- Italy north of Rome, mainly city states and the larger ones' hinterland, like Venice's, has many gardens belonging to country homes of rich patrician or merchant families. An impressive front and vista could impress, more intimate elements like mazes allowed for party and more private fun.—KGF Vissers
- In the final leg of his trip to Italy, Monty is in the north of the country, historically the most wealthy part, the one where most international trade took place starting in the sixteenth century, and thus its gardens shaped by that trade, including in the importation of plants, such unusual at the time plants as potatoes and tomatoes. That center of trade was Venice as the primary port of the region, the items of trade which filtered out from there. The powerful in those early days were the merchants, who displayed their wealth in their gardens and of the exotic. That wealth included plants of commercial value, not only for food but medicine, which led to gardens becoming highly fortified. The fortification of these, precursors to the modern physic garden, which were laid out much like a filing system, were as much to protect the valued plants from theft, as a pseudo public health measure as scientists experimented to see among other things which were toxic. That wealth was often in a sense of whimsy, as Monty discovers in making his way through a maze garden. He travels to Lucca in Tuscany, the center of the silk trade, to see how that wealth translated into their gardens. In traveling through the towns situated on the shores of Lake Como, Monty is able to view most of the gardens of today's rich and famous solely from the lake, but has access to a few which take advantage not only of the lake but of the slopes down to the lake. In Milan, he visits the oldest gardening center in the country which, as per the traditional global trade, specializes in plants from around the world, and which opened in response to the want of the burgeoning middle class to embark in the pastime of gardening. He concludes his trip to a fantastic baroque garden located on Isola Bella on the western end of Lake Maggiore.—Huggo
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