36 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



From the ruins of these two equally historic Villas the student sees 

 in the decaying skeletons, an indication of the elaborate detail both 

 in the architectural and gardening sculpture of that period. I 

 refrain from mentioning in detail the much-heralded Villas of 

 Pliny at Laurentum and at Tusculum for the reason that today 

 there remains nothing on the site of these villas to tell the student 

 of their original design. It is only from descriptions, and from 

 the fine bits of statuary unearthed, and now the pride of various 

 European art galleries that we can picture their once beautiful 

 splendors. It is not so with the great Villas of Hadrian and of 

 Tiberus, each of which at one time was the magnificent home of a 

 Roman Emperor. It is here that the observer can ponder for hours, 

 building in his imagination the pictures of beautiful entrance courts, 

 stairways, baths, dignified marble-faced avenues, Greek theaters, 

 and garden courts from the ruins scattered on every side. To be 

 sure there is at best very limited ruins which would give to the 

 student more than a real glimpse into the many beautiful concep- 

 tions of the design and sculpture which was the life of these gardens. 

 The present generation is fortunate in having preserved for them 

 even the little which we can study in these villas today. 



These great villas are the landmarks of Ancient Italy and of the 

 Roman Empire. They flourished during a period when the 

 Emperors ruled supreme and the freedom for the exercise of an 

 artistic temperament was at its best, with unlimited wealth and 

 power at the disposal of these men. It was during these early 

 centuries that such garden creations as those above cited were laid 

 out, only to be devastated and robbed of their wealth of sculpture 

 in the centuries of the dark ages that followed, when art in all 

 Europe remained stagnated. Beginning with the dethroning of 

 Augustus as Emperor by the Ostrogoths in the fifth century A. D., 

 the death knell of gardening as an art was sounded. From then 

 until the days of the early Renaissance marked by the beginning of 

 the fifteenth century, this entire continental country was the scene 

 of warfare and invading tribes. The constant turmoil between 

 the empire and the papacy in the individual struggles of each for 

 supremacy, left deep imprints on the history of the country. The 

 invasions of the various foreign tribes including the Lombards, the 

 Franks and many others from north of the Alps, not only served to 



