ABSTRACT
In 1955 Pietro Porcinai was commissioned to work on one of the iconic sites of garden history: the Villa Pratolino, originally a Medici villa, then owned by the Prince Paolo Karageorgevich Demidoff of Yugoslavia. Martino Porcinai, served as chief gardener at the Villa Gamberaia, then owned by the Romanian princess Catherine Jeanne Ghyka. To better understand Pietro Porcinai’s relationship with garden history, it is instructive to examine the small book he co-authored with Attilio Mordini in 1966. Pietro Porcinai intended Giardini d’Occidente e d’Oriente as an important document to record and communicate his experiences, readings, and studies on the history of garden art acquired over more than 30 years of practice, travel, and relationships with European and American colleagues. Pietro Porcinai frequently worked in historical contexts throughout his entire career; in Italy this was completely understandable and even unavoidable.
