Villa Garzoni: the history
In 1366 the Pesciatina family of the Garzoni, who would later become part of the Lucca aristocracy, bought a fortress in this place, using it as a family residence. The first mention of the villa dates back to 1633 when Romano Garzoni signed a project for a building very close in size to the present one, while the garden was much smaller. It was in 1652 that the garden was enlarged and equipped with terraces (given the steep slope) in the Italian style, with stairways, statues and fountains. [1]
Celebrated by poets such as Francesco Sbarra, the garden and the villa saw its fame increase and the archdukes Ferdinand of Austria and Anna de ‘Medici had illustrious guests (as a plaque near the entrance recalls) or, later, Napoleon Bonaparte apparently . At the beginning of the eighteenth century Filippo Juvarra worked there.
In 1793, again on the initiative of another Romano Garzoni, thanks to a project by the Lucca architect Ottaviano Diodati, the garden was equipped with the hydraulic system that still allows water games, making it even more spectacular.
In 1871 the property passed to Senator Giuseppe Garzoni Venturi, then to his daughters, who then ceded it in the thirties to the Gardi dell’Ardenghesca counts, who recently alienated it.
Villa Garzoni: Architecture
The villa faces south and has four floors downstream and three upstream due to the difference in height. The structure is located in an elevated position with respect to the surrounding landscape and is characterized by a rare balance between the solidity of the building and the lightness of the Rococo decoration, which seems to give it an appearance of unreal inconsistency. Two ramps with steps, which accentuate the scenographic effect, connect it to the garden next to it.
The first floor is the only one that can be visited and is accessed by a stone staircase surrounded by illusionistic frescoes. At the end of the staircase begins a long gallery decorated with stuccoes and paintings, on which the various rooms open: the maid’s bedroom (with canopy and silk draperies), the library (in Empire style), the red or Napoleon, the dining room (with 18th century French furniture and paintings by Correggio), the ballroom and other rooms and bedrooms.
Beyond the portico and the entrance courtyard is the bright red summer building, designed by Filippo Juvarra, which can be considered one of the most important expressions of Baroque architecture in Tuscany. The complex is 5,492 square meters large.
Villa Garzoni: the garden
The garden, an admirable example of the organization of green spaces of the late Baroque period, is characterized by scenographic and surprise effects that are composite part of a single decorative set of great stylistic coherence. His style is typical of the transition between Mannerism and Baroque, with French influences, which will be resumed in other large parks, such as that of the Royal Palace of Caserta. The land, characterized by a steep slope, has influenced the planimetric organization of the garden, in fact the project develops along a central axis of symmetry according to a terraced arrangement, of great scenographic effect.
After the entrance, where two statues of Pan flutist and Flora are placed, a colorful parterre opens with box hedges of geometric shapes, in which the blooms have recently been replaced with colored gravel. In the first part there are two circular pools enriched with water lilies and splashes of water. A statue of Diana and one of Apollo lead to the second part of the parterre where the signs of the Garzoni family are represented inside the flower beds. The whole parterre is bordered by an imposing boxwood hedge trimmed according to topiary art.
At the end a majestic tripartite double flight staircase rises, decorated with colored mosaics of pebbles with geometric designs and niches that house terracotta statues. An imposing balustrade follows the course of the entire staircase.
In the nymphaeum, with a more moved and less geometric gait, there are the statues of Neptune and Tritons; notable are the water games with splashes and jets that create a particularly lively effect. Scattered are numerous stone and terracotta statues, some of which reproduce the trades of country life.
The second landing leads at one end to the statue of Pomona, the protector deity of the garden, and on the other side to a theater of greenery, entirely carved into the vegetation thanks to specially shaped boxwood hedges and original statues of the Muses. The central axis continues along a stepped waterfall, which culminates with a statue of Fame, from whose cornucopia gushes the water that, before flowing into the waterfall, flows into a semicircular basin; the whole is grafted inside a dense forest, cut horizontally by paths, two of which
