38 
THE ART OF GARDEN DESIGN IN ITALY 
commenced by Cardinal Ruffini; it was one of the most charming creations of Francesco 
Borromini (1599-1667), who was such a fine exponent of the baroque architecture and the 
architect of the Barberini Palace in Rome. 
About the beginning of the seventeenth century, ‘ L’ Adamo,’ a poem, was written and 
published in Milan by G. B. Andreini, a Florentine. The prints that are to represent Paradise 
are full of clipped hedges, square parterres, straight walks, trees uniformly lopped, regular knots 
and carpets of flowers, groves nodding at groves, marble fountains and waterworks. This may 
be considered as a poetic assemblage of the component parts of a fine Italian garden of the 
seventeenth century. 1 
Falda’s interesting work on the Roman gardens 2 first appeared in 1655, and gives us a 
very valuable record of most of the principal gardens as they appeared at this date. Several of 
the plates are reproduced in this work. 
In 1678 Le Notre obtained permission from Louis XIV. to travel in Italy in order to gain 
new ideas, and first betook himself to Rome; here he was cordially received at the Vatican; 
Pope Innocent IX. accorded him a special audience, and was shown the plans of Versailles, much 
to his admiration. There is a story that Le Notre was employed to lay out the park of the 
Villa Pamphilj on the occasion of this visit, but there is no evidence in proof of this statement. 
His visit was entirely devoted to study, and is interesting on this account, showing as it does 
how the greatest master of French garden design, when getting on in life, still drew inspiration 
from Italian models. 
As the eighteenth century advanced, garden architecture grew more rococo in character, 
and, under the influence of French landscape gardeners, became much more elaborate, in an 
attempt to imitate the ‘grand manner’ of Le Notre. A glance at the engravings in Da Costa’s 
‘ Le Delizie del Fiume Brenta,’ shows how much French taste pervaded the villa design. This 
book contains an admirable series of the country villas of the Venetian nobility, spread all along 
the banks of the Brenta. Many of these villas still remain, though unfortunately all their old 
gardens have disappeared. The influence of French taste was felt especially in the northern parts 
of Italy, on the Italian lakes around Varese, Milan, and Turin. There is an interesting work 
which was published at Milan in 1743 dealing with the villas in the neighbourhood of Milan. 3 
Here we find very many views of the principal gardens of this district. The one at Castellazzo 
illustrated on Plate 14 was one of the largest and most famous of these gardens, and very 
distinctly shows the influence of Le Notre in every part. The day had passed when Europe sought 
its models from Italy, and henceforth for a few generations France became the centre of fashion. 
But this French influence was not destined to last very long, and in its turn gave place 
to the introduction of the landscape garden from England, and this influence has become so 
deeply rooted that it will probably be many years before it is likely to be eradicated. In a 
1 Loudon’s History of Gardening. 2 Li Giardini di Roma, da Giovanni Falda, 1655. 
3 Dal Re, Ville di Delizia di Milano, Milano, 1743. 
