villa.lante....finally

After visiting Villa Farnese, we headed off to Villa Lante, another Mannerist garden getaway. Unlike Villa Farnese, which seemed to reserve its sense of humor for just its secret garden, Villa Lante was an explosion of personality and ridiculousness.

Villa Lante is built into the side of a hill, stretching up its slope and growing more and more wild and organic toward its peak. Although modern tourists enter at the base of the hill, the garden was originally designed so you would enter at the top and descend through the different levels of increasing refinement. Just like Villa Farnese's secret garden, Villa Lante used water as a symbol of man's control over nature. Notice that by the time the water reaches the bottom of the hill, it's controlled in a grand, symmetrical fountain surrounded by geometric, perfectly controlled hedges--the ultimate Mannerist statement of human intellect.

From this point on, we'll start from the upper gardens and meander down the hill, like we were supposed to...
The infamous water chain at Villa Lante leads you down the visual axis of the garden (which eventually ends at the geometric bottom fountain)

My favorite gag of the Villa was its play on its owner's name. The garden was commissioned in 1566 by a Cardinal Gambara, whose last name in Italian means "shrimp"...take a look at the mouth of the water chain fountain and you'll see one of the many prawn shrimp featured all over the villa.

Stepping down onto the next level of the garden, you reach the llloooonnnggg outdoor dining table, complete with the ice-cold water channel down the middle--to keep your wine bottles cold in the summer heat, of course...

A quick walk down to the next level takes you to the final fountain--a small garden overall, but packed with personality. In fact, there are several hidden water features that were designed so that unsuspecting guests (and tourists if the groundskeepers are bored...) would get sprayed as they wandered around.