THE HISTORY OF GARDEN-MAKING 



were bordered with roses and edged with box, and in the spaces 

 between were all sorts of devices cut in box, and here and there 

 obelisks or fruit-trees. Besides the trees and plants the garden 

 abounded in architectural features — here an alcove of white marble 

 draped with vines, there a summer-house with fountains and marble 

 seats, and all about basins and streams of water, partly for ornament 

 and partly for purposes of irrigation. Nothing was forgotten which 

 could add to its beauty or increase its interest to the lover of nature. 

 Yet it may be questioned whether Pliny's gardens were not 

 equalled, or perhaps surpassed, by those of other Romans who 

 shared his tastes. The representations which have been preserved 

 of gardens of this date, and the descriptions which have been lett by 

 post-Augustan writers, prove that the formal planning of pleasure 

 grounds, adorned with fountains, vases, statues, and other architec- 

 tural additions, was extensively carried out wherever space permitted, 

 and that in addition to formal planning a very definite formality was 

 observed in the treatment of accessory details. The topiarius, who 

 clipped trees into fantastic shapes, was much in request, and his 

 work found ready acceptance among the Romans who had a mind 

 to possess gardens which would be in the fashion of the period. A 

 set and deliberate ordering of all the parts of the garden plan and 

 a careful observance of accepted principles of design were recognised 

 as essential, while within the limits which fashion imposed there was 

 ample scope for the exercise of very pleasant fancy and very varied 

 contrivance. 



These Roman gardens are of particular interest because to them can 

 be partly traced the origin of garden-making on formal lines in 

 England. The gardeners of the Italian Renaissance modelled 

 themselves upon their Roman predecessors, and re-introduced the 

 clipped trees and the other architectural and semi-architectural 

 features which had been so much in vogue centuries before. They 

 sought to revive the dignity and classic grace of the earlier work, 

 and to link up, by a certain continuity of methods, their practice 

 with that of the past. The atmosphere they desired to create was 

 that of studied elegance, severely perfect, and at the same time 

 sumptuous and restrained, the atmosphere which makes itself felt in 

 Hawthorne's description of the Medici Gardens : — " They are laid 

 out in the old fashion of straight paths, with borders of box, which 

 form hedges of great height and density, and are shorn and trimmed 

 to the evenness of a wall of stone at the top and sides. There 

 are green alleys with long vistas, overshadowed by ilex trees ; and 

 at each intersection of the paths the visitor finds seats of lichen- 



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