The Cloister of the Cypresses, at the Fondazione Giorgio Cini, on Venice’s San Giorgio Maggiore island.

Cypresses and Lady Banks roses come together in the foyer of this imaginary garden, drawn by the landscape architect and writer Marco Bay.

A stone lion guards a doorway in the Eden Garden on Giudecca island.

Geometrically designed hedges separate Ca’ Dei Leone, on Giudecca, from the lagoon.

Roses and wisteria drape over a pergola on the grounds of Palazzo Bragadin Dabalà, in the Dorsoduro district.

A vegetable garden at Hotel Cipriani, on Giudecca.

A bridge connects Palazzo Albrizzi, in the San Polo district, to its green spaces.

An aerial view of Giudecca and the lagoon.

Boston ivy and wisteria surround an oakleaf hydrangea on the grounds of Palazzo Gradenigo, in the Santa Croce district.

A pathway of blue hydrangeas leads to Ca’ Bernardo, in San Polo.

Venice in Bloom

A new book of photographs by Marco Valmarana takes readers inside the Floating City’s secret gardens

“Venice is a woman,” Diane von Furstenberg has written. “The gardens of Venice are like precious emeralds set in the mounting of an elaborate golden jewel, small green spots scattered throughout a complex urban fabric, often inaccessible or unknown.”

These green oases, which float above the city’s swampy lagoon, are everywhere in Venice. Gardens hug the sprawling Fondazione Giorgio Cini. They highlight the outdoor sculptures at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection. Many are centuries old, small, and concealed behind tall fences and brick walls.