Thursday, February 14th from 3:00 PM- 4:30 PM
Location: Upstairs Conference Room of the Udall Building, 725 Camino Lejo
Cost: $5 Member/$10 Not-yet-Member
Join Susan Williams and Bonnie Joseph as we "armchair" travel to Italy and explore two beloved gardens. Although very different in style and design, both gardens were the visions of Anglo-American women who married into Italian nobility. Both were conceived and designed in the early years of the 20th century. Both were gardens of transformation of places of desolation and destruction. Ninfa has been described as the most romantic garden in the world and was created in the actual ruins of a Medieval village. La Foce, a fifteenth-century villa, originally served as a hospice for pilgrims traveling on the Via Franciagena. Today, both of these gardens offer modern-day garden pilgrims delightful places of repose.
About the Lecturers: Susan Williams is a cultural historian and Emerita Professor of History from Fitchburg State University. She has studied history through the lens of material culture—architecture, foodways, gardens, and other expressive forms. She has written two books about American foodways and dining rituals, and a third book about the American Colonial Revival. During a sabbatical in Italy, researching the transmission of Italian foodways to America, she spent two lovely weeks at La Foce.
Bonnie Joseph received a BA in History from College Misericordia in 1964 and a MA in Art History from Temple University in 1990. She was adjunct faculty at both Temple University and Moore College of Art and Design from 1990 to 2001. In 2008, Bonnie co-founded the Winter Lecture Series for the Santa Fe Botanical Garden. In her lectures she combines her love of gardening with her background in art history.