The Botanical Gardens of Villa Taranto are located in the homonymus villa in Pallanza, a fraction of Verbania. The gardens, 16 hectares in total, open to the public since 1952, extends on the north-eastern side of the Castagnola promontory that separates the towns of Pallanza and Intra.

For its beauty and richness of species it is considered the most important arboretum in Italy.

History:
In 1931, the Scotsman Neil Boyd McEacharn, son of a wealthy family of shipowners and passionate about botany, bought the property of what was known as the villa "La Crocetta" built in 1870 by Count Orsetti on a project by Augusto Guidini, the property in 1900 passed to the wife of the Marquis of Sant'Elia who sold it to McEacharn.

The captain had read the sale announcement in 1930 while he was traveling from Venice to London and on impulse he decided to stop in Pallanza to view the property, already an expert in gardening and botany, he had for some time cultivated the dream of setting up a garden that would host specimens from all over the world, even from tropical and subtropical environments, its properties in England and Scotland, for climatic reasons, were unsuitable for the realization of its aspirations.

The villa, located at the highest point of the property at about 350 m a.s.l. and 100 meters from the level of the lake (Maggiore), was a three-storey building with a mansard roof and a central turret with a spire. The property extends to the banks of the lake but the rest of the land was practically uncultivated.

McEacharn then began the renovation of the villa which was renamed Villa Taranto, in memory of his ancestor, Étienne Jacques Joseph Alexandre Macdonald, who had received the title of Duke of Taranto from Napoleon Bonaparte. The formal garden was transformed into a lawn with a central fountain. Over time, McEacharn bought several plots of land around the property and expanded the park to its current 16-hectare extension. [...]

In 1962 Neil McEacharn donated Villa Taranto to the Italian State, but he maintained the usufruct and bound the donation for cultural, scientific and didactic purposes in the botanical field. On the death of McEacharn (April 18, 1964) the villa and garden therefore passed to the Italian state, the villa cannot be visited and since 1995 it has been the seat of the Prefecture of Verbano-Cusio-Ossola while the care and maintenance of the garden is entrusted to the Ente Giardini Botanical Villa Taranto.

On the night of 25 August 2012 a violent whirlwind that hit the area heavily hit the Castagnola promontory, causing considerable damage to the heritage of the botanical garden. The damage balance was about 300 uprooted or felled plants, uprooted shrubs, destroyed equipment, the gardens were closed early the same day and reopened only in March 2013 after an intense work of safety and restoration by the institution and the State Forestry Corps.

The Park:
The park entrance overlooks the connecting road between Intra and Pallanza and is located in front of the landing stage (Villa Taranto stopover). Even before entering, a remarkable specimen of Quercus coccinea of ​​the Splendens cultivar stands out, around the parking lot in front of the entrance gate there is a small library, the bar-restaurant and the ticket office, shortly after the entrance gate there is a kiosk for the purchase of plants grown in the park's nursery.

After passing the gate you enter the avenue of conifers which hosts specimens from all over the world, after a large specimen of silver fir you meet Cunninghamia lanceolata, Likiang spruce, Caucasus spruce, Caucasus spruce, Monterey pine, Lawson, Colorado spruce of the Moerheim cultivar and of the Koster cultivar, Pinus patula, Montezuma pine and two Sciadopitys verticillata. This is followed by the evergreen sequoia, Cryptomeria japonica and some specimens of Douglas fir surrounding a Thujopsis dolabrata.

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Video:
All clips shot hand-held with my Lumix G7 m43 camera, fitted the Panasonic Lumix 14-45mm f3.5-5.6 ASPH MEGA OIS lens, at 4K UHD 3840x2160p resolution, 16:9 AR, 24fps frame rate. Editing, basic color correction (contrast, saturation, gamma, shadows, sharpness etc) carried out in DaVinci Resolve 16.2. This video, rather long, is part 1. After an introduction of less than 2 minutes, showing the the boarding process and the panoramas while crossing Lake Maggiore towards Intra from Laveno, that can be enjoyed during the 15m long ferry crossing, the video continues with an overview of the park, the location, the huge numbers of different flowers and botanical plants. Part 2 (next) will show other beautiful parts of the Gardens.

Video file-size: 5.69GB, average (constant) bit rate: 110Mbps.

Thank you very much to everyone for watching and comment!

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