25 
February, 1921 
AN ITALIAN 
GARDEN OF CONTENT 
Behind the Villa San Martino Is a Little Walled-in Space from Which 
We in America Can Draw Lessons for Our Own Gardens 
H. D. EBERLEIN & ROBERT B. C. M. CARRERE 
T HIS title may, at first glance, 
seem whimsical. It is not. 
On the contrary, it is alto¬ 
gether logical and truly indicative 
of the ensuing purport. What fol¬ 
lows is especially intended for the 
many who are confronted with the 
problem of making the most out of 
a limited garden space. 
To be explicit, the little garden 
of content referred to is the garden 
of the Villa San Martino, near 
Florence, and a careful study of its 
character and arrangement will 
supply more than one suggestion 
that may profitably be put into ef¬ 
fect by architects and garden mak¬ 
ers in America. The area of the 
garden is 99' 6" by 90' 6”. On the 
north side it is bounded by the 
villa itself; on the south by the 
lemon house, which serves a multi¬ 
plicity of other purposes as well; 
on the east and west it is bounded 
by walls which separate it from 
farming land, on the one hand, and 
from the vegetable garden on the 
other. It is thus wholly enclosed. 
The walls all round are about 14' 
high. 
On the north side the villa gives 
complete shelter. This barrier and 
the walls on the east and west suf¬ 
fice to keep off all chill winds of 
autumn, winter and spring and give 
full play to the sun, whose warmth 
is thus conserved. The high wall 
of the lemon house along the whole 
southern boundary yields ample 
protection to shade-loving plants, even during 
the heat of summer. The scheme of arrange¬ 
ment in this way provides a suitable place where 
any sort of plant that will grow in the latitude 
of Florence can find congenial conditions. 
A Symmetrical Design 
In its general plan the garden is symmetrical 
—one could scarcely call it “formal in the 
usual acceptation of that term—being cut into 
four approximately equal parts by two axes. 
These two axes are the two main walks which 
intersect at the center of the area and run re¬ 
spectively north and south, and east and west. 
Four other walks, around the four sides of the 
garden, frame in the whole composition and 
clearly define the subdivision of the plot into 
four principal sections. These four chief parts 
of the layout, although they conform in out¬ 
line to the general symmetry of plan, disclose 
a wide diversity in their individual internal 
arrangement. Taken all together, they embody 
what might be styled the principle of “infor¬ 
mal formality.” 
The northwestern section (one of 
the two nearest the house) is cut 
into by a tile-paved terrace (fig. 10 
on plan, page 68), shaded by a 
wistaria arbor. Low stuccoed walls 
enclose the angle of this terrace, 
and the portion of the wall facing 
the soutli affords a suitable back¬ 
ground to an architectural pump 
which masquerades as a fountain— 
the pump handle is ingeniously 
concealed behind the wall—and 
also supplies a warmth-reflect¬ 
ing back to a raised bed for 
seedlings. This bed is walled and 
is raised about 2)4' above the 
ground. The subdivisions of this 
section are arranged according to 
utilitarian convenience. The other 
three sections, although each dis¬ 
plays a different plan, maintain a 
more regular aspect. As central 
features of the two southern sec¬ 
tions there are circular plantings, 
indicated by figures 11 and 12 on 
the plan. On axis with 11 and 12 
are four palmetto trees, indicated 
by foliage like rays of a starfish. 
Trellis and Walks 
At the eastern end of the broad 
walk before the house, and in a 
measure balancing the tile-paved 
terrace with its wistaria arbor at 
the opposite end, is a trellis covered 
by a grape-vine (figure 4). 
The broad walk or terrace (fig¬ 
ure 1) in front of the house, upon 
which the doors and full-length windows di¬ 
rectly open, is paved with gravel, as are also 
all the other walks. The broad central walk 
(10' wide) running north and south, from the 
house at one end to the lemon house and gate¬ 
way into the orchard at the other, is graced at 
its intersection with the east and west path 
(6' wide) by a little well (figure 3) with a 
stone curb and an iron railing. 
The small circles on the plan shown sur¬ 
rounding the well, along the middle of the 
north and south walk, and in other parts of 
the garden also, indicate potted plants which 
the gardener disposes at discretion, in rows or 
in irregular groups, according to variations in 
exposure or conditions of bloom and the mass¬ 
ing of color. Those familiar with Italian gar¬ 
dens know how fond Italian gardeners are of 
this pot grouping and what pleasing effects 
they produce by it. The large circles, whether 
in the beds or on the walks, indicate lemon 
trees in large red earthen pots, some of which 
are 3' in diameter. These potted trees, of 
course, are stationary during warm weather, 
(Continued on page 66) 
It is a completely enclosed garden. At the 
west end oj the crosswise walk a little gate 
in the wall leads to the vegetable garden 
The villa with its flower-hung walls closes the garden on the north, a 
superb background for the planting as one sees it on passing through 
the gate into the lemon house archway 
