Remodeling .an Old Italian Garden in the Eighteenth Century 
REMODELING AN OLD ITALIAN 
GARDEN IN THE MGHTEENTH 
CENTURY. 
TRANSLATED FROM THE ITALIAN. 
n his hook entitled Vecchie dtorie, Signor 
Pompeo Molmenti has given a few short 
extracts from a letter to His Excellency the 
Cavaliere Daniele Andrea Dolphin, Venetian 
Ambassador to the Court of Erance from 
1780 to 1786. Luigi Ballerini, a general 
agent and superintendent, informs his em¬ 
ployer of the various details of the work in 
the garden of the Villa Mincana, 1 in the 
Padovano, near Venice. 
The Cavaliere must have been very enthu¬ 
siastic over the new ideas as to gardens, to 
have ordered such extensive changes in his 
own at a time when he had been absent for 
three years and was to remain away for yet 
three more. Perhaps he wished to astonish 
and outshine his neighbors, and be the first 
to start the new fashion at home while he 
was still at the fountain-head of innovation 
and could send complete plans and descrip¬ 
tions in order to have it all ready to enjoy 
on his return. 
Taste in the arrangement of gardens was 
as much influenced by the new ideas of the 
latter part of the eighteenth century as were 
the habits and manner of living. The frivo¬ 
lous, pleasure-loving Queen of France, was 
eager in the pursuit of novelty of every kind, 
and cared little for what was destroyed could 
she only succeed in escaping even the ap¬ 
pearance of restraint, etiquette and formality. 
The old theory that an architectural setting 
with a geometrical plan, long straight lines of 
clipped trees and regular flower beds was 
necessary to give a house a natural appear¬ 
ance and make a suitable transition between 
it and the surrounding landscape, was one of 
the first to be attacked under the new order 
of things. Formality of any kind was a 
thing of the past. What was then known 
as the English garden with its grove-like 
appearance, winding paths and irregular 
stretches of lawn lent itself beautifully to 
the new ideas. In the very first year of 
1 Whether Mincana exists at the present day is unknown to the 
translator. The illustrations for this article were taken from Venetian 
villas built about the same period as Mincana and are merely used to 
show the architectural style of the seventeenth century. 
her reign, Marie Antoinette asked for and 
obtained the gift of the Little Trianon and 
ordered plans for substituting a more mod¬ 
ern garden in the new fashion, in place of 
the formal and botanical ones then surround¬ 
ing the small palace. 
The Comte de Caraman had planted an 
English garden at Roissy which was greatly 
talked about in the fashionable world and 
also a charming one behind his hotel in the 
Rue St. Dominique, Paris. The Queen 
actually visited the latter before finally decid¬ 
ing to destroy the old Trianon gardens. 
Drawings made by the Comte were accepted, 
but were altered a few years later by the 
architect Mique. Work began at once but 
did not progress rapidly owing to the lack of 
funds. The more serious alterations were 
only begun in 1779, while the Belvedere was 
not finished until 1781 and the Swiss Hamlet 
and Marlborough’s 'Power not until the 
summer of 1783. The Ambassador Dolphin 
was in Paris during the three years of active 
work and could hardly avoid becoming 
enthusiastic and wishing to try some innova¬ 
tion and imitation in Italy when the young 
and attractive Queen was eagerlv enjoying 
the novelty and freedom of the recently dis¬ 
covered pleasures of outdoor life and com¬ 
panionship with nature in her many forms. 
It is curious however, to see that in spite of 
ordering his garden to be reconstructed, the 
Ambassador could not entirely divest him¬ 
self of the older and more formal Italian 
ideas. He commanded an E.nglish park that 
“succeeded wonderfully,” irregular groves, 
running streams, artificial rocks and mounts; 
but the old-fashioned quadrangular ground- 
plan was left untouched and clipped hedges 
with niches for statues were replanted, while 
there was at least one avenue which provided 
a vista, even though it had an artificial rock 
at the end. But the letter describes it all 
very distinctly : 
Mincana, April 28, 1783. 
“The garden is all upside down with the 
work on the fountains and is levelled off in 
accordance with the designs, so the jets 
of water towering above everything can now 
be seen with much greater pleasure. Some 
irregularities that were defects in the paths 
have been removed; the hedges are growing 
much stronger and this year the arches of 
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