Italian Villas and Their Gardens

This travel book details the history of Italian garden evolution. The book is a brilliant survey of garden architecture and ornamentation. Edith Wharton traces the history of the villas, which were built during the Renaissance and Baroque periods. Her aim was to present, to the reader, the authentic relationship between a villa, garden, and surrounding landscape. The Italian garden was constructed of passages, fences, fountains, and caves. Colour and flowers were secondary in the scheme, while statues, vines, greenery, and structure played a significant role. System and procedure were the essential criteria for the Italian garden, and gardens were considered an extension of the villa. Fancy garden rooms were also included for walking, thinking, and resting. In this work, the gardens Wharton compliments most are the ones laid out in harmony with the surrounding terrain. She finds two features of Italian gardens the most appealing. First is "pleached ilex alleys," where dense twisted ilex trees meet to provide a shady walk. The second is the "teatro D'acqua," or water theater, a system of terraced gardens in which water is pumped to the top. It splashes down via various fluted basins and complex stone channels. Throughout Italian Villas and Their Gardens, she praises water theaters as the highest level of the garden architect's art during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.