593 
PARK AND CEMETERY. 
HISTORY and GROWTH of LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE 
A Definition and a Brief Resume of Its Past and Present: Presented Before the Congress of 
Technology, by Stephen Child, Landscape Architect and Consulting Engineer, of Boston 
II. Early Italian and Mediaeval Landscape Architecture 
VIEW IN THE VILLA D'ESTE, ITALY. 
In ancient Egypt even, the ar- 
rangement of the grounds about the 
royal palaces and their important 
buildings, while they were distinctly 
temporary in their character and 
have long since been destroyed, are 
well preserved in wall decorations 
and other drawings, showing many 
evidences of thoughtfulness in de- 
sign. These show a distinct effort 
to conform to the existing condition 
of flat topography, fertile soil, ample 
space, and hot, dry climate. Provi- 
sion is made for irrigation, for desir- 
able protecting walls, and there are 
many evidences of the fact that while 
the economic motive may have been 
to a certain extent present, the pri- 
mary one was agreeableness and 
pleasure. There is ample provision 
for shade and for flowers, many of 
which were used in the religious 
ceremonies of those times. There 
were decorative pavilions, painted 
walls, sculptured ornaments, all 
planned for pleasing effects and with 
careful thought as to scale and pro- 
portion. There was no particular 
attempt at symmetry as a whole, but 
in the smaller structure and portions 
of the grounds symmetry is recog- 
nized. Repetition is effectively used' 
and a certain degfee of unity is clear- 
ly noted in many of the drawings. 
What has come down to us in the 
records of Mesapotamia show simi- 
lar thought and study, and here as 
well as in Persia we know not only 
about the famous so-called hanging 
gardens of Babylon, but of great en- 
closed hunting parks arranged with 
a more or less orderly system of 
avenues and paths through them. 
Homer’s famous description of the 
grounds of the Palace of Alcinous 
show how beautiful these must have 
been and how carefully the Greeks 
studied and thought out all such 
problems. No people before or since 
were ever more thoughtful of mat- 
ters of design in the arrangement of 
their grounds and the placing of 
I’LAN OF VII/I.A D’ESTE IN ITAIyY 
