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The great composer Giuseppe Verdi bought the residence Sant’Agata, in Villanova sull’Arda, in 1848 to live there with Giuseppina Strepponi.
He refurbished the building and realised a romantic according to the taste of the time. He was passionate about botany and agriculture, in fact he followed the works of the garden, creating a balance of light and shadow, choosing the plants, the disposition of statues, the lake, the sinuous paths, to create a space to get rest and inspiration for his works.
He had the lake built and surrounded by Taxodium distichum with a small red bridge “in Japanese style”, and a central island decorated with marble statues, he had planted an enchanting alley towards the fields, 120 plane trees, lindens, horse chestnuts and numerous rare trees and bushes, such as Sequoia gigantea, horse apple trees, kalmia, six Pinus laricio, three Taxus hibernica, a Pinus benthamiana, Quercus banisterii, paulownia and numerous Magnolia grandiflora, loved by Giuseppina. He had realised caves, designed as ruines by the same Verdi, which are similar to “Grotta delle streghe” in the sketch of  G. Magnani for Macbeth; the icehouse to conserve food, the exotic Tucul with a straw bed.
Many of the plants introduced by him are still present, as well as  the garden’s fascination. In front of the villa, there is still the heart-shaped flowerbed which blooms between April and May and fills with red and yellow tulips. In the surroundings remain the elegant chaise-longue panted white where Verdi rested under the shadows of  a Salix babylonica.

This post is also available in: Italiano (Italian)