38 TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY 



vailed to this day with the people of Genoa and Lombardy, and the same effects may 

 readily be seen in their modern products of art. Commercialism is everywhere the basis 

 of the work. To please the client's taste, and to make a show of his wealth is the sole object 

 of the artist, who derives large profits from his adulation. 



The Venetian State has had the advantage over the others in giving birth to an 

 architect who may be considered a star of the first class — Palladio. To this man, and 

 to him alone, is due a real type of Venetian conception in architecture, and everyone of 

 you, I feel ^uje, remembers the Palazzo dei Signori and the Villa Giacomelli. Vicenza, 

 Verona, Padua, and Venice have many examples of his work, and the summer country 

 residences for the wealthy Venetians, ancient and modern alike, have all borrowed, 

 more or less, from the beautiful construction of the gardens of Villa Giacomelli 

 at Maser. I should like to consider this villa in detail, as it belonged to my ancestors 

 for centuries, but I cannot stop to enlarge upon it now as I have more important work 

 to consider. 



In Tuscany, we find, in my opinion, th€^ truest exponents of a simple, pure, unpre- 

 tentious, and sincerely inspired architecture, one which I believe worthy of constituting 

 a standard for all those who desire today to engage in the art of gardening. Tuscany forms 

 a curious-enough exception in the world of art. It is a country of self-made people, where 

 everyone, both rich and poor, noble and civilian, educated and ignorant, take, and have 

 always taken, an active interest in art. Its people consider literature, painting, sculpture, 

 music, and architecture as something that cannot be the private property of a few privileged 

 men, but a property that belongs to the world at large and to each of them in particular, 

 Tuscany has never had a nobility of the blood, and its entire history is a history of democ- 

 racy. Especially is this true of Florence; her wealthy merchants, the Pitti, the Strozzi, 

 the Riccardi, the Serristori, and others — all men of considerable taste, and continually 

 thrown into contact with all classes of people on account of the political system of those 

 times, had a staff of artists of all kinds at their permanent service, who lived with them 

 and studied with them the problems they had to solve. The rest of the people were "taken 

 in," so to speak, in this collective work through the nightly discussions at the "Arti" 

 gatherings; or, to use a modern term, at the meetings of the trades-unions of those days. 

 The natural result of such a system is obvious. In the first place, it made possible a homo- 

 geneity of work and, in the second place, the masses of the people were continually being 

 educated and kept in condition to produce new artists at all times. 



Whoever is familiar with Florentine architecture, or the architecture of Pisa, Lucca, 

 and Siena, will undoubtedly recollect the uniformity of style, the simplicity, the lack of 

 pretense, even in such a colossal work as the Pitti Palace. Equally pure in line and sober 

 in ornamentation is the Tuscan art of gardening, although today very few of the old gardens 

 stand as they were originally laid out, many villas having fallen into the hands of foreigners 

 who have introduced "modern improvements" into the old fabrics, and have, more or 

 less, altered the original design. However, the main features of the works still survive 

 to show the conceptions of the different architects. The site for the villa was almost invari- 

 ably selected at the top of a hill or well up its sunny slope, so as to command the largest 

 possible view from every window of the house and from as many points of the garden 

 as its architectural features would allow. This is a very essential point. Water conditions, 

 nature of soil, etc., were, of course, taken into consideration, but were factors quite secondary 

 to the one I have mentioned. Once determined where to build, the next problem to solve 



