LA Foce: A Garden and Landscape in Tuscany

The Gardens and Estate of La Foce constitute one of the most important and best kept early twentieth-century gardens in Italy. La Foce, with its sweeping views of the Tuscan landscape, was the realization of the late writer Marchesa Iris Origo's ideal garden. Passionate about the order and symmetry of Florentine gardens, Origo and her husband, Antonio, purchased the dilapidated villa in 1924, soliciting the help of English architect and family friend Cecil Pinsent to reawaken the natural magic of the property. Pinsent designed the structure of simple, elegant, box-edged beds and green enclosures that give shape to the Origos' overlay of shrubs, perennials, and vines. It is, by all accounts, a remarkable achievement. Today the garden is a place of unusual and striking beauty, a green oasis in the barren Siena countryside. Situated in the Val d'Orcia, a wide valley in southeastern Tuscany, La Foce is run by Benedetta and Donata Origo, and is open to the public one day a week.
La Foce: A Garden and Landscape in Tuscany is a contemplative, multifaceted study of the house, gardens, and estate of La Foce. It includes a historical essay and memoir by the daughter of La Foce's creators, Antonio and Iris Origo, along with photographs, sketches, and a critical analysis of the gardens. The volume not only focuses on the beauty of the gardens themselves and their indisputable merit as fascinating works of landscape architecture but also sees them within the context of both the larger Tuscan topography and the wider landscape of geography and history. The book will be a delight to armchair travelers, trade and landscape architects, gardeners, and those interested in Tuscan culture. La Foce offers a rare look at the majestic, romantic, and personal aspects of one of the loveliest and most bewitching places on earth.

Morna Livingston is Professor of Design, Drawing, and Vernacular Architecture at Philadelphia University.