Secret Gardens

In the dense urban environment of Venice, intimate spaces, hidden behind high walls, thrive in the midst of the labyrinthine alleyways and canals.  Leafy vines and shrubs trailing over high walls are a tell-tale sign of these hidden gardens.  Henry James wrote that Venice without gardens ‘would be too much a matter of the tides and the stones’.  Italian Hours, 1909.  

Private outdoor settings, providing an extension of living space, are often decorated with sculpture and architectural fragments scattered among the foliage. 

Palazzo Malipiero

The entrance hall of Palizzo Malipiero leads to a medieval courtyard with its fountain and Nymphaeum of Hercules, opening onto the garden overlooking the Grand Canal. 
Built in the 11th century, Palazzo Malipiero was where that the young Giacomo Casanova befriended the 76 year old senator Alvise Gasparo Malipiero who introduced him to  Venice’s influential elite. But Casanova’s flirtatious behaviour with a woman desired by the senator himself led to his expulsion from the palace, and exile from Venice.

Courtyard at Fortuny factory, Guidecca

The late 19th century saw the decline and neglect of garden spaces, many of which have since been redesigned or restored to their original ancient splendour.