1 \TR()I)l CTORY. 



1 1 . GANYMEDE : BOBOLI GARDENS. 



and from the confusion 

 of modes has arisen that 

 variety which, under the 

 guise of the " English or 

 natural garden," has 

 wrought so much havoc 

 among the old villa 

 gardens of Italy. It is 

 mrdless to elaborate the 

 point here, for, indeed, 

 too much has already been 

 written on the subject. 

 Except in so far as the 

 " English garden ' is a 

 r e a c t i o n against the 

 crudities of the later 

 barocco, with its theatrical 

 and false naturalism, it is 

 unlikely that a school so 

 out of touch with archi- 

 tecture can ever find a permanent home in Italy. At present some Italians who have not 

 thought much on the subject are misled by the idea that the English garden stands for 

 Nature, and is thereby in some mysterious way freer and better than Art. Inasmuch as nature, 

 however, does not rain down houses ready fitted to selected beauty spots, it is obvious that by 

 no reasoning can we eliminate the art of man. The capital defect of the natural school lies 

 precisely in this, that it provides no setting for the indispensable house. To be complete in 

 its logic according to the natural scheme the house should be built on the cut-and-cover 

 principle, and then by a boulder-strewn gorge the natural man might emerge after the manner 

 of a rabbit. At present this school has got no further in this direction than a futile drapery 

 of creepers, as though a house were a clothes horse for damp greenery. The hillsides, lake 

 shores and boundless plains of Italy will always compel a " lay-out " of the garden area around 

 the house in accordance with its architecture and the dictates of a traditional good taste. 



Relations between 

 Italy and England, always 

 constant and cordial, have 

 had their periods of closer 

 contact at certain 

 memorable epochs. 

 Passing over the earlier 

 ages with a brief 

 reminiscence of Abbot 

 Ware's visit to Rome in 

 1260, which gave us in 

 Westminster Abbey, the 

 Opus Alexandrinum pave- 

 ment and tombs with 

 inlays of Roman Cosmati 

 we come direct to Shute's 

 famous visit in 1550. We 

 know that the first English 

 work on architecture, the 

 First and Chief Groundes, 



published 1563, has left J2 . SARCOPHAGUS AS A WATER TROUGH, 



its mark on the design of FRASCATI. 



VILLA BORGHESE, 



