Cimitero delle Fontane & Villa Lante di Bagnaia
Just five kilometres east of Viterbo's walls, the village of Bagnaia conceals one of the greatest Renaissance garden masterpieces in Europe — Villa Lante — yet it receives a fraction of the visitors that flock to Tivoli's Villa d'Este. Two perfectly symmetrical 16th-century casinos frame a sequence of water terraces, fountains and box-hedged parterres that cascade down a wooded hillside in a displ
The Garden as Theatre
Villa Lante was commissioned by Cardinal Gianfrancesco Gambara in 1568 and completed under Cardinal Alessandro Montalto, and it represents the high point of Italian Mannerist garden design. Unlike most Italian villas where the building dominates, here the garden is the star: the two small casinos are deliberately kept modest so that the water chain, the Fountain of the Moors, the Cardinal's Table (a stone dining table with a water channel running down its centre for cooling wine) and the great parterre below can hold full attention.
The sound of water is constant and hypnotic — every level of the garden has its own fountain, cascade or rill, all fed by a natural spring in the wooded bosco above. Walking uphill through the garden, from the formal lower parterre to the wild upper woodland, you trace a symbolic journey from civilised nature to untamed wilderness that was entirely intentional.
Practicalities and the Village
The village of Bagnaia itself is a charming, largely unvisited medieval borgo worth exploring before or after the garden. The small bar on the main piazza serves excellent supplì and cold Peroni — a fine reward after the uphill garden walk.
Combine Villa Lante with a visit to the nearby Sacro Bosco di Bomarzo (also known as the Park of Monsters), 15 kilometres to the east: a 16th-century garden of bizarre stone sculptures commissioned by Prince Vicino Orsini that is one of the strangest and most memorable sights in all of Italy. Together the two gardens make a perfect day trip from Viterbo.
More of Viterbo
Discover where to stay, what to do and the best deals for your trip.
Explore Viterbo →
