The Garden

THE LA PIETRA GARDEN is one of the most celebrated in Italy. A Renaissance revival garden, it reflects the tastes of the large Anglo-American community that lived in Florence at the turn of the nineteenth century. Laid out by the Actons between 1908 and the early 1930s, it drew its inspiration from the sixteenth century gardens of Florence. One of its special features is its numerous statues (there are over 180 of them), ranging in date from Roman times through the 17th Century and including 19th Century copies. As Harold Acton points out in his Memoirs of an Aesthete (1948) the garden of an Italian villa constitutes the natural extension of the house: at Villa La Pietra the sequence of rooms in the house and garden is developed on two perpendicular axes and provides unexpected views in all directions, both indoors and out. Such vistas, many formal in composition, others occurring almost as happy accidents are often made up of combinations of objects, of varying age, made of contrasting materials, colors, forms and styles which perfectly illustrate the eclectic taste prevalent in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Laid out by the Actons between 1908 and the early 1930s, it drew its inspiration from the sixteenth century gardens of Florence. One of its special features is its numerous statues (there are over 180 of them), ranging in date from Roman times through the 17th Century and including 19th Century copies.

On one side of the house, below a terrace decorated with statues, the main garden falls away in a series of geometric parterres on different levels with fountains and low box edging. The two Vasche are separated by steps beneath a tunnel of holm oak and an elaborate double-ramped staircase with statues and pebble mosaics. At the bottom of this garden an ancient wisteria is supported by a peristyle behind which is a high clipped holm oak hedge. The French windows on another side of the house lead out to the secret garden with topiary, clipped yew trees, and more statues and classical ‘ruins’ with broken pediments. The paths with contrived vistas include one which frames the Duomo of Florence and another towards the most imposing statue in the garden, a colossal figure of Hercules signed by Orazio Marinali. There is an oval lawn enclosed by sage green cypress hedges, a dark shady avenue, and a pergola of climbing banksia roses. One of the most famous features of the garden is the Teatrino, a green theatre where the topiary encloses a grass stage with side wings and footlights. It is animated with some of the most charming statues in the garden, a series of genre figures by Francesco Bonazza, which, as Harold pointed out, look as though they stepped out of one of Goldoni’s comedies.

Behind it is a classical Tempietto in a grove of holm oaks. The walled kitchen garden or Pomario is the oldest part of the garden, retaining its original shell mosaic decoration. Here during the winter the Limonaia houses over a hundred terracotta pots of lemon and orange trees. Pear trees and box and myrtle hedges have been replanted. The beds along the walls have viola and iris and yellow roses. Florence’s unique climate provides an unusually long growing season and the heavy fertile soil at La Pietra has meant that the vegetation grows at an exceptionally fast rate, and that the mature trees we see today are mostly less than a hundred years old. Typical English elements introduced by the Actons are the yew topiary (including urns and peacocks) which are a special feature of La Pietra. The garden has remained intact and largely unchanged throughout the vicissitudes of the 20th Century, and where at all possible original plantings have been saved, and the stone work has been repaired only in places where it is unsafe. Present restoration work aims to recreate the garden as it was at its best in the 1930s while still keeping its ‘garden-magic’.