Liguria

In the Atlas of the Italian Garden the development of landscape architecture and garden design of the Italian Regions is represented by the biographies of the proprietors, artists, landscape gardeners, etc. from the second half of 18th century to the first decades of 20th century. The part concerning Liguria Region includes 76 biographies. In the 18th century the botanical research and collection interested some important families (Durazzo) who support botanists in studying the genus citrus (Gallesio) and Mediterranean and exotic plants imported by vessels trading and in the publication of plant lists of their gardens and illustrated botanical books. In this period new scientific and philosophical ideas change the old Renaissance and Baroque gardens with the introduction of the models of picturesque and romantic garden as a sort of political manifesto against the loss of the political independence of the old aristocratic Republic of Genova. The park of villa Pallavicini at Pegli – Genoa, designed by Canzio is organized in romantic scenes part with Masonic symbolism. In the first decades of the 18th century in Genoa and in other towns promenades and public parks, trees avenues were realized to satisfy the needs of the populations, Barabino and Resasco were the most important architects involved in designs of new urban spaces and the monumental cemetery of Staglieno in Genoa. The landscape painters documented with scientific realism landscapes at risk and offer a relevant documentation of places that should be disappeared with the industrial revolution and the urbanism. In the second half of the century new types of villa-castle with rock gardens of exotic plants were constructed by the businessmen in the new expansions of the cities and along the Riviera (i.e. the villas and gardens designed by Coppedé on the hills around the old city walls of Genoa). English and German travelers discovered Liguria as a winter resort for the beauty of the landscape sceneries, the mild climate, the variety of plants in the old gardens, many of them coming from others parts of the world. Foreign people like Hanbury family transformed the traditional landscape in botanic gardens with collections of exotic plants and introduced in the garden phitogeographical concepts. The old cultivation of palms of Bordighera had a special fascination for the French painters Monet and Renoir.