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Description |
To many of us, the great gardens of Italy seem like paradise on earth. But
how much do we know of their history, and the people who created them? In
this ravishing new book, illustrated with contemporary paintings, drawings
and prints as well as photographs of the gardens today, Helena Attlee tells
their story. She starts with Petrarch - still looking to medieval chronicles
for advice on how and when to plant - and goes on to the Renaissance and
those first gardens to emerge from architects' plans. Then she describes the
great gardens of the Medici; the first botanic gardens; the weird Mannerist
gardens and their grottoes followed by the Baroque splendour of Isola Bella
and the Villa Aldobrandini; the Neoclassical and Picturesque gardens of the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; and how, in the twentieth century,
expatriates with money to lavish on their villas and gardens brought new
delights |
