Book I. 



GARDENING IN ITALY. 



17 



cellai. They were in the geometric and architectural taste of those of Pliny, and served 

 as models or precedents for other fannous gardens which succeeded them till within tlio 

 last sixty years, when, as Eustace observes, a mixture of the modern or natural-like 

 manner was generally admitted. 



73. The taste for distributing statues and urns in gardens is said to have been revived 

 about the beginning of the sixteenth century by Cardinal D'Este, from the accidental 

 circumstance of his having formed a villa on the site of that of the emperor Adrian, 

 near Rome, where finding a number of antiquities, he distributed them over the newly 

 arranged surface. Tliis mode was soon imitated by Francis I. of France, and afterwards 

 by tlie other countries of Europe. Gardens of plants in pots and vases, began to be 

 introduced about the same time, and were used to decorate apartments, balconies, and 

 roofs of houses as at present. 



74. About the end of the sixteenth century, the celebrated Montaigne travelled in Italy, 

 and has left us some accounts of the principal gardens of that age. He chiefly enlarges 

 on their curious h5'draulic devices, for which tlie garden of the Cardinal de Ferrara at 

 Tivoli was remarkable. {Jour, en Ital. torn, ii.) 



75. About the beginning of the seventeenth century, i' Adamo, a poem, was written and 

 published at Milan in 1617, by G. B. Andi-eini, a Florentine. Tiie prints, Warton 

 observes, [Essay on Pope,) tliat are to represent paradise are full of dipt hedges, square 

 parterres, straight walks, trees uniformly lopt, regular knots and carpets of flowers, groves 

 nodding at groves, marble fountains, and water-works. Tliis may be considered as a poetic 

 assemblage of the component parts of a fine Italian garden in the seventeenth century. 



76. After the middle of the seventeenth century, the celebrated Evelyn, the author of 

 Sylva, visited Italy, and has described a nmnber of its principal gardens. 



At Genoa he saw the palace of Ilierov.ymo del Negro, " on the terrace or hilly garden, there is a grove of 

 stately trees, amoig which are sheep, shepherds, and wild beasts, cut very artificially in a grey stone ; 

 fountains, rocks, and fish-ponds. Casting your eyes one waj^, you would imagine yourself i« a wilder- 

 ness and silent country j sideways, in the heart of a great city." 



At and near Florence, he says, there are more than a thousand palaces, and country-houses of note. 

 He particularises those of Boboli at the ducal residence (now the palace Pitti), in the town, which stitl 

 exist and are kept in tolerable order. 



In and near Rome, he mentions those of the Borghese family, and of Cardinal Aldobrandini at Frascati, 

 " surpassing, in my opinion, the most delicious places I ever beheld for its situation, elegance, plentiful 

 waters, groves, ascents, and prospects." He admires several hydraulic conceits, some of which still exist, 

 and also that " of a copper ball, supported by a jet of air issuing from the floor, and continually 

 dancing about." 



At Tivoli he visited the palace and gardens of Este, v^rhich are mentioned with similar encomiums. 



Of the palaces and gardens of Lombardy, he observes, " No disgrace in this country to be some gener- 

 ations in finishing their palaces, that, without exhausting themselves by a vast expence at once, they may 

 at last erect a sumptuous pile." " An Italian nobleman," Forsyth remarks, " will live on a crown a day, 

 but spend millions for the benefit of posterity, and the ornament of his country." 



At Vilmarini, near Vicenza, he found an orangery, " eleven score paces long, full of fruit and blossoms. 

 In the centre of the garden, a magnificent wire cupola, supported by slender brick piers, and richly covered 

 with ivy. — A most inextricable labyrinth." {Memoirs by Bray, vol. i. 75 — 207.) 



77. In the beginning f the eighteenth centxiry Italy was visited by Volkman, a German 

 traveller, whom Hirschfield considers as deserving credit, and a good judge. He repre- 

 sents the Italian gardens as inferior to those of France in point of superb alleys, lofty dipt 

 hedges, and cabinets of verdure ; but, he adds, that they please the greater part of tra- 

 vellers from the nortii of Europe, more than the French gardens, from the greater variety 

 of plants wliich they contain, and their almost perpetual luxuriance and verdure. 

 Among the fine gardens, he includes those of Venerie, StupigJii, and Fig7ie de la Reijie, 

 near Turin, which do not appear to have been visited by Evelyn. The beauties of most 

 of the gardens near Rome, he considers as depending more on their situations, distant 

 views, classic remains and associations, luxuriant vegetation, and fine climate, than on 

 their design, which, he says, exhibits " all the puerilities of the French taste, without its 

 formal grandeur." (Nackrichten von Italien, 1 ster band.) 



78. About the middle of the eighteenth century the English style of gardening began to 

 attract attention in Italy, though partly from the general stagnation of mind, and partly 

 from the abundance of natural beauty already existing, it has never rrjade much progress 

 in that country. " Unfortunately," observes Eustace {Tour, i. 426.), a traveller abun- 

 dantly partial to Italy, " the modern Romans, like the continental nations in general, are 

 not partial to country residence. They may enjoy the description or commend the 

 representation of rural scenes and occupations in books and pictures ; but they feel not 

 the beauties of nature, and cannot relish the calm, the solitary charms of a country life." 

 The Italians in general, he elsewhere adds (i. 98.), have very little taste in furnishing a 

 house, or in laying out grounds ta advantage.' — Notwithstanding these remarks, and the 

 known paucity of specimens of landscape gardening in Italy, an Italian author of 

 eminence. Professor Malacarne of Padua, has lately claimed for Charles Imanuel, first 

 Duke of Savoy, the honor of having invented and first displayed an English garden or 

 park in the neighbourhood of Turin ; and which park he proves by a letter of Tasso, 

 that iK>et wished to immortalise " as much as he could," in the well-known stanza of his 

 Jerusalem, which Chaucer copied, and which Warton and Eustace suggest as more 



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