STORICO GIARDINO GARZONI

 

The historic Giardino Garzoni is an eighteenth century enchanted place which has survived almost untouched to our own day. It is the outcome of two centuries of work which began in the sixteenth century and transformed a vegetable garden and hunting wood next to the country residence of the Garzoni Counts into a monument to artistic taste and the good life, the knowing use of water and the choice of plants, landscape architecture capable of transforming the apparent disadvantages of the steep terrain into wonderful and unique features. It is a triumph of the enlightenment, eighteenth century spirit for which the pleasure of the senses was a vehicle for knowledge, for higher knowledge. What has survived of all this today is a green monument which is unique in Europe born in the splendid season which produced the Ville Lucchesi gardens with echoes and shared inspiration with gardens such as the Reggia in Caserta and Wilhemshohe in Kassel. Wandering around the wonders of this fantastic place – cool, atmospheric artificial grottoes, theatres made of box wood hedges, statues of satyrs, gods and goddesses, animals, biblical, historical and folklore characters, dense bamboo forests – is always a magical experience.

The Collodi Butterfly House contains hundreds of butterflies from tropical and equatorial climates all around the world where butterflies are larger and more colourful. They are alive and free to flutter around in a tropical garden with luxuriant plants, flowers and fruits thanks to a perfect reconstruction of their original habitat. Here butterflies and moths mate, feed and reproduce in perfect harmony with the environment around them and protected from predatory insects and spiders by small birds which eat these but do not touch either larvae or butterflies. You can stroll through this enchanted world and observe all stages in the butterflies development from egg to butterfly, note the difference between butterflies and moths, understand the defensive and communicative purposes of the colours and designs on larvae and butterfly wings – they all help them to survive. They threaten and trick predators, help them to hide and to find a mate to reproduce with.

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