What is interesting about the Gardner, in contrast to other Boston-area museums, are its origins as the creation of one woman's private collection -- Isabella Stewart Gardner built the structure housing the museum herself. (Indeed, she enjoyed the space so much that she lived on the building's fourth floor.) The museum is housed around a central courtyard filled with plants following a Mediterranean theme, in conjunction with the earliest scheme designed by Gardner. The design itself is based on a 15th-century Venetian palace, with three main galleries open to a central courtyard that is always filled with plants. The Monks Garden and the South Garden, also designed along with the building in about 1900, provide outdoor floral spaces in addition to the famous interior courtyard. About 2,500 objects, including sculpture, painting, textiles, furniture, drawings, prints, ceramics, glass and other objects make up the permanent collection, which is especially strong in paintings of both the Italian renaissance and Northern European countries (Titian, Rembrandt, and Raphael). -- Leyla Yildiz