Historic villas and gardens of Tuscia

Tuscany without Tuscany: the same stone, the same cypresses, a quarter of the people. These are the four places in Tuscia I've worked in or recommend most often, with what you need to know before you fall in love with them.

Formal gardens and Renaissance architecture

Villa Lante — Bagnaia

One of the most famous and most perfectly symmetrical Italian gardens in Europe. It is run by the regional museums authority, which means it works as an exceptional setting for the photography, not for the reception. Shooting among the Fountain of the Moors, the water chains cut into stone and the box hedge labyrinths gives you an atmosphere you won't find anywhere else in Lazio.

Castello Ruspoli — Vignanello

An imposing fortress with a Renaissance garden that has survived intact since it was commissioned in 1610, famous for the box parterres that only read properly from above. It is a private, exclusive-use wedding venue: it holds a grand outdoor dinner comfortably and it is extraordinary from the air.

Great houses and allegorical parks

Palazzo Farnese — Caprarola

A monumental pentagonal palace standing over the medieval town below. The frescoed rooms of the piano nobile — the Sala dei Fasti Farnesiani above all — are a seam of historic backdrops, but the real prize is outside, in the Upper Gardens with their Casina del Piacere and monumental fountains. This is where a wedding takes on something close to a royal register.

Sacro Bosco, the Park of the Monsters — Bomarzo

The oldest park of grotesque sculpture in the world, created by Vicino Orsini in 1552 in memory of his wife. It isn't a place for a wedding dinner, but as a setting for photography it is extraordinary and genuinely surreal: the stone Ogre, the Elephant, the Leaning House. It once impressed Salvador Dalí, and it only works for couples who truly want something bold rather than a classic album.