OF LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTS 41 



which I select almost as a connecting link between the little I have to say of southern 

 gardens and the main part of this paper, which is chiefly devoted to Tuscan gardens. Almost 

 at the entrance of the village of CoIIodi, near Pescia, on the southern slope of a very pictur- 

 esque and wood-covered hill, was built, during the early part of the fifteenth century, 

 the villa of the Marquis Garzoni. The palace is a very plain structure about 200 feet long, 

 but in extremely good taste in its interior construction and decoration, and especially 

 famous for a large collection of antique furniture. The garden was built a long time after- 

 ward by a gentleman of Lucca, by the name of Ottaviano Diodati, who devoted his energies 

 to the art of architecture as a pastime. This gentleman spent a good part of his life at 

 the court of Naples, and was at one time engaged in preparing for Charles Third, King 

 of the Two Sicilies, a drawing for the royal palace at Caserta, which, the chronicles say, 

 was never built for lack of funds! At any rate, Diodati had, in Naples, ample time 

 and opportunity to acquire a taste for exaggeration, as the illustrations, of the Villa 

 Garzoni, will demonstrate to anyone who is familiar with such simple Tuscan villas 

 as Gamberaia, or Petraia, or Castello. The photographs flatten considerably the 

 perspective, and, while this tends to emphasize the point I wish to bring out, I must 

 add that on the ground the work appears more harmonious, especially in the central 

 part. The garden has the general form of an amphitheatre with a double row of ter- 

 races about 300 feet long and 25 feet wide. The center is occupied by three stately 

 flights of double staircases with a grotto between each pair. The lower part of the garden 

 is divided into two equal parts of the same length as the terraces, and about 150 feet wide, 

 forming two levels. One slopes gently from the terraces and is covered with evergreens 

 and beds with the typical designs of the renaissance style; the other is flat and almost 

 entirely devoted to flowers. Two fountains on this lower part of the garden, together 

 with some vases and statues, break the monotony of the ground design. Curious (and 

 made evidently at a much later date) is the topiary work along the hedges that bound 

 three sides of the garden. From the densest part of the wood, overhanging the amphi- 

 theatre and forming the center of the design, a large cascade is built in the form of a stair- 

 case. Water pours from the bugle of a huge statue representing "Fame" about to take 

 her flight through space, placed at the very top and blowing her bugle. Does this not 

 remind one (though, of course, on a much smaller scale) of the exaggerated 

 conception of the cascade of the royal gardens at Caserta? The two have probably no 

 relation to each other, but, in my opinion, the Garzoni cascade, fantastic and attractive 

 as it is, would probably not have found its way through the vine-clad hills of Tuscany had 

 not the architect lived and worked in the excitable land of Vesuvius. 



There are as many diff'erent Italian gardens in my country as there have been artists; 

 they are so different that it is far easier to find similarity in details than in general con- 

 ception. I hope I have made clear the point that each architectural type of garden 

 in Italy is characteristic only of one section of the country, and of the artistic inclinations 

 of its people. 



As a conclusion, therefore, I would say that rather than copy them as a whole or in 

 detail, we should draw a lesson from them — ^an inspiration. Before engaging in a large 

 landscape construction, the architect should make himself thoroughly familiar with the 

 country at large where the estate lies, and with the estate in particular; he should engage 

 himself in that work and in that work alone, giving to it all his best intelligence, his sen- 

 timent, and his energies; trying to conceive something of his own, rather than copying 



