Enchanted gardens: Villa Porfidia

The Garden of Villa Porfidia, formerly belonging to the Dukes of Guevara of Bovino, is a splendid garden dating back to the early eighteenth century, wanted by the Dukes of Guevara as a summer residence near the Royal Palace of Caserta (which is only a few kilometers away). The garden has a French rococo style plant. The wide tree-lined avenues are bordered by flowering Agapanthus and roses, and in some places are surmounted by hedges of Taxus baccata shaped like an arch. Among the species that characterize the whole, also palms (Phoenix dactilifera) and peonies. Many elements are worth mentioning: the avenue of umbrellas, an example of eighteenth-century ars topiary used here to shape the armrests and backs of stone seats with boxwood hedges; the elliptical fishpond with two adjacent masonry buffets and fountains of various kinds. The palace of the dukes Guevara di Bovino, a family accredited to the Bourbon court, was built at the end of the 18th century.