Book I. 



GARDENING IN ITALY. 



fruit gardens, orangeries, and hot-houses, are all gootl, and as well managed as the penuriousness of the 

 present vice-king will admit. Very fine avenues lead from this residence to Milan. The whole was begun 

 m Beauharnois' time, under the direction of Sig. Villaresi, one of the most scientific gardeners in Italy, 

 and is still managed under his direction, but with greatly diminished resources. 



There are various gardens jjointed out to strangers as English, veramente Ltglese, near Milan, and also 

 at Verona, Vicenza, Brescia, Porta, &c. ; and Buonaparte caused a small public garden to be made in 

 Venice. " In many of the villas on the lake of Como," Wilson observes, " it is most delightful to behold 

 the lofty crags frowning over the liighly cultivated gardens, v/itli hot-houses of exotic plants, neat terraces, 

 aJid ornamental summer-houses, subduing the natural wildness of the situation." Most of those which 

 we visited were too much ornamented, and too full of walks, seats, arbors, and other ornaments, for that 

 rejjose and simplicity which, according to our ideas, is essential to an English garden. Art, in most of 

 these gardens, is as much avowed as in the French style; whereas, in the true English garden, though art 

 is employed, yet it is not avowed and ostentatiously displayed ; on the contrary, the grand object is to fol- 

 low the directions of the Italians themselves, and study that the art " cite tuttofa, nulla n scopre." 



83. At Florence, the ducal gardens of Boboli are the most remarkable. They oc- 

 cupy two sides of a conical hill, and part of a bottom, and consist of three parts ; a 

 botanic and exotic garden close to the palace Pitti and tlte celebrated museum ; a kitchen- 

 garden, near the hill top ; and, a geometric garden which occupies the greater part cf 

 the hill. The scene abounds in almost every ingredient of the style in which it is 

 laid out. The ground being very steep, almost all the walks slope considerably ; but a 



, few, conducted horizontally, are level, and serve, if the expression be admissible, as rest- 

 ing v/alks. There are abundance of scats, arbors, vases, planted with agaves and 

 orange-trees ; and a prospect tower on the summit, from which, as well as from many 

 other points, are obtained fine views of Florence and the environs. In the lower part or 

 bottom is a handsome basin of water, with'^an island and fountains in the centre, verged 

 with a marble parapet ornamented with vases of orange-trees, and surrounded by 

 shorn hedges and statues. On the whole, nothing has been spared to render these gardens 

 complete of their kind, and the effect is perhaps as perfect as the situation, from its irre- 

 gularity and steepness, admits of. Tlie public promenade to the Cassino, deserves notice 

 as among the best in Italy. It consists of shady avenues, extending for several miles on 

 a flat surface near the Arno, varied by occasional views of villas and distant scenery. 

 The trees are chiefly elms and chestnuts. There are numerous private gardens round 

 Florence, but none of them rejnarkable. The fortuitous scenery of Vallombrosa and 

 other romantic situations, are the grand attractions for strangers. On mount Fiesol« 

 and thence to Bologna, are some country-seats witii lodges, and winding approaches, 

 which, considering the arid soil, are highly beautiful, and come the nearest to those 

 of England of any in the warmer regions of Italy. The Tuscans, Sigisraondi ob- 

 serves {Agr. Tosc), are the more to be condemned for having neglected gardening, since 

 their countryman, Proposto Lastri, has rendered De Lille's poem in Italian in a style 

 equal to the original. But the gens d leiir aise, and the nobles, he says, have no love of 

 rural nature, and only come into the country after vintage to shoot for a few days, and 

 indulge in feasting. They come in large parties with their ladies, and in a few weeks 

 expend what they have been niggardly laying aside during the rest of the year. He men- 

 tions the Chevalier Forti at Chiari, and Sig. Falconcini at Ceretto, as having delightful 

 gardens ; adding that the country-seats of the Luquois are in the best taste of any in Italy. 



84. The villas of Rome, Forsyth observes, are to this day the " ocelli Italia;." Their 

 cassinos generally stand to advantage in the park, light, gay, airy, and fanciful. In the 

 ancient villas the buildings were low, lax, diffused, and detached. In the modern, they 

 are more compact, more commodious, and rise into several stories. In both, the gardens 

 betray the same taste for the unnatural, the same symmetry of plan, architectural groves, 

 devices cut in box, and tricks performed by the hydraulic organ. [Rem. on Italy, 173.) 

 A few cardinals, he elsewhere observes, created all the great villas of Rome. Their riches, 

 their taste, their learning, their leisure, their frugality, — all conspired in this single 

 object. While the eminent founder was squandering thousands on a statue, he would 

 allot but one crown for his own dinner. He had no children, no stud, no dogs to keep ; he 

 built indeed for his own pleasure, or for the admiration of others ; but he embellished 

 his country, he promoted the resort of rich foreigners, and he afforded them a high intel- 

 lectual treat for a few pauls, which never entered into his pocket. This taste generally 

 descends to his heirs, who mark their little reigns by successive additions to the stock. 

 How seldom are great fortunes spent so elegantly in England ! How many are absorbed 

 in the table, the field, or the turf! Expenses which centre and end in the rich egotist 

 himself ! What English villa is open like the Borghese, as a common drive to the whole 

 metropolis? {Rem. on Italy, 216.) 



The Villa Borghese is the most noted in the neighbourhood of Rome. It has a variety of surface 

 formed by two hills and a dell, and a variety of embellishments, cassinos, temples, grottoes, aviaries, 

 modern ruins, sculptured fountains, a crowd of statues, a lake, an aqueduct, a circus ; but it wants the 

 more beautiful variety of an English garden ; for here you must walk in right lines, and turn, at right 

 angles, fatigued with the monotony of eternal ilex.. {Remarks, 8ic. 216.) Eustace says these gardens are 

 laid out with some regard both for the new and the old system, because winding walks are to be found 

 intersecting the long alleys. This is true ; but the whole is so frittered down by roads, walks, paths, and 

 alleys, and so studded with statues and objects of art, as to want that repose, simplicity, and massive 

 appearance, essential, at least, to an Englishman's idea of an English garden. Simplicity, however, is 

 a beauty less relished among the nations of the continent than in this country, and less relished by the 

 Italians than by any other continental nation. 



