489 
PARK AND CEMETERY. 
examples to be seen in the beautiful 
villas and chateaux of France and 
Italy, which are truly continental. I 
can, however, within the limited space 
at my disposal but cite the best ex- 
amples and draw a few general con- 
clusions from those. 
As above stated, the clearest con- 
ception is to be obtained by tracing 
carefully its growth from the begin- 
ning in ancient Italy. 
One would do well to go back even 
farther than this into the gardens of 
Egypt, Persia, and -Greece and study 
the gradual development up to the 
days where we begin. Suffice to say, 
it is from these countries that the 
art gained its initial inspiration. I 
would therefore first have you study 
with me the great masterpieces re- 
maining to us from the early Chris- 
tian era; such as have been partially 
spared to the present generation in 
varying degrees of preservation. Be- 
ginning with the celebrated gardens 
of Pompeii, o-nce obscurely buried 
RUINS OF OLD WATER ORGAN AT 
VILLA D'ESTE. 
beneath the ashes of Vesuvius in the 
year 79 A. D., but long since brought 
to light through the efforts of the 
Italian Government, and restored 
with all due care, one finds a typical 
garden of ancient Italy. These gar- 
dens, filled with their miniature stat- 
uary and basins, and enclosed by col- 
onnades or porticos, all being beau- 
tifully carved in Italian marble, 
served as the outdoor homes of the 
aristocracy of that small city in those 
ancient days. Here in these small en- 
closed gardens, amply well supplied 
with vines and flowers, the wealthy 
families of Pompeii bathed in the 
sunshine and feasted upon the mural 
paintings surrounding the small rec- 
tangular enclosure. All of these gar- 
dens were on a miniature plan yet 
unquestionably harmonious in every 
detail. They represented the first real 
attempt at gardening which was un- 
dertaken by the wealthy class. 
They are but one type, however, of 
the ancient gardens. There are left 
to us today, two other types widely 
differing in their architectural detail 
and their adaptation of design to the 
specific needs of their creators. These 
are represented in the picturesque 
ruins of the Villa Tiberis situated on 
the summit of the little Island of 
Capri, far out in the beautiful bay of 
Naples; and in the magnificent ■ ruins 
of the wonderful Villa of Hadrian 
situated far across the great expense 
of the Roman Campagna, among the 
Tivoli hills. From the ruins of these 
two equally historic Villas the stu- 
dent sees in the decaying skeletons, 
an Indication of the elaborate detail 
both in the architectural and garden- 
ing sculpture of that period. I re- 
frain from mentioning in detail the 
much-heralded Villas of Pliny at 
Laurentum and at Tusculum for the 
reason that today there remains noth- 
ing on the site of these villas to tell 
the student of their original design. 
It is only from descriptions, and from 
the fine bits of statuary unearthed, 
and now the pride of various Euro- 
pean art galleries, that we can pic- 
ture their once beautiful splendors. 
It is not so with the great Villas of 
Hadrian and of Tiberius, each of 
which at one time was the magnifi- 
cent home of a Roman Emperor. It 
is here that the observer can ponder 
for hours, building in his imagination 
the pictures of beautiful entrance 
courts, stairways, ■ baths, dignified 
marble-faced avenues, Greek theatres, 
and garden courts from the ruins 
scattered on every side. To be sure 
there is at best very limited ruins 
which would give to the student more 
than a real glimpse into the many 
beautiful conceptions of the design 
and sculpture which was the life of 
these gardens. The present genera- 
tion is fortunate in having preserved 
for them even the little which we can 
study in these villas today. 
These great villas are the land- 
marks of Ancient Italy and of the 
Roman Empire. They flourished 
during a period when the Emperors 
ruled supreme and the freedom for 
the exercise of an artistic tempera- 
ment was at its best, with unlimited 
wealth and power at the disposal of 
these men. It was during these early 
centuries that such garden creations 
as those above cited were laid out, 
only to be devastated and robbed of 
their wealth of sculpture in the cen- 
turies of the dark ages that followed, 
when art in all Europe remained 
stagnated. Beginning with the de- 
throning of Augustus as Emperor by 
the Ostrogoths in the fifth centufy 
A. D., the death knell of gardening 
as an art was sounded. From then un- 
til the days of the early Renaissance 
marked by the beginning of the fifteenth 
century, this entire continental country 
was the scene of warfare and invading 
tribes. The constant turmoil between 
the empire and the papacy in the in- 
dividual struggles of each for suprem- 
acy, left deep imprints on the history of 
the country. The invasions of the va- 
rious foreign tribes including the Lom- 
bards, the Franks and many others from 
north of the Alps, not only served to 
strip the country of all artistic tendency 
but removed from those great crea- 
tions of the garden world already ex- 
isting much that was at one time the 
pride of emperors. 
Art, as such, cannot flourish under the 
adverse influences of unsettled social 
conditions ; it is an evidence of prosper- 
ity and social harmony. The only evi- 
dence of the least tendency towards art 
in the gardening world during this long 
period is to be seen in the Monastery 
gardens. This much unsettled condition 
led to the establishment, by little bands 
of people known as monks, a number of 
monastery gardens'. These monasteries 
established by St. Gregory and St. Bene- 
dictine grew through the natural desire 
of certain orders of monks to be away 
from the open exposure to political war- 
fare, and to live in their own communi- 
ties without fear of molestation. Sit- 
uated among the hills of France and 
Germany, and at a later date in the low- 
lands, these self-s'upporting communities 
practiced the art of gardening merely as 
a means of support. .No pretense from 
the standpoint of a decorative art was 
made. While this barren period of gar- 
den history is far from interesting to 
the student as' such, it is a portion which 
bears an important relation to our dis- 
cussion. Society, as such, having been 
demolished, business and commercial in- 
terests remaining unstable, the country 
showed but little evidence of progress. 
Tt seems necessary that we should cite 
this bit of history as a connecting link 
between the decline and the new birth 
of the continental art. Gradually social 
conditions changed, commercial prosper- 
