Villa Lante in Bagnaia: Tuscia's most elegant Renaissance garden

Fifteen minutes from Villa Vacanze Valentina, at the gates of Viterbo, hides the garden crowned "Italy's Most Beautiful Park" in 2011: Villa Lante in Bagnaia, the masterpiece of the Italian Renaissance garden. No queues, no crowds: just terraces of perfect green, sixteenth-century fountains and the sound of water descending from basin to basin as it has for over four centuries. If you love gardens, this is the most refined visit in Tuscia — and with the ticket currently reduced to €5, a small bargain too.

The garden where water is the protagonist

Villa Lante was begun in 1568 for cardinal Gianfrancesco Gambara, to a design attributed to Vignola — the same architect as nearby Palazzo Farnese in Caprarola. Its genius lies in an anomaly: there is no palace with a garden around it, but a garden with two twin lodges at its sides, almost hidden. The true protagonist is the journey of the water, a Mannerist allegory you read as you climb: at the top the wild wood and the Fountain of the Deluge, then water gradually "tamed" as it descends terrace by terrace, down to the perfect geometry of the final parterre.

The unmissable pieces:

• The water chain — a channel of small cascades carved between crayfish claws (a heraldic pun on the name Gambara/gambero), perhaps the most photographed image of Renaissance Tuscia.
• The Fountain of the Moors — at the centre of the final water parterre: four life-size Moors attributed to Giambologna hold up the crest of mounts and star.
• The cardinal's table — a long peperino-stone banqueting table with a water channel down the middle to keep the wine cool: the Renaissance knew how to live.
• The frescoed loggias of the Gambara and Montalto lodges, with sixteenth-century views of the villas of Tuscia.

After Gambara's death (1587) everything was completed by the very young cardinal Alessandro Peretti di Montalto; the name "Lante" arrived in 1656 with new owners. Bombed in 1944 and restored, it is now a state museum.

The village of Bagnaia and what to pair

Before or after the villa, lose ten minutes in the medieval village of Bagnaia: the round clock tower, the sixteenth-century gate of cardinal Ridolfi, the alleys with their tower-houses. Then the natural combination: Viterbo is 5 km away — the medieval quarter of San Pellegrino and the Palace of the Popes, where the thirteenth-century conclaves were held, complete the day. If you would rather stay on the theme of green wonders, the Sacred Wood of Bomarzo is Villa Lante's exact opposite: there, visionary disorder; here, perfect order. Seeing both in one stay is a little lesson in art history.

Getting there and where to stay

From Villa Vacanze Valentina it is about 20 minutes via Vitorchiano (itself worth a stop). From Orte/A1: Orte–Viterbo expressway, Bagnaia exit. It is the perfect half-day trip, pairing beautifully with an afternoon at the Popes' Thermal Baths or in Viterbo. Villa Vacanze Valentina puts you back at the centre of it all: apartments in the green, the Lovers' Cottage, and the silence of the countryside at day's end. And if gardens like these put you in the mood for a trip for two, here is our romantic getaway in Tuscia.