Untrotwction 7 



"My villa is so advantageously situated that it 

 commands a full view of all the country round, yet 

 you approach it by so insensible a rise that you find 

 yourself upon an eminence without perceiving you 

 ascended." 1 



Quoting from a letter of Apollinaris translated by 

 Sir Henry Wotton the following words are used : 



"First I must note a certain contrariety between 

 building and gardening for as Fabrics should be 

 regular so Gardens should be irregular, or at least 

 cast in a very wild regularity. To exemplify my 

 conceit I have seen a garden in a manner, perhaps, 

 incomparable. The first access was by a walk like a 

 Terrace from whence might be taken a general view 

 of the whole plot below; but rather in a delightful 

 confusion than with any plain distinction of the 

 pieces. From this the beholder descending many 

 steps was afterwards conveyed again by several 

 mountings and valings to various entertainments of 

 his sent and sight, which I shall not need to describe 

 for that were poetical, let me note this, that everyone 

 of these diversities was as if he had been magically 

 transported into a new garden." 



Down through the middle ages the classical or Roman 

 spirit of formality dominates everything that can be 

 possibly termed landscape gardening until the arrival of 

 its late Renaissance in the seventeenth century. 



1 Pliny the Younger. 



