Our first evening at Villa La Foce, we toured the gardens of Iris and Antonio Origo’s estate with our guide Sybilla. Part manicured hedges, part lush blooms, the garden was both contained order and a riot of blowsy color. From La Foce’s hilltop view, my eyes traveled over miles of the Val D’Orcia. Fields of gold separated by low, green hedges, cypress and thick knots of trees dotted the landscape. A single road, lined with cypress, zig-zagged down the hill at a distance. Everywhere my eyes landed had been carefully curated and planned by the Origo’s when they purchased La Foce and its enormous valley estate.
We’d seen photographs of the estate when the Origo’s purchased it in 1924–Iris, a writer, described it as “treeless and shrubless but for some tufts of broom, these corrugated ridges formed a lunar landscape, pale and inhuman…”. She was entirely accurate based on the photographs. I’d never seen a transformation of such an enormous vision and purpose and planning. She and her husband bought La Foce with a vision for this once-lunar landscape, and transformed the land into a thriving community, setting the La Foce gardens like a jewel in the crown of the valley.
I spent time in the gardens each day. After running my hands along the clipped boxwood every morning after breakfast, I often sat beneath a lemon tree to pray, accompanied by the soft buzz of bumblebees–they’re work itself a prayer of gathering, fertilizing, and spreading good seed. As I walked through the flower gardens, I clipped small bits of russian sage, lavender, rosemary and thyme, and rolled them between my fingers to release their scent. I’d cup my hands afterwards and inhale their beauty, letting the aroma fill every empty part of me. I rubbed rose petals between my palms, their velvet center soft. I day-dreamed of unfurling.
As I sat and walked and prayed, I wanted to bear witness to the land that Iris and her husband so lovingly cultivated. They’d stood at the hilltop, gazed at the valley below, and birthed a vision for the complete renewal of a tired and lunar land. I stood in the fruition of that vision and it inspired me to examine my own life, my own tired and worn valleys. I let myself dream of what those valleys might look like if I believed that the eyes of the spirit see what is real and true, and my physical eyes see only an incomplete version of a spiritual reality.
I imagined Iris standing in her garden, and realized her vision for the Val D’Orcia would have begun as small as a seed. It takes a lifetime or two for fields and gardens and trees to reach maturity. She died long ago, and would never see the land, full and fertile, in the way I saw it while standing in the gardens of La Foce.
Iris created a legacy that continues to flourish in Val D’Orcia today. Perhaps she saw something in her own spirit that led her to dream, to envision, to act upon the earth in a way that lasted beyond her lifetime. She smudged her fingerprints across an entire valley, and I stood surrounded by the fruit of her vision and labor. I bore witness to a life given over to planting seed in the midst of a barren landscape. I cupped velvet petals in my hands and bore witness to her legacy.
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Recommended reading: Iris Origo’s memoir War in Val d’Orcia: An Italian War Diary, one of the many books based on her life in Italy. She lived a thousand lives, and in this book, she shares one of them.
Next week in this series: Donata Origo and the tending of her olive grove–a legacy from her mother Iris.
Want to catch up on this series? Click the links below.
Making Meaning: Stories for the Armchair Traveler
[…] group met Donata Origo, Iris Origo’s youngest daughter, on a golden day, the breeze tinged with lavender. She greeted us in the stone […]