PREFACE 
* 
N continuation of the scheme commenced some few years since by the publi¬ 
cation of my work on Formal Gardens in England and Scotland, and 
encouraged by the large measure of popularity accorded to it, I now venture 
to bring before the public a further volume devoted to the Art of Garden 
Design in Italy, treating the subject upon very similar lines to my former 
volume. 
Giovanni Falda’s interesting series of Roman Gardens, published in the 
middle of the seventeenth century, was the earliest work to be produced dealing exclusively with 
garden design, but it was not until the beginning of the nineteenth century, when Percier and 
Fontaine published their book, that any attempt was made to bring together a collection of 
garden plans. This work still remains the finest production dealing with Italian garden design, 
but the villas it illustrates are entirely confined to the neighbourhood of Rome, and moreover the 
work is now very costly and rarely to be met with. Besides the volume of Percier and Fontaine, 
many interesting books have appeared, especially during the last few years. These for the most 
part deal with the subject from its more pictorial point of view; but a very interesting series of 
papers, recently contributed to the ‘ Century Magazine ’ by Edith Wharton, contain much valuable 
criticism. 
Gardens can hardly be judged by pictures and photographs alone, and it is essential that 
these should be supplemented by a survey drawn to scale; it is hardly possible to form a 
correct judgment unless the two are consulted together, and without the information which a 
plan gives it is difficult to grasp the conditions under which the designer worked. With this 
end in view, I have, therefore, engaged in the production of the present work, hoping that it may 
add materially to the study of garden design, and, perhaps, give others something of the pleasure 
it has afforded me. 
To Italy the designers of gardens have always looked for inspiration. The marvels of the 
classic villas described by Pliny, Martial and others, though they may have been occasionally 
surpassed in extent by later creations, have never been equalled in the lavish beauty of their 
architectural adornment. In the golden age of the Renaissance, designers, often building upon 
the very site of these ancient splendours, carried the art of gardenage many steps forward ; the 
gardens portrayed by Boccaccio, and suggested by Crescenzi, were frequently the creations of 
a 
