January 12, 2006
Thursday Travesty or Triumph VIII
"The Isola Bella still seems to many too complete a negation of nature; nor can it appear otherwise to those who judge of it only from pictures and photographs, who have not seen it in its environment. For the landscape surrounding the Borromean Islands has precisely that quality of artificiality, of exquistely skilful arrangement and manipulation, whic seems to justify, in the garden-architect, almost any excess of the fancy. [There is] an almost forced gaiety about the landscape of the lakes, a fixed smile of perennial loveliness. And it is as a complement to this attitude that the Borromean gardens justify themselves. Are they real? No; but neither is the landscape about them. Are they like any other gardens on earth? No; but neither are the mountains and shores about them like earthly shores and mountains. They are Armida's gardens anchored in a lake of dreams."
-Edith Wharton, in Italian Villas and Their Gardens
Well, the number of replies to TTT finally dropped to zero last week. Maybe its because I did it on Friday and everyone's thinking about heading home on Friday. I dunno. 
(Although Colin (sorry Colin, but I don't think we've met) said he thought the blog was a triumph and Julian (it was funny because Julian had just come up in conversation with Joe) dropped by to mention Blood Brother Ted, which is always permissible. Everybody could use more Blood Brother Ted.)
Anyway, today's Travesty or Triumph is Isola Bella, a small island in the lake country of northern Italy (not to be confused with the small island by a beach off the coast of Sicily). As long as anyone knows who the islands (there are actually two islands there, Bella and Madre) have belonged to, they have been the property of the Counts of Borromeo. During the Renaissance, the current Count turned his attention from Isola Madre, which had always been the focus of his family's improvments, to Isola Bella. The work that Count began was finished by his son, who constructed what could probably be considered the Disneyland of the 17th century.
Isola Bella features both a massive palace at one end and a long garden that is filled with statues, towers, and smaller buildings. The statues and towers are only part of the ridiculous level of picturesque imagery that covers the island, laid out on ten terraces that descend from the palace toward the lake. I suppose I should also mention that the island is populated by white peacocks. Does that seem like an important detail?
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(one very last picture in the extended entry)
