Villa Gamberaia

For centuries the Tuscan landscape has exerted a powerful hold on the imaginations of Italian city dwellers and foreign visitors with its human scale, and the merging of vineyards and olive groves into gardens and then into the villas themselves. With the revival of Classical culture from the fourteenth century, this landscape has been incorporated architecturally into the villas and gardens that grew in the environs of the cities of Florence and Siena, and later the villas created from castles, fortified abbeys and towers throughout the province.

More than anywhere else, the topography here allowed use of hillsides and distant vistas. The early Renaissance villas and gardens were designed as retreats from public life in the busy city. They were the ideal place for humanist debate.

Gardens of the late Renaissance and Baroque periods became more elaborate symbols of power, adorned with rare plants, sculpture and water works. Uniting natural and artificial beauty, they were designed to recreate Paradise on Earth, an achievable Utopia, an accessible Arcadia.

After a period of landscape design in the English style in the nineteenth century, the Tuscan formal garden returned in its most glorious form in the early twentieth century, this time designed mostly for wealthy foreigners, often by garden designers who were themselves foreigners, foremost among them being Cecil Pinsent, an English architect resident in Florence.

Here we feature some of the lesser known gardens in the Chianti Classico wine region between Florence and Sienna and throughout Tuscany.

Hotel Villa Le Barone - the "Tuscan garden hotel" Villa Le Barone, now a romantic hotel in Tuscany near Panzano in Chianti, belonged to the della Robbia family of Florentine ceramicists and artists for several hundred years. Just after World War I, the villa was restored by the Marchesa Maria Bianca Viviani della Robbia and not long afterwards was converted into a beautiful hotel. It still belongs to the Marchesa's heirs who spend part of the year here. The gardens were established in large part during the interwar period and have now reached full maturity. The gardens themselves together with the warm atmosphere of a Tuscan villa make Villa Le Barone the ideal Tuscany accommodations for garden-lovers. Click here to learn more about the Villa Le Barone Tuscan gardens

"Visions of Italy" DVD set This DVD set has the full PBS TV mainly-aerial footage plus an additional hour of material. Highly recommended to anyone who is thinking of going to Italy, or just wants to relive the splendour of the Italian landscape. Click here for full details

Chianti formal gardens

Villa Medici

Villa Vignamaggio

Bibliography of Italian Gardens

Tuscan formal gardens

Villa Chigi Saracini near Castelnuovo Berardenga and Sienna	Palazzo Piccolomini in Pienza
The prestigious Renaissance "lemon garden" begins with a magnificent gate and ends at an exedra decorated with pillars at its corners and a large central rounded arch opening, framed by cypresses hedges. The upper part of the exedra is crowned by the family court of arms, surrounded by two vases. More about Villa Chigi Saracini	This is a small "hanging garden" which forms an integral part of the Palazzo and indeed of the entire town of Pienza, a small renaissance jewel in central Tuscany. More about the Palazzo Piccolomini in Pienza
Villa Reale di Marlia near Lucca Villa Reale di Marlia vicino a Lucca Villa Reale di Marlia nahe Lucca
Villa Celsa near Sovicille Villa Celsa vicino a Sovicille Villa Celsa nahe Sovicille
Horti Leonini in San Quirico Val d'Orcia - a small and perfect Italian formal garden, laid out by Diomede Leoni in 1580. Villa La Foce near Montepulciano in the Val d'Orcia - created by Cecil Pinsent for the late Iris Origo

Roman formal gardens

Villa d'Este in Tivoli - one of the finest fountain gardens in Italy, indeed, in Europe, and should not be missed by anyone visiting Rome and its environs.  Villa Lante at Bagnaia on the via Francigena near Viterbo - regarded by some as the most perfect garden in Italy. It is in any case a wonderful harmony of cascades, fountains and dripping grottoes.

Accommodation in and near Rome

Villa Bordoni luxury hotel and restaurant