HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION 
21 
place of the walls fruit-trees be planted, if this be the sire’s pleasure. Let them be such trees as 
grow up easily, like cherry-trees or apple-trees. Or else, and it will be better, let them be willow- 
trees or elm-trees. And, both with pruning and with props and poles and twigs, let their growth 
for several years be well looked after, until the branches be turned into walls and roof. But much 
easier and quicker it would be to build the aforesaid pavilion or house of seasoned planks, planting 
the vines round it so as to cover up the whole building. Nay, similar structures of dry wood can 
be made all over the garden for the vines to grow over and cover them; trees also may be turned 
to this use. Much delight will be caused by various and wonderful graftings of trees on trees, which 
art may be easily learned by the diligent cultivator of such a garden. . . . Moreover, let us remember 
that great adornment to such a garden would be given by such trees as are never bared of green 
leaves—pines, cypresses, citrons, palms even, if they can thrive there.' 
In the fourth chapter, Crescenzi treats ‘ of those things which can be built both for pleasure 
and for strength in gardens and in courts.’ ‘Around courts and gardens ornaments can be made 
of green trees trained to look like walls or palisades, or stockades with turrets, in this wise. Having 
perfectly cleaned the banks .... there should be taken willow-trees, or poplars, or olives, and 
planted very deep, a foot or less distant from one another and in a straight line .... When they 
have sprung up, they are cut close to the ground ; and the next year let the shoots be set in line, 
with poles four feet apart from each other: and let them be brought up straight from the ground 
until they have grown eight or ten feet high. When they have reached that height, and become 
somewhat sturdy, they must be cut. And let similar trees in a strip five feet wide be planted near 
this bower at the same time, also ten feet apart; and when they have reached the same height, let 
their branches, with the aid of poles, be bent towards each other and entwined with the neighbouring 
trees, and let this be continued year after year until a strong scaffold of branches be made, strong 
enough to support men safely. Afterwards let the other side of this structure grow up in a wall 
through which holes can be easily cut to imitate battlements. And round such ornament, in the 
corners or wherever else you like, you can even from the beginning plant four trees, and having 
brought them up straight, bend their branches towards each other at a height of about ten feet, 
so as to build a kind of platform or floor; and, having repeated the same thing higher up, let these 
trees be at last bent over at the top like the roofs of houses. Such houses with green columns 
can be very well built either in courts or gardens. 
Upon the walls of the Campo Santo at Pisa, one of the most beautiful burying-places in 
the world, Andrea Orcagna (1315-1368) has painted in fresco a festive company of ladies and gallants 
apparently just returned from the chase. They sit singing and laughing under a group of orange- 
trees upon a raised bank barred and crossed with wood. In the same Campo is Pietro di Puccios 
fresco of the Garden of Eden, with a beautiful hexagonal basin with panels decorated with lion heads ; 
a pillar supporting a vase rises from the water basin, and the water issues through small gargoyles. 
The delightful account with which Boccaccio commences his introduction to the Third Day 
in the ‘ Decameron ’ stands alone as the most fascinating description of a garden of this period. Having 
