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Explore some of the most extravagant gardens ever created. Italian Gardens, Rome, Florence, The South, The Veneto....
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00:02I'm on the final leg of my journey through Italy,
00:05exploring the country's loveliest and most significant gardens
00:08and the ideas and history that shaped them.
00:13I've visited gardens that defy interpretation.
00:17Like a child going, grrrr!
00:19I've seen others whose message couldn't be clearer.
00:23And I've seen how the formality of the Renaissance
00:25was replaced by a much more natural, romantic style in the South.
00:30Oh, it feels nice.
00:33But this time I'm in the wealthy North
00:35where the profits of trade were spent on making elaborate gardens
00:39which became pleasure grounds for gentry at play.
00:42Oh, dead end. You got me. Now have your wicked way.
00:47I'll discover how newly introduced species
00:50helped lay the foundations of botany and medicine in Italy
00:53and see how this influx of plants from across the world
00:57created gardens of high theatre.
01:00Fantastic.
01:17The North is by far the wealthiest part of Italy.
01:20500 years ago, it was one of the richest and most powerful regions in Europe,
01:24with highly productive agricultural land
01:27and well-established commercial links across the world.
01:31The North of Italy is where most of the trade has taken place from early times.
01:35And a lot of that trade has been in plants, particularly in the 16th and 17th century,
01:39where they poured in from all over the world.
01:41And they were studied extensively for their medical use, cultural possibilities and, of course, just their beauty.
01:48So I shall be looking particularly on this trip at how plants, rather than politics or design, have shaped their
01:55gardens.
02:01The influences that helped define the gardens in the north were quite different to the rest of Italy,
02:06and they take us from the 16th century right up to the present day.
02:09The principal garden makers of the Veneto and of Lucca were the hugely prosperous merchants.
02:15Their creations celebrate their own existence with undisguised pleasure.
02:20Further north, the lakes provide a dramatic setting and a benign microclimate
02:26to display collections of plants from all over the world.
02:43From the early medieval period, a crucial center of northern Italy's wealth was the independent Republic of Venice.
02:51As Europe's most important trading hub, Venice dominated the critical trade routes to the east for hundreds of years.
02:59Ships brought back fabulously valuable silks, gold and spices.
03:04From the early 16th century, goods and treasures also began to come in from the Americas.
03:13Merchants and sailors returned with unfamiliar plants and fruits from as far away as China and Chile,
03:21including wildly exotic plants such as the potato and the tomato.
03:33It seems extraordinary to us now when we take tomatoes for granted, but when they came in,
03:39they were regarded as this extraordinary plant which had these slightly suspicious-looking fruits
03:45which no-one dreamt of eating. They assumed they were poisonous.
03:48It was ages before someone packed up the courage and popped them in their mouth.
03:53Of course, now, everywhere in Italy lives off tomatoes.
04:03I am in Padua, 50km inland from Venice, in the wealthy hinterland of the Venetian Republic known as the Veneto.
04:13Venice has always been the dominant city of the region, but the most significant garden was made here, in Padua.
04:25The Otto Botanico, made in 1543 as part of Padua University, is thought to be the world's oldest botanical garden.
04:34Initially, it was set up to study and collect simples, which is the description that was then given to medicinal
04:41plants.
04:43The original garden lies behind this beautiful circular wall, but when it was first laid out, the wall wasn't there.
04:51And people very quickly cottoned on to the fact that these plants that they were laying in the beds were
04:58potentially enormously valuable.
04:59They were medicinal plants. So, if a cure could be found, somebody was going to get very rich indeed.
05:04So, people came in and then nicked them and flogged them at great profit.
05:10So, they put up the wall. So, what you've got to see is, actually, it's a fortress.
05:13And the purpose of the wall is to keep people out.
05:28At the same time that art and architecture were being transformed in Renaissance Florals, scientists were laying the foundations of
05:37modern botany in Padua.
05:42The Auto Botanico was dedicated to studying the properties of newly introduced, as well as indigenous plants, so that they
05:50could be used safely and effectively.
05:55Now, this was revolutionary, because up to that point, plant-based remedies had largely relied on superstition and folklore.
06:09Most medicine was based on the doctrine of signatures, which basically meant that if a plant looked like an aspect
06:15of the human body, then it would cure it.
06:17So, for example, a walnut. It looks like a brain, so it was used to try and cure diseases of
06:24the brain.
06:24Or pulmonaria, lung work that we grow, was used for lung diseases.
06:29And in practice, that killed as many people as it cured.
06:31And the whole point of the Renaissance was to explore and discover and apply the mind to science.
06:40So, by 1533, when the chair of botany was set up here in Padua, they wanted to collect as many
06:46plants as possible.
06:47Not to say, it looks as though it'll do this, but to find out.
07:01The head of the Orto Botanico, Professor Francesco Bonifede, realised that the first step towards understanding medicinal plants was to
07:11identify and classify each specimen accurately.
07:23You know, it's really strange because this is fundamentally a filing system.
07:29It's a laboratory.
07:31And there's no attempt to make a beautiful garden.
07:36The important thing is the order and the sequence and the display of plants so they can be studied.
07:40And yet, there's a magic here. There's a real charm.
07:45You walk in and you're seduced. It feels wonderful. It's the most beautiful garden.
07:53And I know I'm biased, of course. Of course, I'm bound to love it.
07:56But I defy anybody not to feel that magic.
08:04As new plants came in, they were given a specific position in an elaborate network of borders.
08:12To learn how it works, I met the former prefect, Professor Elsa Cappelletti.
08:18This book was the first exercise book for students. It was a pocket book in which there was the plan
08:29of the garden.
08:31So this is the kind of the garden.
08:33With the four squares.
08:34Yes.
08:36In the past, students had to identify plants only observing their shape, the flowers and so.
08:47And then they had to write the correct name of the plants.
08:54I see.
08:56Perhaps there was a belladonna and they had to write belladonna.
09:01So if they knew which bed the plant was in, then they would know which plant it was.
09:06Yes, yes.
09:07So the pattern was, if you like, an aid to memory as much as anything else.
09:14Yes, yes.
09:27It may be a simple system compared to our electronic wizardry, but actually it's beautifully effective.
09:34Because you can see how if a student who had studied here came across a plant in the field, perhaps
09:39on the other side of the world,
09:40weren't quite sure what it was, but they vaguely remembered it.
09:43All they had to do was think back to where they had seen it in this garden, which particular bed.
09:49And because each bed only had one plant, they'd hone in on that, look up in their book, bed number
09:5636, block number 2, bingo.
09:59They've got the name.
10:05The 16th century saw an increasing flow of new arrivals.
10:09The very first foreign plant introduced into the garden was in 1561 and was the agave from Mexico,
10:16where it was prized by the Mayans for its wound healing properties.
10:23The oldest surviving plant in the garden is the Mediterranean fan palm, Chimerops humilis.
10:30This is the original specimen that has been growing here since 1585.
10:41It's hard to exaggerate the importance of this garden.
10:44There were other botanic gardens around the same time.
10:47The one in Pisa was just about the same period.
10:51But this was where the study of plants really took on importance.
10:56And that appreciation of plants, first of all as an aid to medicine,
11:01and then as an end in itself, was slowly but inexorably shaping the way that we viewed our gardens.
11:16As well as studying medical plants, the botanical garden in Padua played an important role
11:21in testing out the cultivation of newly introduced agricultural species
11:25that were to prove essential to feed the growing population.
11:50I'm now taking a boat trip along the canal that connects Padua to Venice,
11:54and perhaps more importantly, links Venice to the agricultural interior of the Veneto.
12:02Today, this is a charmingly gentle escape from the modern Hurley-Burley.
12:06But in the 16th century, it would have been the quickest way to come inland,
12:11and used regularly by the Venetian merchants and nobility,
12:14who were buying land in the region and building summer villas.
12:19These agricultural entrepreneurs planted the new crops like maize that had arrived from the Americas,
12:25and immediately they thrived and proved highly profitable.
12:30This is the Brenta Canal.
12:32Very quickly, it became the main route between Venice and Padua.
12:35A lot of trade went up and down it.
12:37And also, it was used by the merchants to get to their holiday homes,
12:41which they built along the banks of the canal, particularly at Strah, which had very good soil.
12:46And those little farms that they first had became big estates,
12:50and finally, really rather grand villas.
12:52And the place I'm going to visit now is the grandest of them all.
13:05The wealthy merchants and their guests would have been transported here to Strah in great style,
13:10travelling from the Venetian palazzo in a luxurious hybrid of gondola and barge, known as a bookiello.
13:33I arrive at my destination, just as they would have done, although in slightly less style,
13:38at the grandest holiday home in the Veneto, Villa Pisani.
13:45The Pisani family were Venetian bankers and merchants that had been wealthy and powerful since the 14th century.
13:52Villa Pisani started as a late 16th century farmhouse,
13:56but in 1720, it was pulled down to build a grand country palace,
14:01where the Pisani family could entertain during the summer months.
14:07Look at that.
14:09You can set the scene, can't you?
14:11These visitors will come down the Brentra in a glorious barge,
14:16they get out, they see this enormous building, the biggest and the best in the area,
14:21and be suitably impressed, come into it, it's rather magnificent,
14:24and they push to the doors and then, boom!
14:28It expands beyond anything they've ever seen before.
14:32That's it. They've won.
14:33Pisani's have bowled them over.
14:44Alvis Pisani had been the Venetian ambassador at the court of Louis XIV at Versailles,
14:50and wanted his new garden at Strauss to emulate that of the Sun King.
14:56But whereas Versailles stretched for 250 acres,
15:01Pisani had just ten to play with.
15:07It's very grand.
15:08There are a number of these avenues that arrive at gates,
15:13and it's a trick that was used actually a lot in gardens in the 18th century.
15:17These eye-catchers that draw the eye out of the garden,
15:21because the gardens here are obviously grand, but they're not that big.
15:25What you see is all there is.
15:27So by cutting through the woods and then arriving at this gate or gap in the fence,
15:32what it makes it feel is much bigger than it actually is.
15:37So the guests would come here, see it, and feel as though it was owning as far as the eye
15:43could see.
15:48As with all Baroque gardens, the intention was to delight, amaze, surprise and entertain,
15:55as well as parade the owner's wealth and power in a triumphant display of mastery over nature.
16:04When you look on this from the entrance, it's absolutely magnificent.
16:09And it's pretty magnificent when you get here, but that's the road right there.
16:16It's about ten metres thick and there's nothing here.
16:21It's built just for show, just to impress you.
16:25Which is fine, because it does.
16:43But this vast palace was only ever intended for the summer season.
16:48It was a place of play rather than work.
16:51Life for a wealthy Venetian in the mid-18th century involved a very great deal of glamorous, not to say
16:58amorous, play.
17:02And the maize, which was the first thing to be planted in the garden, was the perfect playground.
17:11I do like a nice, crisp hedge.
17:14If you think about a maize, it's just sort of a hedge-lover's delight.
17:20Right, let's go in.
17:25I love the smell of box.
17:27This was planted in 1720 and it's remained pretty much the same, other than the change of hornbeaver box.
17:32But very different to the labyrinths that you've got in medieval gardens.
17:37Because in a labyrinth we'd be wandering along here and I'd be composing myself and very solemnly thinking about the
17:43tortuous route of life.
17:45Let's go this way.
17:47But by 1720 it'd become a game.
17:49So what you've got to imagine is people in lovely great silk dresses and tricon hats.
17:55It was all flirty, so it was round the corner and you'd try and find me and chase me and
18:00all sorts of malarkey going on in the maze.
18:04And that's really the spirit of Pisani.
18:11Now.
18:13Left right.
18:16I can't see over the top.
18:19Ah, getting near.
18:22Aha.
18:27Dead end.
18:30That is deeply frustrating.
18:32Oh well.
18:35I have a feeling.
18:38There's a cul-de-sac.
18:40I am actually genuinely lost.
18:43I don't know.
18:44We'll get out somehow.
18:46I think the secret of a good maze is there has to be a genuine sense of panic.
18:57There's all sorts of recorded stories, particular grand tour Englishmen who come and visit mazes in the 18th century and
19:02then get lost and be calling for help and these dreadful Italians wouldn't come and let them out.
19:07Probably delighted to keep the English my lord shut away for a bit.
19:14Oh, dead end. You got me.
19:17Now have your wicked way.
19:24Aha.
19:27Bullseye.
19:37While the central tower would be a remarkably unapproachable place for a secret assignation, nowadays it serves only as a
19:44viewing platform, presided over by a decidedly unromantic guard.
19:52The thing about a maze, it's almost the ultimate sort of pleasing object.
19:56But of course as a gardener I think, blimey, can you imagine clipping that and then collecting it all up?
20:02And also the problem of letting light into it so it stays nice and thick.
20:08I doubt that Pisani's sportive 18th century guests would have troubled over such things.
20:13However, they might well have found their way to the coffee house to cool down after so much amorous excitement.
20:19This arcade pavilion sits on a mound housing an ice house, which in winter was filled with blocks of ice
20:26cut from the moat that rings it.
20:28Right through summer, the deliciously chilled air would waft upstairs into the building.
20:33Oh yes, there's the vent, the open space connecting to the cool air from the ice.
20:38So you'd sit up here with your great big frocks, with cold air coming up underneath them, feeling elegant but
20:44cool.
20:52Sometimes it's easy to feel a bit overwhelmed by all the symbolism and allegory and metaphor that you get in
20:59Renaissance and Baroque gardens.
21:01But this garden is dead simple. There's just one message that counts.
21:06And from the very beginning, the Pisani brothers intended it to impress.
21:10And it's worked through the ages.
21:12Napoleon came along, saw it, loved it, bought it, stayed one night, dished it out to a member of his
21:18family, the Tsar of Russia.
21:20He chose to stay here above all the other places that he could have had in the Veneto.
21:25The Habsburgs put their court here.
21:27And to this day, every single person that walks through that door comes in, has a look and goes, wow.
21:39I'm leaving the Veneto to take a detour southwest to Lucca.
21:44Once an independent city-state and another wealthy centre of trade and agriculture.
21:54I'm coming to visit a garden that was built on the proceeds of a very specialised, very local product.
22:05The reason why I'm making this journey to Lucca is that it shares lots of similarities with the Veneto, because
22:10it's an independent state that had a lot of wealth.
22:13But it was tiny. Despite this, it had its own ambassadors to the course of St. Petersburg and Versailles.
22:19And that wealth was based on two sources. One was banking and the other was silk.
22:34Today, visitors come to Lucca to admire its medieval architecture.
22:39It is a calm, beautifully preserved town.
22:44But its history is founded on hard trade.
22:47800 years ago, Lucca led the world in silk production and pioneered new spinning technology.
22:56Lucca's silk merchants, such as Giovanni Arnolfini, seen here in the famous painting by Jan van Eyck, grew enormously rich
23:03on the trade of the finest silks and silk velvets.
23:14These merchants built themselves summer houses outside the city.
23:18And by the middle of the 17th century, these villas in the hills increasingly sported superb gardens.
23:39In 1651, one of Lucca's wealthiest silk merchants of all bought himself the title of Count Orsetti and built this
23:47stupendous filler and garden.
23:50But despite the newly noble Count Orsetti's wealth, and despite the opulence of his gardens, the villas of these Lucca's
23:58merchants were still essentially highly productive farms.
24:01And they all shared the same layout.
24:06They're all north-south.
24:07They all have their good cereal ground below, going down, sweeping down gently in a slope.
24:14Behind them, they had their olive trees and their orchards and their woods.
24:17And then right in front of the house and to the side, they grew vegetables.
24:20And it was a format they all followed.
24:21And in the middle of the farmhouse, they all have one big room with windows to the front or the
24:27back, so they could see, they could look out on their land, because it's all about money.
24:31But in the kernel of all these places, they're working farmhouses.
24:38Villa Malia, then known as Villa Orsetti, follows the baroque fashion for a series of garden rooms, each designed to
24:46surprise, delight and entertain the visitor.
24:51But nothing delights or entertains me more than these breathtaking hedges.
25:02That is fantastic.
25:06Incredible canyon created by the hedges and the path.
25:11It's an unlikely comparison, but it's exactly the same impression you get when you first go to New York.
25:16And these enormous buildings flanking the street, and it changes the way that you view a street or, and here,
25:24a garden path.
25:26If you look at the trees, they're full-blown oak trees, clipped to hedge form.
25:33See, for me, this is worth crossing the world just to see this.
25:38Lost the rest of my life.
25:48The language of baroque symbolism and allegory would have been readily understood by all educated Europeans of the period, which
25:55was essentially the 17th and 18th centuries.
25:57So I have seen a number of similar river gods, to these in the pool in the citrus garden, in
26:04other gardens around Rome, Bagnia and Caparola.
26:10I've seen quite a few citrus gardens now, but I think this is my favourite.
26:15I love it.
26:16Just trying to work out what it is, and I think the rhythm is really important.
26:19You have the balustrades playing along, and then the pots equally spaced, and the colour of the lemons.
26:25And it's like a sort of baroque feud that's picked up and played on.
26:30But it's very practical.
26:32They would have sold the lemons.
26:34And, you know, they're Lucans, they're merchants, and this is based upon an agricultural background.
26:38So you grow lemons, and you sell them, and it's a harvest.
26:41And the water was for growing fish, if you like.
26:45It's a fish tank, and it fed them.
26:47So the beauty is always practical.
27:06It's a place of performance and display, and perhaps that is the central key to understanding all the great Italian
27:13gardens throughout history.
27:15And here at Malia, there is a perfectly preserved Teatro de Verdure, a theatre created entirely from topiary.
27:25This is terrific.
27:29This great building made out of you and a little bit of box.
27:36And I know that it was really used. It's a real theatre. It's not a topiary, pretend theatre.
27:43They have performances here, and there's backstage, and the seat's probably sat here.
27:49And you can imagine those wonderful ladies with their enormous great silk dresses, local silk I suspect, sweeping in.
27:58And you can get, whoops, be careful on there.
28:01If I come up here, getting soaked.
28:08I suppose this is the upper circle.
28:12Yeah, in here, we've got a backstage area.
28:17And I bet this is wonderfully cool in summer.
28:21And here with the wings.
28:25With all the different entrances.
28:27If we come through onto the stage and make my entrance.
28:34Ta-da!
28:44The terracotta statues date from 1700 and represent the stock characters from the Commedia dell'arte.
28:51These plays were frequently bawdy in tone and dramatised stock themes such as adultery, love and the futility of old
28:59age.
29:04And I have to say, it's just completely fabulous.
29:09And I want one in my garden, and I want it now.
29:20For Count Orsetti and his descendants, parties and plays continued at Villa Malia right up to the end of the
29:2618th century.
29:28Then their world collapsed.
29:32In 1796, Napoleon Bonaparte crossed the Alps and swept through northern Italy.
29:41His army captured Venice, ending 1,100 years of independence.
29:46And 1799 took Luca.
29:55The opening lines of Tolstoy's War and Peace are, roughly,
30:01Well, Prince, I see that Luca and Genoa are now just estates of the Bonaparte family.
30:08And that was based on what happened here.
30:11Because in 1805, Napoleon, dishing out provinces like the gangster chief he was, gave to his sister the state of
30:20Luca.
30:21She came down, had a look, and decided that this villa, which was then called Villa Orsetti, was where she
30:27wanted to base herself.
30:28And she more or less turfed out the owners. She did pay them, but gave them an offer they couldn't
30:33refuse.
30:34And the Count, Count Orsetti, in his fury and fear, I suspect, had her silver money melted down, made into
30:44a huge dinner service, which he then put on a cart and trundled across the front of the villa so
30:50that Elisa could see Malia disappear.
30:59It might have made him feel better, but it didn't get him his house back.
31:03And Elisa turned her back on his Baroque formality and created instead an English landscape garden.
31:09This much more natural, informal style was then sweeping the continent and made greater use of imported plants and trees.
31:23Although the changes that Elisa made here were highly fashionable at the time, actually gardening was changing in a very
31:30profound way.
31:31And it was because new plants were pouring in from all over the world.
31:36And up to the 19th century, in Italy at least, architects and landscape designers controlled the way that gardens looked.
31:43But with this new material, it was plants themselves that became the most interesting thing.
31:50And we go from the age of the formal designer to the age of the plantsman.
32:02I'm now heading north to an area where plantsmen made perhaps the biggest impact on the country's gardens, the Italian
32:09lakes, which lie up on the country's mountainous border with Switzerland and France.
32:36This is Lake Como, where the freshly kindled 19th century passion for plants, combined with a surge of new exotic
32:44species,
32:45to create some spectacular gardens.
32:51The dramatic alpine setting, purity of the air and the clarity of the light, all combined to make this area
32:58feel distinctly different to the rest of Italy.
33:01In the early 19th century, it certainly chimed with the new Romantic movement and inspired poets such as Shelley and
33:08Wordsworth and composers like Verdi and Lis.
33:13And at the same time, in the early 1800s, Coma's shores were being transformed, as wealthy Italians queued up to
33:21build lakeside villas.
33:27I'm taking a boat trip along Lake Como with Judith Wade.
33:31Hello.
33:32Judith founded the Grandi Giardini Italiani, which has helped and coordinated scores of Italy's finest historic gardens to open to
33:42the public.
33:56There are incredibly splendid villas.
34:00Very ornate.
34:01All the gardens, of course, are waterfront and have been designed so that you can appreciate them from the waterfront
34:10rather than from the back of the city.
34:13There are dozens of very impressive villas, aren't there? Just one after the other, all the way around.
34:18I think they're more than a hundred.
34:19Really?
34:20Really?
34:24In recent years, many of Como's lavish villas have been bought by oligarchs, film stars and super rich fashion designers.
34:36So you belong to Versace.
34:39Is this one here?
34:39Yes.
34:40And that's where...
34:41And does the garden run all the way down?
34:42Is that all grown?
34:42All the way down here.
34:43Wow.
34:44And I believe that Madonna and Shakira and all the people in the pop world would turn up here often.
34:53But what's this one here?
34:56Er...
34:56Mr. Clooney's place?
34:58Uh-huh.
34:58Very beautiful.
34:59Yeah, I can see why I might want to live there.
35:01Yes.
35:12This is Mr. Branson's home.
35:15It's rather particular, very beautifully kept, almost groomed.
35:19And Mr. Branson can only fly in here or come in here by boat because it has no access by
35:26road.
35:27It is immaculately kept, isn't it?
35:29And beautifully clipped cypress trees.
35:32Does he spend long, much time there?
35:35I really don't know.
35:37He's never invited me over, but...
35:39Has he not? How rude.
35:40How poorly.
35:45And now we're coming along to Balbianello, but this is on a slope, so you couldn't make a proper Italian
35:53garden.
35:54Well, you come in here, you can look up the slope and it looks as though it is a garden.
36:00There's a lot of topiary there.
36:03It's beautifully groomed and clipped.
36:05They take four months.
36:07It's just two men who've been there for the last 30 years.
36:11They're the same.
36:12Do you know they use scissors on it?
36:14Do they?
36:27In the early 19th century, when many of these villas and their gardens were made, there was a burgeoning of
36:32colonial expansion and trade,
36:34which in turn created and fuelled a craze for exotic new plants, both from the East and the Americas.
36:42The climate of the lakes, with its high rainfall, hot summers and surprisingly mild winters, was perfect for the new
36:49arrivals.
36:56Everybody has lovely glass houses because they were plant collectors.
37:00So they were bringing plants in. I mean, that was quite a new thing, wasn't it?
37:05That was the fashion way through Europe at the time.
37:09Oh, yeah.
37:09It was your status symbol. It wasn't having a Ferrari. It was buying rare plants.
37:14And then, of course, when Napoleon turned up, of course, there was a lot of boats going round Europe bringing
37:22plants in and out.
37:23That was an exciting part. He was going to exotic parts of the world.
37:27And so, with a mild climate and ericaceous soil, they could have plants from the Himalayas or China or wherever.
37:36Goodbye. Have a nice day.
37:38Thanks very much.
37:39On the shore of the little village of Bellagio is Villa Melzi, which is one of Lake Como's finest gardens.
38:03At the turn of the 19th century, this garden started a bitter horticultural rivalry between two of Italy's most prominent
38:10men.
38:12Melzi was the home of Francesco Melzi Daryl, a Milanese aristocrat, who Napoleon appointed vice-president of Italy after the
38:21French invasion.
38:22In 1808, he began to make his garden in the new English landscape style.
38:28And from the first, it was open to views of the lake and the mountains beyond.
38:32However, like all natural-looking gardens, this involved huge work to make and needs intensive maintenance to keep looking natural.
38:42When you first walk around the garden, it seems to just sort of be rather soft and like a country
38:47park.
38:47But actually, when you analyse it, the design has got really particular and strong elements.
38:52For a start, you've got this steep slope tied together by the immaculate grass in these sculpted, rather abstract forms,
38:59both of the shape of the land and also the shrubs, and then there's trees growing up, which give it
39:03some verticals.
39:05And then you have this path, this great long path, just running the whole length of the garden and the
39:10series of the plain trees open to the lake.
39:14And it's a vast plain, this great horizontal expanse, which sets it all into balance.
39:20And I don't think that first part, the soft abstract sculptural bit, would work nearly so well without the severity
39:27of the lake.
39:34Directly across the water at Villa Carlotta lived Gian Battista Somariva, another highly ambitious politician.
39:43And Somariva deeply resented Melzi for beating him to the top job, and there was no love loss between the
39:49neighbours.
39:50This fuelled both men's gardens as they vied to outdo each other.
40:07Melzi appointed a botanist and started filling his garden with the latest plants from around the world.
40:21Somariva followed suit, buying up more land to make room for his grind collection.
40:35Melzi fired a salver of rhododendron indicum, imported from Japan.
40:43Not to be outdone, Somariva responded, by planting hundreds of them.
40:55But Melzi wasn't going to take that lying down, he did his own exotic planting, right on the water front.
41:00And Somariva could see that across the water. It was like a horticultural bullet fired straight at him.
41:08.
41:14Melzi upped the stakes and planted ever more trees and shrubs rarely seen in Italy at that time.
41:21But daily visible to Somariva.
41:25For my money, it's Villa Melzi that wins this rather frantic gardening duel.
41:30Unlike Carlotta, it has a sweep and a line to it.
41:33And the inclusion of the landscape is clever and generous.
41:53But nevertheless, I can't help but notice that Melzi cited his greatest treasures
41:58where they would be admired by the maximum number of people.
42:05The garden here is planted with wonderful specimen trees.
42:09Like Cedar of Lebanon and Zelkovas and all sorts of trees from all over the world.
42:15But none of them are the same as the trees on the wooded slopes.
42:20None of them are natives.
42:21And actually, if you look along the lake, you have this fine seam of exotic planting,
42:27like a strip of gold showing off people's wealth.
42:48Napoleon's rule lasted less than 20 years.
42:51And finally, in 1861, for the first time in its history,
42:55Italy was unified into a single political state.
43:01Railways were built, businesses prospered,
43:04and throughout this new Italy, but especially here in the north,
43:08a new middle class started to emerge.
43:11And they began to take up the hitherto aristocratic pastime of gardening.
43:17Going past miles of nurseries, mainly for trees,
43:22and these nurseries really began in the 19th century, particularly in the north,
43:26because there was new money developing, and it was for the middle classes.
43:30And that meant that they could have gardens that weren't just for food.
43:34And for the very first time, there were gardening magazines,
43:37there were plant suppliers, there were societies,
43:40so that horticulture became a common activity.
43:46Before I visit my last garden, I'm stopping off in Milan,
43:50to visit one of Italy's oldest nurseries established 130 years ago.
43:59In the spirit of the 16th century botanists in Padua,
44:02the Ingenoli brothers collected plants from all over the world
44:05and propagated them for their seeds,
44:08feeding the new market for exotic flowers and fruits.
44:13The business is now run by Francesco Fardini,
44:17the sixth generation of Ingenolis.
44:25The railway was very, very important for us in 1861
44:30to send our product, the seeds, the plants, in all Italy,
44:35from Milano to the Sicily.
44:37So by this stage, the whole of Italy was buying from you?
44:41Yes.
44:42So you could issue a catalogue?
44:44Yes.
44:44This is the catalogue for 1893.
44:50Great pictures, too.
44:51Look at all these different varieties of flowers, amazing.
44:54So we don't have anything like this now.
44:57I like the squared paper, so people could write their notes.
45:00Take their notes.
45:00Such a good idea.
45:02And presumably, there was a genuine increase in interest.
45:05The new type of plants were very important.
45:09Francesco Ingenioli, in 1880,
45:12he went to Japan, to China.
45:14He returned with the caco.
45:16I don't know in English the translation of the caco.
45:19I think it's personal.
45:20So people must have been excited by these new plants that were coming in.
45:24Today is the first time, like a caco.
45:26Yeah.
45:27It's incredible.
45:28We also have a letter of 1888.
45:31It's a thank letter.
45:33I received six caco.
45:35Thanks very much.
45:37And I hope that in the future, this variety of caco will be very famous in Italy.
45:44Best regards, Giuseppe Verdi.
45:46So you had famous customers.
45:48You had all these new fruits coming in, new varieties.
45:51That's the kind of energy.
45:55It was very important.
45:56They wanted to see flower, the colour, something different.
46:00No, I understand.
46:01I understand.
46:14I have headed north from Milan to Lake Maggiore,
46:18my final destination on this horticultural journey through Italy.
46:23And this is perhaps the ultimate expression
46:26of the baroque love of extravagance and drama.
46:31At the western end of Lake Maggiore lie three islands collectively called the Borromeos.
46:46They're named after the aristocratic banking family
46:49who bought land on them in the 16th century.
46:56The island that I'm visiting is called Isola Bala.
47:00And for centuries, it has attracted garden visitors like moths to the flame.
47:06Indeed, this is now my own third visit.
47:08And I hope it won't be my last.
47:18Isola Bala is just not like anywhere else you've ever seen.
47:22When I first saw it, I remember thinking that it's like a sort of mad battleship wearing a party frock.
47:28It's extravagant, it's extravagant, it's hysterical, it's like a drag ball parading as a garden.
47:35And yet it's a really good garden and perhaps the best surviving baroque example of a garden in the whole
47:40of Italy.
47:52In 1632, Carlo Borromeo, the governor of Lake Maggiore, commissioned this entire rocky island to be transformed into a pyramid
48:01of terraces.
48:09Towering 100 feet up into the sky, he wanted it to look like a great galleon floating on the lake.
48:16It took 40 years to complete, and huge quantities of soil, marble and granite were shipped in.
48:25Whilst this work proceeded, Borromeo set about trying to buy up the houses of the fishermen who lived on the
48:31island.
48:43But it wasn't all plain sailing, because a lot of the villagers couldn't be coerced into selling.
48:49They just stayed put, which meant that the garden had to be made around them, which is why it's such
48:54an odd shape.
48:54Now gradually, over a long period of time, some did sell and pockets of the garden were able to be
49:01extended.
49:19This is classic high baroque.
49:23Drama.
49:25Everything's slightly hysterical, but in a very elegant, controlled way.
49:34And I love these high hedges above the balustrade.
49:38They're bay hedges.
49:41So, enormous height.
49:42I mean, what's that?
49:4330 feet tall?
49:44And you know something's up there, but you don't know what.
49:47So, of course, you're led.
49:48And then...
49:49Look at...
49:50This...
49:51These steps curve round, and then that ficus repens on the wall.
49:56And then more bay above it.
49:57So you have this immaculate, green, curving wall.
50:04Very simple, but immediately incredibly powerful.
50:15There's a tendency to think of baroque as all twiddles and overall ornamentation.
50:22But this staircase does show that just texture and colour and very, very strong shape and form of that little
50:30strip of stone is just as dramatic.
50:36And the main purpose of the staircase is to compress the views and heighten the sense of anticipation.
51:10And then...
51:11And then...
51:11We've...
51:12We've...
51:12It's...
51:13It's the most incredible.
51:16Theatrical.
51:18Completely dotty thing I've ever seen in a garden.
51:21And it's...
51:23Oh, what is it?
51:24It's operatic.
51:27And white peacocks, it's like a dream.
51:29like walking through a door in a dream and suddenly seeing
51:34this scalloped, vast stage set with figures.
51:41It's like walking round the corner in your garden
51:45and going on to the La Scala or the Opera House at Covent Garden.
51:51Fantastic.
52:10The Massimo Theatre is an operatic triumph of Baroque, kitsch and powerplay.
52:17Statues of Roman gods, obelisks, scallops, waving putty,
52:21all overlooked by the Borromeo symbol, the unicorn.
52:36Guests would have been entertained by music drifting up
52:39from choirs and orchestras hidden in the garden below.
52:48Whilst albino peacocks, imported from Southeast Asia,
52:52strutted and posed archly.
53:05The impulse to entertain, impress and show off
53:09reaches its high point on the highest terrace.
53:23Big, open space.
53:25It's like walking into an empty ballroom.
53:31And these amazing views on each side.
53:36So it couldn't be lighter, an area,
53:39and yet these whopping great statues.
53:42And there, the Borromeo symbol, the unicorn.
53:49Bigger than anything else.
53:53No doubt about who's the daddy here.
53:56So if you come to the Borromeo party,
53:59you end up here with all the guests in their finery and...
54:03And people can see that you're having a party.
54:05They can see you dressed in your finery.
54:08You know, the Borromeos are having another do,
54:11but they're not invited.
54:13That's the key thing.
54:14This is a fortress of privilege.
54:16It's the perfect platform for display.
54:29Originally dominated by Mediterranean plants and the inevitable citrus,
54:34Isola Bella underwent a transformation in the 19th century
54:37when the plant-mad Count of Italiano Borromeo imported a mass of exotic species
54:42from China, India, the Americas, Himalayas and Australia.
54:59This camphor is truly enormous.
55:03It's a tree on a heroic scale.
55:07But it started life as a rooted cutting.
55:09The Count bought it in with lots of other exotics that he collected
55:12and bought into the garden and was grown in a pot and admired
55:15and it got bigger and bigger and bigger and then was planted out
55:18and it's never stopped growing.
55:20And at a rate that far exceeds any other tree in the garden.
55:23And in fact, most other trees altogether, it is now just colossal.
55:28And it's very beautiful and it's got this lovely billowing silhouette.
55:42For all its brash ostentation,
55:44there are some secret corners of Isola Bella that are less flamboyant.
55:49But to my mind, every bit is dramatic.
55:57The public aren't allowed into here.
56:01I've been let in especially.
56:04And it's my favourite bit. It's absolutely wonderful.
56:07These great buildings of green and some of them are camellia
56:13and these great pillows of azaleas and this rhododendron.
56:20So, of course, in spring, that will just explode out into colour.
56:24I like it green, actually.
56:26I love this austerity of colour and yet ambition on scale.
56:31And I think you come in and immediately you feel inspired and everything's lifted up a notch or two.
56:48Although there are marvellously elegant and sculptural parts of the garden,
56:53from the south here,
56:55and as you approach by boat and look up at this view,
56:58what you see is totally brash,
57:02totally kitsch,
57:04completely without any taste at all.
57:09And I love it for that.
57:21Who could not love the way that Isola Bella is an unashamed carnival of a garden?
57:27It's quintessentially baroque,
57:28and that desire to put on an outward show is quintessentially Italian.
57:33Certainly, I've never visited any garden like it.
57:35It feels like the perfect place to end my tour of the great Italian gardens.
57:41Isola Bella is a performance,
57:43and it's kitsch and it's brash and at times completely barmy,
57:47but I think it's heroic.
57:49But then I think you must appreciate the gardens fall under that Italian spell of bella figura,
57:55this need to create a good impression,
57:58to look really good,
57:59and it doesn't really matter what's behind it.
58:02And travelling through this beautiful country,
58:05seeing amazing gardens all along the way,
58:08has been a joy.
58:21And we're back in the borders with Gardener's World,
58:24here on BBC HD,
58:25next Friday night at eight.
58:28Next tonight, stay with us for comedy,
58:30kicking off with Have I Got News For You.
58:32Have I Got News For You?
58:35Have I Got News For You?
58:40Have I Got News For You?
58:42You