HISTORY OF GARDEU^ING. 



Part I. 



The Villa Panfdi displays the most, architectural gardens of any about Rome. Here, as Forsyth ob- 

 serves, laurel porticoes of ilex, green scutcheons, and dipt coronets, are seen vegetating over half an acre; 

 theatres of jets d'eau, geometrical terraces, built rocks, and measured cascades. 



^ nu7nber of other villas might be enumerated ; bxit as far as respects gardens, the description, if faithful, 

 might be tiresome and monotonous. Even Eustace allows, that " howsoever Italian gardens may diifcr in 

 extent and magnificence, their principal features are nearly the same ; the same with regard to artificial 

 as well as natural graces. Some ancient remains are to be found in all, and several in most of them. They 

 are all adorned with the same evergreens, and present, upon a greater or less scale, the same Italian and 

 ancient scenery. They are in general much neglected, but for that reason the more ruriil." {Classical 

 Tour, vol. i. chap. 18.) 



85. -At Frascati, Belvidere, a villa of Prince Borghese, commands most glorious pros- 

 pects, and is itself a fine object, from the scenic effect of its front and approaches. Be- 

 hind the palace is an aquatic stream, which flows from Mount Algidus, dashes pre- 

 cipitately down a succession of terraces, and is tormented below into a variety of tricks. 

 The whole court seems alive at the turning of a cock. Water attacks you on every side ; 

 it is squirted in your face from invisible holes ; it darts up in a constellation of jets d'eau ; 

 it returns in misty showers, which present against the sun a beautiful Iris. Water is made 

 to blow the trumpet of a centaur, and the pipe of a Cyclops ; water plays two organs ; 

 makes the birds wai-ble, and the muses tune their leeds ; sets Pegasus neighing, and all 

 Parnassus on music. " I remark," says Forsyth, " this magnificent toy as a speci- 

 men of Italian hydraulics. Its sole object is to surprise strangers, for all the pleasure 

 that its repetitions can impart to the owners is but a faint reflection from the pleasure of 

 others." 



86. At Naples the gardens possess the same general character as those of Rome, though, 

 with the exception of Caserta, they are less magnificent. 



The royal gardens at Porfici are chiefly walled cultivated enclosures, abounding in oranges, figs, and 

 grapes, with straight alleys and wooded quarters entirely for sliade. There is one small department, of a 

 few perches, devoted to the English taste; but it is too small to give any idea of that style. There is also 

 a spot called La Favorita, in which, says Starke {Letters, ii. 125.), the present king has placed swings 

 and wooden horses, or hurly-burlies, (such as are to be seen at our fairs), for his own particular amusement, 

 and that of his nobility. The approach to this garden is through the palace court, great part of which is 

 occupied as a barrack by troops. Tlie filth and stench of this court is incredible; and yet it is overlooked 

 by the windows of the king's dining-room, who sat down to dinner, on his return from the chace, as we 

 passed through the palace on the 2d of August, 1819. We know no scene to which it could be compared, 

 but that of the court of some of the large Russian inns in tlie suburbs of Petersburgh, 



The gardens of Prince Leopold at Villa Franca almost adjoin those of the king. They are less extensive, 

 but kept in much better order by a very intelligent German. The orange-groves anil trellises in both 

 gardens are particularly fine ; and in that of Prince Leo]X)ld, there is a tolerable collection of plants. 

 There is in Naples a royal garden, in the geometric style, combining botany and some specimens of the 

 English rnanntr, which is now enlarging, and has the advantage of an elevated situation and fine marine 

 views. 



The Chiaja is a public garden on the quay, used as a promenade. The outline is a parallelogram, the 

 area arranged in three alleys, with intermediate winding walks, fountains, rock-works, basins, statues, 

 parterres v/ith and without turf, and oranges, flowers, &c. in pots. It is surrounded by a parapet sur- 

 mounted by an iron fence, and contains cassinos for gambling, cafes, baths, taverns, &c. The view to the 

 bay, and the breezes thence arising, are delightful. It is justly reckoned one of the finest walking prome- 

 nades in Italy. 



Extensive gardens of pots and boxes are common on the roofs of the palaces, and other houses in Naples. 

 Viewed from the streets they have a singular effect, and from their beauty and fragrance, from the fresh 

 breezes in these elevated regions, and the comparative absence of that stench with which the lower atmo- 

 sphere of Naples is almost continually charged, they are very agreeable to the possessors. 



87. The royal residence of Caserta is about seventeen miles from Naples. The palace, 

 in which, as Forsyth observes, the late king sought grandeur from every dimension, is 

 situated in an immense plain, and is a quadrangle, the front of which is upwards of seven 

 hundred feet long. It was begun in 1752, roofed in 1757, but is not yet, and probably 

 never will be finished. The park extends from the palace to a range of mountains at two 

 miles distance, some of which it includes. It may be said to consist of four parts ; open 

 pasture, almost without trees, near the palace ; woody scenery, or thick groves and copses, 

 partly near to, but chiefly at a considerable distance from, the palace ; mountainous scenery 

 devoted to game and the chace, at the extreme distance ; and an English garden on one 

 side, skirting the mountains. There are besides, St. Lucio a large village, a silk-manu- 

 factory, a farm, &c.; all of which are described by different tourists ; minutely by Vasi, 

 in his Guide to Naples and its Environs, — and plans of the whole are given by L. Van- 

 vitelli, in his Disegni del Reale Palazzo di Caserta. 



The cascade and canal of Caserta constitute its most remarkable feature, and that which renders this 

 park, in our opinion, the most extraordinary in Europe. The water is begun to be collected above thirty 

 miles' distance among the mountains, and after being conducted to a valley about five miles from Caserta, 

 is carried over it by an aqueduct consisting of three tiers of arches, nearly two hundred feet high, and 

 two thousand feet long. The volume of water is four feet wide by three and a half feet deep, and moves, 

 as near as we could estimate, at the rate of one foot in two seconds. Arrived at the back of the mountain 

 Gazzano, a tunnel is cut through it, and the stream bursting from a cave about half way between the base 

 and the summit, forms a cascade of fifty feet directly in front of the palace. The waters are now in a large 

 basin, from which, under ground, tunnels and pipes proceed on two sides, for the purposes of supplying 

 the lakes or rivers in the English garden, the fish-ponds, various jets d'eau, and for irrigation to maintain 

 the verdure of the turf. From the centre of this basin proceeds a series of alternate canals and cascades of 

 uniform breadth, and in a direct line down the slope of the hill, and along the plain to within a furlong or 

 little more of the palace. Here it terminates abruptly, the waters being conveyed away under ground for 

 other purposes. The effect of this series of canals and cascades, viewed from the garden-jfront of the palace, 

 or from the middle entrance-arch, through that " long obscure portico or arcade which pierces the whole 

 depth of the quadrangle, and acts like the tube of a telescope to the waters," is that of one continued sheet 



