This post is also available in: Italiano (Italian)

Villa d’Ayala Valva is in the town of Valva (SA). The building, which looks like a castle, develops for about 600  m², with three floors and an attic, includes a tower, called Torre Normanna, which is older than the palace. The superior perimeter of the second floor and of the attic are crenellated. Once on the corners there were five small towers,  which collapsed after the earthquake of 1980.

The park surrounding the castle presents still the original scheme dating back to 1700, with interventions in  1800. Surrounded by walls, it extends for about 17-18 hectares, with an irregular perimeter.  It is composed of a mixed, productive coppice  with mainly holm oaks, chestnut trees and maples; it is crossed by alleys, nearly rectilinear, which form an irregular chessboard; there are mainly plane trees, maples, Laurel cherries and isolated specimens of magnolia, cedar trees, firs, plane trees and other ornamental species, introduced probably during the 19^th century.  There are various furnishing such as fountains, statues, small architectures, a system of channels and grottos, which probably dates back to Roman times, with a water confluence function. It includes also two Italian style gardens– the first, also the smallest,  in the vicinities of the entrance,  the second in front of the villa – characterised by neoclassical architectures and statues, and a splendid vegetation theatre, probably realised during the 19^th century, it is formed by an exedra with stairs underlined by box, formal hedges, among them there are numerous marble busts.

This post is also available in: Italiano (Italian)