ITALIAN VILLAS 
in the essential convenience and livableness of the gar- 
den, lies the fundamental secret of the old garden-magic. 
However much other factors may contribute to the 
total impression of charm, yet by eliminating them one 
after another, by thinking away the flowers, the sunlight, 
the rich tinting of time, one finds that, underlying all 
these, there is the deeper harmony of design which is 
independent of any adventitious effects. This does not 
imply that a plan of an Italian garden is as beautiful as 
the garden itself. The more permanent materials of 
which the latter is made — the stonework, the evergreen 
foliage, the effects of rushing or motionless water, above 
all the lines of the natural scenery — all form a part of 
the artist’s design. But these things are as beautiful at 
one season as at another ; and even these are but the 
accessories of the fundamental plan. The inherent 
beauty of the garden lies in the grouping of its parts — 
in the converging lines of its long ilex-walks, the alter- 
nation of sunny open spaces with cool woodland shade, 
the proportion between terrace and bowling-green, or 
between the height of a wall and the width of a path. 
None of these details was negligible to the landscape- 
architect of the Renaissance : he considered the distri- 
bution of shade and sunlight, of straight lines of masonry 
and rippled lines of foliage, as carefully as he weighed 
the relation of his whole composition to the scene 
about it. 
Then, again, any one who studies the old Italian 
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