ITALIAN VILLAS 
delicately carved entablature, while a double flight of 
steps encloses this central composition. Niches with 
statues and marble seats also adorn the lateral walls of" 
the gardens, and on the upper terrace is a long tank or 
canal, flanked by clipped shrubs and statues. Thence 
an inclined path leads to a rusticated temple with co- 
lonnes torses , and statues in niches above fluted basins 
into which water once flowed ; and beyond this there is 
a winding ascent to the grove which crowns the hill. 
All the architectural details of the garden are remark- 
able for a classical purity and refinement, except the 
rusticated temple, of which the fantastic columns are 
carved to resemble tree-trunks. This may be of later 
date ; but if contemporary, its baroque style was prob- 
ably intended to mark the transition from the formality 
of the lower gardens to the rustic character of the natu- 
ralistic landscape above — to form, in fact, a gate from 
the garden to the park. 
The end of the sixteenth century saw this gradual 
recognition of nature, and adoption of her forms, in the 
architecture and sculpture of the Italian pleasure-house, 
and more especially in those outlying constructions 
which connected the formal and the sylvan portions of 
the grounds. “In mid-Renaissance garden-architecture,” 
as Herr Tuckermann puts it, “ the relation between art 
and landscape is reversed. Previously the garden had 
had to adapt itself to architecture ; now architectural 
forms are forced into a resemblance with nature.” 
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