Botanical route

Castelbarco Albani's estate consists of homogeneous green areas which can be distinguished because of their different organisation and purpose. Getting into the main entrance (on the West side) it is possible to see a long line of lime trees (Tilia Cordata or Tomentosa) which follow each other in an orderly way all the route long. Originally, this route included also the tract beyond the wall that nowadays surrounds Castelbarco's estate.

This division was wanted by Counts Quintavalle when they owned the property around 1950. Going beyond the gate, begins the park which has the typical organisation of the Italian garden. Beside the lime trees is a wide green area now used for fodder's growing. In ancient times Count Bruno Antonio Quintavalle had organised this same space as a horse race creating some privet's hedge natural obstacles, still partly visible today.

Facing the South side of the villa we find again the Italian garden. Four magnolias coming from Virginia (Magnolia Grandiflora), about two hundred years old each, include a plain territory. Box hedges surround geometrical grassy parterre. In the middle, between two grand cypresses (Taxodium Distichum) about two hundred years old, a stone fountain seems to suggest the idea of spectacular order of the whole. Dimensions do not interrupt neither the perspective view of the avenue from inside the villa nor the front drawing. Originally, the noble entrance was on this side. The carriages, after going down the avenue from the South, and after going through the two twin buildings (the little theatre and the thermal bath), stopped by the fountain near the so-called "Count's Rooms", the most sumptuous of the whole residence.

This route was to create amazement and astonishment in villa's visitors (the perspective view was certainly of a great result). Parallel to the noble entrance there is still a narrower street where decorative pendulous mulberry trees grow. On the same level, but on the opposite side, surrounded by a dividing wall is the former botanical garden. In the XI century the buildings now visible in it were used as greenhouses. Beside the little theatre raises a stately group of bamboos (Bambu Metoke) and theirs roots are about two hundred years old. This compact and soaring green mass (the highest ones are about 12 metres high), in the past had a decorative function and a building use: as a matter of fact, the bamboos were used in the building of scaffolds and support structures.

In the eastern part of the park the view changes: enlightenment geometry of the Italian garden opposes the romantic suggestion of the English garden where the vegetation is transformed according to a primeval idea of nature. Along the route, the vegetation's change is clear because of an evident pendent slope towards the Naively Martesana and an the greater water presence in the territory (in the distance flow also the rivers Brembo and Adda). In the scarp there are forest trees called "bagolari or spaccasassi" by the local inhabitants.

These trees are Australian botanical specialities, because their roots can penetrate into stony grounds. The present and past function of these trees was to avoid the scarp's falling down because of the rains. Around the more recent swimming pool is a marvellous group of pendent and tricolour beeches (Fagus Selvatica Purpurea and Tricolor), besides a denuded Corean magnolia (Magnolia Conspicua). And even if this magnolia is surrounded by the swimming pool's cement, it is about one hundred years old. In late spring, the flowering moment is a charming performance in colours and fragrances.

Two stately Hollies, one hundred years old each, conclude the first part of the scarp that, from now on , runs on a lower level, always downhill. The gathered disposition of the trees of the same family is to make their reproduction easier. Looking carefully, it is possible to see that the ground around some groups of trees is disseminated with minute plants belonging to the same species. In this part of the garden, are two secular oaks (Quercus Ilex). Unfortunately, a lightening hit one of them. Continuing the route, while on the right centenarian trees, such as lime trees (Tilia Tomentosa), yew trees (Taxus Baccata) and camaciparis (Chamaecyparis), follow each other, on the left there is an artificial intervention in the landscape: bows, subways and tufa stairs create a picturesque scenery which is, at the same time, well fit in the nature. The group of trees creates a suggestive twilight that completely opposes to the sun brightness of the Italian garden.

In proximity to the naively, going beyond the iron bridge, on the left is a kind of cedar (Cedro Atlantica) interesting in his branched candlestick shape made in many years of patient work. For this features and its exceptional proportions, this tree represents, talking from a botanical point of view, the most remarkable example of the whole Castelbarco's estate. Beside it is a group of evergreen of the same family (Cedri Deodara) which has to protect the Cedro Atlantica from the North winds. Before going up again to the villa, we find an enclosured wooded area called "The Wood".

It was once Castelbarco's reserve but nowadays in it we can find, protected and completely free, animals of different kind of species, in particular about 80 deer that, observed in their natural habitat, give a fairy-like exhibition and a rare example of preservation of fauna. The vegetable system of this area includes: cherry-trees, robinias, rubra and roverella oaks, white hornbeams, chestnut trees, infesting allianto besides other species already described (begolari, deodara cedars, camaciparis etc.). The whole Castelbarco estate is now under the protection of the Adda Park.