All language subtitles for x26565xxx

I am on the final leg of
my journey through Italy,

exploring the country's loveliest
and most significant gardens

and the ideas and history that shaped them.

I have visited gardens
that defy interpretation.

It's like a child going, "Grrrr!"

And I've seen others whose
message couldn't be clearer.

I've seen how the formality of
the Renaissance was replaced

by a much more natural,
romantic style in the south.

Oh, it feels nice.

This time, I'm in the wealthy north, where
the profits of trade were spent on making

elaborate gardens, which became
pleasure grounds for gentry at play.

Oh, dead end. You've got me.
Now have your wicked way!

I'll discover how newly-introduced
species helped lay the foundations

of botany and medicine in Italy.

And see how this influx of
plants from across the world

created gardens of high theatre.

Fantastic!

The north is by far the
wealthiest part of Italy.

500 years ago, it was one of the richest
and most powerful regions in Europe,

with highly productive agricultural land

and well-established commercial
links across the world.

The north of Italy is where most of the
trade has taken place from early times.

And a lot of that trade has been in plants,
particularly in the 16th and 17th century

where they poured in
from all over the world.

They were studied extensively
for their medical use,

agricultural possibilities and,
of course, just their beauty.

So I shall be looking in particular
in this trip at how plants,

rather than politics or design,
have shaped their gardens.

The influences that helped
define the gardens in the north

were quite different to the rest of Italy

and they take us from the 16th
century right up to the present day.

The principle garden makers
of the Veneto and of Lucca

were the hugely prosperous merchants.

And their creations celebrate their own
existence with undisguised pleasure.

Further north, the lakes
provide a dramatic setting

and a benign microclimate to display
collections of plants from all over the world.

From the early medieval period,

the crucial centre of Northern Italy's wealth
was the independent Republic of Venice.

As Europe's most important trading hub,

Venice dominated the critical trade
routes to the East for hundreds of years.

Ships brought back fabulously
valuable silks, gold and spices,

and, from the early 16th century, goods and
treasures also began to come in from the Americas.

Merchants and sailors returned
with unfamiliar plants and fruits

from as far away as China and Chile.

Including wildly exotic plants,

such as the potato

and the tomato.

- Grazie.
- Prego.
- Grazie.

It seems extraordinary to us now,

when we take tomatoes for
granted, but when they came in,

they were regarded as this
extraordinary plant which had

these slightly suspicious-looking
fruits which no-one dreamed of eating.

They assumed they were poisonous.

It was ages before someone plucked up the
courage and popped them in their mouth.

And, of course, now, everywhere
in Italy lives off tomatoes.

I am in Padua, 50 kilometres
inland from Venice,

in the wealthy hinterland
of the Venetian republic,

known as the Veneto.

Venice has always been the
dominant city of the region,

but the most significant
garden was made here in Padua.

The Orto Botanico, made in 1543
as part of Padua University,

is thought to be the world's
oldest botanical garden.

Initially, it was set up to
study and collect "simples",

which is the description which was
then given to medicinal plants.

The original garden lies behind
this beautiful circular wall.

But when it was first laid
out, the wall wasn't there.

And people very quickly cottoned
on to the fact that these plants

that they were laying in the beds,
were potentially enormously valuable.

They were medicinal plants,
so if a cure could be found,

somebody was going to get very rich indeed.

So people came in and then nicked them
and flogged them at great profit.

So they put up the wall, so, what you've
got to see is, actually, it's a fortress

and the purpose of the wall
is to keep people out.

At the same time that art and architecture were
being transformed in Renaissance Florence,

scientists were laying the foundations
of modern botany in Padua.

The Orto Botanico was dedicated
to studying the properties

of newly-introduced as
well as indigenous plants,

so that they could be used
safely and effectively.

This was revolutionary,
because up to that point,

plant-based remedies had largely
relied on superstition and folklore.

Most medicine was based on
the doctrine of signatories

which basically meant that if a plant
looked like an aspect of the human body,

then it would cure it.

So, for example, a walnut.
It looks like a brain,

so it was used to try and
cure diseases of the brain,

or Pulmonaria, lungwort that we
grow, was used for lung diseases.

In practice, that killed as
many people as it cured.

The whole point of the Renaissance
was to explore and discover

and apply the mind to science.

So by 1533, when the Chair of
Botany was set up here in Padua,

they wanted to collect as
many plants as possible,

not just say, "It looks as though
it will do this", but to find out.

The head of the Orto Botanico,
Professor Francesco Bonafede,

realised that the first step towards
understanding medicinal plants

was to identify and classify
each specimen accurately.

You know, it's really strange,

because this is fundamentally
a filing system.

It's a laboratory, and there is no
attempt to make a beautiful garden,

the important thing is the
order and the sequence

and the display of plants so
they can be studied. And yet,

there's a magic here, there's a real charm.

You walk in and you're
seduced, it feels wonderful,

it's the most beautiful garden.

I know I'm biased, of course.
Of course I'm bound to love it,

but I defy anybody not to feel that magic.

As new plants came in, they
were given a specific position

in an elaborate network of borders.

To learn how it works, I
met the former prefect,

Professor Elsa Cappalletti.

This book was the first
exercise book for students,

it was a pocket book,

in which there was the plan of the garden.

- So this is the plan of the garden here.
- With the four squares.

Yes.

In the past, students
had to identify plants

only observing their shape,
the flowers and so on.

And then they had to write the
correct name of the plant.

- Oh, I see. - The identity. Perhaps there was a bella donna.
- OK. - And they had to write,

"bella donna".

So if they knew which bed the plant was in,

- then they would know which plant it was?
- Yes, yes.

So the pattern was, if you like,

- an aide to memory as much as anything else?
- Yes, yes.

It may be a simple system compared
to our electronic wizardry,

but actually, it's beautifully effective
because you can see how, if a student

who had studied here, came across a plant in the
field, perhaps on the other side of the world,

wasn't quite sure what it was,
but they vaguely remembered it,

all they had to do was think back to where they'd
seen it in this garden, which particular bed.

And because each bed only had one
plant, they'd hone in on that,

look up in their book, bed number
36, block number two - bingo,

they've got the name.

The 16th century saw an
increasing flow of new arrivals.

The very first foreign plant
introduced into the garden

was in 1561, and was the Agave from Mexico,

where it was prized by the Mayans
for its wound-healing properties.

The oldest surviving plant in the garden

is the Mediterranean fan
palm, Chamaerops humilis.

This is the original specimen, that
has been growing here since 1585.

It's hard to exaggerate the
importance of this garden.

There were other botanic
gardens around the same time,

the one in Pisa was just
about the same period,

but this was where the study of
plants really took on importance.

And that appreciation of plants
first of all as an aide to medicine

and then as an end in itself, was slowly,

but inexorably shaping the way
that we viewed our gardens.

As well as studying medical plants,

the botanical garden in Padua played
an important role in testing out

the cultivation of newly
introduced agricultural species

that were to prove essential to
feed the growing population.

I'm now taking a boat trip along the
canal that connects Padua to Venice.

And perhaps more importantly,

links Venice to the agricultural
interior of the Veneto.

Today, this is a charmingly gentle
escape from the modern hurly-burly.

But in the 16th century it would
have been the quickest way

to come inland and used regularly by
the Venetian merchants and nobility,

who were buying land in the region
and building summer villas.

These agricultural entrepreneurs
planted the new crops

like maize that had
arrived from the Americas

and immediately they thrived
and proved highly profitable.

This is the Brenta Canal, and very
quickly it became the main route

between Venice and Padua, and a
lot of trade went up and down it.

And also it was used by the merchants
to get to their holiday homes,

which they had built along
the banks of the canal.

Particularly at Stra which
had very good soil.

Those little farms that they
first had became big estates

and then finally really
rather grand villas.

And the place I'm going to visit
now is the grandest of them all.

The wealthy merchants and
their guests would have been

transported here to Stra in great style,

travelling from their Venetian palazzo

in a luxurious hybrid of gondola
and barge known as a burchiello.

I arrive at my destination
just as they would have done,

although in slightly less style,

at the grandest holiday home
in the Veneto, Villa Pisani.

The Pisani family were Venetian bankers

and merchants that had been wealthy
and powerful since the 14th century.

Villa Pisani started as a
late 16th century farmhouse,

but in 1720 it was pulled down
to build a grand country palace

where the Pisani family could
entertain during the summer months.

Look at that. You could
set the scene, can't you?

These visitors would come down
the Brenta in a glorious barge,

they'd get out, they'd see
this enormous building,

the biggest and the best in the
area and be suitably impressed,

come into it, it's all rather magnificent.

And they pushed the doors and then boom,

it expands beyond anything
they've ever seen before.

That's it, they've won. Pisanis
have bowled them over.

Alvise Pisani had been
the Venetian Ambassador

at the court of Louis XIV at Versailles

and wanted his new garden at Stra
to emulate that of the Sun King.

But whereas Versailles
stretched for 250 acres,

Pisani had just 10 to play with.

It's very grand, there are a number
of these avenues that arrive

at gates and it's a trick that was
used actually a lot in gardens

in the 18th century, these eye-catchers
that draw the eye out of the garden.

Cos the gardens here are obviously
grand, but they're not that big.

What you see is all there is.

So by cutting through the woods and
then arriving at this gate or gap

in the fence, what it makes it feel
is much bigger than it actually is.

So the guests would come here,

see it and feel as though it was
owning as far as the eye could see.

As with all Baroque gardens,
the intention was to delight,

amaze, surprise and entertain, as
well as parade the owner's wealth

and power in a triumphant
display of mastery over nature.

When you look on this from the
entrance, it's absolutely magnificent.

And it's pretty magnificent
when you get here,

but that's the road right there.

It's about 10 metres thick
and there's nothing here.

It's built just for show, just
to impress you, which is fine,

cos it does.

But this vast palace was only ever
intended for the summer season.

It was a place of play rather than work

and life for a wealthy Venetian
in the mid-18th century involved

a very great deal of glamorous,
not to say, amorous play.

And the maze which was the first thing

to be planted in the garden,
was the perfect playground.

I do like a nice, crisp hedge.

The thing about a maze is just
sort of a hedge lover's delight.

Right, let's go in.

Love the smell of box.

This was planted in 1720 and it's
remained pretty much the same,

other than the change of hornbeam for box.

But very different to the labyrinths
that you got in mediaeval gardens,

because in a labyrinth, we'd
be wandering along here

and I'd be composing myself

and solemnly thinking about
the tortuous route of life.

Let's go this way. But by
1720, it'd become a game.

So what you've got to imagine is
people in lovely, great silk dresses

and tricorn hats, and it was all flirty,

so it was round the corner and
you'd try and find me and chase me

and all sorts of malarkey
going on in the maze.

And that's really the spirit of Pisani.

Now. Left, I think.

I can't see over the top.

Ah, I'm getting near.

Aha!

Oh, dead end.

That is deeply frustrating. Oh, well.

I have a feeling...

Oh, there's a cul-de-sac. I
am actually genuinely lost.

I don't know, we'll get out somehow.

I think the secret of a good
maze is there has to be

a genuine sense of panic.

And there's all sorts of recorded stories,

particularly of grand tours,
Englishmen who'd come and visit

mazes in the 18th century and then
get lost and be calling for help

and these dreadful Italians
wouldn't come and let them out.

Probably delighted to keep the
English lords shut away for a bit.

Oh, dead end, you've got me.

Now have your wicked way.

Aha! Bull's-eye.

Whilst the central tower would be
a remarkably unapproachable place

for a secret assignation,
nowadays it serves only

as a viewing platform, presided over
by a decidedly unromantic guard.

The thing about a maze, it's almost
the ultimate sort of pleasing object.

But of course as a gardener I think,

"Blimey, can you imagine clipping that?
And then collecting it all up,

"and also the problem of
letting light into it,

"so it stays nice and thick."

I doubt the Pisanis'
sportive 18th century guests

would have troubled over such things.

However they might well have found
their way to the coffee house

to cool down after so
much amorous excitement.

This arcaded pavilion sits on
a mound housing an ice house,

which in winter was filled with blocks
of ice cut from the moat that rings it.

Right through summer the
deliciously chilled air would waft

upstairs into the building.

Oh, yes, there's the vent, the open space,

connecting to the cool air from the ice.

So you'd sit up here with your
great big frocks with cold air

coming up underneath them,
feeling elegant but cool.

Sometimes it's easy to feel a bit
overwhelmed by all the symbolism

and allegory and metaphor that you get
in Renaissance and Baroque gardens.

But this garden is dead simple,
it's just one message that counts

and from the very beginning the
Pisani brothers intended it

to impress, and it's
worked through the ages.

Napoleon came along, saw
it, loved it, bought it,

stayed one night, dished it out
to a member of his family.

The Tsar of Russia chose to stay
here above all the other places

that he could have had in the Veneto.

The Hapsburgs put their court here.

And, to this day, every single
person that walks through that door

comes in, has a look and goes, "Wow".

I'm leaving the Veneto to take
a detour southwest to Lucca -

once an independent city state,

and another wealthy centre
of trade and agriculture.

I'm coming to visit a garden
that was built on the proceeds

of a very specialised, very local product.

The reason why I'm making
this journey to Lucca is that

it shares lots of
similarities with the Veneto,

because it's an independent state

that had a lot of wealth, but it was tiny.

Despite this, it had its own
ambassadors to the court

of St Petersburg and Versailles

and that wealth was based on two sources.

One was banking and the other was silk.

Today, visitors come to Lucca to
admire its mediaeval architecture.

It is a calm, beautifully-preserved town.

But its history is founded on hard trade.

800 years ago, Lucca led the
world in silk production

and pioneered new spinning technology.

Lucca's silk merchants such
as Giovanni Arnolfini,

seen here in the famous
painting by Jan van Eyck,

grew enormously rich on the trade

of the finest silks and silk velvets.

These merchants built themselves
summer houses outside the city.

And by the middle of the 17th
century, these villas in the hills

increasingly sported superb gardens.

In 1651, one of Lucca's wealthiest
silk merchants of all bought himself

the title of Count Orsetti and built
this stupendous villa and garden.

But despite the newly noble
Count Orsetti's wealth,

and despite the opulence of his gardens,

the villas of these Lucchesi
merchants were still

essentially highly-productive farms,
and they all shared the same layout.

They're all north-south,
they all have their good

cereal ground below, going down,
sweeping down gently in a slope.

Behind them they had their
olive trees and their orchards

and their woods, and then
right in front of the house

and to the side they grew vegetables.
It was a format they all followed,

and in the middle of the farmhouse,
they all have one big room

with windows to the front and the back

so they could look out on their
land, because it's all about money.

But in the kernel of all these
places, they're working farmhouses.

Villa Marlia, then known as Villa Orsetti,

follows the Baroque fashion
for a series of garden rooms,

each designed to surprise, delight
and entertain the visitor.

But nothing delights or entertains me
more than these breathtaking hedges.

That is fantastic.

Incredible canyon created
by the hedges and the path.

It's an unlikely comparison, but
it's exactly the same impression

you get when you first go to New York

and these enormous buildings

flanking the street and it changes
the way that you view a street...

or, here, a garden path.

If you look at the trees,
they're full-blown oak trees,

clipped to hedge form.

You see, for me this is worth
crossing the world just to see this.

Last for the rest of my life.

The language of Baroque symbolism

and allegory would have been readily
understood by all educated Europeans

of the period, which was essentially
the 17th and 18th centuries.

So I have seen a number of similar
river gods to these in the pool

and the citrus garden in other
gardens around Rome and Caprarola.

I've seen quite a few citrus gardens now,

but I think this is my favourite.

I love it.

Just trying to work out what
it is and I think the rhythm

is important, you have the
balustrades playing along

and then the pots equally spaced
and the colour of the lemons.

And it's like a sort of Baroque fugue
that's picked up and played on.

But it's very practical - they
would have sold the lemons

and, you know, they're
Luccans, they're merchants,

and this is based upon an
agricultural background,

so you grow lemons and you
sell them and it's a harvest

and the water was for growing fish,
if you like, it's a fish tank.

And it fed them. So the
beauty is always practical.

Marlia, like all the gardens
of the Italian Baroque,

was a place of performance and display.

And perhaps that is the central key
to understanding all the great.

Italian gardens throughout history.

And here at Marlia there
is a perfectly preserved

teatro di verdura - a theatre
created entirely from topiary.

This is terrific.

This great building made out of
yew and a little bit of box.

And I know that it was really
used, it's a real theatre,

it's not a topiary-pretend theatre.

They had performances here
and there is backstage

and seats probably sat here.

And you could imagine those wonderful
ladies with their enormous

great silk dresses, local
silk, I suspect, sweeping in,

and you can get... Whoops,
be careful on there.

I come up here, getting soaked.

I suppose this is the upper circle.

Yes, in here, we've got backstage area.

And I bet this is
wonderfully cool in summer.

And here we've the wings with
all the different entrances.

So we come through onto the
stage and make my entrance.

Da-nah!

The terracotta statues date from 1700

and represent the stock characters
from the commedia dell'arte.

These plays were frequently
bawdy in tone and dramatised

stock themes such as adultery,
love and the futility of old age.

And I have to say, it's
just completely fabulous

and I want one in my
garden and I want it now.

For Count Orsetti and his
descendants, parties and plays

continued at Villa Marlia right up
to the end of the 18th century.

Then their world collapsed.

In 1796, Napoleon Bonaparte
crossed the Alps

and swept through northern Italy.

His army captured Venice, ending
1,100 years of independence,

and in 1799 took Lucca.

The opening lines of Tolstoy's
War And Peace are, roughly,

"Well, prince,

"I see that Lucca and Genoa are now
just estates of the Bonaparte family."

And that was based on what happened here,

because in 1805, Napoleon,
dishing out provinces

like the gangster chief he was, gave
to his sister the state of Lucca.

And she came down, had a look
and decided that this villa,

which was then called Villa Orsetti,

was where she wanted to base herself.

And she more or less turfed out
the owners - she did pay them

and gave them an offer
they couldn't refuse.

And the count, Count Orsetti, in
his fury and fear, I suspect,

had her silver money melted down,
made into a huge dinner service,

which he then put on a cart and trundled

across the front of the villa

so that Elisa could see Marlia disappear.

It might have made him feel better,

but it didn't get him his house back.

And Elisa turned her back
on his baroque formality,

and created instead an
English landscape garden.

Its much more natural, informal
style was then sweeping

the continent and made greater use
of imported plants and trees.

Although the changes that Elisa
made here were highly fashionable

at the time, actually, gardening was
changing in a very profound way.

And it was because new plants were
pouring in from all over the world.

And up till the 19th century,
in Italy at least, architects

and landscape designers controlled
the way that gardens looked.

But with this new material it
was plants themselves became

the most interesting thing.

And we go from the age of the formal
designer to the age of the plantsman.

I'm now heading north to an area
where plantsmen made perhaps

the biggest impact on the country's
gardens, the Italian lakes, which

lie up on the country's mountainous
border with Switzerland and France.

This is Lake Como, where the
freshly kindled 19th-century

passion for plants combined with
a surge of new exotic species

to create some spectacular gardens.

The dramatic alpine
setting, purity of the air

and the clarity of the light, all
combine to make this area feel

distinctly different to the rest of Italy.

In the early 19th century, it certainly
chimed with the new romantic movement,

and inspired poets such
as Shelley and Wordsworth

and composers like Verdi and Liszt.

And at the same time in the early 1800s,

Como's shores were being transformed

as wealthy Italians queued
up to build lakeside villas.

I'm taking a boat trip along Lake
Como with Judith Wade. - Hello.

'Judith founded the Grandi
Giardini Italiani which has helped

'and coordinated scores of
Italy's finest historic gardens

'to open to the public.'

They are incredibly splendid villas.

Very ornate, all the gardens
of course are waterfront

and have been designed so
that you can appreciate them

from the waterfront rather than
from the back of the city.

There are dozens of very
impressive villas, aren't there?

Just one after the other,
all the way along.

- I think there are more than 100.
- Really? Really?

'In recent years, many of Como's
lavish villas have been bought

'by oligarchs, film stars and
super-rich fashion designers.'

- This used to belong to Versace and...
- This one here?

Yes, and that's where...

And does the garden run all the way down?

- All the way down here.
- Marvellous garden.

And I believe that Madonna and Shakira

and all the people in the pop
world would turn up here often.

So what's this one here?

Mr Clooney's place.

Ah, very beautiful, yes, I could see
why he might want to live there. - Yes.

This is Mr Branson's home,
it's rather particular,

very beautifully kept.

- Yes.
- Almost groomed.

And Mr Branson can only fly in
here or come in here by boat,

because it has no access by road.

- It is immaculately kept, isn't it?
- And beautifully clipped Cyprus trees.

Does he spend much time there?

- I really don't know, he's never invited me over, but...
- Has he not?

- How rude. - Ha-ha!
- How appalling.

And now we're coming along to
Balbianello, but this is on a slope,

so you couldn't make a proper Italian garden.
Well, you come in here,

you can look up the slope and it
looks as though it is a garden.

There is a lot of topiary there. It's
beautifully groomed and clipped.

They take four months, just two men,

who've been there for the last
30 years, they're the same.

- Do you know they use scissors on it?
- Do they? Ha-ha!

In the early 19th century when many
of these villas and their gardens

were made, there was a burgeoning
of colonial expansion and trade,

which, in turn, created and fuelled
a craze for exotic new plants,

both from the east and the Americas.

The climate of the lakes, with
its high rainfall, hot summers

and surprisingly mild winters, was
perfect for the new arrivals.

Everybody has lovely glass houses
because they were plant collectors.

So they were bringing plants in,

I mean, that was quite a
new thing, wasn't it?

- That was the fashion way through Europe at the time.
- Yes, yes.

It was your status symbol -
it wasn't having a Ferrari,

it was buying rare plants.

And then of course when Napoleon
turned up of course there was

a lot of boats going round Europe
bringing plants in and out -

that was an exciting part, he was
going to exotic parts of the world.

And so with the mild climate and ericaceous
soil they could have plants from the Himalayas

or China or wherever.

- Goodbye, have a nice day.
- Thank you very much indeed.

'On the shore of the little village
of Bellagio is Villa Melzi,

which is one of Lake Como's finest gardens.

At the turn of the 19th century,
this garden started a bitter

horticultural rivalry between two
of Italy's most prominent men.

Melzi was the home of Francesco
Melzi d'Eril, a Milanese aristocrat

who Napoleon appointed vice president
of Italy after the French invasion.

In 1808 he began to make his garden
in the new English landscape style,

and from the first it was
open to views of the lake

and the mountains beyond.

However, like all natural-looking
gardens, this involved huge work

to make and needs intensive
maintenance to keep looking natural.

When you first walk round the
garden it seems to just sort of be

rather soft and like a country park.

But when you analyse it the design has got
really particular and strong elements.

For a start, you've got this steep slope,

tied together by the immaculate
grass and these sculpted rather

abstract forms both of the shape
of the land and also the shrubs.

And then there's trees growing
up which give it some verticals.

And then you have this path,

this great long path just running
the whole length of the garden

and the series of the plane
trees, open to the lake.

And it's a vast plane, this
great horizontal expanse,

which sets it all into balance.

And I don't think that first part,
the soft, abstract, sculptural bit,

would work nearly so well without
the severity of the lake.

Directly across the water at Villa Carlotta

lived Gian Battista Sommariva,
another highly ambitious politician.

And Sommariva deeply resented Melzi
for beating him to the top job

and there was no love lost
between the neighbours.

This fuelled both men's gardens as
they vied to out-do each other.

Melzi appointed a botanist and
started filling his garden

with the latest plants
from around the world.

Sommariva followed suit,

buying up more land to make room
for his growing collection.

Melzi fired a salvo of Rhododendron
indicum, imported from Japan.

Not to be outdone,

Sommariva responded by
planting hundreds of them.

But Melzi wasn't going
to take that lying down.

He did his own exotic planting
right on the waterfront,

and Sommariva could see
that across the water

it was like a horticultural
bullet fired straight at him.

Melzi upped the stakes and planted
ever more trees and shrubs

rarely seen in Italy at that time,

but daily visible to Sommariva.

For my money, it's Villa Melzi that wins

this rather frantic gardening duel.

Unlike Carlotta, it has a
sweep and a line to it,

and the inclusion of the landscape
is clever and generous.

But nevertheless, I can't
help but notice that.

Melzi sited his greatest treasures

where they would admired by
the maximum number of people.

The garden here is planted
with wonderful specimen trees

like the cedar of Lebanon,

and there are zelkovas and all sorts
of trees from all over the world.

But none of them are the same as
the trees on the wooded slopes,

none of them are natives.

And actually, if you look along the
lake, you have this fine seam of

exotic planting, like a strip of
gold showing off people's wealth.

Napoleon's rule lasted less than 20 years.

And finally, in 1861, for the
first time in its history,

Italy was unified into a
single political state.

Railways were built, businesses prospered,

and throughout this new Italy, and
especially here in the north,

a new middle class started to
emerge, and they began to take up

the hitherto-aristocratic
pastime of gardening.

Going past miles of
nurseries, mainly for trees.

And these nurseries really
began in the 19th century,

particularly in the north -

there was money developing,
for the middle classes.

And that meant that they could
have gardens that weren't

just for food, and for the very first time,

there were gardening magazines,
there were plant suppliers,

there were societies,

so that horticulture
became a common activity.

Before I visit my last garden, I'm
stopping off in Milan to visit

one of Italy's oldest nurseries,
established 130 years ago.

In the spirit of the
16th-century botanists in Padua,

the Ingegnoli brothers collected
plants from all over the world

and propagated them for their seeds,

feeding the new market for
exotic flowers and fruits.

The business is now run
by Francesco Fadini,

the sixth generation of Ingegnolis.

The railway was very,
very important for us.

In 1861, to send our product,
the seeds, the plants,

in all Italy, from Milano to Sicily.

So by this stage, the whole of
Italy was buying from you? - Yes.

- So you could issue a catalogue?
- Yes. This is the catalogue for 1893.

Great pictures, too.

Look at all these different
varieties of pear, it's amazing.

We don't have this now.

I like the squared paper, so
people could write their notes.

- Make their notes, yes.
- It's such a good idea.

And presumably there was a
genuine increase in interest?

The new type of plants were very important.

Francesco Ingegnoli, in 1880,
he went to Japan, to China,

he returned with the caco.

- I don't know in English the translation of the "caco".
- I think it's persimmon.

So people must have been excited
by these new plants coming in.

- To taste the first time, like a caco...
- Yes, yes. - Is incredible.

We also have a letter of 1888.
It's the thank letter.

"I received six caco. Thanks very much.
And I hope that in the future,

"this variety of caco will be very famous
in Italy, best regards, Giuseppe Verdi."

So you had famous customers.

There were these new fruits
coming in, new varieties,

there's a kind of energy.

It was very important. They wanted to see
flower, the colour, something different.

Now I understand, I understand.

I have headed north from
Milan to Lake Maggiore,

and my final destination on this
horticultural journey through Italy.

And this is perhaps the ultimate expression of
the baroque love of extravagance and drama.

At the western end of Lake Maggiore lie three
islands collectively called the Borromeos.

They're named after the aristocratic banking family
who bought land on them in the 16th century.

The island that I'm visiting
is called Isola Bella,

and for centuries it has attracted
garden visitors like moths to the flame.

Indeed this is now my own third visit.
I hope it won't be my last.

The Isola Bella is just not like
anywhere else you've ever seen.

When I first saw it, I remember thinking

that it's like a sort of mad
battleship wearing a party frock.

It's extravagant, it's hysterical,

It's like a drag ball parading as a garden.

And yet it's a really good garden
and perhaps the best surviving

baroque example of a garden
in the whole of Italy.

In 1632 Carlo Borromeo, the
governor of Lake Maggiore,

commissioned this entire rocky island to
be transformed into a pyramid of terraces.

Towering 100 feet up into the sky, he wanted it to
look like a great galleon floating on the lake.

It took 40 years to complete,

and huge quantities of soil, marble
and granite were shipped in.

Whilst this work proceeded,
Borromeo set about trying to buy up

the houses of the fishermen
who lived on the island.

But it wasn't all plain sailing, because a lot of
the villagers couldn't be coerced into selling.

They just stayed put, which meant that
the garden had to be made around them,

which is why it's such an odd shape.

Now, gradually over a long
period of time, some did sell,

and pockets of the garden
were able to be extended.

This is classic High Baroque drama.

Everything slightly hysterical, but
in a very elegant, controlled way.

And I love these high hedges above
the balustrade, they're bay hedges.

So enormous height, I mean
what's that, 30 feet tall?

And you know something's up
there but you don't know what,

so of course you're led,
and then look at, oh!

These steps curve round and then
that's ficus repens on the wall,

and then more bay above it, so you have
this immaculate green, curving wall.

Very simple but immediately
incredibly powerful.

"Eine Kleine Nachtmusik" by Mozart.

There's a tendency to think of baroque
as all twiddles and over-ornamentation.

But this staircase does show
that just texture and colour

and very, very strong shape and form with that
little strip of stone is just as dramatic.

And the main purpose of the
staircase is to compress the views

and heighten the sense of anticipation.

And there, this is the most
incredible, theatrical,

completely dotty thing I've
ever seen in a garden.

And it's... What is it? It's operatic.

And white peacocks, it's like a dream,

like walking through a door in
a dream and suddenly seeing

this scalloped, vast
stage set with figures.

It's like walking round
the corner in your garden

and going onto the L'Escala or the
Opera House at Covent Garden.

Fantastic!

"The Queen of the Night"
from "The Magic Flute" by Mozart.

The Massimo theatre is an operatic triumph
of baroque kitsch and power play.

The statues of Roman gods,
obelisks, scallops, waving putti,

all overlooked by the
Borromeos' symbol, the unicorn.

Guests would have been entertained
by music drifting up from choirs

and orchestras hidden in the garden below.

Whilst albino peacocks, imported from
south-east Asia, strutted and posed archly.

The impulse to entertain,
impress and show off

reaches its high point
on the highest terrace.

Big open space. It's like
walking into an empty ballroom.

And these amazing views on each side.

So that it couldn't be lighter and airier,

and yet these whopping
great statues, and...

...there, the Borromeo symbol, the
unicorn, bigger than anything else.

No doubt about who's the daddy here!

So if you come to the Borromeo party, you end
up here, with all the guests in their finery

and people can see that
you're having a party,

they can see you dressed in your finery,

you know, the Borromeos
are having another do.

But they're not invited,
that's the key thing.

This is a fortress of privilege.

It's the perfect platform for display.

Originally dominated by Mediterranean
plants and the inevitable citrus,

Isola Bella underwent a
transformation in the 19th century

when the plant-mad Count Vitaliano
Borromeo imported a mass of exotic species

from China, India, the Americas,
Himalayas and Australia.

This Camphor is truly enormous, it's...

ooh, it's a tree on a heroic scale.

But it started life as a rooted cutting.

The count bought it in with lots of other exotics
that he'd collected and bought into the garden,

and was grown in a pot, and admired.

And it got bigger and bigger and then was planted out.
And it's never stopped growing.

And at a rate that far exceeds
any other tree in the garden.

And, in fact, most other trees altogether.
It is now just colossal.

And it's very beautiful, and it's got
this lovely billowing silhouette.

For all its brash ostentation, there are some secret
corners of Isola Bella that are less flamboyant,

but to my mind, every bit as dramatic.

The public aren't allowed into here.
I've been let in specially.

And it's my favourite bit,
it's absolutely wonderful.

These great buildings of green,

and some of them are Camellia, and
these great pillows of azaleas.

And there's Rhododendrons, so of course in
spring, that will just explode out into colour.

I like it green, actually, I
love this austerity of colour

and yet ambition on scale.

And I think you come in and
immediately feel inspired

and everything's lifted up a notch or two.

Although there are marvellously elegant
and sculptural parts of the garden,

from the south here and as you approach
by boat and look up at this view,

what you see is totally brash.

Totally kitsch.

Completely without any taste at all.

And I love it for that.

Who could not love the way that Isola Bella
is an unashamed carnival of a garden?

It's quintessentially baroque,

and that desire to put on an outward
show is quintessentially Italian.

Certainly I've never visited
any garden like it.

And it feels like the perfect place to end
my tour of the great Italian gardens.

Isola Bella is a performance, and it's kitsch
and it's brash and at times completely barmy,

but I think it's heroic.

But then, I think you must appreciate that gardens
fall under that Italian spell of bella figura.

This need to create a good impression,

to look really good, and it doesn't
really matter what's behind it.

And travelling through
this beautiful country,

seeing amazing gardens all
along the way, has been a joy.