Italy's Private Gardens : An Inside View

Helena Attlee and her photographer husband Alex Ramsay have been visiting Italian gardens, photographing them and writing about them, for two decades. In recent years Helena has been leading garden tours to Italy, arranging for clients to enjoy lunch with garden owners, chat with gardeners and discuss designs with landscape architects. These behind-the-scenes glimpses are the inspiration for Italy's Private Gardens, a book built around conversations with people intimately associated with some of Italy's most intriguing private gardens. Owners, designers and gardeners talk freely about their personal experiences, the problems they have faced and overcome. Each garden is introduced with a brief history. With stunning photographs taken by Alex Ramsay, Italy's Private Gardens takes in 19 gardens in Piedmont, the Veneto, Tuscany, Lazio, Umbria and, unusually, Sicily, and includes interviews with Arabella Lennox-Boyd at Palazzo Parisi, Jane and Francesco da Mosto at their retreat in the Venetian lagoon, Principessa Maria Carla Borghese at Il Biviere and Gil Cohen and Paul Gervais at Villa Massei.

Helena Attlee is an author and journalist who has made the garden and its history her special subject. Her books include The Gardens of Portugal Italian Gardens: A Cultural History and Gardens of Wales (all publishd by Frances Lincoln). She lectures widely, writes for a wide range of journals and magazines, and leads specialist garden tours. She lives in Presteigne, Powys, with her husband, the photographer Alex Ramsay. Alex Ramsay is well known as an award-winning photographer of architecture, gardens and landscapes. His work has appeared in leading magazines worldwide and illustrates many books including Helena Attlee's Italian Gardens: A Cultural History and Gardens of Wales. To visit Alex Ramsay's website click here