The Italian Formal Garden 
passage through underground conduits, in the f orm of cas¬ 
cades, in which its fall is broken again and again by marble 
steps, basins and rockeries, massive cataracts, and lofty jets. 
Ihe roar and agitation of powerful masses of water were rarely 
attempted or desired; they would have been out olf scale, so to 
speak, out of harmony with the refined elegance of the gar¬ 
dens. Great skill and taste were evinced in the d<esign of the 
architectural and sculptural elements of these water works, 
which display generally the same sense of proportion and 
scale that has been already referred to, and there is often a 
touch of the grotesque, of humor and exaggeration in the 
accompanying sculpture, which like that of some o>f the statues 
on the terraces, enlivens the scene with a su ggestion of 
comedy. 
Three typical examples of the handling of tlhe water are 
furnished by the Villas Lante at Bagnaia and d’Estte at Tivoli, 
and the palace gardens at Caserta. In the first-naimed, largely 
Florence 
“THROWN UP IN SMALL JETS IT IS POURED FROM BASIN TO BASilN ” 
The Boboli Gardens 
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