Outside

Inspired by Venetian palaces and Renaissance gardens, Isabella collected and incorporated architectural elements from Italian buildings into the walls of the museum inside and out and placed antiquities in the gardens. Her friend, Sarah Wyman Whitman, designed the distinctive crest bearing a phoenix rising from the ashes and the phrase C’est Mon Plaisir (It Is My Pleasure) above the museum’s original entrance. Many of the garden sculptures have been moved indoors for preservation purposes.