The Boboli Gardens is a historical park of the city of Florence that was opened to the public in 1766. Originally designed for the Medici, it represents one of the first and most important examples of the Italian garden, which later served as inspiration for many European courts. The large green area is a real open-air museum with statues of various styles and periods, ancient and Renaissance that are distributed throughout the garden. It also has large fountains and caves, among them the splendid Buontalenti grotto built by the artist, architect, and sculptor Bernardo Buontalenti between 1536 and 1608.
Maria Anna Elisa Bonaparte Baciocchi Levoy, better known as Elisa Bonaparte, was an imperial French princess and sister of Napoleon Bonaparte. She was Princess of Lucca and Piombino (1805-1814), Grand Duchess of Tuscany (1809-1814) and Countess of Compignano by appointment of her brother.
The Republic of Lucca was a medieval and early modern state that was centered on the Italian city of Lucca in Tuscany, which lasted from 1160 to 1805.
Capannori is an Italian town and comune in the province of Lucca, in northern Tuscany.
Giardino dell'Iris is a botanical garden specializing in the cultivation of iris flowers, symbol of Florence since 1251. It is located on the corner of Viale dei Colli and Piazzale Michelangelo in Florence, Italy, and open daily without charge from May 2–20 every year.
The Villa di Castello, near the hills bordering Florence, Tuscany, central Italy, was the country residence of Cosimo I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany (1519-1574). The gardens, filled with fountains, statuary, and a grotto, became famous throughout Europe. The villa also housed some of the great art treasures of Florence, including Sandro Botticelli's Renaissance masterpieces The Birth of Venus and Primavera. The gardens of the Villa had a profound influence upon the design of the Italian Renaissance garden and the later French formal garden.
Villa Garzoni at Collodi is a villa just over the border of the province of Lucca,. The garden was built shortly before 1652 by the Garzoni family, relating to the site of the old castle, which stands slightly apart, closely associated with the village that nestles round it, on the edge of a clifflike slope, which had been chosen in earlier times for its defensible approach. The garden of Villa Garzoni, whose layout "makes the fullest use of a precipitous hillside site in a manner that is usually associated with Rome", features giochi d'aqua, or a water garden, constructed at the foot of a series of balustraded terraces and a suite of grand symmetrical staircases connecting the lower water gardens at the base of the hill, with the house, the cascade, the teatro di verdura and other garden features above. At each terrace level, side walk past fantastically clipped yew blend imperceptibly with the wooded slope. Its cascade, which the exigencies of the site prevented from alignment with the main axis, has been called one of two "culminating High Baroque statements" of the trends toward drama and spectacle. The garden designers of Potsdam, Fontainebleau, and Versailles had influences from these gardens and has earned its fame across the European continent.
The Villa Torrigiani is located in the hamlet of Camigliano, a town in Capannori (Lucca). It is a historical villa, dating from the second half of the sixteenth century.
The Giardino Bardini is an Italian Renaissance garden of the Villa Bardini in the hilly part of Oltrarno, offering fine views of Florence, Italy. Opened only recently to the public, it is one of Florence's well kept secrets.
The Italian Renaissance garden was a new style of garden which emerged in the late 15th century at villas in Rome and Florence, inspired by classical ideals of order and beauty, and intended for the pleasure of the view of the garden and the landscape beyond, for contemplation, and for the enjoyment of the sights, sounds and smells of the garden itself.
The Principality of Lucca and Piombino was created in July 1805 by Napoleon I for his beloved sister Elisa Bonaparte. It was a state located on the central Italian Peninsula and was a client state of Napoleonic France.
Italian garden typically refers to a style of gardens, wherever located, reflecting a number of large Italian Renaissance gardens which have survived in something like their original form. In the history of gardening, during the Renaissance, Italy had the most advanced and admired gardens in Europe, which greatly influenced other countries, especially the French formal garden and Dutch gardens and, mostly through these, gardens in Britain.
Villa Massei is a 16th-century hunting lodge and 60 acres estate in Massa Macinaia, near the ancient walled city of Lucca, Italy, known for its fine gardens, which are visited by hundreds of garden lovers from all over the world annually.
Lorenzo Nottolini was an architect and engineer of the Neoclassic style in Lucca, Italy.
Ovidio Guaita is journalist, photographer and traveller. He has published over 30 books, in New York City, Rome, Paris. He works with the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Florence on research on the history of art and architecture. Since 2005 he is the Editor in Chief of Resorts Magazine, published in London by Palidano Press.
Gaspare Maria Paoletti was a Neoclassical sculptor and architect, active mainly in his native Florence, region of Tuscany, Italy.
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