Monty Don is probably the Nigella Lawson in the world of gardening. His voice immediately takes you to a peaceful sanctuary where only a few are allowed inside some of the world's most magical gardens.
If you are hoping to travel with your eyes and feast on greens, then Monty Don's Italian and French gardens may be the series just for you. However, I will focus this review on the Italian season. From Florentine Renaissance gardens to the wilder and more improvised of the south, Italy offers a wide array of complexity translated into the communion between man and nature.
Like many other great crossings, the paths of Monty Don lead him first to Rome, where the power of the Papacy in the 16th century brought about an impulse in garden construction as a display of God's power on Earth. But it wasn't only meant to express God’s power as it was to incarnate the power play of ambitious men.
As Monty Don explains it, Renaissance gardens were devised in order to function as fashionable accessories, as works of art that embodied the principles of order, symmetry and harmony. In this way, they were symbols of order over chaos and the control of man over nature. Hadrian's Villa was the inspiration for many architects and landscape artists looking for the perfect proportions and enticed by the rediscovering of engineering knowledge such as how to transport vast quantities of water.
From Villa Farnese to the dramatic displays of Villa d'Este, gardens were a means to express authority. One of my favorites I must say was the Sacro Bosco of Orsini, a fantasy garden created in the hidden forest of Bomarzo. I found incredible that I hadnt heard of this place before. As well as expressing power, another function of the Italian garden was as part of a propaganda expanded program such as the Boboli gardens of Cosimo de Medici, which the fascist reused as a symbol of their supremacy.
Monty Don clears the misconception about Italian gardens only containing greenery where really there was much more to it. It has been estimated that they did have flowers and that years of ill-suited care caused the survival of their greens only. Pinsent's green garden on the other hand, exhibits itself proudly under that name. I never had paid much attention to hedges but the episodes explore how layers and different tones of green are carefully combined and looked after to create such visions.
The south part of the trip around Naples takes us to the Romantic-style gardens which express the creative freedom of that region. Being one of the stops in the Grand Tour in the 18th and 19th centuries, the contemplation of the ruins in the south were perhaps one of the most well-known Romantic elements that evoked decay and mortality. Ninfa's melancholy is the epitome of the Romantic garden, a town drowned by history's events and resurfaced in charming pathways that just fills the viewer with curiosity. How would it feel to be there?
Each of the gardens presented have very unique properties, like exuberant La Mortella's silk floss tree brought from Buenos Aires, Villa Cimbrone’s wisteria pergolas and Villa Il Tritone breathtaking windows.
Our final destination takes us to the north of Italy where wealth permitted the erection of dramatic settings and flamboyant stages. We visit the famous Orto Botanico in Padua, where signatories' doctrines were followed with devotion and the planning of the garden was meant to have a filing function to identify and try new species for medical purposes.
After Padua, the road brings us to Villa Pissani, an astounding garden with mazes for amorous play and theaters created entirely from topiary. The viewer will find delight in these as well as the Baroque kitsch of Isola Bella in Lago Maggiore, where inspiration might have been drawn from the legendary gardens of Babylon.
Between luscious lemons, parterres, well-trimmed hedges, statues and water features, Italy is a place of wonder that never ceases to inspire and remind us of what human hands can create. This is the perfect series for those who wish to escape to another realm and see gardens under a different light.
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