The rediscovery of the Villa Gamberaia in images and projects of the early 1900s
Abstract The garden of Villa Gamberaia occupies a prominent place in the early twentieth-century historiography of Italian gardens, such that it even challenges the primacy of what Sir George Sitwell called the sacred triad of Villa d'Este, Villa Lante and the Giardino Giusti at Verona.1 As Charles Latham wrote: From the moment that you pass the gate, with its sentinel cypresses, the impression is one of such perfect loveliness that at last, by force of contrast, the mind goes back to strong Caprarola or tragic Este, only to turn once more to bathe in the perfection of the Tuscan villa.2 In this paper, I shall try to capture the secrets of this fatal attraction by drawing upon the reflections of some of the most important writers and scholars in the field in the first part of the century.