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Villa Cetinale is in Ancaiano, in the Municipality of Sovicille (Siena), in Valdelsa. It is surrounded by olive trees, vineyards and wheat fields. The villa was designed by the architect Carlo Fontana, a pupil of Bernini, and built between 1676 and 1678 by Cardinal Flavio Chigi to celebrate the election of his uncle Fabio as Pope Alexander VII. The Chigi family, a well-known family of bankers, stayed there for some short holidays of and owned it for three centuries; in 1977 it was acquired by the English Lord Antony Lambton.

The property (which is now available for weddings and private functions) includes the Baroque villa, a large Italian garden, the “Tebaide” park and the Hermitage. This last building, which used to house real hermits in the past, is joined to the villa by a long avenue of cypresses and an impressive staircase called “Scala Santa” (“Sacred Staircase”) consisting of almost two hundred steps – it is perfectly aligned with the main building and, along with the main structure, evokes the difficult ascent of men towards salvation.

The gardens of Villa Cetinale were among the 70 described by Edith Wharton in her book “Italian Gardens”, published in the early XX century. One part of the green area was bombed during the two world wars and the other, over time, was terribly neglected or spoiled by the tourists. Luckily, Lord Lambton has been carefully restoring the gardens for some 40 years.
In recent times, Penelope Hobhouse, a well-known English landscape painter and writer, has defined Cetinale as “the epitome of garden design” and acknowledged the flower garden as one of the most beautiful in Italy.

THE GARDENS

Better known as the “citrus garden”, this green area is located at the rear of the villa. It consists of flower beds with a geometric design, bordered by box hedges, decorated with statues and large yew topiaries. The outermost part of the garden is designed with a long straight axis, flanked by a low wall, and decorated with marble busts; the axis begins with an exedra, continues along an avenue of cypresses, crosses a monumental door and reaches the villa, partly covered with old wisteria.
On the left side of the main building, there is an English garden, with roses, iris and perennial herbaceous plants, created by Lord Lambton. In front of the villa, his children have, in turn, created a new geometric garden, divided into green “rooms”, with boxwood and yew cones.

“Tebaide” park

To the north of the villa, there’s a forest of very ancient oaks, which takes its name from the desert area of Upper Egypt, where many Christian hermits lived in the Middle Ages. It is divided into a challenging path of “penance”, with paths, avenues, chapels, stone crosses, and several statues depicting saints, hermits, and the very districts of Siena: in fact, in the last years of his life (between 1679 and 1692), Cardinal Flavio Chigi from Siena – a passionate enthusiast of the famous Palio – organized horse races in this very park and sometimes along the roads nearby.

This post is also available in: Italiano (Italian)