DOI Artikel:
Azzi Visentini, Margherita: Around the historiography of Italian gardens: Georgina Masson's contribution; [Rezension]
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.14576#0036
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MARGbŒRITA A/./.l \ ISIM I\I
The popularity of the Italian garden, which Platt helped introduce to the United States, sparked a more
profound critical debate, for which his brief and unsatisfactory "notes" - as some of Platt's contemporaries
disparagingly referred to his works - were inadéquate, as they were effectively little more than long captions
for the illustrations. It was at this point that the American writer Edith Wharton entered the scène. She was
commissioned to write a séries of articles on Italian gardens, illustrated with watercolours by the famous
painter Maxfield Parrish, photographs and drawings (but no plans, which the publisher decided not to include,
despite Wharton's opinion to the contrary), and collected in her famous Italian Villas and Their Gardens,
published in 1904. For Wharton, the essence of the Italian garden involved the combination of three élé-
ments: rocks, water and evergreens. Furthermore, she felt that the relationship with the landscape was fon-
damental, whereas she considered flowers - on which Platt, instead, greatly insisted - to be mere accessories.
Wharton examined more than 80 villa gardens (as well as the garden of the Palazzo Giusti in Verona and the
Padua Botanical Garden), ranging geographically from the Brenta Riviera to the Ligurian coast and from the
Brianza district to the Roman countryside, chronologically from the early Renaissance to the late Baroque,
and typologically from royal résidences to modest country houses. The book's extensive bibliography and
broad array of quotations dénote direct knowledge of the main sources, from ancient descriptions and views
to travel journals and the modem works of Burckhardt, Gurlitt and Tuckermann, the latter considered the
main référence available on the subject at the time. Like Platt, Wharton felt that the Villa Lante at Bagnaia
surpassed "in beauty, in préservation, and in the quality of garden-magic, ail the other great pleasure-houses
of Italy". She enthusiastically examined every détail to conclude that at the Villa Lante "one sees one of the
earliest examples of the inclusion of the woodlands in the garden-scheme"8.
Wharton also lavished great attention on the Villa Gamberaia, which "stands nobly on a ridge overlook-
ing the village of Settignano and the wide-spread valley of the Arno", a "distinctly Tuscan" résidence of the
early 17th century that, "even in Italy, where small and irregular pièces of ground were so often utilized with
marvellous skill, [...] was probably the most perfect example of the art of producing a great effect on a small
scale"9. The Villa Gamberaia became famous after it was purchased in 1896 by the Romanian Princess Jeanne
Ghyka, who promptly commenced the period restoration of the gardens, with a parterre d'eau set in an
architectural frame created with cypresses, composed of a séries of arcades arranged in a semicircle with
a view of the landscape (although Wharton was critical of the restoration work). Ghyka transformed it into
a rendezvous for the large and prestigious British and American expatriate community that had settled around
Florence in the early 20* century and had effectively brought the Italian garden back from England and the
United States, where the art had been redeveloped, to revive it in its land of origin.
The British architect Cecil Pinsent was a sensitive interpreter of this return to form. Starting in 1907,
he and Geoffrey Scott were involved in work to renovate the house and create the formai garden at I Tatti,
in Settignano, the property that Bernard Berenson had purchased in 1905. In 1911 Pinsent and Scott were
commissioned to build the villa and design the garden of Le Balze in Fiesole, owned by the American Charles
Augustus Strong, and in 1915 they restored the garden of the Villa Medici, also in Fiesole, which was the
résidence of Lady Sybil Cutting10.
Wharton unsuccessfully tried to convince her publisher that the book should include plans and perspec-
tive views of the main villas and their gardens, as they were essential in order to understand their layout and,
furthermore, were also available in part. The prints made between the 16th and 18th centuries by Dupérac,
8 She noted, "It was undoubtedly from the Italian park of the Renaissance that Le Nôtre learned the use of the woodlands as
an adjunct to the garden; but in France thèse parks had for the most part to be planted, whereas in Italy the garden-architect could
use the natura! woodland, which was usually hilly, and the effects thus produced were far more varied and interesting than those
possible in the flat artificial parks of France"; E. Wharton, Italian Villas and their Gardem, New York 1904, reprint, with new
introductory notes by A r t h u r Ross, Henry H o p e R e e d and T h о m a s S. H a y e s, New York 1988, pp. 132, 136 39,
42 (in order of quotation). Wharton, who designed her own house and garden of The Mount in Lenox, Massachusetts, with her nièce
Beatrix Farrand Johnson, her travel companion in Italy and one of the first professional landscape architects in the United States,
focused on Italian gardens after the return to form in America. See A. Pieńkos, Ogród artysty, poety myśliciela. Terytorium tworze-
nia in the présent volume, pp. 186- 187.
9 W h a r t o n, op. cit., p. 41. The Villa Gamberaia, which had just been restored by its new owner, had already been discussed
by Gabriele D'Annunzio (Taccuini, ms., 1896 and 1898), C.W. E a r 1 e (1899) and J. Ross in Florentine l illas ( 1901 ).
10 Cutting and Scott were married a short time later. About Pinsent and the Villa Gamberaia. see M. F a n t o n i, H. F I о r e s.
J. P f о r d r e с h e r (eds.), Cecil Pinsent and His Gardens in Tuscany, Florence 1996; P. О s m o n d (éd.). Villa Gamberaia. Sources
and Interprétations, "Studies in the History of Gardens & Designed Landscapes", vol. 22 (2002), no. 1.
MARGbŒRITA A/./.l \ ISIM I\I
The popularity of the Italian garden, which Platt helped introduce to the United States, sparked a more
profound critical debate, for which his brief and unsatisfactory "notes" - as some of Platt's contemporaries
disparagingly referred to his works - were inadéquate, as they were effectively little more than long captions
for the illustrations. It was at this point that the American writer Edith Wharton entered the scène. She was
commissioned to write a séries of articles on Italian gardens, illustrated with watercolours by the famous
painter Maxfield Parrish, photographs and drawings (but no plans, which the publisher decided not to include,
despite Wharton's opinion to the contrary), and collected in her famous Italian Villas and Their Gardens,
published in 1904. For Wharton, the essence of the Italian garden involved the combination of three élé-
ments: rocks, water and evergreens. Furthermore, she felt that the relationship with the landscape was fon-
damental, whereas she considered flowers - on which Platt, instead, greatly insisted - to be mere accessories.
Wharton examined more than 80 villa gardens (as well as the garden of the Palazzo Giusti in Verona and the
Padua Botanical Garden), ranging geographically from the Brenta Riviera to the Ligurian coast and from the
Brianza district to the Roman countryside, chronologically from the early Renaissance to the late Baroque,
and typologically from royal résidences to modest country houses. The book's extensive bibliography and
broad array of quotations dénote direct knowledge of the main sources, from ancient descriptions and views
to travel journals and the modem works of Burckhardt, Gurlitt and Tuckermann, the latter considered the
main référence available on the subject at the time. Like Platt, Wharton felt that the Villa Lante at Bagnaia
surpassed "in beauty, in préservation, and in the quality of garden-magic, ail the other great pleasure-houses
of Italy". She enthusiastically examined every détail to conclude that at the Villa Lante "one sees one of the
earliest examples of the inclusion of the woodlands in the garden-scheme"8.
Wharton also lavished great attention on the Villa Gamberaia, which "stands nobly on a ridge overlook-
ing the village of Settignano and the wide-spread valley of the Arno", a "distinctly Tuscan" résidence of the
early 17th century that, "even in Italy, where small and irregular pièces of ground were so often utilized with
marvellous skill, [...] was probably the most perfect example of the art of producing a great effect on a small
scale"9. The Villa Gamberaia became famous after it was purchased in 1896 by the Romanian Princess Jeanne
Ghyka, who promptly commenced the period restoration of the gardens, with a parterre d'eau set in an
architectural frame created with cypresses, composed of a séries of arcades arranged in a semicircle with
a view of the landscape (although Wharton was critical of the restoration work). Ghyka transformed it into
a rendezvous for the large and prestigious British and American expatriate community that had settled around
Florence in the early 20* century and had effectively brought the Italian garden back from England and the
United States, where the art had been redeveloped, to revive it in its land of origin.
The British architect Cecil Pinsent was a sensitive interpreter of this return to form. Starting in 1907,
he and Geoffrey Scott were involved in work to renovate the house and create the formai garden at I Tatti,
in Settignano, the property that Bernard Berenson had purchased in 1905. In 1911 Pinsent and Scott were
commissioned to build the villa and design the garden of Le Balze in Fiesole, owned by the American Charles
Augustus Strong, and in 1915 they restored the garden of the Villa Medici, also in Fiesole, which was the
résidence of Lady Sybil Cutting10.
Wharton unsuccessfully tried to convince her publisher that the book should include plans and perspec-
tive views of the main villas and their gardens, as they were essential in order to understand their layout and,
furthermore, were also available in part. The prints made between the 16th and 18th centuries by Dupérac,
8 She noted, "It was undoubtedly from the Italian park of the Renaissance that Le Nôtre learned the use of the woodlands as
an adjunct to the garden; but in France thèse parks had for the most part to be planted, whereas in Italy the garden-architect could
use the natura! woodland, which was usually hilly, and the effects thus produced were far more varied and interesting than those
possible in the flat artificial parks of France"; E. Wharton, Italian Villas and their Gardem, New York 1904, reprint, with new
introductory notes by A r t h u r Ross, Henry H o p e R e e d and T h о m a s S. H a y e s, New York 1988, pp. 132, 136 39,
42 (in order of quotation). Wharton, who designed her own house and garden of The Mount in Lenox, Massachusetts, with her nièce
Beatrix Farrand Johnson, her travel companion in Italy and one of the first professional landscape architects in the United States,
focused on Italian gardens after the return to form in America. See A. Pieńkos, Ogród artysty, poety myśliciela. Terytorium tworze-
nia in the présent volume, pp. 186- 187.
9 W h a r t o n, op. cit., p. 41. The Villa Gamberaia, which had just been restored by its new owner, had already been discussed
by Gabriele D'Annunzio (Taccuini, ms., 1896 and 1898), C.W. E a r 1 e (1899) and J. Ross in Florentine l illas ( 1901 ).
10 Cutting and Scott were married a short time later. About Pinsent and the Villa Gamberaia. see M. F a n t o n i, H. F I о r e s.
J. P f о r d r e с h e r (eds.), Cecil Pinsent and His Gardens in Tuscany, Florence 1996; P. О s m o n d (éd.). Villa Gamberaia. Sources
and Interprétations, "Studies in the History of Gardens & Designed Landscapes", vol. 22 (2002), no. 1.