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| Gardens of Italy | 
 enlarge | Author: Ann Laras
Creator: Ake E:son Lindman
Publisher: Frances Lincoln
Category: Book
List Price: £30.00
Buy New: £21.00
You Save: £9.00 (30%)
New (20) from £18.70
Avg. Customer Rating:  4 reviews
Sales Rank: 238502
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 208
Shipping Weight (lbs): 3.4
Dimensions (in): 11.7 x 10 x 1
ISBN: 0711224900
Dewey Decimal Number: 712.50945
EAN: 9780711224902
ASIN: 0711224900
Publication Date: September 15, 2005
Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours
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| Customer Reviews:
 Rating 4+ Excellent and beautifully illustrated January 10, 2006
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Rating: 4+ - Beautifully illustrated
I give the book Gardens of Italy by Ann Laras 4+ rating. Sixty gardens is of course a personal selection of gardens by the author. ButI miss a few of the historic and design-wise interesting places. Le Marche is not represented and Villa Barbarigo is also missing, along with some smaller, but exquisite gardens scattered over the peninsula. That said, the photos are great and most of the more famous places are well illustrated. I cannot see who of which has photographed - the author or Ake E:son Lindman. The text is not deep-probing and exploring academic, but describing the place with impressions, interviews with experts, owners and facts. In some places I miss photos of the garden details described in the text, but as a whole the book is laid out very good. Some gardens only have one page, while others well-deserved spread out on several pages. The design is airy and elegant and give space for the wonderful photographs. The book is the best I have seen for a long time. But the best book on the subject is still Georgina Massons 'Italian Gardens' from the 1950's. Very strange...
 "Highly readable prose and stunning photographs" January 10, 2006
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
LONG A MECCA for gardeners, Italy boasts an enormous range of stunning gardens from lakeside idylls to cliff top retreats, formal palazzos and woodland sanctuaries.
Author Ann Laras gives a highly personal account of her trip around 60 Italian gardens, using her love of Italianate gardens and horticultural history to punctuate her highly readable prose. With a keen eye on detail, plants and atmosphere, the picture she paints, along with the stunning photographs of Ake E:son Lindman, makes the reader almost believe they are walking around the gardens with her. Her descriptions of the many gargoyles, water features, statuary and grottoes reveal her love of the place and its people, its history and heritage.
With theatrical flourishes, the gardens of Italy are more than just gardens as we know them. They are stage sets for romance, history, partying and reflection. With stunning backdrops these jewels of Italy are depicted to best advantage, sea, mountains, valleys and lake-side all falling perfectly into place with man's creations.
From the famous Ninfa to Villa d'Este to the more secretive and harder to find Villa Gamberaia and Giardiini della Landriana, transport yourself to a horticultural paradise of designs old and new, traditional and contemporary from a land that could, possibly, rival that of England for their beautiful gardens.
Rating 4+ Excellent and beautifully illustrated January 10, 2006
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
Rating: 4+ - Beautifully illustrated
I give the book 4+ rating. Sixty gardens is of course a personal selection of gardens by the author. ButI miss a few of the historic and design-wise interesting places. Le Marche is not represented and Villa Barbarigo is also missing, along with some smaller, but exquisite gardens scattered over the peninsula. That said, the photos are great and most of the more famous places are well illustrated. I cannot see who of which has photographed - the author or Ake E:son Lindman. The text is not deep-probing and exploring academic, but describing the place with impressions, interviews with experts, owners and facts. In some places I miss photos of the garden details described in the text, but as a whole the book is laid out very good. Some gardens only have one page, while others well-deserved spread out on several pages. The design is airy and elegant and give space for the wonderful photographs. The book is the best I have seen for a long time. But the best book on the subject is still Georgina Massons 'Italian Gardens' from the 1950's. Very strange...
Think twice about who should get "The Gardens of Italy"... January 10, 2006
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
Think twice about who should get "The Gardens of Italy" (by Ann Laras, Frances Lincoln, $50) because the photos alone could send even a devoted homebody rushing across the ocean to visit the Abbey of La Cervara or the Villa Durazzo. From Tuscan courtyards to the estates of the DeMedici, all these gardens are open to the public. But this is more than a mouth-watering lure of a travel book. It does a fine job illustrating these gardens' timeless design, where plants are secondary to art and architecture, and all is subservient to the immense beauty of the Italian countryside. Valerie Easton, Seattle Times 2005
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