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Excerpt from: “I giardini delle ville venete”, by Camilla Zanarotti, Silvana Editoriale.

Laid out in the late XVIII century, these gardens are an extraordinary example of a fusion of the style of a traditional Veneto garden with the canons of English-style gardens. Both make the best use of the theatrical potential by creating spectacular areas within the geometrical structure provided by the network of broad avenues. Particularly interesting features include a long hornbeam avenue that leads to the spectacular “Teatro di verzura” (Green Theatre), made of boxwood and cypress trees.

The formal garden leads up to the small lake, an oval basin with a group of statues in the centre, enclosed within high hedges of cherry laurel. The lake’s main axis extends visually upwards to the greenhouses and then beyond to the long avenue of cypress trees. Home to a temple, the small wood leads to another of the garden’s stunning features, the belvedere, the result of extraordinary compositional virtuosity in which a double staircase wraps around an octagonal building topped with a balustrade.

The eastern side, linked to the villa by a small bridge, opens onto a secret garden, which includes a nymphaeum backdrop with grotesque niches in which watchful statues ensure that peace reigns in the gardens.

This post is also available in: Italiano (Italian)