Barbara and Pierre at Villa Gamberaia, Settignano, Florence
Florence · 18 July 2022

A water garden,
and Florence
in the distance

Villa Gamberaia · Settignano, Florence

July at Gamberaia: a ceremony on the balustrade with the whole valley behind it, an hour among the box hedges and the long pools, and dinner on the terrace under strung lights with the city going gold eight miles away.

That morning
Being dressed
In the doorway, in black and white
The garden, and the valley beyond it
The balustrade, and its urns
Oleander, in July
Along the terrace
Under the veil
The ceremony, on the balustrade
The vows

Box hedges,
and a city
eight miles
off

Settignano · Florence

Settignano · Florence
Back through everybody
The dress on the lawn
By the statue
Him
The two of them, on the terrace

Here the garden
is the
architecture

Most Tuscan villas are a house with a garden attached. Gamberaia is the other way round: the building is modest and the garden is the reason people have come up this hill for four hundred years — long water parterres, a wall of clipped green at the end of them, and a grotto faced entirely in shells.

Which changes how you photograph a couple in it. There is no facade to put behind them and no staircase to arrange them on. What there is instead is geometry, and two people walking through it.

More in Tuscany
In the garden
Laughing
Close
At the water parterre
The sleeve
The grotto, at six

The wall ofshells, andwhat it doesto a bouquet

How I work
The sun through the leaves
The last of it
The doors, open onto the cypresses
The tables, at sunset
Dinner
Candles, and the flowers on the table
The team Settignano, Florence
Venue
Villa Gamberaia, Settignano
Photography
Stefano Casati

Photographs by Stefano Casati.

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A cypress avenue,
and a gelato cart at midnight

Villa La Fonte, in the hills above Florence.

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