HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION 
17 
custom still prevailing in the South of Italy and also in Sicily. In many of the Pompeian wall- 
paintings are representations of roof-gardens, and no doubt such gardens were frequently built by the 
Romans as open-air sitting-out places. When the space permitted, they were laid out with beds of 
flowers, flowering shrubs, and occasionally fruit-trees. The pergola was the great feature in their 
design, and its use has survived to the present day. Sometimes fishponds were constructed, acting 
also as supply tanks to the garden of the atrium beneath. 
After the destruction of Rome, civilisation passed to Byzantium, where the traditions of 
the ancient garden were much modified, though never entirely effaced. The idea of freedom from 
molestation, which was a feature of the Roman 
gardens, was wanting in these gardens, and the 
numerous large villas and palaces were constructed 
rather under the traditions of the East than follow¬ 
ing those of Italy. That is to say, instead of large 
displays of parterre and open space, the tendency 
was more towards enclosing the gardens and making 
them smaller and more retired. But, though it would 
be an interesting study, the scope of this work does 
not permit of our tracing the history of garden design 
in this direction. 
All over the Roman Campagna, in the districts 
around Naples, and other favourite resorts, the huge 
villas and latifundia of the Romans were fortified, 
and frequently became the castles of the barbarian 
conquerors, who very considerably restricted their area, 
allowing to the garden the minimum space required 
for the growth of vegetables and other necessaries of life. During the fifth and sixth centuries 
the Roman Campagna was hardly a secure place to enjoy villa life; for, besides being very 
insecure, it was frequently ravaged by disease, and these difficulties were still further increased by 
insufficient water supply. Though the responsibility for the destruction of the old Roman villas has 
generally been laid at the doors of the barbarian conquerors, it cannot be truthfully said that they- 
were entirely responsible, for in all probability very much of their destruction was due to the 
wholesale way in which the Princes of the Church ransacked their sites again and again during 
the glorious Cinquecento, when Rome was practically destroyed by its own inhabitants. 
During all these dark ages the art of horticulture was only kept from entire degeneration by the 
efforts of the monastic Orders, by whose untiring labours entire regions of Italy, France and Spain 
were fertilised and recovered, after having been abandoned owing to the ravages of Goths and 
Saracens. Amongst the monastic records of the middle ages, frequent traces may be found of the 
important part taken by the monks in keeping alive the best traditions of horticulture, though to such 
D 
