Torrecchia Vecchia is a large private estate in the territory of Cisterna di Latina, much of it covered in woodland, recognised as a natural monument in 2007. Originally there were a medieval hilltop village and a castle, now in ruins, abandoned some eight centuries ago. In 1991 it was bought by Prince Carlo Caracciolo, a newspaper publisher, and his wife Violante Visconti, who called in the architect Gae Aulenti to turn the seventeenth-century barn into a villa.
What to see
Around the villa Violante Visconti wanted a garden. At first she was helped by Lauro Marchetti, the curator of the nearby Garden of Ninfa; from 1995 the designs were by the English landscape designer Dan Pearson, who worked mainly in greens and whites, as she asked, and for five years came here twice a year.
In 1999 Pearson handed the continuation of the work to his student Stuart Barfoot, under his guidance. After Violante's death, in 2000, the two gardeners worked with Caracciolo to extend the garden, bringing a wider range of colour into the new areas.
Visiting
It is private property and can be visited only by permission: arrangements and dates should be requested from the estate.
Our editors' tip
Anyone who has seen Ninfa will recognise a kinship: the two gardens are close, and the first to set his hand to the one at Torrecchia was Ninfa's own curator. The gardens at Torrecchia are in the English style, like the one at Ninfa.
