2 68 



THE GARDENS OF ITALY. 



Republic, by which he helped to defend the city during an eleven months' siege. The 

 great brown walls, with one remaining tower, look almost impregnable, and present a curious 

 contrast to the frivolous little garden planted on them a hundred years later. Here we look 

 over the ridge in the opposite direction to all the rest of the grounds, and very lovely the view 

 is, the Apennines from this point taking an exquisite intense blue, like lapis-lazuli, while groups 

 of dark cypresses stand out against the silver foam of the olive gardens. 



At the entrance to the garden is a belvedere, from which we overlook the town. There 

 are few open spaces in these gardens ; the whole consists of a sort of bocage of ilexes, overarching 

 in dense shade, in whose gloom their rich black trunks and branches look almost uncanny. 

 Elsewhere the ilexes are clipped into long green walls in which niches are cut for seats and 

 marble statues. 



A very imposing avenue of tall cypresses leads away from the flower garden to the south- 

 west down a steep hill ; outside it, on either hand, runs a pleached alley of ilexes ; and 



half way down, where it is 

 ^^^^^^ broken by groups of statuary, 

 \ J another very wide allev branches 



M . 



off to right and left, each ending 

 at a fountain. The effect of 

 this avenue, with its dark senti- 

 nels against the blue sky and 

 the glimmering forms of god 

 and goddess, is very grand, 

 and must have been much more 

 harmonious before the broad 

 pathway was vulgarised by 

 gravel. Formerly, of course, 

 it had only a dark, moss-grown 

 road, set across, every yard 

 or so, by a low, transverse bar 

 of grooved grey stone, like one 

 or two which still remain. 



The path sweeps down, 

 and we come to another en- 

 closure, a break as striking as, 



and quite different from, any 

 we have yet seen, illustrating 

 the clever way in which the 

 garden artists of the Renais- 

 sance understood how to space 

 out their ground and how to 

 lead up to surprises. The 

 avenue (Figs. 278 and 279) of 

 approach being so stately 



280. PLAN OF THE ISOLOTTO IN THE BOBOLI GARDENS, PITTI 



PALACE, AT FLORENCE. 



From "Edifices Toscaue." 



some adequate goal was felt to be necessary. This is afforded by a giardino del lago, 

 a miniature lake set in close-cut walls like all the rest, enclosing a fantastically shaped 

 island, an isolotto, in the centre, which is reached by bridges and boats (Figs. 280 to 282). It is 

 all balustraded about and set with pots of lemon trees, and over the whole towers Giorgio 

 Vasari's and Gian Bologna's fountain, a great shallow basin, upon which stands a figure of 

 Oceanus (Fig. 283). A stone pathway with seats at intervals encircles the toy lake. Publicity has 

 well nigh obliterated the charm of the Court garden, but a little of it may still be recalled. 

 The little meadow beyond was once called 1'Ucellaja. and snares used to be set here for 

 catching small birds. 



Ghosts are not common in Italy, but this old pleasure ground is credited with one. Boboli 

 was the name of the owner who cultivated the land and sold it to the Medici. After he had 



