Gods & Gardens

In a land famed for the architecture of the ancients, one man snuck behind the columns and found another Greece.

- MIGUEL FLORES-VIANNA

The first time I saw a 19th-century philhellenic plate honoring the battles of the Greek Revolution of 1821 was at Martinos, an antiques and art gallery at 50 Pandrossou Street in Monastiraki, Athens. So while reviewing the galley of the new book by photographer and author Miguel Flores-Vianna, a modern-day philhellene, I knew we would excerpt the chapter about the home and gardens of Eleni Martinou, whose family opened Martinos in 1895. Only someone who loves and understands Greece, then and now, as much as Miguel does could present the country the way he has in Haute Bohemians: Greece (Vendome, May 2023). There are beautiful homes of famed residents and collectors-some you may have seen before, some you never have-but there are also royal follies and sailboats and shepherds and tavernas. To see the style in a taverna is to see Greece. But first we have these glorious Greek gardens to wander. Then we eat. Stellene Volandes