Top 10 Gardens in Italy
The Italian Renaissance garden, developed in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries on the hillsides of Tuscany and Lazio, established the template that every subsequent Western garden tradition has either adopted or argued against. Geometry, terracing, water in all its engineered forms, sculpture as meaning-bearing elements, and the calculated relationship between enclosed garden and borrowed landscape — all of these were codified in Italy before they became European traditions. These ten gardens represent the range of that achievement.
Find them all on the interactive map.
1. Villa d'Este, Tivoli, Lazio
Villa d'Este at Tivoli, created from 1550 for Cardinal Ippolito II d'Este to designs by Pirro Ligorio, is the supreme expression of the Italian Renaissance water garden. Built on a steeply terraced hillside with the springs of Tivoli providing an inexhaustible water supply, the garden uses water on every scale: the Oval Fountain (Fontana dell'Ovato) with its nymphaeum and cascade, the Hundred Fountains (Viale delle Cento Fontane), the Neptune Fountain, and the Dragon Fountain, which drove an organ with compressed water. A UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2001. The terraces command views across the Campagna to Rome. Best season is spring and summer, before the midday heat.
2. Boboli Gardens, Florence, Tuscany
The Boboli Gardens, behind the Pitti Palace in Florence, were begun in 1549 for Eleonora di Toledo, wife of Cosimo I de' Medici, to designs by Niccolò Tribolo. They are the defining example of the Italian formal garden at princely scale, combining terraced walks, hidden grottoes (including the Grotta del Buontalenti with its stalactites and Michelangelo sculptures), an amphitheatre cut from the hillside, a long cypress allée, and the Isolotto (a basin garden with a central island). The garden's 45 hectares contain an open-air museum of Renaissance and baroque garden art. The view from the upper garden over Florence is among the best in the city. Open year-round; best in spring.
3. Villa Lante, Bagnaia, Lazio
Villa Lante at Bagnaia, near Viterbo in northern Lazio, is widely considered the most beautiful and perfectly proportioned Italian Renaissance garden in existence. Designed by Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola in the 1560s for Cardinal Gianfrancesco Gambara, the garden is organised around a central water chain (catena d'acqua) that descends through a series of fountains and rills from a wooded bosco at the top to a formal water parterre at the bottom. Two identical casino buildings flank the upper garden, a unique feature reflecting the garden's unusual two-phase construction history. The geometric parterre below the main fountains, with its four square island beds reflected in still water, is the garden's greatest single composition. Owned by the Italian state; limited opening hours.
4. Hadrian's Villa (Villa Adriana), Tivoli, Lazio
Hadrian's Villa at Tivoli, built between 118 and 134 AD for Emperor Hadrian as a vast imperial retreat, is not a garden in the conventional sense but the most extraordinary designed landscape from classical antiquity. The 120-hectare site contains the ruins of palaces, libraries, theatres, baths, and the Canopus canal (a long ornamental pool flanked by copies of famous Greek statues). The spaces between the buildings were designed as gardens, groves, and terraced walks. A UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1999, shared with Villa d'Este. Best visited outside summer for the combination of heat management and reduced crowds.
5. Sacred Wood of Bomarzo (Parco dei Mostri), Lazio
The Sacro Bosco at Bomarzo, near Viterbo, created from around 1552 by Pier Francesco Orsini with the assistance of Pirro Ligorio, is the most bizarre and contested garden in Italy. A series of giant figures carved from natural rock outcrops in a wooded valley — a screaming face large enough to enter, a tilted house that disorients visitors physically, Cerberus, a sleeping nymph, and a dragon fighting lions — constitutes a programme of symbolic meaning that has been debated for five centuries without definitive interpretation. Whether it is an allegory of grief (Orsini's wife died in 1553), a humanist philosophical joke, or a purely fantastical creation remains unclear. It remains a singular garden experience.
6. Giardini Botanici Hanbury, Liguria
The Hanbury Gardens at La Mortola near Ventimiglia, established from 1867 by English merchant Thomas Hanbury, exploit the western Ligurian microclimate — sheltered from north winds, frost-free — to grow a plant collection of around 5,800 species from all the world's Mediterranean-climate zones and tropical regions. The terraced garden descends steeply from the Villa to the sea. Hanbury was an exceptional plantsman who corresponded with Kew and introduced numerous plants new to European cultivation. The garden declined after the Second World War and was restored from the 1980s after transfer to the University of Genova. Best season is spring, particularly March to May for the full subtropical display.
7. Isola Bella, Lake Maggiore, Piedmont
Isola Bella, one of the three Borromean Islands in Lake Maggiore, was transformed from a bare rock into a baroque garden palace between 1632 and 1671 for Count Carlo III Borromeo. The island's garden is an extraordinary feat of engineering: ten terraces of gardens rising from the lake, the top terrace crowned by a unicorn sculpture and the Borromeo heraldic crest, with white peacocks walking among the balustrades. The White Hall, the Hall of Mirrors, and the underground grottoes decorated with shells and pebbles extend the visit. The lake setting, with the Alps as background, makes the garden experience uniquely theatrical. Open spring to October.
8. La Mortella, Ischia, Campania
La Mortella on the island of Ischia was created from 1956 by British composer William Walton and his wife Susana in volcanic rock on the island's western coast. The garden was designed by Russell Page, one of the most distinguished landscape designers of the twentieth century, around a central wet valley fed by a natural spring. Page's design used the volcanic topography to create a series of enclosed spaces — a hilltop terraced garden with views across the Tyrrhenian Sea, a lower wet garden with tropical water plants, and a series of intimate shaded rooms with ferns, cycads, and orchids. Now managed by the Fondazione William Walton; excellent chamber music programme in the Ninfeo theatre.
9. Padua Botanic Garden (Orto Botanico di Padova), Veneto
See the detailed treatment in the medicinal gardens post. As the world's oldest botanical garden in its original location (1545), Padua's Orto Botanico is both a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a living research institution. The circular original garden, the Goethe palm (Chamaerops humilis, planted 1585), the biodiversity garden with its living collection of threatened Veneto species, and the five new themed greenhouses completed in 2014 make the site essential for any visitor to northeast Italy. Best season is spring.
10. Parco Sigurta, Valeggio sul Mincio, Veneto
Parco Sigurta near Lake Garda, privately owned by the Sigurta family and opened to the public in 1978, covers 60 hectares on a gentle plateau above the Mincio river. The garden is primarily a landscape park with exceptional spring bulb displays: around a million tulips, hyacinths, daffodils, and anemones are planted each autumn for the spring season, making this one of the most spectacular tulip gardens outside the Netherlands. The park is navigable by golf cart as well as on foot, which extends the range of visitors who can cover the full circuit. Best season is late March to May for the spring bulb display.
Visiting Italy's gardens
The central Italian garden circuit — Tivoli (Villa d'Este and Villa Adriana), Viterbo (Villa Lante and Bomarzo), and Florence (Boboli) — can be covered in four or five days from Rome. Isola Bella requires a separate Lake Maggiore trip. La Mortella requires travel to Ischia. Hanbury is most easily combined with a visit to the French Riviera. Heat in summer is a serious consideration: morning visits before 11am and late-afternoon visits after 4pm are strongly recommended for July and August.
Use the map to route your Italian garden itinerary.