II. LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE OF ANCIENT 



TIMES AND OF THE ITALIAN AND 



MEDIAEVAL PERIODS. 



In ancient Egypt even, the arrangement of the grounds 

 about the royal palaces and their important buildings, while 

 they were distinctly temporary in their character and have 

 long since been destroyed, are well preserved in wall decora- 

 tions and other drawings, showing many evidences of thought- 

 fulness in design. These show a distinct effort to conform 

 to the existing condition of flat topography, fertile soil, ample 

 space, and hot, dry climate. Provision is made for irrigation, 

 for desirable protecting walls, and there are many evidences 

 of the fact that while the economic motive may have been 

 to a certain extent present, the primary one was agreeable- 

 ness and pleasure. There is ample provision for shade and 

 for flowers, many of which were used in the religious cere- 

 monies of those times. There were decorative pavilions, 

 painted walls, sculptured ornaments, all planned for pleasing 

 effects and with careful thought as to scale and proportion. 

 There was no particular attempt at symmetry as a whole, 

 but in the smaller structures and portions of the grounds 

 symmetry is recognized. Repetition is effectively used and 

 a certain degree of unity is clearly noted in many of the 

 drawings. 



What has come down to us in the records of Mesopotamia 

 show similar thought and study, and here as well as in Persia 

 we know not only about the famous so-called hanging gar- 

 dens of Babylon, but of great enclosed hunting parks arranged 

 with a more or less orderly system of avenues and paths 

 through them. 



Homer's famous description of the grounds of the Palace 

 of Alcinous show how beautiful these must have been and 

 how carefully the Greeks studied and thought out all such 

 problems. No people before or since were ever more thought- 

 ful of matters of design in the arrangement of their grounds 

 ^ and the placing of their statuary and buildings to fit the 



slightest bit of unusualness of topography. All this is very 

 different from gardening, and here as in Egypt we note the 

 application of true principles of design. 



