FLORENTINE VILLAS 
country house, which is an expansion of the old farm, 
and stands generally farther out of town, among its 
fields and vineyards — the seat of the country gentleman 
living on his estates. The Italian pleasure-garden did 
not reach its full development till the middle of the six- 
teenth century, and doubtless many of the old Floren- 
tine villas, the semi-castle and the quasi-farm of the 
fourteenth century, stood as they do now, on a bare 
terrace among the vines, with a small walled enclosure 
for the cultivation of herbs and vegetables. But of the 
period in which the garden began to be a studied archi- 
tectural extension of the house, few examples are to be 
found near Florence. 
The most important, if not the most pleasing, of 
Tuscan pleasure-gardens lies, however, within the city 
walls. This is the Boboli garden, laid out on the steep 
hillside behind the Pitti Palace. The plan of the Boboli 
garden is not only magnificent in itself, but interesting 
as one of the rare examples, in Tuscany, of a Renais- 
sance garden still undisturbed in its main outlines. 
Eleonora de’ Medici, who purchased the Pitti Palace in 
1549, soon afterward acquired the neighbouring ground, 
and the garden was laid out by II Tribolo, continued by 
Buontalenti, and completed by Bartolommeo Ammanati, 
to whom is also due the garden facade of the palace. 
The scheme of the garden Is worthy of careful study, 
though in many respects the effect it now produces is 
far less impressive than its designers intended. Prob- 
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