An Italian Eden all around Susan Spano Los Angeles Times BAGNAIA Italy I know how to get to paradise in this life It lies atop a hill about 60 miles north of Rome where a cardinal gentleman built a garden in the century His architects created it from water and stone green leaves and vine But the result is more than the sum of its parts Villa Lante embodies the humanist ideals of the Italian Renaissance Soon after I moved to Rome last spring I began seeking out area gardens I took a Vatican Gardens tour to see the popes pope's beautiful back yard and I saw the ingenious fountains at the Villa dEste about 20 miles east of Rome I found secret havens in the city the rose garden on the Hill for one and tagged along with a C LL group ui vi arc students from Yale University to visit Villa Madama in the hills northwest of the city When sur summers summer's mers mer's heat settled in I fled the city almost every weekend navigating a rental car to the Grande the ring road that encircles Rome From there it was easy to find cool green consummately beautiful pieces of paradise In 1578 Cardinal Giovanni Francesco Gambara was suffering an attack of gout when Pope Gregory XIII arrived at the theVilla theVilla theVilla Villa Lante When the pope saw Gambara's exquisite and and obviously 6 io sI costly estate above the hamlet of Bagnaia he canceled the cardinals cardinal s' s allowance It couldn't have been a good day for Gambara When I visited Villa Lante I was blessed in every way On the drive from Rome I followed the path of the Tiber River lined by fields of golden reaped just summer hay I turned off the highway near Orte into a landscape of volcanic hills crater lakes and strange eroded canyons A winding country road took me to which means the little shady spot a breakfast bed-and-breakfast that occupies a tile-roofed tile farmhouse surrounded by sunflowers Once I settled in inn proprietor Dawne Alstrom gave me directions to Bomarzo a garden as remarkable as Villa Lante in its own weird way I found Bomarzo a privately owned garden of monsters as its it's called in a narrow wooded valle valley y ye about a minute 20 drive e from From m the parking lot it looked lik lika like e a cheesy tourist attraction n i featuring monumental 1 statues of dragons an and d sphinxes set among th the e trees But once I ventured in I realized something profoundly strange goes on in the woods at Bomarzo Stone colossi wrestle to the death in the dell pinions a An elephant Roman legionnaire in its trunk and a precariously tilted house seems to totter at the edge of a terrace Around the bend an ogres ogre's head rears up its wide-open wide maw revealing a tongue in the shape of a astone astone astone stone table where visitors can picnic while being devoured Art historians attribute the bizarre stone gallery created circa 1570 by Vicino Orsini to the rise of the Mannerist style of art that evolved after the High Renaissance But psychology might also explain it Orsini was a papal soldier who retired disillusioned from the wars that wracked the Italian peninsula in the century At Bomarzo I like to think he used his still-intact still prankish sense of humor to vanquish his demons Villa Lante is comparatively demure intent on perfection not astonishment without the distraction of flowers and unchangingly green through the seasons When I passed through the gate I caught a strong whiff of freshly clipped boxwood from the parterres around the Fountain of the Moors on the lower level the interlocking hedges shaped in spirals squares and circles with little lemon trees peeking out Then I turned around and saw the chain of fountains that decorates the hill Drawn from springs in the nearby San Valentino hills the watercourse emerges from the highest grotto known as the Fountain of the Flood then vanishes and re-appears re in pools and channels that flow between the two or little i- i M t 4 v ii l 1 r uL uJ pa palaces I. I aceS Theres There's the Fountain of the Dolphins richly emblazoned with the Gambara crayfish crest the scalloping Chain Fountain as ramblingly beautiful as any mountain stream the thelong thelong thelong long Cardinals Cardinal's Table with troughs of running water that served as finger bowls for Gambara's dinner guests and the classic Renaissance garden on the lowest terrace I read in Helena Attlee's Italian Gardens that from top to bottom Villa Lante tells the story of human evolution beginning with the rustic Eden created by God at the Fountain of the Flood and climaxing in the perfect geometry of the lower parterres To understand the gardens garden's symbolism isn't to take any less sensual delight in it I couldn't keep from dipping my toes in the cold flowing water of the Chain Fountain I ran my palms across the moss that clothes Villa Lante's stone nymphs and goddesses I sat at the Cardinals Cardinal's Table half waiting for Gambara's liveried servants to serve lunch On another summer getaway I stopped to see sec seea a garden in the medieval m r v o with its hilltop neighbor Sermoneta by the noble family which still has a palazzo in the historic center of Rome Ninfa open to visitors on selected summer weekends is a garden for wandering with a book and a dog for lying in fresh-cut fresh grass and dreaming especially in April and May when the ornamental cherries blossom As it was I saw Ninfa with witha a Foundation on tour during the stultifying height of summer when only afew a afew afew few pink roses lingered to suggest the gardens garden's spring quintessence We Ve entered near a springwater springwater spring- spring springwater water lake that feeds the Ninfa River saw fine old Holm oaks and white maples then stopped atthe at atthe atthe the ruined Church of Santa SantaMaria SantaMaria SantaMaria Maria Maggiore where Pope Alexander III was crowned in 1 1159 after having been forced to leave Rome by supporters of Emperor Frederick I known as Barbarossa Protected from extreme weather by the Mountains to the east and the ever-chilly ever Ninfa River the acre 20 garden has myriad microclimates in which the experimented with nonnative plants such as banana bamboo and magnolias In damp spots near the river lilies thrive and everywhere there are roses climbing medieval ruins or preening in the walled garden La is an estate a few miles north and inland from Anzio on 25 acres of land left bare and pocked mine-pocked after afterWorld afterWorld World War II The Marquis Scotti and his wife Lavinia Taverna bought it at auction in 1956 and it remains the family's country home receiving visitors by appointment only To see it I booked a atour atour atour tour with Sue Webster an speaking English-speaking guide and nd avid gardener vh who lives nearby La story starts with a bag of seeds given to the marquise by a friend which she planted and watched spring up After that she ordered more plants native to the Mediterranean Australia or California according to her interest of the moment A garden took shape but without coherent form In 1967 she summoned English garden architect Russell Page to La Page was a devotee of Renaissance formal gardens which were then out of style The relationship between Page and Taverna who died in 1997 proved especially fruitful as the master brought order and subtlety to the passionate experimenters experimenter's diverse plant collection Page divided the hillside garden into 32 rooms as he called them using Taverna's nurslings to create subtle artistic ensembles of texture scent shape and color As Asa a result La is a gardeners gardener's garden known among connoisseurs for its subtle design and unusual variety of plants