9 November 2018
Villa Marigola
Villa Marigola stands on the top of a promontory in front of Mount Canarbino, between the inlets of Lerici and San Terenzo, with one of the most beautiful views of the Gulf of Poets.
The first building was built in the late eighteenth century by the Marquis Ollandini as garrison of the agricultural estate and together a holiday home, with an artificial plateau overlooking Lerici with a citrus garden as used in Liguria: cedars, orange trees, chinotti, lemons, which so fascinated the travelers of the ''Grand Tour'' along the Riviera, were cultivated in pots or in espaliers.
From the top of the hill terraces planted with vines and olive trees descended to the beach and the cliff, near which stood Villa Magni, who welcomed in 1820 the poets Shelley and Byron.
In the nineteenth century Villa Marigola registered several owners, including the British Pearse bankers who set up part of the grounds with a romantic park of pines and oaks, which fascinated the writer Paolo Mantegazza, and with paths and natural lookouts towards the coastal landscape. The villa acquired in those times an international renown: distinguished guests were the German empress, the eldest daughter of Queen Victoria, the Swiss artist Arnold Böcklin, the leading exponent of the European Symbolism, to whom an area of the park was dedicated to the theme of sacred forest and the myth of Pan, and the Florentine dramatist Sem Benelli, who here wrote ''La cena delle beffe''.
The definitive arrangement of Villa and park dates back to 1926, when the complex was taken over by the Ligurian shipowner and Senator of the Kingdom Gio Batta Bibolini, who commissioned the architect Franco Oliva, author of the Civic Theater of La Spezia, to expand the building and decorate it in a neo-Gothic style, and create a spectacular garden on the terrace.
Since 1979 Villa Marigola is owned by the Cassa di Risparmio della Spezia and is home to a study center, which hosts seminars and conferences.
The current entrance with a small porter's lodge is located on the nineteenth-century road that connects Lerici with San Terenzo: from the coastal level a long avenue rises with wide bends along the slope cultivated with olive trees but near the entrance a statue of ''Flora'' of the thirties suggests a suggestive and steep shortcut, flanked by pittosfori and ilexes.
Following the main avenue at the last bend a bifurcation leads on one side towards the crenellated tower on the top of the promontory and near the original entrance of the estate, among palm trees, holm oaks, pines and pittospores; on the other it introduces to the so-called ''Böcklin Garden'', a small flat area closed by a rocky bottom and with flowerbeds in the shade of large trees, created in the second half of the nineteenth century as a green anteroom to the Villa.
The noble residence, which mixes Gothic and Renaissance style, is anticipated on the back by an esplanade from which the paths of the twentieth century park depart, mainly with oaks and introduced by a starry bed with a copy of Canova's ''Italica Venus''.
From the wood, a path leads off the edge of the promontory on the western side, leading to a viewpoint over the Gulf of the Poets, on the San Terenzo bastide, on Portovenere and the islands.
On the plateau in front of Villa Marigola and overlooking the bay of Lerici you can admire the elegant formal garden. Here stands a nineteenth-century part consisting of two parterres, one in front of the porch of the dwelling, another wider on the west side, centered by an elaborate marble fountain of Carrara of mid-nineteenth century, depicting three girls dancing and two gushing sirens . Palm trees stand out all around, such as Phoenix canariensis, P. dactylifera or Butia capitata, several cycas, pines, cypresses and some Magnolia grandiflora.
The nineteenth-century Italian garden, separated from the previous by a row of citrus fruit, occupies the largest and most evocative part of the plateau, formerly used as an ornamental citrus orchard, and has an elaborate design of box and turf beds.
At the center is a circular section with a classic marble vase on a high plinth, surrounded by flowered festoons, red cushions of Salvia splendens, and four trimmed cone-shaped rates.
A double boxwood border to accommodate seasonal blooms surrounds the four side flowerbeds, each enclosing a mythological statue.
Along the sides of the sunny terrace there is a wall in laurel that replaces the ancient balustrade decorated with terracotta vases, while on the bottom of the main axis of the parterre two tall cypress trees frame an enchanting view of Lerici.
The first building was built in the late eighteenth century by the Marquis Ollandini as garrison of the agricultural estate and together a holiday home, with an artificial plateau overlooking Lerici with a citrus garden as used in Liguria: cedars, orange trees, chinotti, lemons, which so fascinated the travelers of the ''Grand Tour'' along the Riviera, were cultivated in pots or in espaliers.
From the top of the hill terraces planted with vines and olive trees descended to the beach and the cliff, near which stood Villa Magni, who welcomed in 1820 the poets Shelley and Byron.
In the nineteenth century Villa Marigola registered several owners, including the British Pearse bankers who set up part of the grounds with a romantic park of pines and oaks, which fascinated the writer Paolo Mantegazza, and with paths and natural lookouts towards the coastal landscape. The villa acquired in those times an international renown: distinguished guests were the German empress, the eldest daughter of Queen Victoria, the Swiss artist Arnold Böcklin, the leading exponent of the European Symbolism, to whom an area of the park was dedicated to the theme of sacred forest and the myth of Pan, and the Florentine dramatist Sem Benelli, who here wrote ''La cena delle beffe''.
The definitive arrangement of Villa and park dates back to 1926, when the complex was taken over by the Ligurian shipowner and Senator of the Kingdom Gio Batta Bibolini, who commissioned the architect Franco Oliva, author of the Civic Theater of La Spezia, to expand the building and decorate it in a neo-Gothic style, and create a spectacular garden on the terrace.
Since 1979 Villa Marigola is owned by the Cassa di Risparmio della Spezia and is home to a study center, which hosts seminars and conferences.
The current entrance with a small porter's lodge is located on the nineteenth-century road that connects Lerici with San Terenzo: from the coastal level a long avenue rises with wide bends along the slope cultivated with olive trees but near the entrance a statue of ''Flora'' of the thirties suggests a suggestive and steep shortcut, flanked by pittosfori and ilexes.
Following the main avenue at the last bend a bifurcation leads on one side towards the crenellated tower on the top of the promontory and near the original entrance of the estate, among palm trees, holm oaks, pines and pittospores; on the other it introduces to the so-called ''Böcklin Garden'', a small flat area closed by a rocky bottom and with flowerbeds in the shade of large trees, created in the second half of the nineteenth century as a green anteroom to the Villa.
The noble residence, which mixes Gothic and Renaissance style, is anticipated on the back by an esplanade from which the paths of the twentieth century park depart, mainly with oaks and introduced by a starry bed with a copy of Canova's ''Italica Venus''.
From the wood, a path leads off the edge of the promontory on the western side, leading to a viewpoint over the Gulf of the Poets, on the San Terenzo bastide, on Portovenere and the islands.
On the plateau in front of Villa Marigola and overlooking the bay of Lerici you can admire the elegant formal garden. Here stands a nineteenth-century part consisting of two parterres, one in front of the porch of the dwelling, another wider on the west side, centered by an elaborate marble fountain of Carrara of mid-nineteenth century, depicting three girls dancing and two gushing sirens . Palm trees stand out all around, such as Phoenix canariensis, P. dactylifera or Butia capitata, several cycas, pines, cypresses and some Magnolia grandiflora.
The nineteenth-century Italian garden, separated from the previous by a row of citrus fruit, occupies the largest and most evocative part of the plateau, formerly used as an ornamental citrus orchard, and has an elaborate design of box and turf beds.
At the center is a circular section with a classic marble vase on a high plinth, surrounded by flowered festoons, red cushions of Salvia splendens, and four trimmed cone-shaped rates.
A double boxwood border to accommodate seasonal blooms surrounds the four side flowerbeds, each enclosing a mythological statue.
Along the sides of the sunny terrace there is a wall in laurel that replaces the ancient balustrade decorated with terracotta vases, while on the bottom of the main axis of the parterre two tall cypress trees frame an enchanting view of Lerici.
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Every leaf speaks bliss to me, fluttering from the autumn tree.- Emily Brontë - |
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