Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Baroque Splendour
By the end of the 16th century the idea of the garden as a quiet, contemplative space had
completely given way to an outdoor room expressing wealth and culture. The garden was
now a place where new and ingenious hydraulic devices transported gallons of water to
costly, elaborate fountains; where rare and expensive plants demonstrated a patron's know-
ledge and culture; and where artfully arranged sculpture imbued with layers of meaning
carried symbolic messages and displayed refined artistic sensibilities. All these ingredients
ultimately combined to form the bold gardens of the baroque era.
Around this time, the first great lakeside villas were being built or bought, designed as
holiday pleasure domes for the wealthy. The Marquis Stanga acquired Villa Serbelloni, in
Bellagio, and set about creating its gardens. Until then, here and in a handful of other older
villas, the grounds had served as orchards and herb gardens, grown amid chestnut forests
and freely running streams. All this was gradually cleared to make way for symmetrically
laid-out lawns and topiary, pergolas and terraces. In 1565, work on what is now Villa
d'Este began, and in around 1600 the Sfondrati family came into possession of what would
be transformed into Villa Monastero.
Of these the Borromean garden of Isola Bella is Italy's finest example of the baroque
garden. It was built between 1632 and 1671 on the instruction of Count Carlo Borromeo
III, who wanted to transform a barren island in Lake Maggiore into his own version of the
Garden of the Hesperides, that blissful orchard of classical mythology where immortality-
giving golden apples grew.
His vision was for a pyramid of terraces that would mimic the shape of a baroque galle-
on at anchor in the lake. The island's handful of inhabitants, who were asked to relocate
from their homes, understandably didn't share the Count's enthusiasms so plans had to be
modified and the galleon lost its pointed prow and the central axis linking the garden to the
palace.
Nevertheless, the garden wrought by an otherwise unremarkable architect from Milan,
Angelo Crivelli, was nothing short of spectacular. Fountains, terraces, grottoes and a water
theatre combine to form a theatrical and energetic space. Vast quantities of soil were ferried
from the mainland, clothing the jagged rock with 10 sloping terraces. Marble from Baveno
followed, as did stone from Viggiù. Later, boats packed with Spanish lemon trees, lilies and
lotus flowers brought the flora for its rising galleries and, finally, statues of Agriculture and
Arts, waving
putti
(boys) and the triumphant Borromeo unicorn were set atop Carlo
Fontana's spectacular shell-encrusted water theatre. It is the perfect expression of the con-
