The Park
The pond, the rose garden, the lawns and the topiary art of the Italian garden.
The map
Built on the trail of the pre-existing garden, the Gonzaga Guerrieri Park was designed at the beginning of the nineteenth century by Austrian architects, probably the same ones who designed the one in Schönbrunn in Vienna. The space in front of the building was thus equipped with an English lawn, a rose garden, hedges, avenues and buildings functional to the beauty of the place. The whole was equipped with an irrigation system which, although now modernized in its functionality, still maintains its ancient structure.
In front of the building there is a large lawn with elegant boxwood, euonymus and laurel hedges cut according to the topiary art that characterizes the Italian garden. Next to it stands the large greenhouse called Limonaia (15) for the lemon trees that were grown in it until the seventies of the last century. Its precious fruits were used by the owners and were distributed to the locals, especially in the dark times of wars.
The pound and the ice cave
The water from the nearby mountain was collected in a lake (9) fed by a waterfall, from which a network of channels that opened at strategic points radiated to spray the entire park effectively and quickly.
In the past winters, the ice was taken from the small lake to be crammed into the icebox of the cave (10) which still today opens up among the luxuriant vegetation.
The Lemon House
Considered the northernmost in Italy, the Limonaia (15) has been restored, raised and enlarged on several occasions. The changes it has undergone over time are evident in the watercolors by the Austrian court painter Eduard Gurk (1801 – 1841) made at Villa Lagarina during his visits to friends de Moll. The series of watercolors by the Trentino painter Anna de Ballerini (1820 – 1906) also testify to the evolution of the park in its natural and architectural aspects. The lemon house is built with iron profiles that support the large removable windows in the hot season. Its structure is linear and is studied in every detail, from the anchoring joints of the removable parts.
From the decorative rosettes, even to the walkway that allows you to reach the windows of the roof. The cultivation of citrus fruits has been abandoned for some time, but the building still retains its charm of a large greenhouse in the display of the collection of Vienna porcelain plates that bear the botanical name of the vegetation in the park. They were once placed next to individual plants as evidence of the owners’ scientific care dedicated to every single element of the surrounding natural environment.
The walk from the Belvedere to the Fagianaia
In the upper part of the park, next to the walls that delimit and protect it, there is the Belvedere (5) of which traces can already be found in an eighteenth-century engraving. The building has an upper floor frescoed with stylized motifs and is equipped with a balcony that allows you to appreciate the magnificent landscape below. Other elements enrich the park, fountains, small waterfalls and long paths that lead to the top of the hills. Near the Garden (2) and in front of the pond there is a Chalet (18) clad in typical Austrian style with a stube on the ground floor and an external staircase leading to two rooms and a large covered terrace. Near the vegetable garden, along the perimeter walls between the lookout and the chalet, there is a Funeral Chapel (4) closed by a gate where the founder of the park, Baron Sigismondo de Moll, rests. And not far away an avenue leads to the Fagianaia (19), the place where the various species of pheasants were collected and bred. All immersed in the greenery of one of the most beautiful places in Trentino.
A botanical exploration: from the past to the present day
In devising the botanical aspects of his park, Sigismondo de Moll had paid attention to the different natural environments by planting plants from distant countries, in particular from North America, including some rare ones such as the black walnut and others of extreme beauty such as horse chestnuts, yews, plane trees, stone breakers, firs and pines.
Over time, the park has grown and changed enriching itself, but has maintained its original structure which sees a succession of environments that offer ideas for botanical exploration. Exotic plants mix with other native plants, splendid specimens of ginkgo biloba and lime tree alternate with horse chestnuts and oaks, beeches and maples, old tree-bearing boxwoods, both of the most common and rarest species such as the Balearic boxwood.
Paths lined with hedges and trees lead to small clearings and other exemplary plants, a sequoia, a Himalayan fir, a cryptomeria from Japan, oriental liquidambars, a majestic black walnut with fragrant fruits and an imposing plane tree (14) tall about 50 meters, with a trunk circumference of over 6 and a crown diameter of 46.
Protected by its high walls, the Gonzaga Guerrieri Park is a continuous alternation of plant environments.
Wars have spared him, men have made him unique.
Contact information
• Tel: +39 0464 351176
• Email: [email protected]
• Via Garibaldi, Villa Lagarina, TN