Italian Villas and Their Gardens — Key Ideas to Explore

The Logic of the Loggia

Wharton repeatedly returns to the loggia as a transitional device that mediates between house and garden. At Villa Falconieri, she notes how the central arcaded loggia on the ground floor supports a terrace above, creating a layered façade that “preserves the airy look and lightness of proportion” suited to a suburban pleasure-house. The loggia is not merely decorative; it structures the visitor's movement from interior to exterior. At Villa Lancellotti, a similar loggia forms the central feature of the first story, above a “stately pedimented doorway,” while the flanking walls remain “almost Tuscan in their severity.” This contrast between ornate center and restrained sides is, for Wharton, a deliberate compositional choice that heightens the loggia's role as a threshold. She treats such architectural details as evidence of a coherent design philosophy, not random embellishment.

Water, Rock, and the Picturesque

Wharton's descriptions of water features reveal her interest in how Italian garden architects manipulated natural elements for dramatic effect. At Villa Falconieri, an oblong artificial lake enclosed in rock-work sits atop a cliff, surrounded by “a grove of mighty cypresses.” A double staircase descends from this shady solitude to the lower park, an arrangement Wharton praises for harmonizing “with the sylvan wildness which characterizes the landscape.” She contrasts this restrained design with the more exuberant water theaters found elsewhere, arguing that the Falconieri staircase exemplifies how architects could “lay aside exuberance and whimsicality” when blending with nature. The rock wall itself, with busts and fragments of antique sculpture set on projecting ledges, is described as “picturesquely overgrown by shrubs and creepers”—a phrase that captures Wharton's appreciation for controlled wildness.

Scale and the Small Garden Ideal

Among the villas Wharton discusses, she singles out the destroyed Villa Muti as belonging to “the rare class of small Italian gardens where grandeur was less sought for than charm and sylvan seclusion.” Here, the Latin passion for monumentality was subordinated to “moderation and simplicity.” This observation is central to Wharton's argument: she does not simply praise grand scale but evaluates how each garden balances formal ambition with site-specific intimacy. The Villa Falconieri, though larger, achieves a similar harmony through the “happy juxtaposition of garden-walls and outbuildings,” creating what she calls “the most harmonious and successful example of garden-architecture in Frascati.” Wharton's criteria are consistently architectural: she judges gardens by their spatial composition, not by botanical variety or historical association.

Readers approaching Italian Villas and Their Gardens should attend to Wharton's method as much as her subject. She builds each analysis from observable details—the placement of a staircase, the proportion of a loggia, the contrast between a formal parterre and a wild grove. The book rewards those who read with a plan of each villa in mind, tracing the connections Wharton draws between architecture and landscape. Parrish's illustrations, though stylized, often clarify the spatial relationships she describes.

I’ve spent many slow afternoons with Italian Villas and Their Gardens, tracing how Wharton’s disciplined terraces still let the wild laurel breathe. There’s a similar hush in the Moorish courts of Granada and the Alhambra A brief description of the ancient city of Granada, with a particular account of the Moorish palace — Inside the Classic—that same patient give-and-take between carved stone and lingering shade, a kinship I keep returning to.