CASA DEL BALCONE PENSILE 



It would be outside the province of this book to attempt to trace the 

 history of gardening from its beginnings. Homer, Solomon, and many 

 other writers of antiquity have left us more or less scant references to 

 the gardens of their day. All these references have a strong similarity ; 

 Homer's poetical description of the gardens of Alcinous would fit equally 

 well many a garden in the East even at the present day : "... without 

 the courtyard hard by the door is a great garden, of four plough-gates, 

 and a hedge runs round on either side. And there grow tall trees 

 blossoming, pear-trees and pomegranates, and apple-trees with bright 

 fruit, and sweet figs, and olives in their bloom. . . . There too hath he 

 a fruitful vineyard planted. . . . There, too, skirting the furthest line, 

 are all manner of garden beds, planted trimly, that are perpetually fresh, 

 and therein are two fountains of water, whereof one scatters his streams 

 all about the garden, and the other runs over against it beneath the 

 threshold of the courtyard, and issues by the lofty house, and thence did 

 the townsfolk draw water." ^ 



It was from the Greeks that the Romans chiefly learnt the art of 

 gardening, as they learnt many another art. In the austere days of the 

 Republic, when the Roman thought it no disgrace to cultivate his own 

 land, his garden was of the simplest description, being little more in fact 

 than a kitchen-garden, and flowers, if he cultivated them at all, were 

 represented by some half-dozen kinds only. By degrees, however, the 

 simpler villa rustica, or farm-house, gave place to the villa urbana or villa 

 pseudo-urbana. The latter, built purely for pleasure, was not only more 

 commodious than the town house, but in addition gained the advantage 



