Di Annamette Fogh
The nine-acre garden on the Guidecca was bought and created by an English couple. Frederic and Caroline Eden (née Jekyll) in 1884. Throughout La Belle Époque this vast, beautiful garden became the meeting point and a source of inspiration for an international elite of writers, poets, actors, and painters: e.g. Henry james, Robert Browning, Marcel Proust, John Singer Sargent, Claude Monet and members of the Anglo-American colony living in Venice. Frederic Eden, a great-uncle of Anthony Eden, and Caroline, the elder sister of the famous garden designer, Gertrude Jekyll, lived in Venice for 50 years. In 1928 the garden was sold to Major James Horlick, who gave it to the ex-Princess of Greece and Denmark, Aspasia Manos. For the rest of her life she lived in the small palazzina in the garden, often together with her daughter, Alexandra, the ex-Queen of Yugoslavia. In 1979 the Austrian artist, Friedensreich Hundertwasser, took over the garden and kept it until his death in 2000. It is now owned by the Hundertwasser Foundation in Vienna and is completely closed to the public. Annemette Fogh is the only one in recent years that have had access to the garden and the permission to photograph. In occasione della XIV Settimana della Lingua Italiana nel Mondo. Sotto l’Alto Patronato del Presidente della Repubblica.