PARK AND CEMETERY. 
518 
STUDY OF CONTINENTAL LANDSCAPE GARDENING 
An address by Albert D. Taylor before the Massachusetts 
Horticultural Society, with Stereopticon Illustrations. 
[Concluded) 
BAUMGARTEN AT STRASSBOURG; PHOTOS BY A. D. TAYLOR. 
We have now reached in our discus- 
sion that which appeals to me as being 
the real heart of continental garden- 
ing — in Italy, at least — and perhaps 
throughout Europe. This is a study 
of the gardens of the great Italian 
Renaissance. The student finds here a 
group of villas possessing a series of 
characteristics peculiar to this period. 
The ever dominating and foremost 
principle on which the design of these 
great villas is based is that, as the 
house is designed for its various uses, 
with its numerous subdivisions, fulfill- 
ing different requirements, so should 
the garden be divided into its differ- 
ent parts for the enjoyment of the oc- 
cupants of the building. Thus one finds 
a principle which is a keynote of the 
design at this time. There does not 
exist, however, any strong similarity of 
design in any two of these gardens. 
Each garden in itself is quite different 
from the preceding. Water, statuary, 
and certain types of vegetation are the 
ever-present features ; but the careful 
observer is always conscious of the 
guiding influence of a master hand 
that has by ceaseless study created 
something which, though bubbling with 
grandeur and elaborateness of detail, is 
fully in harmony with its specific loca- 
tion and with its surrounding landscape. 
This fact has always impressed the 
writer, namely, that in all of these cele- 
brated villas, with few exceptions, the 
most careful thought and the best ef- 
forts of great artists and sculptors have 
been given to the general design of the 
garden and to the refined character of 
the statuary throughout, often to the ap- 
parent sacrifice of many architectural 
details concerned with the building it- 
self. The best talent in Europe was 
devoting itself to this work. Such ex- 
ponents of the art as Bernini, Bramante, 
Bounalesci, Michael Angelo, and Vig- 
nola are associated with the best works 
of the high Renaissance. Can one then 
be surprised at the degree of perfection 
attained in even the very minor details? 
The gardens of Italy, dependent first 
upon their design, are quite different 
from what many believe and picture 
them to be. These much-heralded old 
villas are not rich in their abundance 
of flowers ; they are not virtual para- 
dises on earth filled with vines and the 
beautiful flowering plants so common 
to the American garden. They rather 
may be described as wonderfully in- 
genious designs enhanced with an 
abundance of running water and statu- 
ary, the whole framed with a simple 
but dignified planting of trees and 
shrubs. They are designed with the 
idea that they may be gardens to look 
into and to look out from. An excel- 
lent illustration of the former is the 
Villa Lante, and of the latter is the 
Villa D’Este overlooking the Cam- 
pagna. 
As the Renaissance reached its height 
at the close of the 16th and the begin- 
ning of the 17th centuries, the spirit 
of the gardening art changed ver\- 
much. Gradually the influence of the 
Baroque period made itself felt, and the 
decline from the refined to the grotesque 
became very marked. An excellent ex- 
ample of this is seen in a careful study 
of the old Villa D’Este at Tivoli. Here 
at every turn the observer is confronted 
by these ambitious designs executed in 
plaster and stucco, and intended to con- 
vey the idea seen in the refined stat- 
uary of such gardens as those at the 
Villa Lante and the Boboli Palace. 
This tendency marked the rapid de- 
cline of the most fruitful period in the 
history of continental gardening, a pe- 
riod the influence of which has been 
felt, I might say, throughout the en- 
tire world. The gardens of these cele- 
brated villas of Italy may be summar- 
ized in a few words ; 
1. The dominating influence is the 
presence of an admirably adapted de 
sign set off with a great variety of 
BEAUTIFUL ENGLISH HAMLET AND PARK IN ONE CORNER OP THE 
TRIANON GARDENS AT VERSAILLES. 
