Published in 1559 and appearing here for the first time in English,La Villais a rare source of Renaissance landscape theory. Written by Bartolomeo Taegio, a Milanese jurist and man of letters, after his banishment (possibly for murder, Thomas E. Beck speculates), the text takes the form of a dialogue between two gentlemen, one a proponent of the country, the other of the city. While it is not a gardening treatise,La Villareflects an aesthetic appreciation of the land in the Renaissance, reveals the symbolic and metaphorical significance of sixteenth-century gardens for their owners, and articulates a specific philosophy about the interaction of nature and culture in the garden.This edition of the original Italian text and Beck's English translation is augmented with notes in which Beck identifies numerous references to literary sources inLa Villaand more than 280 people and places mentioned in the dialogue. The introduction illuminates Taegio's life and intellectual activity, his obligations to his sources, the cultural context, and the place ofLa Villain Renaissance villa literature. It also demonstrates the enduring relevance ofLa Villafor architecture and landscape architecture.La Villamakes a valuable contribution to the body of literature about place-making, precisely because it treats the villa as an idea and not as a building type.