Monty Don's Italian Gardens

Last updated

Monty Don's Italian Gardens
Genre Documentary
Adventure travel
Directed byPatti Kraus [1]
Starring Monty Don
No. of episodes4
Production
Producer BBC
Running time4 × 1 hour
Original release
Network BBC Two

Monty Don's Italian Gardens is a television series of 4 programmes in which British gardener and broadcaster Monty Don visits several of Italy's most celebrated gardens.

Contents

Steve Wilson composed the title and theme music on the series. [2] A book based on the series, Great Gardens of Italy, was also published. [3]

Gardens

Ep.CountryGardenNotes
1. Flag of Italy.svg Italy Villa Farnese, Caprarola The gardens of the villa are as impressive as the building itself, a significant example of the Italian Renaissance garden period.
1. Flag of Italy.svg Italy Villa Adriana, Tivoli The remains of the garden set out for Roman Emperor Hadrian around his palace.
1. Flag of Italy.svg Italy Villa d'Este, Tivoli A spectacular Renaissance garden with many fountains. Website
1. Flag of Italy.svg Italy Borghese gardens, RomePublic city garden, briefly mentioned
1. Flag of Italy.svg Italy Sacro Bosco, Bomarzo a Mannerist monumental complex, populated by grotesque sculptures and small buildings located among the natural vegetation
1. Flag of Italy.svg Italy Villa Aldobrandini, Frascati To provide water for the Teatro delle Acque ("Water Theater") of the garden, Aldobrandini constructed a new 8 kilometres (5 mi) long aqueduct
2. Flag of Italy.svg Italy Villa di Castello, Florence the country residence of Cosimo I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, these gardens had a profound influence upon the design of the Italian Renaissance garden and the later French formal garden. [4]
2. Flag of Italy.svg Italy Boboli Gardens, Florence a historical park of the city of Florence that was opened to the public in 1766, representing one of the first and most important examples of the "Italian Garden", which later served as inspiration for many European courts.
2. Flag of Italy.svg Italy Villa Gamberaia, Florence characterized now by its eighteenth-century terraced garden, that Don calls "enormously influential"
2. Flag of Italy.svg Italy Villa I Tatti, Florence Cecil Pinsent's first Italian Garden, influencing the notion Renaissance gardens were devoid of color except green
2. Flag of Italy.svg Italy La Foce, Val d'Orcia Cecil Pinsent's last Italian Garden, which Don considers "perhaps his greatest"
3. Flag of Italy.svg Italy Torrecchia Vecchia, Cisterna di Latina notable English-style gardens
3. Flag of Italy.svg Italy Royal Palace of Caserta, Caserta The 120 ha garden is a typical example of the baroque extension of formal vistas
3. Flag of Italy.svg Italy Villa il Tritone, Sorrento private garden website
3. Flag of Italy.svg Italy a terraced lemon field, Amalfi
3. Flag of Italy.svg Italy Villa Cimbrone, Ravello Gardens visited by Virginia Woolf, Vita Sackville-West, T. S. Eliot, and most famously, Greta Garbo. Now a hotel website
3. Flag of Italy.svg Italy La Mortella, Ischia a spectacular subtropical and Mediterranean garden developed since 1956 by the late Susana Walton Website
3. Flag of Italy.svg Italy an example of "urban farming" in Naples
3. Flag of Italy.svg Italy Garden of Ninfa, Cisterna di Latina called "the most romantic garden in the world"
4. Flag of Italy.svg Italy Orto botanico di Padova, Padua One of the world's oldest academic botanical gardens
4. Flag of Italy.svg Italy Villa Pisani, Stra Monte gets lost in the maze of "the Queen" of the world famous venetian gardens, Villa Pisani
4. Flag of Italy.svg Italy Villa Marlia, Lucca
4. Flag of Italy.svg Italy Lake Como Don takes a boat trip with Judith Wade, founder of Grandi Giardini Italiani [5]
4. Flag of Italy.svg Italy Villa Melzi d'Eril  [ it ], Bellagio website
4. Flag of Italy.svg Italy Ingegnoli , Milan One of Italy's oldest nurseries
4. Flag of Italy.svg Italy Isola Bella, Lake Maggiore "a tipsy drag queen of a garden ready to party all night long and the next day too" [6]

See also

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References

  1. "Monty Don's Italian Gardens — Man Friday Films". manfridayfilms.com.
  2. "The Tall Whites - Monty Don's Italian Gardens". Archived from the original on 1 February 2020. Retrieved 8 June 2020.
  3. "Book Review: Great Gardens Of Italy". 16 October 2011 via www.nzherald.co.nz.
  4. Isabella Ballerini, The Medici Villas, p. 32
  5. "Great Italian Gardens Founder Judith Wade Interview". 22 May 2017.
  6. "Monty Don's 'Great Gardens of Italy'". The Garden Clinic.