PhD Program in Historical studies
Country villas and the Italian garden
The term “villa of delight” designates a particular type of country estate where the Italian nobility, from the sixteenth century, used to spend periods of recreation, leisure and rest. Far from towns, these villas spread especially throughout northern Italy, and above all in the region of Lombardy, along the route of the Naviglio Grande and Naviglio Martesana canals and in Brianza. Examples of “villas of delight” are, however, also present in other parts of Italy such as Liguria, Piedmont, Veneto and Sicily, and all were a model for the aristocratic residences of the same type scattered throughout other European countries.
An essential element of the country villas of the nobility is the Italian garden. The so-called Italian garden or formal garden, is a type of garden that responds to a specific style which was of Classical inspiration in the late Renaissance. The earliest examples of Italian gardens are usually identified in the Florentine gardens modeled by Niccolò TriboloNiccolò di Raffaello di Niccolò Pericoli, called il Tribolo (1500ca. – 1550) was a Florentine artist. A sculptor, but mainly an architect at the court of Cosimo I de’ Medici, in particular, he is famous for having designed famous gardens such as the Boboli Gardens and the Garden of Simples, and the fountains of the Villa di Castello and Petraia. at the Villa di Castello, Villa Corsini and, under the specific commission made out by the Grand Duke Cosimo I de’ MediciCosimo I de’ Medici (1519-1574), was the first Duke of Florence and Grand Duke of Tuscany from 1537 to 1574. He married Leonor Álvarez de Toledo y Pimentel, by whom he had a total of 11 children. During the reign of Cosimo I the Medici increased the large art collection that can be admired today in the Uffizi Gallery. Cosimo and his wife also ordered the construction of the Boboli gardens, which became the paradigm of the Italian garden. and his wife Leonor de ToledoLeonor Álvarez de Toledo y Pimentel (1519-1562), daughter of the viceroy of Naples, Don Pedro Álvarez de Toledo y Zúñiga, married Cosimo I de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany. The union served to strengthen the ties between the Emperor Charles V and the Grand Duke, as Leonor belonged to one of the most powerful families in Spain. In the court of the Medici, Leonor was a great art collector, and surrounded herself by important artists of the Italian Renaissance., in the Boboli gardens.
A unique characteristic of the Italian garden is the geometric division of space, designed through the use of flower beds, evergreen hedges and rows of trees. Generally on pavement in colored gravel, grass or dirt, the Italian garden also features floral decorations, plant sculptures modeled with the pruning of shrubs, trees or groups of trees together to give life to veritable vegetable architecture. A set of mazes, tunnels, amphitheatres and colonnades were obtained thanks to patient and continuous pruning. Another characteristic feature of this kind of garden is the use of water. Both rivers and artificial lakes are arranged in a geometric way with respect to vegetation, and the richly decorated fountains, capable of producing spectacular water effects, are essential elements of the Italian garden and at the same time express some of the themes which are typical of Baroque culture: wonder, movement, festivity and spectacle. In the most hidden and reserved part, the so-called secret garden, there was room for the cultivation of rare plants or where the owners of the house could rest.