
00:03:32,160 --> 00:03:35,440
Whilst they were all created as works of art, they were also

36
00:03:35,440 --> 00:03:40,200
deliberate expressions of power, wealth and learning.

37
00:03:41,880 --> 00:03:46,040
The gardens made during this period inspired a 20th century Renaissance revival.

38
00:03:46,040 --> 00:03:53,080
It was taken up enthusiastically by the ex-pat community in Florence and then by the
rest of the world.

39
00:04:07,080 --> 00:04:10,720
The Renaissance, which was a new synthesis of literature,

40
00:04:10,720 --> 00:04:17,720
art, science and philosophy, was nurtured and financed by Florence's ruling banking
dynasty, the Medici.

41
00:04:19,440 --> 00:04:23,800
The development of the printing press led to the spread of ancient text,

42
00:04:23,800 --> 00:04:30,320
that in turn inspired artists and philosophers with ideas rediscovered from ancient
Greece and Rome.

43
00:04:30,320 --> 00:04:35,160
At the same time, the Medici were growing ever richer as the Pope's banker,

44
00:04:35,160 --> 00:04:42,080
and they fostered a creative home for the greatest artists, thinkers and architects of
the day.

45
00:04:47,720 --> 00:04:50,160
I'm heading now to the outskirts of Florence

46
00:04:50,160 --> 00:04:53,520
and the earliest surviving Medici garden, Villa Castello.

47
00:04:59,680 --> 00:05:05,080
The garden of Villa Castello was begun in 1537 in the later or high Renaissance,

48
00:05:05,080 --> 00:05:08,200
and has been restored to pretty much its original condition.

49
00:05:22,520 --> 00:05:27,960
The thing that strikes you immediately when you walk in is the symmetry.

50
00:05:27,960 --> 00:05:33,440
Everything is balanced. Whatever happens on one side is picked up on the other side.

51
00:05:33,440 --> 00:05:41,440
The result is harmonious, and you can feel it, you can feel this sense of lightness, of
generosity

52
00:05:41,440 --> 00:05:47,240
that is completely prepared and ordered and laid out.

53
00:05:47,240 --> 00:05:52,760
And you might think that that would be dull and predictable, but actually, it's not.

54
00:06:12,280 --> 00:06:16,560
Villa Castello was the home of Cosimo de Medici, who became head of state

55
00:06:16,560 --> 00:06:20,320
after the murder of his relation Alessandro at the age of just 17.

56
00:06:20,320 --> 00:06:23,800
Cosimo was an austere and ruthless man,

57
00:06:23,800 --> 00:06:28,120
but under his rule, the glory of the Medicis in Florence reached new heights.

58
00:06:28,120 --> 00:06:33,080
However, in 1537, he was hardly more than a boy

59
00:06:33,080 --> 00:06:36,240
and Florence was in a state of turmoil.

60
00:06:36,240 --> 00:06:40,440
Yet one of his first acts was to commission these magnificent gardens,

61
00:06:40,440 --> 00:06:43,320
attached then to a relatively modest villa.

62
00:06:43,320 --> 00:06:49,760
To understand why Cosimo would stake so much on a garden, I met Giorgio Galetti,

63
00:06:49,760 --> 00:06:54,760
a Renaissance expert who oversaw the superb restoration of these gardens.

64
00:06:54,760 --> 00:06:59,840
Why was this garden made at that time, what was the impetus to do it?

65
00:06:59,840 --> 00:07:03,800
You have to think that these had also a symbolic meaning.

66
00:07:03,800 --> 00:07:08,680
The layout is a kind of symbol of this new order,

67
00:07:08,680 --> 00:07:15,400
after 30 years of confusion, of fights, of bad economic conditions.

68
00:07:15,400 --> 00:07:19,320
They call it buon governo, this good government.

69
00:07:19,320 --> 00:07:24,480
The Medici really are the only one who can provide prosperity

70
00:07:24,480 --> 00:07:27,680
and happiness to Tuscany.

71
00:07:27,680 --> 00:07:32,280
In what way does it exemplify the high Renaissance garden?
72
00:07:32,280 --> 00:07:37,760
I think the layout, it was divided in 16 compartments,

73
00:07:37,760 --> 00:07:40,760
in perfect geometric shape.

74
00:07:40,760 --> 00:07:47,880
It was a demonstration of perfect control, of man, of space and nature.

75
00:07:47,880 --> 00:07:53,520
And also it was the first time that an axis is used.

76
00:07:53,520 --> 00:07:56,480
From the grotto to the villa, there are two fountains.

77
00:07:56,480 --> 00:08:00,440
The main perspective, this was something new.

78
00:08:06,960 --> 00:08:10,360
So Cosimo commissioned the sculptor Niccolo Tribolo

79
00:08:10,360 --> 00:08:14,320
to make a garden that would be a display of his sophistication

80
00:08:14,320 --> 00:08:18,440
and power, that he could then show to visiting rulers and ambassadors

81
00:08:18,440 --> 00:08:23,000
as a clear demonstration of his wise and strong government.

82
00:08:23,000 --> 00:08:26,600
This aspect of a garden being deliberately intended as a parade of

83
00:08:26,600 --> 00:08:31,240
cultural power was a development new to the high Renaissance.

84
00:08:31,240 --> 00:08:36,000
But the layout and the way the design maximises the views of the surrounding
countryside

85
00:08:36,000 --> 00:08:40,320
are based upon well established precedents of garden design.

86
00:08:40,320 --> 00:08:45,200
The garden didn't come out of nothing. It was following a set of rules

87
00:08:45,200 --> 00:08:47,840
that were best expressed by a man called Alberti.

88
00:08:47,840 --> 00:08:50,280
Now, he was a philosopher and a theorist,

89
00:08:50,280 --> 00:08:54,800
and he said quite specifically that gardens should have certain features.

90
00:08:54,800 --> 00:08:59,680
There should be paths of symmetry. There should be flowing streams, there should be
trees planted,

91
00:08:59,680 --> 00:09:02,480
and they should be planted in the form of a quincunx.

92
00:09:02,480 --> 00:09:07,640
A quincunx is where you have - and I can show you this really easier than telling you -

93
00:09:07,640 --> 00:09:13,680
is where you have your trees planted in a row like that and then you have another
matching set.

94
00:09:13,680 --> 00:09:18,880
Then you plant one in the middle. What it means is,

95
00:09:18,880 --> 00:09:23,360
as your pattern builds up, like that, you have that direction,

96
00:09:23,360 --> 00:09:28,560
you can have them in this direction, you can have them in that direction.

97
00:09:28,560 --> 00:09:32,440
You can see this clearly here, so down there, you can see a line of trees,

98
00:09:32,440 --> 00:09:36,320
along here you can see a line of trees, along this axis, there's a line of trees.

99
00:09:36,320 --> 00:09:40,920
The whole point of that is in every direction,

100
00:09:40,920 --> 00:09:44,560
you see balance, order and harmony.

101
00:09:54,120 --> 00:09:59,120
Renaissance thinkers were exploring classical scientific principles,

102
00:09:59,120 --> 00:10:03,960
and one of the beliefs was that God created the world along mathematical lines.

103
00:10:03,960 --> 00:10:09,800
Thus, the symmetry of Castello's layout was a deliberate echo of the universe's own
ordered design.

104
00:10:09,800 --> 00:10:14,200
One of the great discoveries of the Renaissance

105
00:10:14,200 --> 00:10:19,920
were the rules of perspective, where you have a vanishing point where two parallel
lines meet.

106
00:10:19,920 --> 00:10:27,040
And of course, where two lines meet at a viewpoint, at a sculpture or a niche,

107
00:10:27,040 --> 00:10:31,240
then that draws you to it, and it's as though they're relishing this new discovery.

108
00:10:31,240 --> 00:10:35,080
That sums up the whole Renaissance spirit, because you have science,

109
00:10:35,080 --> 00:10:42,360
you have mathematics, you have art and you have humanity, the human point of view, all
working together.

110
00:10:49,640 --> 00:10:55,080
There is a modern assumption that the Italian gardens of the Renaissance

111
00:10:55,080 --> 00:10:57,320
were dominated by a single colour - green.

112
00:10:57,320 --> 00:11:03,040
Yet Castello is, and was from the very first, full of flowers.

113
00:11:03,040 --> 00:11:10,000
But when Giorgio Galetti started the restoration work, nearly all the original plants
were long dead,

114
00:11:10,000 --> 00:11:15,240
so he had to do a great deal of detective work to find out what grew here 500 years
ago.

115
00:11:17,360 --> 00:11:20,920
From my research I realised

116
00:11:20,920 --> 00:11:24,640
that in the parterre there were dwarf fruit trees,

117
00:11:24,640 --> 00:11:29,160
and we start to introduce these dwarf fruit trees.

118
00:11:29,160 --> 00:11:33,560
And also there were flowers, and particularly beschels,

119
00:11:33,560 --> 00:11:37,160
because they could flower in summer.

120
00:11:37,160 --> 00:11:41,120
The picture you're painting is much more complex and interesting, really.

121
00:11:41,120 --> 00:11:46,440
There were more than 600 bushes of roses. Jasmine, Grand Duke of Tuscany, was collected
here.

122
00:11:46,440 --> 00:11:51,360
So this idea that Italian gardens are just green,

123
00:11:51,360 --> 00:11:54,800
with statues and water features,

124
00:11:54,800 --> 00:12:00,160
is at best incomplete and actually a myth, really.

125
00:12:00,160 --> 00:12:03,160
Yes. It's a stereotype. Yeah.

126
00:12:09,280 --> 00:12:15,440
So it just isn't true that Renaissance gardens were simply a formal green geometry.

127
00:12:15,440 --> 00:12:21,440
Villa Castello, like every other Italian garden of the period, was richly floriferous.

128
00:12:21,440 --> 00:12:27,920
And with the discovery of new worlds, new species were starting to come into Italy,

129
00:12:27,920 --> 00:12:32,720
instigating a great resurgence in the science of botany.

130
00:12:32,720 --> 00:12:35,840
Giorgio has found letters from Cosimo

131
00:12:35,840 --> 00:12:42,440
revealing his own personal passion for roses, jasmine and citrus.

132
00:12:42,440 --> 00:12:46,120
In fact, some of the 130 different varieties of citrus in

133
00:12:46,120 --> 00:12:51,040
today's garden were propagated from Cosimo's original plants.

134
00:12:52,280 --> 00:12:58,080
Here's a man not just with the money and the power to collect interesting, expensive
things,

135
00:12:58,080 --> 00:13:04,440
but a learned man, applying that knowledge to botanical and horticultural affairs.

136
00:13:04,440 --> 00:13:08,440
I think that's really telling about the whole Renaissance spirit.

137
00:13:10,480 --> 00:13:13,320
Every account of Cosimo describes him

138
00:13:13,320 --> 00:13:18,680
as an exceptionally remote figure with a penchant for extreme violence.

139
00:13:18,680 --> 00:13:22,160
But the respect he demanded as a ruler

140
00:13:22,160 --> 00:13:27,280
depended as much on the evidence of his learning and culture as his ruthlessness.

141
00:13:27,280 --> 00:13:30,920
To this extent, the garden was all part of his control of the state.

142
00:13:30,920 --> 00:13:33,560
When a visitor came up here into the grotto,

143
00:13:33,560 --> 00:13:38,680
the first thing they would've appreciated was the cool running water everywhere.

144
00:13:38,680 --> 00:13:43,120
Water in these basins, and from the floor and running down the walls.

145
00:13:43,120 --> 00:13:50,440
But they would also have seen these animals, the extraordinary, great menagerie of
animals.

146
00:13:50,440 --> 00:13:53,960
So you have here things like the dromedary, which refers back to

147
00:13:53,960 --> 00:13:59,680
Lorenzo the Magnificent, who was given one by the King of Egypt.

148
00:13:59,680 --> 00:14:03,720
You have the goat, because Cosimo's star sign was Capricorn.

149
00:14:05,040 --> 00:14:10,040
Up here there's a rhinoceros, and that refers to Alessandro.

150
00:14:10,040 --> 00:14:12,040
Cosimo's predecessor was a tyrant.

151
00:14:12,040 --> 00:14:16,280
And this is all about Medici power,

152
00:14:16,280 --> 00:14:20,440
some of it positive, some of it benign, but power.
153
00:14:23,040 --> 00:14:27,160
The garden of Villa Castello was one of the first and most influential of

154
00:14:27,160 --> 00:14:32,840
the great wave of Italian garden building that took place in the second half of the
16th century.

155
00:14:32,840 --> 00:14:36,600
Its superb restoration means that it's the nearest thing to

156
00:14:36,600 --> 00:14:41,040
a true Renaissance garden that exists in Italy today.

157
00:14:41,040 --> 00:14:43,800
When I first came to the garden,

158
00:14:43,800 --> 00:14:50,040
I thought it would be formal and symmetrical, but perhaps a little bit austere,

159
00:14:50,040 --> 00:14:54,280
and even empty in places, and it absolutely is not like that at all.

160
00:14:54,280 --> 00:14:58,920
That very interesting point that Giorgio made,

161
00:14:58,920 --> 00:15:04,640
that it's a myth that Italian gardens didn't have flowers in it.

162
00:15:04,640 --> 00:15:08,680
This garden would certainly have had plants of every kind.

163
00:15:08,680 --> 00:15:11,400
In fact, if you want to see a Renaissance garden

164
00:15:11,400 --> 00:15:14,960
as near to the real thing as you possibly could, then this is it.

165
00:15:21,960 --> 00:15:25,160
Castello was the first garden Cosimo made, but not the last.

166
00:15:25,160 --> 00:15:29,360
Whereas that had been a private show of his public power,

167
00:15:29,360 --> 00:15:31,880
in 1550, when he was still just 29,

168
00:15:31,880 --> 00:15:35,120
work began on a garden that would dwarf Castello,

169
00:15:35,120 --> 00:15:39,440
which was to be a much more public display of his private passions.

170
00:15:41,280 --> 00:15:46,960
Whilst work was still underway at Castello, Cosimo started another garden.

171
00:15:46,960 --> 00:15:50,640
This time it was right in the middle of Florence, it was much bigger,

172
00:15:50,640 --> 00:15:55,040
and it was different in a number of ways, not least in that it was intended from the
outset

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to house and display his huge collection of sculpture.

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The traditional seat of Florentine rulers was the Palazzo Vecchio, in the centre of the
city.

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But in 1549, Cosimo's wife, Eleanor of Toledo, bought the Pitti Palace,

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just across the river, and rebuilt it on an enormous scale.

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It's not normally open to the public, but I've been given special permission

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to take the elevated corridor that Cosimo had made

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in 1564, linking the Pitti Palace to the newly built Uffizi,

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just so he could walk privately across the river secure from, and unseen by,

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the jostling crowds on the bridge below.

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Today, the walls are lined with the Medici family's private collection

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of self portraits by some of the world's most renowned artists.

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To just walk along and just see a Rembrandt,

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Rembrandt in old age, that's worth coming here just to see that.
186
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At the end of the corridor, a door opens

187
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into the most ambitious of all the Medici homes, the Boboli gardens.

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Throughout the medieval period, sculpture had been primarily displayed in churches.

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But now, as Renaissance artists drew inspiration from classical statues that openly
relished the human form,

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sculpture began to be displayed in Florence's gardens and piazzas.

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One of the most opulent displays of sculpture in the Boboli gardens is the grotto,

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designed in 1582 by the Florentine architect, Bernardo Buontalenti, for Cosimo's son,
Francesco.

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In its heyday, the grotto's marble sculptures and walls of volcanic rock,

194
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shells and quartz would've shimmered beneath cascades and jets of water.

195
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In the corners are these four sculptures. Now these are concrete cast, but until the
1920s,

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they were the originals, and they're by Michelangelo. The Slaves.

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I remember being taught about these extraordinary sculptures that showed the slave

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trying to break free from the stone that they're imprisoned in, and then much later
they came here as a gift.

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Of course, Michelangelo, one of the greatest figures in the history of art

200
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and of the Renaissance and of the Medici family. So it's all here in the one place.

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The Boboli Gardens continued to be made and remade for over two centuries,

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getting ever bigger and grander until eventually, it covered 111 acres.

203
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Initially, the steep, rocky land behind the palace was levelled

204
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to make an open, grassy space flanked by trees, where Cosimo could indulge his mania
for hunting.

205
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Then, some 50 years after his death, his descendants took this modest amphitheatre and
enlarged it hugely

206
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to accommodate the new, theatrical, baroque fashion.

207
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There was a mania for performance of any kind -

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pageants, burlesque, masque, and the bigger the better, because it meant that you had
lots of money to spend.

209
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They cost a fortune and they would build volcanoes that exploded, and have wild
animals.

210
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They flooded an area at one time and had a battle with boats.

211
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It was a kind of elaborate theatre to entertain your guests, who would sit around

212
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and they would take in the space, and the garden became the setting

213
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for the most dramatic performance possible.

214
00:20:07,400 --> 00:20:12,160
'I met the director of the city's museums, Cristina Acidini,

215
00:20:12,160 --> 00:20:16,360
'to find out more about Boboli's grand masques and pageants.'

216
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It does seem that there was a big change in style, when Cosimo went from Castello to
Boboli.
217
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- What instigated that?
- The garden is more and more the setting of public events.

218
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They were recorded, admired and spoken about all over Europe.

219
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We have wonderful statements from the Venetian ambassadors

220
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that were very careful and exact in their reports, and they were describing magnificent
festivals.

221
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Was this a new development, that gardens could tell these stories?

222
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Yes, it is a significant watershed in the history of gardening.

223
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There were political meanings in them.

224
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The gardens are part of a propaganda expanded programme.

225
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What instigated that? What prompted it?

226
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The Medici, and especially Cosimo, were the rulers of Florence,

227
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and they were keeping peace, thanks to their power.

228
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So, people should support power and in return, they get peace?

229
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Yes, more or less, that's the meaning, the deep meaning of it.

230
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So, the grand pageants were displays of Medici power

231
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with the clear message that power equals peace and economic stability for the people of
Florence,

232
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but only if they fell in line behind Medici rule.
233
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Boboli was private until the 19th century, when it was opened to the public.

234
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But some parts are still out of bounds, like the Isolotto,

235
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an oval island made in the 1620s, surrounded by a broad moat.

236
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The public aren't allowed on this island,

237
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but I've been let in as a treat.

238
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It's clearly seen better days, but it's still rather wonderful.

239
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It had a different origin completely. It was a rabbit island.

240
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You keep rabbits and chickens on the island

241
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and perhaps an aviary as well, and it would be protected by a moat,

242
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and in that you'd have fish, so you had plenty of dinner stored at the bottom of the
garden.

243
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And then when they bought the obelisk and put that in the amphitheatre,

244
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they moved this, so this is the original decoration.

245
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You can see the enormity of the scale would've fitted into that space.

246
00:22:49,040 --> 00:22:52,600
Here, well... here, it's very strange, isn't it?

247
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I tell you what I like about this. It does feel like the most

248
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extraordinary, dramatic gesture to have at the bottom of the garden.

249
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Bit scrappy, feels a bit unloved, but it is an amazing piece of garden theatre.

250
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The Medici dynasty ruled Florence for more than three centuries

251
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and were the greatest patrons of the Renaissance. They'd also been instrumental

252
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in establishing the concept that a garden could be a work of art

253
00:23:28,040 --> 00:23:33,160
as well as playing an important role in confirming their wealth and power.

254
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I'm off to a shop in the back streets

255
00:23:50,800 --> 00:23:55,800
to sample one of the more unlikely spin-offs from Boboli Garden's grand grotto.

256
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As well as designing the grotto, Bernardo Buontalenti built the Medici ice houses,

257
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where ice for chilling food was stored.

258
00:24:07,280 --> 00:24:12,560
And according to Florentine legend, when he experimentally chilled a cream-based
dessert,

259
00:24:12,560 --> 00:24:17,680
he invented ice cream, to the subsequent delight of the grateful world.

260
00:24:21,320 --> 00:24:26,480
Now, this is the original ice cream, isn't it, that was made by the Medici?

261
00:24:26,480 --> 00:24:29,160
Yes. Bernardo Buontalenti.

262
00:24:29,160 --> 00:24:35,800
- What are the ingredients?
- Cream, milk, honey, sugar, spices.

263
00:24:35,800 --> 00:24:41,920
- Can I have a taste of it?
- Of course, yes.
- And that will take me back to that first ice cream.

264
00:24:41,920 --> 00:24:43,120
Thank you.

265
00:24:46,080 --> 00:24:48,960
- It's very good. It's very custardy, isn't it?
- Yes.

266
00:24:48,960 --> 00:24:52,080
Can I have a little container of it, please? Thank you.

267
00:24:55,920 --> 00:24:57,400
- Thank you.
- You're welcome.

268
00:25:11,120 --> 00:25:17,000
The next stage of my journey will take me and the Renaissance rule book right into the
20th century.

269
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Of course, now, with the benefit of hindsight, we can say that by 1600,

270
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the Renaissance had evolved into something much more theatrical, that typified the
baroque.

271
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However, the values of order and elegance remained,

272
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and in one garden in particular, this combination was to prove enormously influential.

273
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Settignano is a village in the hills overlooking Florence,

274
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famed for its stone cutters and where Michelangelo grew up.

275
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It's also home to a small private garden called Villa Gamberaia.

276
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Gamberaia is a three-acre garden built on top of a ridge by Andrea di Lapi,

277
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a wealthy silk merchant, between 1619 and 1680.

278
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Although it's creation came 150 years after Alberti wrote his Renaissance garden
formula

279
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and is very much a baroque garden, Gamberaia still holds true to Alberti's basic rules
of order,

280
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symmetry and a clear relationship with the Tuscan landscape around it.

281
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Running the whole length of one side of the garden is the bowling green.

282
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One end is a nymphaeum, and 300 full and perfectly flat green yards distant,

283
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a pine fringe balustraded view over the Tuscan countryside.

284
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I think this bowling green is one of the great pieces of garden design.

285
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Apart from anything else, it's an outrageously ambitious thing to do. This enormous
great length

286
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made out of grass in a climate where you can't really grow grass, so they've had

287
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to bring in water especially for it, and then building these walls,

288
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some of which are retaining walls, because they slice into the hillside,

289
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so that the whole thing is monumental in scale in a relatively small garden.

290
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And yet it doesn't upset the balance of the garden.

291
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Gamberaia was admired from its creation, but it was only at the turn of the 20th
century

292
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that it would come to act as a kind of muse to a new generation of garden designers

293
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as the idealised version of what a Tuscan villa might be.

294
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In 1896, Villa Gamberaia was bought by a Romanian princess,

295
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the exotic and reclusive Princess Ghyka,

296
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who settled here with an American woman, rumoured to be her lover.
297
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She married this Albanian prince, who was a bit of an adventurer

298
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and certainly never appeared here at Gamberaia.

299
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Princess Ghyka's affections were directed towards her female companion,

300
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who was wonderfully called Florence Blood.

301
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Princess Ghyka apparently was a great beauty, but her looks went

302
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and she never appeared in public without a veil. In fact, she hardly ever appeared in
public at all.

303
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People would just get glimpses of her through the window,

304
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but the one thing she was was obsessed by this garden.

305
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By the end of the 19th century, the formal parterre had become a vegetable plot,

306
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and the princess embarked on a major restoration and remodelling of the garden.

307
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To get an idea of the extent of her impact, I met up with Mario Bevilacqua,

308
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professor of architecture at the University of Florence and an expert on the garden's
history.

309
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This map is what we call a cabreo.

310
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The land survey of the Gamberaia can be dated to the beginning of the 18th century.

311
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It's a very important document, because it gives a true representation

312
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of what the property looked like - the agricultural fields,
313
00:29:23,640 --> 00:29:28,320
and the gardens, layout of the gardens and the villa itself.

314
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Were people concerned that she was going to ruin a historical...?

315
00:29:32,320 --> 00:29:35,080
Absolutely not. She was not ruining anything.

316
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She was enhancing the property and she was restoring it to its former beauty.

317
00:29:40,080 --> 00:29:44,840
She knew how it was, but then, she want to recreate something

318
00:29:44,840 --> 00:29:52,720
which could convey a stronger idea of an idealised Italian formal garden.

319
00:29:52,720 --> 00:29:56,200
And this is what she did out here?

320
00:29:59,400 --> 00:30:03,720
'From the loggia, the garden is laid out perfectly below us.'

321
00:30:13,240 --> 00:30:17,200
Princess Ghyka kept the symmetry of the original 17th century layout,

322
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but replaced the ornate box broderie pattern with four pools,

323
00:30:20,840 --> 00:30:26,840
and the Isolotto at the end with a green theatre, completely transforming the garden.

324
00:30:26,840 --> 00:30:31,320
She is said to have swum in the pools, but only at night, safe from prying eyes.

325
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She decided not to obliterate the original pattern of the garden.

326
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She decided to enhance it and create a new garden, which reflect the Renaissance and
early baroque period.

327
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She had new trees planted, the theatre at the end,

328
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and she changed the four parquets into water parquets,

329
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which is a very original feature, and she designed it herself.

330
00:31:07,680 --> 00:31:13,560
What I feel is that there are lots of villas and they're beautiful, but what is it
about Gamberaia?

331
00:31:13,560 --> 00:31:17,720
There is a kind of balance and magic.

332
00:31:17,720 --> 00:31:20,960
- It's very hard to define about this place.
- You are right.

333
00:31:20,960 --> 00:31:23,200
It is almost the perfect villa, isn't it?

334
00:31:23,200 --> 00:31:26,960
- The idea of perfect.
- The idea of a perfect villa, yes.

335
00:31:26,960 --> 00:31:29,680
Gamberaia may seem very simple.

336
00:31:29,680 --> 00:31:32,520
Actually, its structure is very complex.

337
00:31:32,520 --> 00:31:37,080
And there's a double axis, which is very interesting.

338
00:31:37,080 --> 00:31:43,320
You've got the open countryside this way. You've got the Cupola and historic Florence
down there.

339
00:31:43,320 --> 00:31:50,320
The idea of this garden which floats on the city and in the countryside.

340
00:31:56,280 --> 00:31:58,840
The princess's garden is quite complex

341
00:31:58,840 --> 00:32:04,920
and with the box and the layers and the interweaving of it, that's very attractive.

342
00:32:04,920 --> 00:32:08,040
But it is quite difficult to read from a ground level.

343
00:32:08,040 --> 00:32:11,360
Certainly, from the other end, you don't really see the water.

344
00:32:11,360 --> 00:32:16,320
There's no narrative in the layout. You don't quite know where to go or where it's
going to take you
345
00:32:16,320 --> 00:32:20,200
and when you make your way, there doesn't seem to be a logic.

346
00:32:20,200 --> 00:32:24,200
Of course, as soon as you get up to the loggia and look down, it's as clear as day.

347
00:32:37,000 --> 00:32:42,400
Although Gamberaia is a garden that has accumulated and changed over 300 years,

348
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the essence of it is straight out of the Renaissance garden rule book.

349
00:32:46,640 --> 00:32:53,080
And Gamberaia showed that these ideas could work on a relatively modest, accessible
scale.

350
00:32:53,080 --> 00:32:58,440
Visitors could see this and apply its principles to their own gardens.

351
00:32:58,440 --> 00:33:04,320
Gamberaia became famous all over the world, but especially the British Isles and
America.

352
00:33:04,320 --> 00:33:12,280
Architects came here and started the Gamberaia, along with the great Renaissance villas
around Rome.

353
00:33:12,280 --> 00:33:17,560
It seems that that reputation has endured and it's lasted right up to the present day.

354
00:33:17,560 --> 00:33:23,080
Also because it wasn't so grand, so imposing, and so it could well

355
00:33:23,080 --> 00:33:28,320
be adapted to higher middle class, used as a model.

356
00:33:28,320 --> 00:33:30,520
- It's what we would call aspirational.
- Yes.

357
00:33:30,520 --> 00:33:32,840
People could aspire to it.

358
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The combination of the garden's beauty

359
00:33:43,920 --> 00:33:46,680
with its formality and elegance, as well as

360
00:33:46,680 --> 00:33:49,080
its relative accessibility from Florence,
361
00:33:49,080 --> 00:33:52,680
meant that gardeners and designers were drawn to it like a magnet.

362
00:33:52,680 --> 00:33:58,160
And the mysterious and lurid tales of Princess Ghyka only added to the attraction.

363
00:34:02,680 --> 00:34:06,880
There's no doubt that this garden sparked a revival

364
00:34:06,880 --> 00:34:10,960
in Renaissance gardening, particularly the idea of the Renaissance garden,

365
00:34:10,960 --> 00:34:15,200
and then combined with the allure of the Princess and her lover,

366
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Gamberaia became something of a cult, and was regarded

367
00:34:19,240 --> 00:34:24,680
at the turn of the 20th century as the perfect villa and garden.

368
00:34:35,680 --> 00:34:41,080
By the end of the 19th century, there was a large ex-pat community living in Florence.

369
00:34:41,080 --> 00:34:45,720
Drawn by its incredible artistic and architectural treasures, and not least

370
00:34:45,720 --> 00:34:52,720
by the much cheaper cost of living, with wonderful Renaissance villas to be rented or
bought for a pittance.

371
00:34:54,280 --> 00:34:58,600
They never even needed to learn to speak Italian either, because by 1900,

372
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it was reckoned that one sixth of the Florentine population was English-speaking.

373
00:35:05,600 --> 00:35:10,680
There was also another attraction that drew some to Florence.

374
00:35:10,680 --> 00:35:16,160
There was a big influx of Americans and British people and they came here for a number
of reasons.

375
00:35:16,160 --> 00:35:20,760
The weather, the Renaissance, the art, the history, it was cheap.

376
00:35:20,760 --> 00:35:25,240
But there was also another powerful pull, which was sexual freedom.
377
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When people came here, they felt they had a licence to behave

378
00:35:28,520 --> 00:35:30,880
in a way that they just couldn't do back at home.

379
00:35:38,840 --> 00:35:42,320
With its relaxed attitude to extramarital affairs and homosexuality,

380
00:35:42,320 --> 00:35:48,600
Florence offered an escape from the bunged-up Victorian values.

381
00:35:48,600 --> 00:35:53,440
And its gardens soon became the backdrop for the affairs and intrigues of the ex-pat
set.

382
00:35:55,840 --> 00:36:01,680
Around the corner from Villa Gamberaia in Settignano, I'm off to visit one such garden.

383
00:36:01,680 --> 00:36:06,760
It was once the hub of this libertine Anglo-American community,

384
00:36:06,760 --> 00:36:12,880
and also the place where the 20th century neo-Renaissance garden was conceived and
created.

385
00:36:15,440 --> 00:36:20,840
I'm excited to be visiting this garden at all, because it's not open to the public

386
00:36:20,840 --> 00:36:24,720
and Harvard University, who own it, were a bit wary about letting me in.

387
00:36:24,720 --> 00:36:29,360
Anyway, they've relented. It's called I Tatti and it was designed by an Englishman

388
00:36:29,360 --> 00:36:35,200
called Cecil Pinsent 100 years ago, For a long time, it formed the basis

389
00:36:35,200 --> 00:36:39,680
of what most people thought an Italian garden should look like.

390
00:36:47,960 --> 00:36:52,120
In 1900, an American couple, Bernard Berenson, an art historian

391
00:36:52,120 --> 00:36:58,280
specialising in the Renaissance, and his wife Mary, rented I Tatti.

392
00:36:58,280 --> 00:37:02,440
Later, they bought it and began to make substantial alterations.

393
00:37:02,440 --> 00:37:06,680
Mary Berenson commissioned two 23-year-old Englishmen to work on the house

394
00:37:06,680 --> 00:37:10,440
and to create a new garden from the villa's old vineyards.

395
00:37:10,440 --> 00:37:13,680
They were the newly qualified architect, Cecil Pinsent,

396
00:37:13,680 --> 00:37:18,440
and her husband's secretary, Geoffrey Scott, with whom Mary was having an affair.

397
00:37:20,080 --> 00:37:24,560
This was a ruse by Mary to keep Geoffrey Scott around,

398
00:37:24,560 --> 00:37:28,600
and Berenson tolerated this, but he actively nurtured Pinsent,

399
00:37:28,600 --> 00:37:34,040
and as a Renaissance specialist, sent him to visit formal gardens around Florence for
inspiration,

400
00:37:34,040 --> 00:37:36,960
including the nearby Villa Gamberaia.

401
00:37:40,200 --> 00:37:43,680
All the pictures I've seen of I Tatti have been the garden spread out.

402
00:37:43,680 --> 00:37:45,960
I didn't realise you came through a doorway.

403
00:37:45,960 --> 00:37:49,560
And immediately, you can see why people thought that

404
00:37:49,560 --> 00:37:54,280
Renaissance gardens were just green, because that is just solid green.

405
00:37:54,280 --> 00:37:57,280
There is no other colour through this doorway at all.

406
00:38:14,400 --> 00:38:16,960
But what strikes me immediately is that,

407
00:38:16,960 --> 00:38:22,280
where in a Renaissance or baroque parterre, you look down, it's rather two-dimensional.

408
00:38:22,280 --> 00:38:26,040
Here, Pinsent has used uprights.

409
00:38:26,040 --> 00:38:32,200
There are verticals everywhere, and what that creates are boxes of space.
410
00:38:32,200 --> 00:38:35,080
And I don't know why, but that's very satisfying.

411
00:38:35,080 --> 00:38:37,200
It's always a good thing in a garden.

412
00:38:37,200 --> 00:38:39,480
And very rare to see it just in one colour.

413
00:38:50,080 --> 00:38:55,560
Although I can see the influence of his British contemporaries,

414
00:38:55,560 --> 00:38:58,360
Pinsent has made a garden that clearly uses

415
00:38:58,360 --> 00:39:02,480
the idioms and structures of Renaissance and baroque gardens.

416
00:39:02,480 --> 00:39:08,080
Central axis, absolute symmetry, green parterres and a bosco beyond.

417
00:39:08,080 --> 00:39:12,960
It is astonishing that he was a complete novice,

418
00:39:12,960 --> 00:39:18,800
and yet he's made the garden into multi-faceted architecture.

419
00:39:18,800 --> 00:39:22,680
He's ruthlessly excluded all colour except green.

420
00:39:22,680 --> 00:39:25,920
And the result is surprisingly modern and contemporary

421
00:39:25,920 --> 00:39:29,480
for a garden that was overtly inspired by the Renaissance.

422
00:39:33,080 --> 00:39:36,760
Despite all this green, there's a lot going on.

423
00:39:36,760 --> 00:39:40,440
It's really complex and once you walk into the garden,

424
00:39:40,440 --> 00:39:44,320
it's got real substance. And I love this bit over there,

425
00:39:44,320 --> 00:39:49,200
because he's created this texture and architectural shape just using green.

426
00:39:49,200 --> 00:39:53,320
There's a wall behind that hedge, so he's planted a hedge on top of a wall

427
00:39:53,320 --> 00:39:57,960
and then a hedge in front of a wall. Now obviously the wall blocks your view and holds
up the landscape

428
00:39:57,960 --> 00:40:02,120
so you don't need the hedge. But by planting them there,

429
00:40:02,120 --> 00:40:06,560
he's created this structure, this building made out of green,

430
00:40:06,560 --> 00:40:12,720
so it's got a kind of energy, which is exciting, actually. It feels like something's
happening.

431
00:40:22,200 --> 00:40:25,320
Giorgio Galetti's research at Villa Castello has shown

432
00:40:25,320 --> 00:40:29,320
that Renaissance gardens were, in fact, filled with colour.

433
00:40:29,320 --> 00:40:33,080
So why did Pinsent choose such a restricted palette?

434
00:40:33,080 --> 00:40:37,600
The historian Alan Grieco is assistant director at I Tatti.

435
00:40:39,480 --> 00:40:41,800
This was Pinsent's first commission.

436
00:40:41,800 --> 00:40:47,000
He's not even 25 years old when he design. He doesn't have that much experience.

437
00:40:47,000 --> 00:40:52,120
He's coming from a totally different tradition, because the few sketches that we have,

438
00:40:52,120 --> 00:40:56,440
we know that he was very interested in very informal gardens.

439
00:40:56,440 --> 00:41:02,800
And clearly, coming to Italy, he suddenly discovers this whole world of the formal
Italian garden.

440
00:41:02,800 --> 00:41:07,080
It is extraordinary when you think about it. Here we have a man who is not yet 25,

441
00:41:07,080 --> 00:41:12,560
no experience, and yet he makes a garden that becomes internationally renowned.

442
00:41:12,560 --> 00:41:15,800
It's an amazing thing.

443
00:41:15,800 --> 00:41:20,120
One of the old gardeners who knew Pinsent said to me once,

444
00:41:20,120 --> 00:41:24,520
"Pinsent told me, 'I don't know anything about flowers, but any case,

445
00:41:24,520 --> 00:41:27,320
"'these gardens don't really need flowers.'"

446
00:41:27,320 --> 00:41:29,560
So I thought that was very emblematic.

447
00:41:29,560 --> 00:41:33,200
So when they visited Renaissance gardens,

448
00:41:33,200 --> 00:41:38,160
what they saw was basically what had survived of these gardens,

449
00:41:38,160 --> 00:41:41,800
and therefore, the hedges and the green part

450
00:41:41,800 --> 00:41:46,320
was much more likely to survive than any of the flowers,

451
00:41:46,320 --> 00:41:51,720
and I think that's where the idea comes from that it is very much of a green garden.

452
00:42:04,280 --> 00:42:08,440
What I do like about this severely monochromatic garden is

453
00:42:08,440 --> 00:42:12,040
you have these layers that build up to something very, very special.

454
00:42:12,040 --> 00:42:15,680
It starts with the grass and there's a little sound of that,

455
00:42:15,680 --> 00:42:18,280
and then that's built upon by the box hedges and

456
00:42:18,280 --> 00:42:21,320
different layers of those that interplay with each other.

457
00:42:21,320 --> 00:42:26,360
Behind that you have the Cypress hedge, clipped, but wanting to grow tall.

458
00:42:26,360 --> 00:42:31,720
Beyond that you have the Holm Oak hedge, a different green, and then, soaring up, you
have the Cypresses,
459
00:42:31,720 --> 00:42:37,440
majestic, all the same colour and yet building this symphony of green.

460
00:42:50,360 --> 00:42:56,200
So the idea of the exclusively green Renaissance Italian garden

461
00:42:56,200 --> 00:43:00,200
was a misunderstanding by Edwardian garden makers, who took their cue

462
00:43:00,200 --> 00:43:05,680
from 400-year-old gardens that had simply lost their flowers over the centuries.

463
00:43:09,400 --> 00:43:15,760
It's become fashionable to criticise Pinsent for making a green garden, as though it
was his personal fault

464
00:43:15,760 --> 00:43:18,640
for this misconception that Italian gardens,

465
00:43:18,640 --> 00:43:23,200
and Renaissance gardens in particular, were just composed of greenery.

466
00:43:23,200 --> 00:43:28,600
But actually, I think the fact that I Tatti is predominantly a green garden is its
glory.

467
00:43:28,600 --> 00:43:32,920
If it had colours, it'd be spoilt. I love it for what it is.

468
00:43:41,960 --> 00:43:46,280
Pinsent and Scott had launched a new fashion for Renaissance style green gardens,

469
00:43:46,280 --> 00:43:50,960
but their partnership didn't last long. Scott ended his affair with Mary Berenson,

470
00:43:50,960 --> 00:43:56,040
and true to the spirit of the place, started another with Bernard Berenson's ex-lover.

471
00:43:56,040 --> 00:44:00,560
Having captured himself a rich wife, he then lost interest in garden making.

472
00:44:00,560 --> 00:44:06,920
But Pinsent flourished and went on to create some of the 20th century's finest gardens.

473
00:44:19,840 --> 00:44:23,680
Before heading off to see a very different Pinsent garden,

474
00:44:23,680 --> 00:44:27,200
I really wanted to visit a small garden made by an Italian.

475
00:44:27,200 --> 00:44:29,320
But astonishingly, I couldn't find one.

476
00:44:29,320 --> 00:44:34,480
However, judging by the abundance of flower pots on balconies and

477
00:44:34,480 --> 00:44:39,320
window boxes, Florentines clearly love flowers. So it was a puzzle.

478
00:44:39,320 --> 00:44:46,880
I headed off to one of the city's very few garden centres to see if I could find out
more about this.

479
00:44:48,880 --> 00:44:52,360
Are there many people growing plants, making gardens,

480
00:44:52,360 --> 00:44:56,960
so they're nurturing them and making a garden with their hands?

481
00:44:56,960 --> 00:44:58,720
Is gardening popular?

482
00:45:29,440 --> 00:45:32,200
One thing, I see you sell seeds.

483
00:45:32,200 --> 00:45:36,640
Are people growing food, are they growing vegetables from seed?

484
00:45:43,680 --> 00:45:47,240
Here is another foreigner who will buy some seeds.

485
00:45:49,800 --> 00:45:52,080
- Misticanza.
- Misticanza, OK.

486
00:45:52,080 --> 00:45:53,720
I'll get that.

487
00:45:54,800 --> 00:45:56,200
Very good.

488
00:45:58,200 --> 00:46:02,200
- Grazie.
- Grazie, arrivederci, buongiorno.
- Buongiorno.

489
00:46:02,200 --> 00:46:05,560
'Although Italians might not be a nation of gardeners -

490
00:46:05,560 --> 00:46:09,320
'don't grow much of their own fruit and veg - that doesn't mean
491
00:46:09,320 --> 00:46:14,320
'that they don't understand and appreciate it with a passion. The city's markets are
full

492
00:46:14,320 --> 00:46:17,680
'of the most fabulous quality and range of produce.

493
00:46:17,680 --> 00:46:20,680
'And all of it is grown right here in Italy.'

494
00:46:23,840 --> 00:46:26,800
I'd be proud to grow these. Fantastic. What does it say?

495
00:46:26,800 --> 00:46:29,560
HE SPEAKS ITALIAN

496
00:46:29,560 --> 00:46:33,920
- From Italy, there's dried beans.
- HE SPEAKS ITALIAN

497
00:46:33,920 --> 00:46:36,560
HE SPEAKS ITALIAN

498
00:46:36,560 --> 00:46:39,080
He's saying that they come from Tuscany.

499
00:46:39,080 --> 00:46:45,320
They have to by law put the area it's come from, which of course is from Italy, it's
home grown.

500
00:46:51,640 --> 00:46:55,360
Italians really understand food and part of that understanding

501
00:46:55,360 --> 00:46:59,480
involves how it's grown, where it's grown, what the variety is, what season it is.

502
00:46:59,480 --> 00:47:02,360
These things are really the province of the gardener.

503
00:47:02,360 --> 00:47:06,000
The average British gardener relishes those facts,

504
00:47:06,000 --> 00:47:10,680
so they, if you like, get their gardening kick through what they eat,

505
00:47:10,680 --> 00:47:14,920
and you could argue that the British get their food kick through what they grow.

506
00:47:24,400 --> 00:47:31,800
Farming and locally produced produce has always been an important part of Tuscany's
wealth and independence,
507
00:47:31,800 --> 00:47:37,440
but despite its panoramic beauty, it can be a tough and unyielding agricultural
landscape.

508
00:47:40,480 --> 00:47:43,520
'I'm making a journey 80-odd miles south of Florence

509
00:47:43,520 --> 00:47:47,160
'to the particularly harsh countryside of the Val d'Orca.'

510
00:47:52,240 --> 00:47:57,120
This is the setting for Cecil Pinsent's last Italian garden, and one of his greatest,

511
00:47:57,120 --> 00:48:03,080
although it was created against the backdrop of the blackest period of modern Italian
history.

512
00:48:07,000 --> 00:48:10,440
I've come a good two hours' drive south of Florence,

513
00:48:10,440 --> 00:48:15,240
and this area in particular was very poor when the garden was made.

514
00:48:15,240 --> 00:48:17,920
Pinsent had to work not just with the garden

515
00:48:17,920 --> 00:48:22,360
as a private, enclosed space, but connect it to the landscape all around.

516
00:48:47,320 --> 00:48:52,320
When the Anglo-American Iris Cutting married Marquese Antonio Origo

517
00:48:52,320 --> 00:48:55,400
in 1924, they left Florence to live

518
00:48:55,400 --> 00:49:01,080
in the huge but almost destitute estate of La Foce in Val d'Orca.

519
00:49:01,080 --> 00:49:04,200
The Origos set about renovating the impoverished tenant farms,

520
00:49:04,200 --> 00:49:08,080
with much help from the government's land improvement scheme.

521
00:49:08,080 --> 00:49:11,480
They also commissioned Cecil Pinsent, now 43,

522
00:49:11,480 --> 00:49:17,400
to design the house and garden as a sanctuary from the harshness of the landscape.
523
00:49:19,800 --> 00:49:25,480
Pinsent applied his signature green neo-Renaissance structure,

524
00:49:25,480 --> 00:49:32,480
but the flowers that Iris Origo loved were from the outset to be an important part of
the garden.

525
00:49:35,520 --> 00:49:40,800
I love the way that Pinsent does simple things extremely well,

526
00:49:40,800 --> 00:49:44,680
and he obviously loves hedges and uses them brilliantly.

527
00:49:44,680 --> 00:49:49,880
So for example, this path has really unexpected but perfectly balanced proportions,

528
00:49:49,880 --> 00:49:52,840
so you have a five foot wide path, and a wall there,

529
00:49:52,840 --> 00:49:56,360
and then a one foot high hedge, which is as wide as the path.

530
00:49:56,360 --> 00:50:02,120
Which looks absolutely ordinary, but if you think about it, is really radical.

531
00:50:02,120 --> 00:50:06,880
And of course, the hedge is the backside of another hedge that goes down in front of
the wall,

532
00:50:06,880 --> 00:50:10,680
so he's created these green spaces. But when you stand here and look out,

533
00:50:10,680 --> 00:50:15,080
you see what he's doing with all these hedges, because the site is very awkward.

534
00:50:15,080 --> 00:50:18,840
It slopes down in that direction and it slopes down in this direction,

535
00:50:18,840 --> 00:50:23,080
and he wants to take you out towards the landscape. To do that, he has to level the
site.

536
00:50:23,080 --> 00:50:28,320
Instead of getting bulldozers out, he uses the hedge tops. They start thin and they go
perfectly level

537
00:50:28,320 --> 00:50:32,920
and they drop down, then they level off. The net result is when you're standing in the
garden,

538
00:50:32,920 --> 00:50:36,440
you feel balanced, you have the harmony of the Renaissance garden.

539
00:50:36,440 --> 00:50:39,600
You feel centred, and then you can enjoy it.

540
00:50:54,840 --> 00:50:58,720
Today, Iris's daughter Benedetta lives in the villa.

541
00:50:58,720 --> 00:51:01,760
She knew Cecil Pinsent when she was a small child

542
00:51:01,760 --> 00:51:07,640
and after a lifetime living with her garden, her respect for his design remains
stronger than ever.

543
00:51:09,480 --> 00:51:13,080
Pinsent is credited with reviving

544
00:51:13,080 --> 00:51:18,840
the Renaissance garden in the 20th century and creating our concept of the Italian
garden.

545
00:51:18,840 --> 00:51:21,560
How does this garden fit into that?

546
00:51:21,560 --> 00:51:25,800
I think it's so successful as a garden, just because it's a mixture.

547
00:51:25,800 --> 00:51:32,240
My mother was much more botanical, he was much more architectural.

548
00:51:32,240 --> 00:51:38,520
Also, Cecil had an extraordinary feel for nature, for the lie of the land itself.

549
00:51:38,520 --> 00:51:41,800
This house is oddly placed.

550
00:51:41,800 --> 00:51:49,280
But Cecil was not a person who would change the lie of the land. He would work with it.

551
00:51:49,280 --> 00:51:53,080
- So the garden is always related to the landscape?
- Oh, yes, absolutely.

552
00:51:53,080 --> 00:51:55,880
Now, you knew Pinsent quite well, didn't you?

553
00:51:55,880 --> 00:51:57,560
I did, yes.

554
00:51:57,560 --> 00:52:01,280
He had a lovely, dry, very English sense of humour.

555
00:52:01,280 --> 00:52:06,640
Which you had to discover, because he was quite quiet, shy. Very tall.

556
00:52:06,640 --> 00:52:09,080
I remember him dressed in brown tweed,

557
00:52:09,080 --> 00:52:13,080
which is odd, because he came in the summer and he must've been awfully warm.

558
00:52:13,080 --> 00:52:16,800
- Oh, poor man, he must've been boiling!
- Boiling.

559
00:52:28,080 --> 00:52:33,920
Much of this garden feels very familiar and I realised it's because it's essentially an
English garden.

560
00:52:33,920 --> 00:52:37,400
You've got Pinsent, who's an Englishman, and Iris Origo,

561
00:52:37,400 --> 00:52:41,840
who was brought up essentially as an Englishwoman, albeit here in Italy.

562
00:52:41,840 --> 00:52:48,080
And what they've done is make an English garden that looks at its best in summer,

563
00:52:48,080 --> 00:52:51,560
but instead of summer being five days if you're lucky in July,

564
00:52:51,560 --> 00:52:54,560
it's at least five months of perfect weather.

565
00:52:59,520 --> 00:53:04,640
The garden has one last section that was made after the rest was completed.

566
00:53:04,640 --> 00:53:08,800
This is a large, cypress-lined triangle, which you look down on,

567
00:53:08,800 --> 00:53:12,440
descending grand stone steps to box hedges,

568
00:53:12,440 --> 00:53:19,320
and arrowing to the narrow end, along rather brutal lines, like blocks of troops at a
rally.

569
00:53:24,360 --> 00:53:26,560
It's a clever piece of gardening, this.

570
00:53:26,560 --> 00:53:30,600
Because as you walk down through it, you have all those

571
00:53:30,600 --> 00:53:35,720
different lines of box, green lines, folding down towards the point.

572
00:53:35,720 --> 00:53:40,200
And that's Pinsent doing his green garden thing with supreme confidence.

573
00:53:40,200 --> 00:53:46,600
What it feels like here is 30 years later, there's someone at the height of his powers,
great confidence,

574
00:53:46,600 --> 00:53:51,440
but there's a kind of brutality about it.

575
00:53:51,440 --> 00:53:56,040
What remains is impressive, but it's not charming.

576
00:54:05,920 --> 00:54:10,880
Throughout the 1930s, as Pinsent continued work on the garden,

577
00:54:10,880 --> 00:54:14,640
the politics of Europe and Italy were turning ugly.

578
00:54:21,200 --> 00:54:25,960
The land improvement scheme that had helped to restore the farmland around La Foce

579
00:54:25,960 --> 00:54:30,040
had been an initiative of Benito Mussolini's Fascist government,

580
00:54:30,040 --> 00:54:33,960
with the intention of making Italy self-sufficient in food.

581
00:54:33,960 --> 00:54:39,360
Now Mussolini started using Italy's great garden making heritage

582
00:54:39,360 --> 00:54:43,200
as a propaganda tool, mounting exhibitions and garden talks.

583
00:54:45,920 --> 00:54:49,520
And in a deliberate echo of the Medici era, in 1938,

584
00:54:49,520 --> 00:54:56,480
Mussolini staged a public pageant in the Boboli gardens to celebrate the visit of
Hitler to Florence.

585
00:54:58,520 --> 00:55:04,600
The aim, of course, was to link Fascism with the country's glorious Renaissance
history.

586
00:55:06,280 --> 00:55:09,240
The Fascists paraded the Italian garden,

587
00:55:09,240 --> 00:55:13,760
green and strong and forthright, and beautifully designed.

588
00:55:13,760 --> 00:55:18,480
And it was very influential, still is. Still, people think of Italian gardens like
that.

589
00:55:18,480 --> 00:55:23,920
But what the Fascists overlooked were the Renaissance ideals of play

590
00:55:23,920 --> 00:55:29,320
and charm and decoration, and above all, of humanity.

591
00:55:41,960 --> 00:55:47,120
Funds from the Fascist government had helped to renovate the Origos' estate.

592
00:55:47,120 --> 00:55:53,000
But after war broke out in 1939, La Foce became a sanctuary for Allied forces,

593
00:55:53,000 --> 00:55:58,040
as the Origo family risked their lives sheltering escaped British and American
prisoners of war,

594
00:55:58,040 --> 00:56:00,280
who were trying to make their way to safety.

595
00:56:01,920 --> 00:56:04,200
And Pinsent, who'd completed his garden

596
00:56:04,200 --> 00:56:08,560
only months before the outbreak of war, joined the British Army as an officer.

597
00:56:10,600 --> 00:56:13,920
Pinsent and La Foce survived the war.

598
00:56:13,920 --> 00:56:16,920
And today, Alberti's Renaissance ideals

599
00:56:16,920 --> 00:56:21,680
that underwrote his 20th century design are as relevant as ever.

600
00:56:26,560 --> 00:56:31,680
That view has become an icon for Tuscany, especially for those trying to sell it for
holidaymakers.

601
00:56:31,680 --> 00:56:37,320
I've seen it at an airport, on a poster. But you hardly ever see tracks like that in
Tuscany.

602
00:56:37,320 --> 00:56:42,960
The fields are big and open and it was made by Benedetta's father as a completely
practical thing,

603
00:56:42,960 --> 00:56:47,520
so that as he improved the land, you could get vehicles up to the farms that lay
beyond.

604
00:56:47,520 --> 00:56:50,560
And that was all of a piece of the way that La Foce was made.

605
00:56:50,560 --> 00:56:53,200
The garden, the land was improved, the people,

606
00:56:53,200 --> 00:56:56,480
and actually, that ties in with the Renaissance ideals

607
00:56:56,480 --> 00:57:02,600
of improving the villa, the garden and the countryside around.

608
00:57:21,200 --> 00:57:24,680
My visits to these gardens, both in and around Florence,

609
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have shown me that the ideals of the gardens made here 500 years ago,

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marshalling nature with elegant and rhythmic formality

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and a surprisingly rich horticultural palette

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was one of the great artistic features of the Italian high Renaissance,

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and is something that we still instinctively respond to.

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The Renaissance, for the first time, took gardens and ordered them with harmony.

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Instead of fighting nature and defending themselves against it, it welcomed it.

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It looked for interesting plants and created a space

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that was balanced, symmetrical, but filled with delight

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and also, incidentally, filled with flowers.

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Next time I will be down south, where a much more informal and highly romantic style of
garden

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came to thrive in the beautiful countryside around Naples.

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It bursts the constraints of the formal Italian garden,

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despite itself, it can't help itself but be free.

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