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The gardens are impeccably maintained, with well-manicured flower beds, elegant pathways, and charming features that add to the serene atmosphere. There's....
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00:03I have been travelling through Italy exploring the country's loveliest and
00:08most significant gardens and the ideas and history that shaped them I've seen
00:17the astonishingly grand gardens of Rome made by cardinals vying for the papacy
00:22that's interesting discovered how the Renaissance made Florentine gardens into
00:27harmonious ordered works of art down there you can see a line of trees along here you can see a
00:33line
00:34of trees along this access is a line of trees I'll also be visiting the playful baroque gardens of the
00:39north oh dead end you got me now have your wicked way but this week I'm in the south where
00:48the gardens
00:49are mostly more informal the planting more exotic and I get a glimpse into the glamorous hideaways
00:54of the rich and famous keep out unless you're invited you can't come in I'll be discovering
01:02how an 18th century very English gardening movement utterly transformed Italian gardens
01:08ah that's just lovely and a luxurate in what is undoubtedly the most romantic garden ever made
01:16and then up here on the bridge you have one of the most stunning views in any garden ever
01:41I'm basing myself in Naples for this southern leg of my tour
01:46it's a city that is a splendid tangle of anarchy shabbiness and real architectural magnificence
01:59tourists views Naples for centuries as a center for exploring the area's classical history and the
02:06dramatic landscape set on the glorious Bay of Naples as well as the more rugged Amalfi Coast just a little
02:13further south I hardly know this area of the country at all but I do know that many of the
02:19gardens of
02:20the region are a radical contrast to most of the others I've seen elsewhere in Italy most people still
02:27think of Italian gardens as all being formal symmetrical straight lines and above all greenness
02:32but actually in the south particularly around Naples that isn't the case there are an awful lot of
02:36gardens that are romantic and soft and I want to see as many as I can and find out why
02:41are these
02:42gardens different in this part of Italy the gardens I visited around Rome and Florence were often
02:52exuberant and playful but nature was always seen as something to be tamed and tightly controlled
03:03here in the south many gardens are comfortable with a wilder a more romantic vision of the natural world
03:08matching the artistic freedom that the area inspired and nurtured and reaching its sublimest expression in
03:19the garden created in the ruined medieval town of Nympha there is rather surprisingly a strong English persuasion at work
03:28here and
03:29these very southern gardens have roots in the British landscape movement of the mid 18th century
03:42I'm starting my visits halfway between Rome and Naples in the province of Latina by visiting a
03:48contemporary garden that wears its English influences proudly and which I have a slight personal link to
03:59set around the ruins of a medieval castle Terechia belongs to the daughter of Prince Carlo Caracciolo the founder of
04:07the newspaper La Repubblica
04:20there is absolutely none of the sub-hotel formality that can be the default position for many houses of the
04:26very rich everything is slightly shaggy and gently overflowing with flour
04:33the form and geometry that we all associate with Italian gardens has been replaced by a sense of careless abandon
04:39as though nature could reclaim it all at any moment
04:46as someone who gardens in England I can immediately see familiarities the softness the lushness the greenness but actually as
04:55soon as you start to look closely there are all kinds of things that couldn't happen in England
04:59the quality of the light for example plant associations put all those elements together and what you get is a
05:08garden that belongs to the place
05:14Terechia's very modern horticultural informality is the creation of an Italian Laura Marchetti and the British garden designer Dan Pearson
05:25and today it's under the guidance of Stuart Barford who was Dan's assistant and worked for me in my garden
05:3017 years ago this is the first time I've seen him in all those years
05:37we have this idea that Italian gardens are crisp and formal
05:43how do Italians feel in terms of letting things get loose some Italians would have a problem with this garden
05:49I think and I have had we've had guests come who
05:51sort of look at the the plants growing out of the cracks in the paving and they've literally pulled them
05:56away and rushing out
05:59I had a very apologetic lady once who I stopped and she said I thought you know I was helping
06:04you
06:09to be in a garden
06:10although the plants might appear to grow untrammeled self-seeding themselves and spilling freely
06:15is nonetheless a highly designed space what appears to be a jumble of flowers actually follows a restrained
06:22and carefully controlled color palette
06:28a lot of people will use a color theme in a garden
06:32but to work most effectively you need to use three dimensions
06:36and in a big garden like this of course that can be done on a grand scale
06:39so in the foreground you can have mixed whites
06:41and you get your little white garden
06:43but then here the Philadelphus picks it up in the middle ground
06:47and right in the distance climbing up a stone wall is a white rose
06:52so that white just bounces away through the garden like an echo disappearing
06:58and it's very subtle but actually quite powerful
07:09The southern Italian climate means that there are combinations of plants that are familiar
07:15but which you would rarely get to flower simultaneously in Britain
07:19such as these foxgloves, aquilegias and tobacco plants
07:31When Stuart arrived he encouraged them to leave as much grass as possible to grow long
07:37just mowing paths where necessary
07:39and his latest addition to the garden is a wildflower meadow
07:44and we sort of blitz this every autumn
07:46we cut everything down, take it away, rotavate
07:51So it's an annual meadow?
07:52It's an annual meadow, yeah
07:53mainly corn chamomile, cornflower and a few poppies
07:58Now obviously a bit of the garden like this will only look at its best for what?
08:04three weeks maximum?
08:06A few weeks, yeah
08:06but we've got a luxury in that sense because this space really wasn't being used
08:12and I thought, you know, let's do something that looks really amazing
08:15and it doesn't matter if it looks amazing for only a few weeks
08:19And how does this go down?
08:21People love it
08:22Do they?
08:23They don't think you're barmy?
08:24Barmy Englishman coming in here
08:25No, no, most people love it, yeah
08:30Although Terechia was begun in 1992, this informal style of gardening first appeared in southern Italy much earlier
08:39It goes back over 200 years when the Bourbon dynasty ruled over what was then Italy's largest kingdom
08:45stretching from north of Naples right down to include Sicily
09:00This is Corserta
09:04It was begun in 1751 for Don Carlos VIII, king of Naples, with the explicit aim of being the biggest
09:12and grandest garden in all Europe
09:19It's certainly enormous, and very grand, but it also contains one of the first examples of a new style that
09:26was to revolutionise Italy's formal gardens
09:30By the time you've walked through the palace, it's so impressive that you're in a state of submissive shock, really
09:38And then you come out into the light and the landscape
09:43And everything is funneled down to this extraordinary vista
09:48Just narrowed down to a point
09:50And as though it takes your natural impulse to look out and forces it in
09:56And, of course, that's all about power
09:57It's doing it because it can
09:59And it's just saying, you know, be amazed
10:02Well, you can't be anything else, it's amazing
10:06Whilst all your attention is focused towards the Cascade, three kilometres away at the far end
10:12To get down there and visit all the garden is a walk of over eight kilometres
10:17So, I hire a bike to get around
10:27These high walls of trimmed trees and hedges around the Bosco, or ornamental woodland, are a regular feature in Italian
10:34gardens
10:35But I never tire of them
10:37The view is so compelling and stirs you on so much that it's easy to overlook how wonderful the Bosco
10:45is
10:46And it's that combination of the clipped edge of the wood, like a hedge, and then the trees spilling over
10:51the top
10:52That is deeply satisfying
10:54It's a lovely thing at Bosco
11:04This is the epitome of high baroque and Rococo design
11:08Dramatic, confident, and elegant
11:11And with nature always firmly under control
11:15Do you know, I'm feeling quite excited about this
11:18When I came here, I'd seen pictures and it looked very static
11:21It looked like this power statement
11:22Here I am, I can do this
11:25Admire it, now push off
11:27It's not like that at all
11:29It unfolds and is progressive
11:31And as I'm cycling along
11:34There's a sense of a narrative
11:37And I'm part of it
11:38I'm not excluded
11:45The scale of the garden is simply breathtaking
11:48Just to bring the water into the canal and its fountains
11:51Coserta's architect, Luigi Van Vitelli
11:54Blasted through six hillsides
11:57And built a 33-kilometre-long aqueduct
12:04But this was a final flourish
12:06Because Coserta was the last palatial garden to be built in Italy
12:10In the formal style
12:12It took 25 years to make
12:14And by the time it was complete
12:16Gardens across Europe were being changed forever
12:31The strange thing was
12:34That in 1786
12:36Just really little more than ten years after the formal garden was finished
12:40It was out of date
12:42And a new garden was started
12:45And this new garden
12:46Was exotic
12:47And absolutely the height of fashion
12:50And it was called
12:52The English Garden
13:00On a 50-acre plot
13:02Especially bought for the purpose
13:03Is a garden as different in style to its predecessor
13:07As could be imagined
13:08It looks like nothing so much
13:10As an English country park
13:23The whole style was based around taking the elements of the countryside
13:28And including them as part of the garden
13:33This new style was based on the landscape movement
13:36Rather than regulate nature in ordered ranks and lines
13:40It set out to absorb and replicate it
13:48It actually takes as much control and as much skill to make things look natural
13:53As it does to make the garden look formal
13:57And one of the key things is parkland
14:01Where you have large trees with grass underneath
14:03Of course this is the baking south
14:05Grass doesn't grow easily
14:07And the large trees are not the ones you'd normally expect to see in England
14:11I mean, I can see a huge cork oak, I think it is
14:14And there are cypresses, stone pines, palms
14:19None of the elements would you find in the average English garden
14:23But the general feel is certainly true to the type
14:36This type was begun by William Kent 50 years earlier
14:40And they're made popular by capability brown
14:42And the new fashion transformed Britain's gardens
14:45Before spreading across the continent
14:47Ironically, this style of gardening was based upon paintings
14:51Of imagined classical landscapes
14:54And was known as the picturesque
14:56As a result, classical temples and fake ruins
14:59Became highly fashionable garden accessories
15:17To go down an overgrown path and come across a fully blown temple is a surprise
15:23Which is absolutely in the spirit of the picturesque style
15:27Which this garden is based on
15:29Whereas in the formal garden you see everything
15:31Literally for miles
15:33And if you're going to have a temple you put it on the top of a hill
15:36Whereas with the new style
15:38Everything is a moving tableau
15:40It's to delight you and surprise you
15:42Or even horrify you
15:43Certainly to titivate you
15:45So to brush through the undergrowth
15:47And come across a temple
15:48As though it's been lying there for years
15:50Is exactly the required effect
16:03This English garden at Caserta
16:05Is contemporary with the new Romantic movement
16:08That took the frisson of raw nature
16:11And celebrated it
16:12As a reaction to the industrialisation that was taking place
16:19In the process the Romantic poets
16:22Such as Wordsworth, Keats and Shelley
16:23Created a new artistic language
16:26That valued the imagination and emotions
16:28As highly as the previous era
16:31Had held rationality and the intellect
16:33Hmm
16:35This is an infelium
16:37And any self-respecting English garden
16:40By the end of the 18th century
16:42Had grottoes and places where hermits might stay
16:46And they were meant to evoke a response
16:48In the visitor
16:49And in fact this is where the picturesque
16:51Moves into the Romantic period
16:52Where it's all about feelings
16:54Rather than about thoughts
16:57And this carried on right through the 19th century
17:00And you'd have little places
17:01Where you could wander
17:02To look
17:02Inside this rocky
17:04Rather wild place
17:06There is
17:07A statue
17:09And a
17:10Oh look
17:10A
17:11A complete
17:13Abandoned
17:14Lost
17:14Piece
17:15Of classical world
17:16But this is not
17:17A ruin
17:18That has evolved through time
17:20This has been manufactured to look ruin
17:25Maybe statues
17:26And what's a real shame
17:28Is that
17:29The people that wander through now
17:30Do seem
17:31Particularly around Naples
17:32To have a desire to leave their mark
17:34And nobody's stopping people to do it
17:36But no one seemed to clear it up
17:37Maybe nobody minds
17:44The great discovery of the Renaissance
17:46Was classicism
17:47With its humanism and order
17:49But a couple of hundred years later
17:51In the Romantic garden
17:52Classical civilisation is depicted
17:55As picturesque ruins
17:57Designed to deliciously thrill you
17:59With a display of mortality
18:01And decay
18:07But not all the thrills of the garden
18:09Are solemn
18:13I like that
18:14Because
18:15There you have a nymph
18:16Washing
18:17Decorously
18:18And from the front
18:19She's cutting herself up
18:21But
18:21This is a peak
18:22At her bump
18:23And I like the sense
18:24Of what the butler saw
18:26That she doesn't know we're here
18:28And we're spying on her
18:39The fashion for English landscape gardens
18:42Lasted in Italy
18:43Until the neo-Renaissance revival
18:45In Florence
18:45At the beginning of the 20th century
18:47But the Romantic influence
18:49Remained particularly strong here
18:51In the south of the country
18:53Attracting artists
18:54Writers
18:55And musicians
18:56To escape the restrictions
18:58Of northern Europe
18:59And their influence in particular
19:01Found its way into the gardens
19:03Of the region
19:13I'm now heading to the coast
19:15For Sorrento
19:16On the far side of the Bay of Naples
19:24Today it's a popular modern resort
19:27But it's ancient
19:28It's been drawing visitors here
19:30From all over the world
19:32For a very long time
19:37Since Roman times
19:38People have been building villas
19:40And houses in Sorrento
19:41Because it's a lovely place
19:42Not hard to see why
19:44But it's also attracted people
19:45From quite far afield
19:46People come from northern Europe
19:47To this point
19:49Because there's something about the place
19:51That gives them a creative freedom
19:52Whether they're painters
19:53Or artists
19:54Or whatever
19:54And I think it's because
19:55It's far enough south
19:56And suddenly
19:57You're liberated
19:58From all the ties
19:59Of the north
20:00And that applies to gardens too
20:01People have come from far afield
20:03To make gardens
20:04And the next garden
20:05I'm visiting
20:05Is just here
20:06And because the view
20:08Is so important
20:09The garden
20:10The garden
20:11Is right up there
20:12On the cliff top
20:18In the 18th century
20:19Which was the heyday
20:20Of the Grand Tour
20:22Naples
20:22Was the southernmost point
20:24In Italy
20:24For the young nobleman
20:25Seeking out the visible remains
20:27Of Italy's classical past
20:28And eagerly taking
20:29What entertainment
20:30They could on the way
20:34The Napoleonic wars
20:36Put a stop to that
20:37The Napoleonic wars
20:37But by the end of the 19th century
20:39The area started attracting
20:41Wealthy foreigners again
20:42Who not only visited
20:43But also began to make homes here
20:49This private garden
20:51Is one such
20:52And although not open to the public
20:54I've been allowed in
20:55To take a look
20:57Oh
20:58Yes?
20:58Hello
20:59It's Monty Don
21:00Yes, to keep it open
21:01Whoops
21:19It is called
21:22Villa Il Tritone
21:28The 19th century villa
21:30Was bought in 1905
21:31By William Waldorf Astor
21:34The American ambassador in Rome
21:36Before becoming a British citizen
21:38And eventually a Viscount
21:44Astor enlarged the grounds
21:46And much of the existing garden
21:48Was laid out by him
21:49He loved the place
21:50And used it as a very private retreat
21:53From public life
21:54A place where he could truly relax
21:57And be free
22:02It's interesting that
22:03This piece of the garden
22:04Which is right by the house
22:05So you'd expect it
22:06To be formal
22:07And an Italian way
22:09To balance the architecture of the house
22:12Almost immediately gets fuzzy
22:15The plants are allowed to roam free
22:18And seed themselves where they will
22:20And then towards the end
22:22Of the boundaries of this bit of the garden
22:24It gets almost anarchic
22:25And I think that's the key to the whole garden
22:28It sort of bursts the constraints
22:30Of the formal Italian garden
22:33Despite itself
22:33It can't help itself
22:34But be free
22:35To be free
22:47Astor used Il Tritone's long history
22:49To make his garden
22:53There had been a Roman villa on this site
22:56Looking out across the bay
22:57To Mount Vesuvius
22:59And to the town of Pompeii
23:01On the other side of the water
23:04But in that spectacular view
23:06Lay the villa's demise
23:11When Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD
23:14Burying the town of Pompeii
23:16On the other side of the bay
23:17The tsunami that followed the quake
23:20Swept across
23:21And knocked the villa
23:23Straight into the sea
23:26Remains and artefacts from the villa
23:27Were recovered
23:28And Astor used them
23:30When making his garden
23:31But the result
23:32Was anything but conventionally classical
23:47The overriding impression you get in this garden
23:50Is of a greenness
23:51A soft light coming through
23:53And in this central avenue
23:55You have this tunnel of green
23:57Most avenues are open to the sky
23:59But this one because it's closed over
24:01And with the banksia rose
24:03Growing across the top
24:04In fact you just get glimpses of the light
24:06They're like skylights
24:07I like the fact they've used wood
24:10And it's not some metal construction
24:11It's slightly wonky
24:12And accidental
24:13And that looks lovely
24:15It's soft
24:16And yet
24:18There are avenues going out
24:20To harder things
24:21There's an avenue going down there
24:22And at the end
24:24You go down to light
24:25And the sea
24:26And look down there
24:26The way this green path
24:28Which is just moss
24:30And bright sea beyond it
24:33And it's designed in such a way
24:34As to make it seem much bigger than it is
24:36These avenues radiate out
24:38Simply to make the most of the space
24:44In the early 1970s
24:46The villa was bought
24:47By an Italian businessman
24:48Mariano Panne
24:50And his wife Rita
24:51Then just in her early twenties
24:53With small children
24:54Rita found herself
24:56The custodian of the garden
24:57Although at the time
24:58She wasn't fully aware
24:59Of its historical significance
25:01Well luckily
25:03I was so young
25:04When we came
25:05That I was not intimidated
25:06Because otherwise
25:07If I started
25:09If I would have started now
25:10Of course I would have
25:11Feel intimidated
25:12But as it grew slowly
25:15I really absorbed
25:17The story of this garden
25:19The past of this garden
25:20The culture
25:21What's your philosophy?
25:23My philosophy
25:24First of all
25:24Is freedom
25:25I think that
25:26At the end
25:28You cannot fight against nature
25:30At the end
25:30Nature will always win
25:32So I think
25:33You have to choose
25:34The right plants
25:35For the right place
25:36The spontaneous plants
25:38They are so beautiful
25:39You need to discover them
25:41They are not imposing themselves
25:42I like the idea
25:43Of a romantic garden
25:45The garden of the poets
25:47More than the garden
25:50Of the architects
25:51Well you've certainly achieved that
25:53There's no doubt about it
25:54This is about as romantic
25:55As a garden can get
26:04William Waldorf Astor
26:06Had commissioned the English garden designer
26:08Harold Peto
26:09To create his garden
26:10And Peto built a wall
26:13Both as a screen
26:14To create privacy
26:15And simultaneously
26:16To intensify
26:17The borrowed landscape
26:19I think
26:20The series of windows
26:22Along the sea edge
26:24Of the garden
26:24Are a stroke of genius
26:27Because you might think
26:28That with this dramatic
26:30And beautiful landscape
26:32With the sea outside the garden
26:34You want to have access
26:36To as much of it as possible
26:37But actually by blocking it out
26:39And then revealing it
26:40In a carefully chosen series
26:43Of framed pictures
26:44You make it more precious
26:46And at the same time
26:47It keeps out
26:49The hurly-burly of the town below
26:51And so you get the best of both worlds
26:53You get the landscape
26:55Intensified
26:56And made more precious
26:57And you get increased seclusion
27:08I'll treat only
27:08Ile-trittone
27:09Is a green, green place
27:11Even the paths are thick
27:13With a peachy-green fuzz of moss
27:15And I couldn't resist
27:16Slipping my shoes off
27:18To tread the delicious coolness
27:21Oh, feels nice
27:35It's attractive to see people doing things.
27:39I reckon the key to this garden is in the way that it's an escape from life.
27:43And think of who it essentially was made by,
27:45the William Waldorf Astor, an ambassador in Rome, a rich American,
27:50beset all the time by the strangeness of the country,
27:53by diplomacy, politics and money and art.
27:57And what that money bought him was a way of getting away from things when it got too much.
28:04Too much sun, too much noise, too many other people he didn't want to be with.
28:08And with creating a green retreat with windows out onto that world,
28:14not only was a kind of barrier, an insulating there, but a beautiful, a beautiful bubble.
28:29In the early years of the 20th century, the trickle of foreigners buying homes here became a full flow,
28:36as Europe's rail network made the Amalfi Coast, just south of the Bay of Naples,
28:41a popular holiday destination.
28:44These holidaymakers found an area that was very poor,
28:48with the only living to be had from the sea or the ravishingly beautiful but harsh land.
28:56The hillsides above the sea are still cultivated in a thousand layered terraces,
29:01growing vegetables and fruit, but principally lemons.
29:05And the locals proudly claim that the lemons of Amalfi are the best in the world.
29:11I made a detour to visit Giovanni Chuffi, who's been growing them here for 50 years.
29:21As you walk into the groves, every breath is zesty with lemon.
29:29It smells so good.
29:34Oh, I've just squirted myself in the day.
29:41It's a joy.
29:42What makes them special?
29:44What is it about them?
29:45Because they're Amalfi Dan.
29:46And...
29:47Invece, the Calabrese, the Sicilian, is another form.
29:51The lemons are not round, they're long.
29:54So, if I want to grow lemons at home, as good as yours,
29:57what is the secret?
29:59And they have to choose the right plant from Amalfi and give love.
30:11Amalfi and love?
30:12And love.
30:18You come next year and he prepare a plant for you.
30:22That's the date.
30:25The poverty of this region meant that comparatively wealthy foreigners
30:29could buy beautiful Italian estates
30:32for much less than their northern European counterparts.
30:37I'm on my way now to see one such place,
30:40perched high up above the cliffs at Ravello.
30:42Bought as a run-down farmhouse,
30:44it was transformed into a famous but very private retreat
30:47for a fascinatingly eclectic mix of celebrities.
30:53You have to walk to get here.
30:55The streets get narrower and narrower.
30:56No swooshing up in your Bentley and making a grand entrance.
31:00But when you do get here,
31:02the entrance itself is about as grand as it could be.
31:05It's a lot of intimidating, actually, because it's like a castle.
31:08The steps leading up, this great big door, the thick walls.
31:11Now, all that's saying is keep out.
31:13Unless you're invited, you can't come in.
31:34A village in Brony was bought in 1904 by Edmund Beckett,
31:39second Baron Grimthor,
31:40who was a banker and a Tory politician.
31:44Grimthorpe wasn't an especially great gardener,
31:47but he was a champion womaniser
31:49and is said to have been the father of Violet Trefusis,
31:52who famously became the lover of Vita Sackville West.
31:58Grimthorpe was a wealthy man,
32:00but he bought Villa Cimbroni for 100 lira,
32:03which in today's money works out at the grand sum of just £300.
32:12MUSIC PLAYS
32:14Hiring a local architect, Nicola Mansi,
32:17Grimthorpe set about transforming the agricultural vineyard
32:21and walnut groves into a grand, glamorous garden
32:24with breathtaking views and vistas,
32:26framed by a mix of temples, grottoes, balustrades and statues.
32:33MUSIC PLAYS
32:41Mysterio is absolutely lovely.
32:44What is a joy, and really the reason you come to Italy,
32:47is here you've got all the freshness of these flowers,
32:50weather that feels like the best English summer's day,
32:53fantastic scenery,
32:55and they're sort of distilled into a garden.
32:59Actually, what's interesting is to see a Judas tree,
33:03pruned right hard and then breaking from the stand,
33:07so you get this floral stick, bright colour.
33:10I'm not sure whether it's as good as just a normal tree,
33:13but it's certainly dramatic.
33:26MUSIC PLAYS
33:28GRIMTHORPE
33:28GRIMTHORPE
33:28GRIMTHORPE
33:29GRIMTHORPE
33:29GRIMTHORPE
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34:14that's a long walk for a garden there's an element of a motorway about it and it's a bit
34:21seamless but actually i get it now because it's directing you down here it's saying come on get
34:26down here because when you do get here that's well it's actually a pretty scary view but it's
34:32just stunning stunning stunning i suppose if you've got a view as dramatic as this
34:39then your garden is just funneling the visitor you know through the gate get down the end and
34:45have a look and it's stately and the sky's blue it's just lovely in every way and as i was
34:51walking
34:51down i was thinking about you know greta garbo coming here and if you want to be private
34:58there's a sense of enclosure and yet this garden you know is dramatically open and standing on
35:06here feels a bit like a stage and if the public aren't allowed in you're completely private but
35:11you can be seen and i think there's something about that with celebrity they want to be seen
35:17they want to be noticed but on their own terms of course this garden does that absolutely through
35:23and through look at me but from a distance
35:32the garden juts out on a finger of land high above the rocky slopes to the sea magnificent stone pines
35:40and yew hedges grown anarchically freeform provide shelter as do the pergolas laden with wisteria
35:48it all creates a secluded romantic setting and yet the backdrop and buildings are theatrical to the
35:56point of melodrama
36:01there's no doubt this is a lovely garden and certainly worth visiting
36:05it's such a dramatic location and the way that it's laid out is terribly theatrical
36:11which is an irony really because when you think of the people that came here the greta garbos and the
36:16dh
36:16lawrence's and the salvador dali's and churchill's these are big dramatic people coming as an escape
36:22but actually they've come as a performance and i think what would make this garden come alive
36:28would be a party
36:39if you had this as a location to have a great big bash the garden would join in the setting
36:46would become
37:04absolutely perfect
37:05by the 1960s the amalfi coast was becoming
37:09increasingly a tourist resort and musicians writers and artists coming here for a cheap sunny retreat
37:17had to travel further afield
37:25so i am now taking the ferry across the bay of naples to the small volcanic island of ischia 15
37:34miles
37:43from the mainland
37:43nowadays ischia is a popular day trip for tourists who come not just to enjoy the island's beaches
37:49but to visit a world-famous garden
37:54but as recently as 50 years ago the island was remote no mains electricity or water and it was 60
38:0260 years ago a young woman in her 20s came here and began to create a remarkable garden
38:14hello
38:24immediately you enter the garden you're struck by the lushness of the planting
38:30which is flagrantly tropical
38:36which is something of a culture shock on this bone-dry mediterranean island
38:45la mortella is the life's work of the argentinian susanna walton who married the enormously
38:51successful english composer sir william walton when she was just 22. looking to escape the english
38:57winter they rented a house on ischia in 1949
39:00neither of them ever having been there before and fell in love with the island
39:04deciding that it was the ideal place for sir william to compose in peace
39:23they bought the land for the garden in 1956 it was an old quarry with no water supply
39:30but susanna an instinctive plants woman was undaunted and started planting straight away with exuberant
39:37enthusiasm following her instincts she selected exotic plants from around the world and against all the
39:43odds the garden quickly flourished it's interesting that ischia with its volcanic rock and its heat and its
39:51moisture is so conducive to things growing fast so you get this dramatic response and the show
39:58is operatic there's drama there's color there's bigness there's flamboyance and you can't really
40:06have that in the north it's to do with the south and you needed uh someone from argentina with latin
40:11in
40:12her soul to make that come alive
40:22from the first it was a major undertaking russell page the pre-eminent english garden designer of the
40:28day created the layout of the garden and the landscape was on a heroic scale terraces were cut
40:34into the volcanic rock 75 lorry loads of topsoil were poured into the ravine and huge systems for
40:40irrigation were filled with water shipped in by tanker from the mainland as the trees grew they
40:48created a benign microclimate that allowed susanna to create a subtropical garden with plants from all
40:54over the world but bromeliads happily run shoulders with slipper orchids beneath a canopy of tree ferns and palms
41:07la mortella's head gardener alessandra vinciguerra came to ischia in 1997 and worked with susanna until
41:15her death in march 2010 from the start the choice of plants was hers and this is why it is
41:24so
41:24tropical she liked bold plants she liked colors she liked the plants that came from argentina plants
41:30that were different from what you will find in gardens at that time in this area and when susanna
41:36saw a plant she liked she had to have it we'll go to extraordinary lengths to bring it back to
41:42la
41:42mortella there's a story behind this huge silk floss tree caricia speciosa displays
41:49that was planted by lady walton in 1983 from a seed that she took in buenos aires she went there
41:57for
41:57a concert and she noticed there were some corisias growing there so anyhow she climbed on top of her
42:03taxi and picked one of the fruits and from that fruit from that tree came that plant
42:15this story seems to have been entirely typical of her way of living and gardening and that energy and
42:21vivacity runs like electricity through the garden it is a performance a garden wearing a stylish hat
42:28and a brilliant smile whilst talking 19 to the dozen it is a very passionate garden it's full of life
42:36compared to the typical uh formal historical italian garden that people sometimes don't understand
42:43this one is understood or is loved by everybody
42:52above the subtropical tree line on the exposed old quarry walls the garden transcends its recent history
42:59and becomes rooted deep in place although this garden is packed with plants a lot of them unusual
43:06i have to say none are nicer than the the mediterranean natives like this rosemary prostrate
43:13dripping down the hillside it's beautiful and the sisters and the myrtle and of course la mortella is
43:21taken from the name myrtle these are native plants as common as anything you'll find in the whole
43:26mediterranean but they absolutely look right at home this is where they live so they're comfy
43:43the garden is an expression of one remarkable woman's flamboyance and deep passion for plants
43:49it sings with energy and color but the garden began and ends as a testament to the love of susanna
43:57for her husband william who died in 1983 high up above the quarry she created a monument to him
44:05overlooking his favorite view
44:10here is a rock which is the memorial to william walton his ashes are underneath here but i think the
44:16real
44:17memorial is the garden itself it's a memorial to both of them william and susanna and although russell
44:22page is always credited with designing the garden which he did that was his job but the thing that
44:27brought it to life was susanna's planting and i read that she quoted the famous remark that you will
44:34consult the genius of the place to inspire you genius of the place is the love and if you like
44:39the
44:39the whole garden is a monument to them and their love for each other
44:54i headed back from the calm of ischia to the chaotic streets of naples
45:02the overcrowded city seems to be spreading in an unregulated predatory way swallowing in its path
45:10scores of small farms on the outskirts that for centuries have supplied the city
45:15there are now only a few survivors farming high on the slopes of an extinct volcano where it's too steep
45:22to build taking me to meet one of these last remaining semi-urban farmers is the writer and campaigner
45:31bruno brillanti hello how are you nice to meet you bruno well it's lovely to be here but tell me
45:40what is special about this place what makes it different to others because this is one of the
45:46last place where you can find the original the original farmers they still work in a traditional
45:54way no pollution no chemical and you can find the flower and plants that you cannot find in other places
46:03pepino pepino polvorino farms 10 acres of land on the hillside behind his house
46:09where he grows superb fruit and vegetables he's a fantastic look at that lemon from this place
46:18you grow these yes beautiful and then look at all this and all this growing on the land here
46:25see those are well beans this is only father the father neapoletana
46:30this is big fruit you will try after good okay let's do very fresh very good all this is harvested
46:49this season only fresh and only seasons just up here
46:55but they're almost sheer in places the land on these slopes has been worked for at least 300 years
47:02but pepino is one of the last remaining growers here you won't get any machinery up here
47:09he come with the tractor gosh if he brings a little tractor up here he's a braver man than i
47:15so the soil here what is the soil like volcanic volcanic source so very fertile
47:24i've visited a lot of allotments in my time but this is certainly the steepest
47:36the city is right there isn't it yes just right there and there is persuvius
47:42and how do you feel when you look out
47:44and fortunately now it's stopped only 20 years ago there were fields of orange lemon tree
47:54cherry tree it seems depressingly likely that pepino's land will sooner or later also disappear
48:01another remorseless lava-like flow of urbanization beans plums apricots you know each individual plant
48:24is
48:25although the spread of naples is eroding these allotments and market gardens
48:29pepino's land is no quasi rural affectation it is the real thing and a perfect model for small urban
48:38farms of the future
48:41this feels like a garden even though it's 10 acres of intensive veg you could say the fact that it's
48:49loved and cared for as much as any garden of any description
48:54i think does the trick there is that kind of human magic that works and it's been going on here
48:58for 200
48:59years but i wonder really how long this can last there's naples encroaching in like an angry sea and it
49:08would be a real shame if i were to come back here in 20 years time and found that where
49:13i'm sitting now
49:13i was a block of flats
49:43i was going to get good home cheers cheers
49:48naples is very different from the rest of italy and so are its gardens that have evolved over the past
49:54200 years to become looser softer and more obviously romantic than its northern renaissance counterparts
50:01but there is one garden here left to visit in the south that is not just more romantic than any
50:07other that i have ever visited but simply one of the loveliest most magical gardens of any kind
50:14anywhere in the world
50:19i'm traveling 120 miles north of naples to the hilltop town of somonetta
50:24that lies above the marshy plain in which is set the gardens of nympha
50:31when people discover that i've visited a lot of gardens invariably they suggest ones that i haven't
50:36been to and the name that has cropped up over the years more than any other is nympha so last
50:42year
50:42i did go and see it and i was staggered it's simply gorgeous and whilst of course there's great debate
50:49about which is the most beautiful garden in the world there's no doubt which is the most
51:04romantic
51:05for a thousand years nympha was an important town on the main road between naples and rome
51:12at its early 14th century peak before the black death ripped through europe
51:17it was owned by the kaitani family and had a castle
51:21seven churches 14 towers town hall mills 150 houses and around 2 000 inhabitants all of which made it a
51:31substantial time
51:34and then disaster struck
51:40in 1381 nympha was sacked by mercenaries and pillaged by neighboring towns
51:46the remaining inhabitants much reduced by plague and riddled with malaria from the surrounding marshes
51:51evacuated it for healthier safer ground
51:54the kaitani family retained ownership but for nearly six centuries it lay abandoned with the buildings
52:02submerged like sunken wrecks beneath the tangled undergrowth
52:10this is a town where people lived for hundreds and hundreds of years where people died
52:16by the hundred and their ghosts are here you're walking the streets
52:22where romans walked where medieval man where people
52:26fought and they're just layers upon layers of memories
52:31in amongst the buildings just like there are layers upon layers of plants
52:36you don't want to speak too loudly not because you're disturbing other people but you don't want to
52:40disturb your own sensitivity
52:48nympha was not wholly ignored visitors came to admire its melancholy decay and the nonsense writer and
52:56painter edward lear described it in 1840 as one of the most romantic visions in italy
53:05the transformation into a garden began in 1905 under the guidance of prince galassio catani
53:13galassio took on the enormous task of clearing the buildings from the undergrowth
53:19but the garden as we see it now was started by his sister-in-law marguerite who planted on a
53:24grand scale
53:26and her daughter leila expanded nympha into its modern state after the second world war
53:38in medieval times they repeatedly would get plague and this was a low-lying area so lots of malaria
53:44and the town would be isolated from time to time and to get food in it had to come by
53:50the river but
53:51they couldn't come right through so this bridge was adapted to cater for that eventuality
53:57and if you come up here
54:05you can see that they built into the bridge and these are town walls so this is the edge of
54:10the boundary no one could go out no one could come in but they built in the bridge
54:16these vents these openings and what they did was lower baskets down on ropes to boats that will come
54:21from nearby with supplies and then up here on the bridge from the edge of the town looking in
54:31you have one of the most stunning views in any garden ever in the world
54:50the way that nympha is maintained is a brilliant balancing act preserving the picturesque sense
54:57of ruin and loss with great subtlety while scrupulously maintaining the fabric of the place
55:10i've gone off pieced a bit if you visit the garden you go on a set route
55:15and admire all the obvious best bits but i like it if you can get behind the scenes a little
55:21bit
55:21the whole place is gardened really carefully and in fact all this i know is very carefully assessed
55:30and considered you know how much weed do you leave in it they don't want it looking too spick and
55:35span and
55:35that would lose that sense of history but on the other hand they don't want to damage the fabric of
55:40the buildings and it's all carefully weeded and selected and looked after and what you get
55:45these layers of of perception it's as though history is mulching the garden
55:54now as i was talking to you just then i looked up and there in the oak tree is the
55:59most beautiful rose
56:03oh that's just lovely
56:14i think that the secret of nympha as perhaps with all truly great gardens is that it enlarges us
56:21you go in to admire and enjoy which of course you do
56:25but you come out with a whole new set of parameters with which to measure life
56:29it really is that good it may well be that there are bits of nympha that you think could be
56:37improved
56:37or bits you don't like but for my money and i have visited an awful lot of gardens
56:43this garden encapsulates the performance of a garden the idea of a garden better than anywhere else
56:51and that's a result of this extraordinary partnership between a thousand years of history of mankind
57:00and the creativity of plants nature renewing itself all the time of people nurturing it and responding
57:07to it that can make a garden into high art and i think that where you have man making something
57:14beautiful
57:15in partnership with nature then it becomes something completely life enhancing
57:40this garden that i've visited in the south have a very distinct character and are quite different
57:45from the rest of the country the combination of bright sunshine a sense of freedom of expression
57:51and a simpler way of life has been the inspiration for gardens of a more liberated looser spirit
57:57than i have seen anywhere else in italy so far
58:06next time i'll be in the veneto and the lakes of the far north visiting gardens rich with plants as
58:12well as looking in on the gardens of the very rich and the very famous well what's this one here
58:17mr cloney's
58:18place yeah i can see why i might want to live there
58:30and monte don's italian gardens continues here on bbc hd next friday next this evening it's time for our
58:36nightly visit to albert square
58:39you
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