The Italian Formal Garden 



learn from descriptions made familiar in the letters of Cicero 

 and Plinv. These picture extensive domains, terraced, graded, 

 embanked, balustraded, refreshed with fountains, adorned with 

 every kind of edihce for ornament and rest, and beautified with 

 every variety of foliage of trees, vines and shrubs. They pre- 

 sent the counterpart of almost every feature characteristic of 

 the Italian villa gardens of the sixteenth century. How com- 

 plete and perfect the modern reproduction could be is evi- 

 denced by the famous Villa Barberini at Castel Gondolfo, 

 sixteen miles southeast from Rome, which Lanciani considers 

 not only the finest he has ever seen, "but also (to quote his 

 own words) the one which comes nearer than any other to the 

 tvpe of an ancient sitbiirbaniini. ... Its general plan and 

 outline follow preciselv the plan and outline of the glorious 

 villa of Domitian. . . . The ancient ruins, the foundation 

 walls of the huge terraces, the nymphsea and other remains, 

 are so completely concealed and screened by a thick growth 

 of i\'v, ferns and other evergreens, that one feels, more than 

 sees, the antiquity of the place. By a singular coincidence no 

 tree, no shrub, no flower, no bud that is not purely classic 

 seems to be allowed to live in this magnificent domain. Xo 

 flower is allowed to diversify the emerald green of the lawns, 

 except the classic rose and violet, and to make the illusion 

 more perfect, flocks of peacocks have selected the groves of 

 this villa for their abode." '■' The Villa Pia in the \'atican gar- 

 dens is another excellent reproduction in modern dress of the 

 Roman conception of a villa of modest dimensions. Not only 

 in Rome, but scattered also throughout central Italv, and along 

 the Bav of Naples, were innumerable remains of antique villas, 

 overgrown with i\y and weeds, but awaiting only the touch of 

 the artist to bloom anew in fresh loveliness ; their terrace- 

 walls and stairs rebuilt, their water courses and fountains again 

 musical with running water, their thickets trimmed, and flower- 

 beds once more blossoming on their terraced levels. 



These ancient gardens were extremely formal. No plant 

 was allowed to grow uncontrolled. Trees were pruned, clipped, 

 trained and trimmed into the semblance of anv and everv form 

 except that of tree : a species of art called topiary tuork, which 

 was revived in the Renaissance and carried to extremes bv the 

 gardeners of Holland and England in the se\enteenth and 



- Ancient Rome in tiie Light of Recent Excavations, pp. 279-280. 



