GARDENS OF FLORENTINE HUMANISTS 



cultivation. On the other side, the great pleasures of 

 these countries are coolness of air and whatever looks 

 cool even to the eyes, and relieves them from the 

 unpleasant sight of dusty streets and parched fields. 

 This makes the gardens of those countries to be 

 chiefly valued by largeness of extent, which gives 

 greater play and openness of air, by shades of trees, by 

 frequency of living streams or fountains, by perspectives, 

 by statues, and by pillars and obelisks of stone, 

 scattered up and down, which all conspire to make any 

 place look fresh and cool. We, on the contrary, are 

 careless of shade and seldom curious in fountains. 

 Good statues are in the reach of few men, and common 

 ones are greatly despised and neglected." l 



Shade, no doubt, was one of the chief require- 

 ments of Italian gardens. A wood was always 

 planted near the house, and ilex-groves and tunnels 

 of pleached and knotted trees afforded a soft twilight 

 on blazing August days. The perennial verdure of 

 cypress and pine, ilex and box was invaluable in the 

 winter months, while in spring and summer it formed 

 a pleasant contrast to the lighter foliage of elm and 

 plane, of orange and citron trees. Grottoes, with 

 marble basins, in which the water trickled over beds 

 of moss and maidenhair, supplied a cool retreat in 

 the hot season, and were prominent features in the 

 ducal gardens of Castello and Boboli. The pleasant 

 sound of falling water and murmuring streams was 

 1 Temple, Works, iii. 217. 

 2 5 



