Villa La Foce

Simply for the grandest of weddings in Tuscany.

Villa La Foce and its farm are located in the crete senesi (clay hills of Sienna) overlooking the Val d'Orcia, in southern Tuscany. Pienza, Montepulciano, Monticchiello and Montalcino are only a few miles away. La Foce is located near the site of an Etruscan settlement and a burial-place dating from the 7th century BC to the 2nd century AD has been excavated on the property.

La Foce has been continuously inhabited for many centuries and being situated on the Via Francigena increased its significance. The Villa itself was built in the late 15 C as a hospice for pilgrims and merchants traveling on the via Francigena.
In 1924 the property was bought by Antonio Origo and his Anglo-American wife Iris, the daughter of Lady Sybil Cutting, the owner of Villa Medici at Fiesole where Iris Origo spent much or her early life. They dedicated their lives to bringing prosperity and cultural and social changes to this formerly poverty-stricken area of the Val d'Orcia. Years of work were devoted to preparing the difficult terrain for modern agriculture. The gardens and estate of La Foce constitute one of the most important and best kept early twentieth-century gardens in Italy. Amid 3,500 acres of farmland in the countryside nearPienza, with sweeping views of the Tuscan landscape, La Foce was the childhood dream garden of Iris Origo. Passionate about the order and symmetry of Florentine gardens, she and her husband employed the talented English architect and family friend Cecil Pinsent, who had designed the gardens at Villa Medici, to reawaken the natural magic of the property. Pinsent designed the structure of simple, elegant, box-edged beds and green enclosures that give shape to the Origos' shrubs, perennials and vines, and created a garden of soaring cypress walks, native cyclamen, lawns and wildflower meadows. 

 


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