The garden is landscape cultivated for human pleasure. The people, undergoing a rebirth of interest in science and in humanity's relationship to the world during the Renaissance, developed a new appreciation for nature. Additionally they rediscovered the ancient classical authors who had praised nature's wonders. The increasing prosperity of western Europe and man’s increasing confidence in himself and in his capacity to impose order on the external world was reflected in the gardens of Italy by the mid-15th century. The change began near Florence, where the old medieval enclosures began to open up. And, because villas were increasingly sited for amenity rather than defense, gardens became less enclosed, more susceptible first to visual, then to actual extension. The typical evolved garden of the period was characterized by some openness of aspect, axial development, a tendency to prolongation, unity of concept between house and garden emphasized by a considerable “built” element of stone, lavish employment of statuary (often in the form of fountains), and the proliferation of such classical accents as grottoes, nymphaea (Roman buildings with a fountain, plants, and sculpture), urns, and inscriptions. Villa Barbaro, also known as the Villa di Maser, is a large villa at Maser (Treviso) in the Veneto region of northern Italy. It was designed and built in the 1550s by the Italian architect Andrea Palladio for two of his most important patrons, the brothers Barbaro (Daniele, Patriarch of Aquileia and ambassador to Queen Elizabeth I of England, and Marcantonio, an ambassador to King Charles IX of France). The Barbaro family is an old Venetian patrician family documented as holding high office in the Republic of Venice as early as the 9th century. The interior of the piano nobile is painted with frescoes by Paolo Veronese in the artist's most contemporary style of the period. These paintings constitute the most important fresco cycle by this artist and were inspirational to many of the frescoes painted by other villa artists at that time. The frescoes have been dated to the beginning of the 1560s. Having been allowed to become ruinous in 1850, the villa was purchased by the wealthy industrialist Sante Giacomelli who began to renovate it. In 1934 Count Giuseppe Volpi di Misurata, founder of the Venice Film Festival, acquired the villa and began a full restoration back to its former glory. Today, it is lived in by his granddaughter. In the photos taken last November, you can see the garden from two perspectives, one from the entrance, looking at the farmland and the vineyards (BTW the red and white wines produced here are of superior quality), which are part of the estate, divided by the road, and the villa from the road and the Neptune fountain. In the between, one of the frescoes by Veronese, inspired by classical models of idealized landscapes (more to come). Thank you for your kind comments.