Paradise of Exiles: The Anglo-American Gardens of Florence - Couverture rigide

Campbell, Katie

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 0711229562 ISBN 13 : 9780711229563

Editeur : Frances Lincoln Publishers Ltd, 2009

Synopsis

Book by Campbell Katie

A propos du livre

Présentation de l'éditeur :

In the final years of the nineteenth century the crumbling villas abandoned on the hills above Florence proved irresistible to an eccentric colony of English and American expatriates. After a brilliant introduction this entertaining book features some twenty of these characters, among them Bernard Berenson at I Tatti; the cad Sir Arthur Acton and his fabulously wealthy wife at La Pietra; the bereaved philosopher Charles Strong whose Rockefeller in-laws financed his villa retreat; the cross-dressing English essayist Violet Paget - known to the world as Vernon Lee; the beautiful Serbian Princess Jeanne Ghika who lived in seclusion with her American companion Miss Blood; the eccentric English romance writer known as Ouida; the much-married American heiress Mabel Dodge Luhan and the misanthropic aristocrat Sir Gerge Sitwell. Art and history formed the main interests of the community with horticulture a close second. The Anglo-Florentines injected new life into Tuscany's decrepit gardens, touring the countryside for inspiration and trawling old libraries for treatises and manuals.Some preferred an anglicised version and smothered their walls with scented climbers, replaced gravel terraces with emerald lawns and stuffed box parterres with bright bedding plants and their orchards with exotic shrubs. Literary reference abounds throughout this book with Henry James leading the way, but it is the old guide books - Elgood's Italian Gardens, Latham's The Gardens of Italy and books like Georgina Graham's My Tuscan Villa which provide so much evocative material.

Revue de presse :

Exceptionally well illustrated in the publisher's usual large format. The fancy-dress poses of Anglo-Florentine high society are especially telling, and George Elgood's fine Edwardian watercolours of the gardens evoke nostalgia for a golden age. --Times Literary Supplement

It has wonderful photos and a very good historical text with an apt, witty touch about gardens of great expatriates in and around Florence in the late 19th century... An ideal present for anyone who has bolted to make a garden and a little stir abroad. --Financial Times

The topic of this book may sound like a niche preoccupation, but in the hands of a perceptive and amusing author it proves irresistible... Like its subject matter, this book is a delightful confection. --Daily Telegraph

À propos de cette édition

• Éditeur: Frances Lincoln Publishers Ltd
• Date d'édition: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0711229562
• ISBN 13: 9780711229563
• Reliure: Relié
• Nombre de pages: 176