A tour of Italy’s Boboli Gardens
It’s not quite spring, pour yourself a cappuccino and join me for an armchair tour of Boboli Gardens in Florence.
I set out for Florence last September with an open mind. Paul and I wanted to visit the historic churches and museums, but we also wanted enough free time to sit in a piazza with a glass of wine and just absorb the atmosphere of this beautiful corner of Tuscany.
A serendipitous meeting on the train with a Florentine resident ended with the name ‘Boboli’ scribbled in my notebook. A fellow garden enthusiast, my seat companion suggested Boboli Gardens might be of interest. The garden was within walking distance from our hotel, just cross the historic Ponte Vecchio and follow via Romana to the gate.
Little did I know that the Giardino di Boboli (Boboli Gardens) was more than 400 years old and one of the most important gardens in Italy. It is said to have inspired many European gardens, in particular, Versailles.
Imagine an elongated triangle stretched across 44.4 hectares, covering Boboli hill, and anchored with significant landmarks: The Palazzo Pitti, palatial home of the Medici family; the Forte di Belvedere, a fortress overlooking the city, designed to protect the centre of government in Florence and the Medici family; and the Porta Romana, at the narrowest point of the triangle. Within this boundary lies a series of formal avenues, gardens, ponds, fountains, grottos and a veritable museum of 16th- and 17th-century statuary, several pieces even date back to Roman times.
The site was gifted to the city of Florence in 1919, the palace now houses a museum and the once private gardens of the wealthy Medici family are open to the public.
There are four entrances to this historic garden, we entered through a nondescript gate along via Romana, with no expectations (remember, this was a chance visit). As we climbed Boboli hill, the garden unfolded before our eyes, like a gigantic map laid out on the lawn.
First stop was the Isolotto (Little Island) a large pond surrounded by a circular plaza. Two walkways lead across the water to the man-made island decorated with hundreds of citrus plants in clay pots (more than 500 potted citrus are overwintered indoors), historic rose varieties and geraniums surround a fountain of Oceanus (1576).
A tall statue presides over smaller statues representing the Euphrates, Nile and Ganges, and all four stand atop a gigantic fountain basin carved from a single block of granite transported to Florence from the island of Elba. A generous walkway surrounds the Isolotto, 16th- and 17th-century statues are set into a dense wall of holm oak that enclose the space.
Large columns and iron gates punctuate the Isolotto where the Viottolone, a wide avenue lined with cypresses, intersects the garden.
The Viottolone is nothing less than awe-inspiring — an avenue, wide enough to accommodate two lanes of cars is flanked with double rows of towering cypresses that date back to the 16th century; the avenue forms the secondary axis of the main garden plan. The avenue climbs Boboli hill and is intersected by several crossroads that lead visitors to other garden rooms, woodland hunting paths and labyrinth-like gardens.
Walking the allee is like walking through a museum, impressive stone statues are tucked into niches along the length of the walkway — it is everything an historic allee should be: majestic, imposing, and a luxurious slice of green in a city of stone buildings and cobbled streets teeming with crowds of people. Paralleling the Viottolone are narrow tunnels of green, made of tree branches bent over to form an arch and covered with holm oaks. Welcoming stone seats offer a quiet spot to sit and enjoy the cool shade.
Near the top of the hill, the main axis of the garden (centred on Pitti Palace) intersects the Viottolone. At this point, I realized that we had entered the garden through the back door — we were exploring the garden from back to front — no wonder it was becoming more and more grand.
At the top of Viottolone, we followed the crowd across a wide terrace, from the edge you overlooked the city of Florence; we explored a series of terraced lawns surrounded by apple trees below the Kaffeehouse (Coffeehouse) circa 1780 with its impressive glass dome and mint green exterior, and continued down toward Pitti Palace.
We followed the primary axis of the garden, centred on the rear facade of the palace through an impressive amphitheatre, decorated with both ancient and modern statuary.
Styled in the form of a hippodrome (an ancient stadium for horse racing), the area was originally the quarry where stone for the palace was excavated. Six tiers of masonry steps, topped by a decorative balustrade accented with 24 terra cotta urns surround the horseshoe-shaped amphitheatre.
In the centre stands an Egyptian obelisk (circa 1500 BC) moved from Villa Medici in Rome in 1789. The massive granite basin, added in 1840, dates back to ancient Rome where it was part of a thermal bath complex.
Stepping into the palace courtyard, we were channelled through a cool, dim passageway and then back into the streets of Florence. I stopped and took a long look at the Pitti Palace from via Romana: rusty brown, ominous — more fortress than palace. We had walked right by the palace this morning, it seemed so uninviting, I couldn’t imagine why it was attracting throngs of people — now I understand.
— Theresa Forte is a local garden writer, photographer and speaker. You can reach her by calling 905-351-7540 or by email at theresa_forte@sympatico.ca.