The Garden of Eden, also known as the Eden Garden (Italian : Giardino Eden) is a villa with a famous garden, on the island of Giudecca in Venice, Italy. It is named after an Englishman, Frederic Eden, who designed the garden in 1884 and owned the property for a long time. From 1927 it was owned by Princess Aspasia of Greece and Denmark and her daughter Queen Alexandra of Yugoslavia. Between 1979 and 2000, it was owned by the Austrian painter and architect Friedensreich Hundertwasser, who abandoned the garden to nature.
In 1884, Frederic Eden (1828-1916), a great-uncle of the British Prime Minister Anthony Eden, and his wife Caroline (1837-1928), sister of the garden designer Gertrude Jekyll, [1] bought an area of six acres on the Venetian island of Giudecca. It contained a former outbuilding of the convent of the Sisters of Santa Croce. The property was later expanded by two acres when the Venetian authorities enlarged the island. The couple created Venice's largest private garden, an English landscape garden symbolic of the British presence in Venice, containing statues, roses and animals. It was frequented by many figures from the world of the arts, including Marcel Proust, Rainer Maria Rilke, Walter Sickert, Henry James, Eleonora Duse and Baron Corvo.
The garden featured a large number of willow pergolas covered in roses, and extensive plantings of Madonna lily as well as other English flowers. [2] Paths around the garden were surfaced with local seashells. There were lawns, courts and a walk lined with cypresses. [3] In 1903, Eden published A Garden in Venice, a short book describing his creation of the garden. [2]
Frederic Eden died in 1916 and his wife Caroline survived him until 1928. [1] A year before her death, she sold the Garden of Eden to Aspasia Manos, the widow of King Alexander of Greece. She acquired the villa thanks to the financial support of her friend Sir James Horlick. The Princess lived in the villa with her daughter Alexandra until 1940, when the Greco-Italian war erupted. Damaged during World War II, the villa was rebuilt by Aspasia when peace returned. In 1945, the Garden of Eden was designated a Monumento Nazionale.
Aspasia lived in the villa until her death in 1972 and the Garden of Eden passed to her daughter. Alexandra made some suicide attempts on the property. In 1979, she sold it to the Austrian painter Friedensreich Hundertwasser. Hundertwasser allowed the flowering plants to die and encouraged wild vegetation. [2] He died in 2000, [1] leaving the property to the ownership of a foundation. [2] It is not open to the public. [1]
Venice is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto region. It is built on a group of 126 islands that are separated by expanses of open water and by canals; portions of the city are linked by 472 bridges. The islands are in the shallow Venetian Lagoon, an enclosed bay lying between the mouths of the Po and the Piave rivers. In 2020, around 258,685 people resided in greater Venice or the Comune di Venezia, of whom around 51,000 live in the historical island city of Venice and the rest on the mainland (terraferma). Together with the cities of Padua and Treviso, Venice is included in the Padua-Treviso-Venice Metropolitan Area (PATREVE), which is considered a statistical metropolitan area, with a total population of 2.6 million.
Friedrich Stowasser, better known by his pseudonym Friedensreich Regentag Dunkelbunt Hundertwasser, was an Austrian visual artist and architect who also worked in the field of environmental protection. He emigrated to the Far North of New Zealand in the 1970s, where he lived and worked for most of the rest of his life.
Alexandra was the last Queen of Yugoslavia as the wife of King Peter II.
The gondola is a traditional, flat-bottomed Venetian rowing boat, well suited to the conditions of the Venetian lagoon. It is typically propelled by a gondolier, who uses a rowing oar, which is not fastened to the hull, in a sculling manner, and also acts as the rudder. The uniqueness of the gondola includes its being asymmetrical along the length, making the single-oar propulsion more efficient.
Sveti Stefan is a town in Budva Municipality, on the Adriatic coast of Montenegro, approximately 6 kilometres (3.7 mi) southeast of Budva. The town is known for the Aman Sveti Stefan resort, a 5-star franchise of the international group of Aman Resorts.
Aspasia Manou was a Greek aristocrat who became the wife of Alexander I, King of Greece. Due to the controversy over her marriage, she was styled Madame Manou instead of "Queen Aspasia", until recognized as Princess Aspasia of Greece and Denmark after Alexander's death and the restoration of King Constantine I, on 10 September 1922. Through her marriage, she and her descendants were the only ethnically Greek members of the Greek royal family, which originated in Denmark.
Giudecca is an island in the Venetian Lagoon, in northern Italy. It is part of the sestiere of Dorsoduro and is a locality of the comune of Venice.
The House of Foscari was an ancient Venetian patrician family, which reached its peak in the 14th–15th centuries, culminating in the dogeship of Francesco Foscari (1423–1457).
Charles Louis, Hereditary Prince of Baden was heir apparent of the Margraviate of Baden.
The Garden of Eden is the Biblical garden where Adam and Eve lived.
Villa Foscari is a patrician villa in Mira, near Venice, northern Italy, designed by the Italian Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio. It is also known as La Malcontenta, a nickname which—according to a legend—it received when the spouse of one of the Foscaris was locked up in the house because she allegedly did not live up to her conjugal duty.
Villa Pisani at Stra refers to the monumental, late-Baroque rural palace located along the Brenta Canal at Via Doge Pisani 7 near the town of Stra, on the mainland of the Veneto, northern Italy. This villa is one of the largest examples of Villa Veneta located in the Riviera del Brenta, the canal linking Venice to Padua. The patrician Pisani family of Venice commissioned a number of villas, also known as Villa Pisani across the Venetian mainland. The villa and gardens now operate as a national museum, and the site sponsors art exhibitions.
Isola Bella is one of the Borromean islands of Lake Maggiore in Northern Italy. The island is situated in the Borromean Gulf 400 metres from the lakeside town of Stresa. Isola Bella is 320 metres long by 400 metres wide and is divided between the Palace, its Italianate garden, and a small fishing village.
The Belmond Hotel Cipriani is a deluxe hotel on the island of Giudecca in Venice, northern Italy. It is reached by hotel launch from St Mark's Square, a five-minute journey across the lagoon. Long considered one of the leading luxury hotels of the world, its room rates begin at USD $1,400 per night.
Isola del Garda, Isola di Garda, or Isola Borghese is the biggest island on Lake Garda. It is part of the comune of San Felice del Benaco, in the Province of Brescia, Lombardy, Italy. The island has a long and varied history, having been used as a Roman burial ground, pirate lair, a site for a Franciscan monastery, border fortification and as a residential villa. The island has been visited by numerous famous people over the centuries, reportedly including Francis of Assisi, Anthony of Padua and Dante Alighieri. Today, it is covered by a park and is dominated by the Venetian neo-Gothic Villa Borghese Cavazza. Although privately owned by the Cavazza family, Isola del Garda has been open to visitors since 2002.
The Palazzo Clary is a Late Renaissance Venetian palace facing the Giudecca Canal alongside the fondamenta Zattere by the ponte longo in Venice's Dorsoduro. It was originally built in the 17th century for a Venetian noble family. In the early 19th century, the palazzo was known as Palazzo Clary, named after the prince Clary-Aldringen who bought it. The neighboring building is Palazzo Giustinian Recanati.
Isola di San Clemente is a small island in the Venetian Lagoon in Italy. For centuries it housed a monastic settlement, and more recently an asylum. It is now the site of a luxury hotel.
The Palazzo da Mula is a Venetian villa on the island of Murano in the Venice Lagoon, on the sub-island of San Pietro Martire, on the south bank of the Canale degli Angeli, near the Ponte Vivarini bridge that leads to the main island of Murano, San Donato. The palazzo is the last remnant of Venetian villas built in Murano in the 15th and 16th centuries. Originally there were only a few villas with extensive gardens on the island, but today the Palazzo da Mula is integrated into a row of houses. The 16th and 17th-century structure and details of the palazzo can be traced back to the Da Mula family, who had acquired the palazzo from the aristocratic Diedo family in 1621. The Da Mulas resided in this palazzo until 1712, when it was rented to the aristocratic family of Giacomo Fontanella, a member of the new aristocracy of glass masters, for a sum of 110 ducats. The property then passed to Giacomo's son, Zuanne Fontanella.
The Casa dei Tre Oci or Casa di Maria is a modern, neo-Gothic palace located on the island of Giudecca of the sestiere of Dorsoduro in Venice. The facade is visible across the Giudecca Canal from the Church of the Zitelle.
The Bauer Hotel is a historic five-star hotel located on the north bank of the Grand Canal in the San Marco sestiere of Venice, Italy, near the Piazza San Marco. It closed in November 2022 for renovations, with plans to reopen in 2025.