# Monty Don's Italian Gardens

Monty Don's Italian Gardens is a television series of 4 programmes in which British gardener and broadcaster Monty Don visits several of Italy's most celebrated gardens.
Steve Wilson composed the title and theme music on the series. A book based on the series, Great Gardens of Italy, was also published.

## Gardens

| Ep. | Country | Garden | Notes |
| 1. | Italy | Villa Farnese, Caprarola | The gardens of the villa are as impressive as the building itself, a significant example of the Italian Renaissance garden period. |
| 1. | Italy | Villa Adriana, Tivoli | The remains of the garden set out for Roman Emperor Hadrian around his palace. |
| 1. | Italy | Villa d'Este, Tivoli | A spectacular Renaissance garden with many fountains. Website |
| 1. | Italy | Borghese gardens, Rome | Public city garden, briefly mentioned |
| 1. | Italy | Sacro Bosco, Bomarzo | a Mannerist monumental complex, populated by grotesque sculptures and small buildings located among the natural vegetation |
| 1. | Italy | Villa Aldobrandini, Frascati | To provide water for the Teatro delle Acque ("Water Theater") of the garden, Aldobrandini constructed a new 8 kilometres (5 mi) long aqueduct |
| 2. | Italy | Villa di Castello, Florence | the country residence of Cosimo I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, these gardens had a profound influence upon the design of the Italian Renaissance garden and the later French formal garden. |
| 2. | Italy | Boboli Gardens, Florence | a historical park of the city of Florence that was opened to the public in 1766, representing one of the first and most important examples of the "Italian Garden", which later served as inspiration for many European courts. |
| 2. | Italy | Villa Gamberaia, Florence | characterized now by its eighteenth-century terraced garden, that Don calls "enormously influential" |
| 2. | Italy | Villa I Tatti, Florence | Cecil Pinsent's first Italian Garden, influencing the notion Renaissance gardens were devoid of color except green |
| 2. | Italy | La Foce, Val d'Orcia | Cecil Pinsent's last Italian Garden, which Don considers "perhaps his greatest" |
| 3. | Italy | Torrecchia Vecchia, Cisterna di Latina | notable English-style gardens |
| 3. | Italy | Royal Palace of Caserta, Caserta | The 120 ha garden is a typical example of the baroque extension of formal vistas |
| 3. | Italy | Villa il Tritone, Sorrento | private garden website |
| 3. | Italy | a terraced lemon field, Amalfi | |
| 3. | Italy | Villa Cimbrone, Ravello | Gardens visited by Virginia Woolf, Vita Sackville-West, T. S. Eliot, and most famously, Greta Garbo. Now a hotel website |
| 3. | Italy | La Mortella, Ischia | a spectacular subtropical and Mediterranean garden developed since 1956 by the late Susana Walton Website |
| 3. | Italy | an example of "urban farming" in Naples | |
| 3. | Italy | Garden of Ninfa, Cisterna di Latina | called "the most romantic garden in the world" |
| 4. | Italy | Orto botanico di Padova, Padua | One of the world's oldest academic botanical gardens |
| 4. | Italy | Villa Pisani, Stra | Monte gets lost in the maze of "the Queen" of the world famous venetian gardens, Villa Pisani |
| 4. | Italy | Villa Marlia, Lucca | |
| 4. | Italy | Lake Como | Don takes a boat trip with Judith Wade, founder of Grandi Giardini Italiani |
| 4. | Italy | Villa Melzi d'Eril [it], Bellagio | website |
| 4. | Italy | Ingegnoli , Milan | One of Italy's oldest nurseries |
| 4. | Italy | Isola Bella, Lake Maggiore | "a tipsy drag queen of a garden ready to party all night long and the next day too" |