Talk: Alessandra Vinciguerra, Followed by La Mortella: NNMF Midwinterfest

Alessandra Viniciguerra will be our guest of honour at this year's MidWinterFest. This is her second visit to Norfolk. We invited her this year to mark the occasion of the centenary of the birth of Susana Walton in Buenos Aires on 31 August 1926. Alessandra was the Bass Superintendent at the American Academy on the Janiculum Hill in Rome at the Villa Taverna. The Villas had served as the Residence of the Ambassador of the United State in Italy since 1933 and was purchased from the Principessa Ida Borromeo-Taverna in 1944. The Academy was planning an exhibition on the gardens of the British architect and landscape designer Russell Page, 'Portrait of Italian Gardens'. Page had designed the garden at the home of Sir William and Lady Walton in Ischia and it was on her visit to meet Lady Walton to prepare for the Exhibition that the two met. Alessandra will tell us the story of this meeting and of her friendship and working relationship with Lady Walton that continued until Lady Walton's death in 2010, Alessandra is now President of the William Walton Trust and Director of La Mortella where she not only supervises the famous gardens there but also oversees La Mortella's extensive musical and cultural programmes. She will share with us just how the gardens were started by Lady Walton and how they have, under Alessandra's leadership, become the most visited gardens in Italy and yet stayed firmly true to the vision and spirit of Susana Walton. We visit La Mortella and meet Alessandra and her devoted staff every autumn for the annual Kirker Holidays Music Festival in October.