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THE ART OF GARDEN DESIGN IN ITALY 



from neglect, and it is surely not too late to restore to something of its former grandeur a 

 garden which, from its situation, might be made so beautiful. 



At the Palace of Stra, upon the Brenta Canal, between Venice and Padua, there still exist 

 some remnants of a garden famous during the eighteenth century. Built about 1740 for the 

 Pisani family of Verona by Count Frigimelica, it was bought in 1807 by Napoleon I, for Eugene 

 Beauharnais, Viceroy of Italy. De Brosses, in the course of his Italian tour, relates how ' he 



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embarked on the Brenta canal with a contrary wind, which is always the way. The banks along 

 which we sped are bordered with a number of houses belonging to Venetian nobles. The one 



PALACE OF STRA 



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belonging to the Doge Pisani deserves a special description, especially of its garden terrace on 

 the water's edge, in which are two pillars with iron winding staircases outside them, leading to 

 the upper terrace, which crowns the peristyle ; it is admirably designed, and I have heard since 

 that Cardinal de Rohan had a drawing taken of it, in order that he might have a similar building 

 built at Saverne.' The palace is now a national monument, and the gardens are not kept up ; indeed 

 it would be difficult to do so on account of the low-lying and marshy nature of the situation. A 

 fresco in one of the salons shows an interesting view of the original design, from which the garden 

 appears to have been of considerable extent. The * clairvoyee,' shown in the accompanying 



