"Edith Wharton's American pioneering spirit rose to meet the challenge offered by Century Magazine to write a series of articles to accompany a set of paintings by Maxfield Parrish of Italian villas and gardens. She collected her household together, and husband, housekeeper, and small dogs all set off on a four-month exploration of Italy. Her articles were published in 1904 as Italian Villas and Their Gardens.

One of the first books to treat the subject of Italian garden architecture seriously, it became a groundbreaking work that influenced a generation of garden writers and landscape architects."--BOOK JACKET.

"Nearly one hundred years later Vivian Russell set out on her own odyssey, following Edith Wharton's footsteps around Italy to photograph the best surviving gardens from her book and to tell the story of how and why each one was made. Her lively text describes the patrons and architects who created the gardens and explores their hidden symbolic meaning."--BOOK JACKET.