the Flower - IMG_1383
A flower @ Giardini di Ninfa - Italy
Ninfa: the garden
[...]Gelasio Caetani, in the early 1920s, set out to restore Ninfa by means of a well-planned programme of research, excavation and restoration of the ruins, laying out the foundations for a garden today counted among the most beautiful in the world. With his English mother, Ada Wilbraham, the first of Ninfa’s gardeners, and inspired by Ninfa’s evocative and mysterious character, he began planting the great trees that we enjoy today. The creation of a garden at Ninfa, meaning the ability as far back as the 1920s to visualise the potential of the site completely abandoned and covered by a mantle of vegetation, is intriguing - the more so because Ninfa came back to life after centuries of neglect in the form of a garden conceived in a typical Anglo-Saxon style.
The garden, with its paths spreading like sinews, is spontaneous and informal with no formality and little in the way of geometric patterns. The development and planting work continued with Ada’s American-born daughter-in-law Marguerite Chapin. She opened the garden to an important circle of writers and artists associated with the literary reviews Commerce and Botteghe Oscure, which she founded. Such friends were equally inspired by Ninfa[...]
the Flower - IMG_1383
A flower @ Giardini di Ninfa - Italy
Ninfa: the garden
[...]Gelasio Caetani, in the early 1920s, set out to restore Ninfa by means of a well-planned programme of research, excavation and restoration of the ruins, laying out the foundations for a garden today counted among the most beautiful in the world. With his English mother, Ada Wilbraham, the first of Ninfa’s gardeners, and inspired by Ninfa’s evocative and mysterious character, he began planting the great trees that we enjoy today. The creation of a garden at Ninfa, meaning the ability as far back as the 1920s to visualise the potential of the site completely abandoned and covered by a mantle of vegetation, is intriguing - the more so because Ninfa came back to life after centuries of neglect in the form of a garden conceived in a typical Anglo-Saxon style.
The garden, with its paths spreading like sinews, is spontaneous and informal with no formality and little in the way of geometric patterns. The development and planting work continued with Ada’s American-born daughter-in-law Marguerite Chapin. She opened the garden to an important circle of writers and artists associated with the literary reviews Commerce and Botteghe Oscure, which she founded. Such friends were equally inspired by Ninfa[...]