Kit Coty: Maniera Etrusca: Gardens, Vernacular Landscape, and Regional Identity in Sixteenth Century Tuscia

This talk recontextualizes sixteenth-century central Italian designed landscapes from a specifically regional perspective, framing these sites as products of a lively and ongoing dialogue between their patrons concerning gardens, villa culture, and the distinctive nature of the Tuscian environment. This research casts new light upon this relatively overlooked corner of Italy defined by rock-cut vernacular architecture, revealing Tuscia’s early modern designed landscapes to be products of a regional micro-renaissance that drew upon local Etruscan heritage rather than the world of ancient Rome, thus challenging our understandings of what Renaissance Italians knew about ancient  Etruria.  Representing the rebirth of a characteristic rupestrian vernacular, this unique school of landscape architecture demonstrates that a burgeoning sense of Tuscian identity was closely connected to both the region’s topography and how its inhabitants lived within it.