A GARDEN IN VENICE 



palaces or Scottish castles, and charming as are 

 cut yews or box trees in their proper places, as 

 illustrations in Country Life so often show us, we 

 thought it as out of character to dump them down 

 in the Giudecca, and to trace winding paths in a 

 Venetian orchard, as it would be to set an up-to- 

 date water-colour in a Sansovino frame, or a 

 Titian in a modern one. 



The universal measure that rules at Venice is 

 the square, and the square is never square. The 

 houses and palaces were built along the banks 

 following the devious course of the canals. The 

 Grand Canal is a letter S writ large. The founda- 

 tions of the buildings were laid on upright piles 

 driven some forty feet deep along the margins ; 

 the frontage was square, more or less, as the curve 

 of the bank where the palace rose was slight or 

 rapid. The building itself ran as squarely back- 

 wards as the square of its neighbours on either 

 side permitted, and to attain the utmost cubic 

 space that he could on his expensive foundation 

 the builder designed a square that is seldom as 

 equilateral as it looks. 



d 25 



