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Some Gardens in Italy, Country Life Illustrated, 1901

 
Accession number AR.EP.MG.0623
Creator
Places
Villa d’Este (Tivoli [Italy])
Villa Torlonia (Frascati [Italy])
Villa Lante (Bagnaia [Italy])
Villa Pamphili (Rome [Italy])
Villa Falconieri (Frascati [Italy])
Tivoli (Italy)
Frascati (Italy)
Bagnaia (Viterbo [Italy])
Viterbo (Italy)
Rome [Roma] (Italy)
Italy
Date
1901
Work types
magazine

Description

TRANSCRIPTION

Country Life Illustrated. [ May 18th, 1901.

Country Homes - Gardens Old & New / Some Gardens in......Italy....

Old villas surrounding so many Italian cities are a distinct and often pathetic feature in the social and artistic life of that delightful but degenerate country. The variety and nobility of their architecture and the rank magnificence of the sub-tropical vegetation of their gardens render them particularly attractive; and, in a sense, the more ruinous they are, the more beautiful....

[624] Loggia of the Belvedere, Villa d'Este, at Tivoli. [photo]
[625] Fountain in the gardens of the Villa Conti, Frascati. [photo]
[626] The cascade, Villa Torlonia, Frascati. / Fountain, Villa Torlonia, Frascati. [photos]
[627] View of the Villa Lante, Bagnaja, Near Rome. / General View of the Villa Pamphily Doria, Rome. [photos]
[628] Fountain in the gardens of the Villa Falconieri at Frascati. [photo]
[629] Rustic Stairway, Villa Lante. [photo]

EXHIBITION

Transplanting the Renaissance: Italian Villa Gardens in America, 1900-1940
May-August 2018

Popular texts and images provide a window into how Americans perceived Italian gardens, as well as their understanding of the gardens’ histories. Italian gardens represented a past rooted in both the classical Roman world and the Italian Renaissance and demonstrated the principles of order, balance, and design associated with those periods. This past was not completely timeless, however: the Italian gardens showed their age through decay and overgrowth which, though romanticized, was not often imitated in American garden recreations.

The British author of this 1901 article bemoans the destruction of many Italian Renaissance gardens. He also observes that the leisurely and even decadent villa life of the modern Italian elite seems not to have changed much since the Renaissance. From reading this article, one understands why critics saw America’s obsession with Italian gardens as a return to European imperialism.

Collection

Ephemera Collection
 

Repository

Dumbarton Oaks Archives, 054.SUZ.02.PCbox.096
Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, DC
Accession number AR.EP.MG.0623
Creator
Places
Villa d’Este (Tivoli [Italy])
Villa Torlonia (Frascati [Italy])
Villa Lante (Bagnaia [Italy])
Villa Pamphili (Rome [Italy])
Villa Falconieri (Frascati [Italy])
Tivoli (Italy)
Frascati (Italy)
Bagnaia (Viterbo [Italy])
Viterbo (Italy)
Rome [Roma] (Italy)
Italy
Date
1901
Work types
magazine

Index Terms

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