October 30, 1889.] 



Garden and Forest. 



519 



practiced, and, in some cases, a regular jiini^Ic of miserable 

 specimens was the result. 



In the Venice market, one much cleaner, more spacious and 

 better arranged than those of some larger cities, fungi, of spe- 

 cies and genera eaten elsewhere by only a few enthusiastic 

 fungophagists, were offered in quantity, each seller exhibiting 

 a stamped official certificate of the day's date to the effect that 

 his fungi were wholesome and that he was authorized to sell 

 them. Many Cucurbits, never grown in Great Britain as arti- 

 cles of food, were here, such as Hercules' Club {Lagenaria 

 gigantea), the Bottle Gourd [Lagenaria vulgaris), Momordica 

 Char an till, spiny and green outside, bright red within ; and 

 perhaps Pumpkins should also be included in this category. 

 Of this last named vegetable quite a bewildering variety in 

 color, form and size -were offered for sale. Baked pumpkin 

 formed the whole stock in trade of many ])eripatetic mer- 

 chants, and so did boiled sweet potatoes. Figs of exxellent 

 quality were abundant at a penny per pound, good apples 

 brought the same price, and peaclies, in enormous quantities, 

 were offered at threepence per pound. Pungent green (unripe) 

 capsicums and yellow sweet ones were marked a penny a 

 pound, and shelled haricot beans, in variety, at low prices. 

 Aubergines, pomegranates, with branchlets attached, the fruits 

 of the Service tree [Pyrus Sorbits) and watermelons complete 

 the list of fruits. Excellent vegetables were plentiful, endives 

 showing remarkably good cultivation. Celery was, however, 

 quite green. Apparently not the slightest attempt is made to 



blanch it. ^ ,,. , , 



Kew. George Nicholson. 



The Art of Gardening — An Historical Sketch. 



XII. — Roman Countr3'-Seats. 



All 7 HEN we pass from the Imperial City and its suburbs to 

 * • the covmtry-seats of its wealthy citizens, we find some- 

 thing radically novel and national. All communities had pos- 

 sessed sacred groves and small gardens of utility and 

 ornament. The Phoenicians had dwelt in suburban villas. 

 The Persians had created wide semi-natural parks, and the 

 Greeks had owned urljan pleasure-grounds, most splendidly 

 developed, in such late colonies as Alexandria. But in the 

 latter days of Rome, private citizens seem first to have estab- 

 lished themselves in numbers in distant country-seats, marked 

 by an almost impossible luxury in the way of architectural and 

 of natural or semi-natural beauty. Here, once more, we read 

 in the history of gardening a reflex of the social conditions of 

 the place and time. Rome's unprecedented power, gained 

 while the Republic still existed, had brought enormous piles of 

 gold into private coffers, and wealth, authority and travel had 

 united to develop intelligence and taste. Then, when political 

 changes put imperial masters over those who had ruled them- 

 selves, they were more and more strongly impelled to flee 

 from the coiu't where their minds and tongues were fettered ; 

 where their conscience was perpetually outraged, and where 

 their bodies were often in danger, too. It was frequently the 

 part of wisdom to seek retirement in the country ; and we can 

 easily see how its attractions must have perpetually appealed 

 to highly cultivated men, not yet weaned from ideas of free- 

 dom, and able to surround themselves, in the heart of Tus- 

 cany or by the shores of Como, with all the comfort and splen- 

 dor of Rome itself. 



Fortunately, detailed descriptions of some of these great 

 Roman country-seats have come down to us from the pens of 

 their enthusiastic owners. In a letter to Gallus, Pliny, the 

 younger, speaks of his villa at Laurentinum, on the sea-coast, 

 seventeen miles from Rome, portraying its position close to 

 the water; its little garden with I3ox-hedges, patched with Rose- 

 mary where the salt air had killed the Box ; its tennis-court ; 

 its long pergola, with a sanded path, so smooth that one might 

 walk upon it barefoot; its isolated banqueting-room above the 

 shore, and its Fig and Mulberry trees. 



But he paints a much more splendid picture when, writing 

 to Apollinaris, he describes his larger estate in Tuscany. It 

 lay at a "great distance from the sea, under one of the Apen- 

 nine mountains." The climate was so cold in winter that 

 Myrtles and Olives would not flourish; but the summers were 

 "exceedingly temperate." The view is dwelt upon at length, 

 with its distant mountains in forest, and its nearer fertile little 

 hills, its plains covered with vineyards, " terminated by a bor- 

 der, as it were, of shrubs," its "never-failing rills," and the 

 infant Tiber traversing the plain. The house need not be de- 

 scribed. Its principal front looked full south, and was adorned 

 with a spacious portico. " In thefrontof the portico is a sort of 

 terrace, embellished with various figures, and bounded with 

 a Box-hedge, from whence you descend by an easy slope, 



adorned with the representation (jf divers animals in Box, 

 answering alternately to each other, into a lawn over- 

 shadowed with the soft, I had almost said, liquid Acanthus. 

 This is sm-rounded by a walk enclosed with tensile ever- 

 greens, shaped into a variety of forms. Beyond it is the 

 Gestatlo, laid out in the form of a circus, ornamented in 

 the middle with Box cut in numberless ditTerent figures, to- 

 gether with a plantation of shrubs, prevented by the shears 

 from running up too high. The whole is fenced in with a 

 wall covered by I3ox, rising by step-like ranges to the top. On 

 the outside of the wall lies a meadow, which owes as many 

 beauties to Nature as all I have described within does to art, 

 at the end of which are several other meadows and fields in- 

 terspersed with thickets." The dining-room was at one extrem- 

 ity of the terrace, commanding a beautiful outlook. Near it 

 stood a small isolated structure shaded by four Plane trees, in 

 the middle of whicli rose a fountain with a marble basin, the 

 overflowing waters from which kept the Planes and the lawn 

 fresh and green. This building contained a private dining- 

 room and bed-chamber, and was faced by another portico, 

 another little room, lavishly adorned, and another fountain. 

 After describing other portions of the house — private rooms, 

 hot and cold and tepid baths and enclosed porticoes, one " re- 

 sembling a grotto " — Pliny says : "In front of these agreeable 

 buildings lies a very spacious hippodrome,* entirely open in 

 the middle, by which means the eye, upon your first entrance, 

 takes in its whole extent at one view. It is encompassed on 

 every side with Plane trees covered with Ivy, so that while 

 their heads flourish with their own green, their bodies enjoy a 

 borrowed verdure ; and thus the Ivy twining round the trunk 

 and branches, spreads from tree to tree and connects them 

 together. Between each Plane tree are planted Box trees, and 

 behind these Bay trees, which blend their shade with that of 

 the Planes. This plantation, forming a straight boundary on 

 both sides of the hippodrome, bends at the farther end into a 

 semi-circle, which, being set round and sheltered with Cypress 

 trees, varies the prospect and casts a deep and gloomy shade, 

 M'hile the inward circular walks (for there are several), enjoy- 

 ing an open exposure, are perfumed with Roses, and correct, 

 by a very pleasant contrast, the coolness of the shade with the 

 warmth of the sun. Having passed through these several 

 winding alleys you enter a straight walk, which breaks out into 

 a variety of others, divided off by Box-hedges. In one place 

 you have a little meadow ; in another, the Box is cut into a 

 thousand different forms — sometunes into letters, expressing 

 the name of the master, sometimes that of the artificer, while 

 here and there little obelisks rise intermixed alternately with 

 fruit trees ; when on a sudden, in the midst of this elegant 

 regularity, you are surprised with an imitation of the negligent 

 beauties of rural nature, in the centre of which lies a spot sur- 

 rounded with a knot of dwarf Plane trees. Beyond these is a 

 walk interspersed with the smooth and twining Acanthus, 

 where the trees are also cut into a variety of names and shapes. 

 At the upper end is an alcove of white marble shaded with 

 vines, supported by four small Carystan pillars. From this 

 bench the water, gushing through several little pipes as if it 

 were pressed out by the weight of the persons who repose 

 themselves upon it, falls into a stone cistern underneath, from 

 whence it is received into a fine polished marble basin, so art- 

 fully contrived, that it is always full without overflowing. When 

 I sup here this basin serves as a table, the larger sort of dishes 

 being placed round the margin while the smaller ones swim 

 about in the form of little vessels and water-fowl. Correspond- 

 ing to this is a fountain which is incessantly emptying and fill- 

 ing ; for tlie water, which it throws up a great height, falling 

 back again into it, is, by means of two openings, returned as 

 fast as it is received. Fronting the alcove (and which reflects 

 as great an ornament to it as it borrows from it) stands a sum- 

 mer house of exquisite marble, whose doors project and open 

 into a green enclosure, as from its upper and lower windows 

 the eye is presented with a variety of different verdures. Next 

 to this is a little private closet (which, though it seems dis- 

 tinct, may be laid into the same room), furnisiied with a couch, 

 and, notwithstanding it has windows on every side, yet it en- 

 joys a very agreeable gloominess by means of a spreading 

 vine which climbs to the top and entirely overshades it. Here 

 you may He and fancy yourself in a wood, with this difference 

 only, that _\-ou are not exposed to the weather. In this place, 

 also, a fountain rises and disappears ; in different quarters are 

 disposed several marlile seats, which serve no less than the 

 summer-house as so many reliefs after one is wearied with 

 walking. Near each seat is a little fountain, and throughout 

 the whole hippodrome several small rills rvm wheresoever the 



* Circus and hipfiojroiiic have not in these descrintions their primitive C.reeU 

 meaning, but denote ornamental spaces, surrounded by walks or drives. 



