Gardens

Four gardens at the Getty Villa Museum offer fresh air and tranquil spaces

A woman wearing a blue headscarf and two girls, a child and teenager wearing casual clothing, walk through an outdoor garden filled with plants and sculptures, smiling and looking around them.

A Walk through Ancient Rome

Inspired by ancient Roman models, gardens are integral to the Getty Villa and feature fountains, sculpture, and colorful plants known to have grown in the ancient Mediterranean.

Outer Peristyle

In ancient Roman times, the outer peristyle garden would have been used to converse with guests and for solo contemplation. It would also have been used to grow plants, ventilate the home, and provide an escape from the heat.

You’ll see replica statues of bronzes that were excavated from the Villa dei Papiri, the Roman villa that the Getty Villa is modeled after. Depicting famous philosophers, political figures, deities, athletes, and animals, they stand in the locations approximate to where they stood at the Villa dei Papiri.

The north wall features frescoes of landscapes and architecture copied from the Villa dei Papiri and another villa in Oplontis. Frescoes featuring theatrical masks on garlands strung between painting columns are copies of those from the Villa of Publius Fannius Synistor.

The central reflecting pool is approximately three feet deep. At the Villa dei Papiri, it was used for either swimming or fish farming.

Plants favored by the ancient Romans, such as bay laurel, boxwood, myrtle, ivy, and oleander, line the pool. Pomegranate trees stand in the corners of the garden.

Herb Garden

The most functional garden of an ancient Roman house was the herb garden. In antiquity, these kitchen gardens provided vegetables and seasonings for cooking. Plants were also grown for their color, fragrance, and medicinal properties. It was common for the herb garden to have a well or pool for irrigation, drinking, cooking, and bathing.

In the Herb Garden, plants and fruit trees native to the Mediterranean region have been arranged in ornamental patterns and labeled with their botanical and common names. There are a variety of fruit trees, including apple, pomegranate, apricot, fig, quince, and pear. You'll also find familiar herbs used in cooking, such as mint, basil, thyme, oregano, marjoram, and sage. Papyrus and water lilies are planted in the central pool.

A waterspout of Silenos, a companion of Dionysos, the god of wine, hails over the central pool. The spout is a reproduction of one found in the atrium of the Villa dei Papiri.

Outdoor garden lined with walkways, green trees, blooming flowers, and a central fountain.

The Villa Herb Garden features a lined walkway of plants and fruit trees with a central pool filled with lotus blossoms.

Inner Peristyle

This garden is designed as a square-shaped walkway lined with columns, and featuring decorative marble floors, walls, and ceilings. At the Villa dei Papiri, the Inner Peristyle garden would have been the first open-air space encountered by visitors—just as it is for visitors to the Getty Villa.

The space would have been used for strolling and conversation. Today, you can access the first-floor galleries or sit on a bench and enjoy the atmosphere.

Statues of young women surround a small pool in the center of the courtyard. These statues are reproductions of ancient bronze sculptures found at the Villa dei Papiri, as are the four busts.

The Ionic columns that form the colonnade are modeled after those in the House of the Colored Capitals in Pompeii, while the square marble fountains in the corners are re-created from a drawing in an eighteenth-century excavation report of the Villa dei Papiri.

The design of the coffered ceiling imitates decorative stonework on funerary monuments from the Street of the Tombs in Pompeii. The walls feature panels that represent stonework and pilasters; the design is based on the large peristyle of the House of the Faun in Pompeii.

A peristyle of large white columns encloses a square garden including well-groomed greenery around a narrow central pool.

The Inner Peristyle brings light and fresh air to the experience of the ground-floor galleries.

East Garden

Beyond the East stairway of the Villa Museum building is the East Garden. This tranquil space is shaded by sycamore and laurel trees. Two fountains provide the relaxing sounds of splashing water—the mosaic-and-shell fountain on the east wall is framed by theatrical masks, while bronze civet heads spout streams from the central fountain.

Theatrical masks adorn the outdoor mosaic-and-shell fountain in the East Garden. Water flows from small lion sculptures on a water feature into a fountain filled with green plants in the foreground.

Theatrical masks adorn the mosaic-and-shell fountain in the East Garden.

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