8o 



THE ART OF GARDEN DESIGN IN ITALY 



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fountains, which are to be met with in nearly every old Italian garden, also served the very 

 useful purpose of keeping the hot, parched stonework occasionally moist, and in the case of 

 grottos, where they are more usually found, they imparted a coolness to these retreats that was 

 all the more grateful in the scorching heat of the summer sun. Upon either side of the garden 

 are the large ' stanzoni/ with exquisitely modelled terminals of pheasants and other game 

 birds, a few of which have found their way to the Museum of the Bargello in Florence. This 

 love of representing animal life, which was so great a feature of the Renaissance, and which 

 probably arose from the general interest in strange beasts from descriptions brought home by 

 travellers, is further evinced in the central grotto under the great terrace, which is decorated with 

 masks, scrolls, baskets of flowers, and arabesques done in different coloured shells. In the 

 recesses are nearly life-sized animals : here a camel with a monkey on its back, there a 

 unicorn, a wild boar, ram, lion, bear, hounds, and smaller creatures, carved in happy confusion 



from a variety of marbles 

 to correspond, as far as may 



be, with the colours of the 

 animals portrayed. Animals 

 are gathered here from all 

 quarters of the globe by an 

 artist who was certainly ac- 

 curate in many of his re- 

 presentations. Several of 

 the animals, as the stag and 

 the ram, have real horns, 

 and the boar has real tusks 

 in his mouth ; which serves to enhance the illusion. On either side of the grotto are large 

 sarcophagi or baths with all sorts of shell-fish and tangles of shells, crabs, and crayfish sculptured 

 on their sides. This grotto is perhaps the finest of its kind in Italy, and was designed by 

 II Tribolo. As Mrs. Wharton has remarked, the general use of the grotto in Italian gardens is 

 a natural development of the need for shade and coolness, and when the long disused waterworks 

 were playing and cool streams gushed over quivering beds of fern into the marble tanks, these 

 retreats must have formed a delicious contrast to the outer glare of the garden.^ 



• - Two stairways at either end of the orange garden lead to the terrace above, with its far- 

 reaching view over the valley of the Arno ; here are the remains of the labyrinth described by 

 Vasari in his Life of II Tribolo, some fine ilex and cypress trees, and a large reservoir of cool 

 emerald-green water, with an island in the centre on which crouches a colossal figure of the 

 Apennines, also said to be by II Tribolo. Near by is the old-world gardener's house, with 

 typical Tuscan oil-mill. 



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^ Italian Villas and their Gardens. By Edith Wharton. London 1904, 



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TERRACOTTA GIARDINIERE. 



VILLA*DI'CASTELLO 





