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30 THE ART OF GARDEN DESIGN IN ITALY 
One of the greatest among the villa architects of the sixteenth century was Vignola. His 
masterpiece is the palace of Caprarola, near Viterbo, standing backed by a chestnut wood, looking 
down from its high platform upon the roofs of the little town clustered below. The palace was 
built for the Farnese family. It is approached by a magnificent stairway, and surrounded by a 
moat. The plan is in the form of a pentagon, enclosing a circular court; each of the five sides 
measures 130 feet and the circular court is 65 feet in diameter. According to Fergusson, the object 
of adopting the form here used was to give it a fortified or castellated appearance, as most citadels 
of that age were pentagons, and this palace is accordingly furnished with small sham bastions at 
each angle, which are supposed to suggest the idea of defensibility. 
Besides Caprarola, Vignola built the Villa di Papa Giulio outside the Porta Romana at 
Rome, and transformed the Palatine slopes into the sumptuous Farnese gardens. The Villa Lante 
at Bagnaia is also believed to have been designed by him. 
The garden scheme at Caprarola was a stupendous undertaking. Round four angles of the 
five-sided palace stretches a broad raised walk, whence one looks sheer down into the moat far below. 
Two of the sides of the pentagon were occupied by quadrangular gardens, joined together by a 
smarr CASINO at tf»> PALACE Of CAPRAROLA. 
