EVOLUTION OF THE GARDEN 15 



III 



The Italian Renaissance Garden 



It is but a step from this Medieval "Pleasance" 

 to the Shakespeare garden. But before we try to 

 picture what the Tudor gardens were like it will 

 be worth our while to pause for a moment to con- 

 sider the Renaissance garden of Italy on which the 

 gardens that Shakespeare knew and loved were 

 modeled. No one is better qualified to speak of 

 these than Vernon Lee: 



"One great charm of Renaissance gardens was 

 the skillful manner in which Nature and Art were 

 blended together. The formal design of the 

 Giardino segreto agreed with the straight lines of 

 the house, and the walls with their clipped hedges 

 led on to the wilder freer growth of woodland and 

 meadow, while the dense shade of the bosco supplied 

 an effective contrast to the sunny spaces of lawn and 

 flower-bed. The ancient practice of cutting box- 

 trees into fantastic shapes, known to the Romans 

 as the topiary art, was largely restored in the 

 Fifteenth Century and became an essential part of 

 Italian gardens. In that strange romance printed 

 at the Aldine Press in 1499, the Hypernotomachia 



