DOI Kapitel:
Chap. X: Environs of Florence - The Arno - The Villas of the Grand Duke - Fæsulæ - Vallombrosa
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.62268#0394
384
CLASSICAL TOUR
Ch. x
of art, is always the last quality which it attains.
The ancients had no notion of the species of
garden I am speaking of, as appears from Pliny’s
account of his villas, round which we find xystus
concisus in plurimas species, distinctusque huxo
. . . pulvinus cui bestiarum effigies invicem ad-
ver sas buxus inscripsit ambulatid pressis
varieque tonsis viridibus inclusaC The moderns,
if we may believe Addison, were not ignorant of
it even before his time, as the gardens both in
France and Italy were at that period laid out,
if his description be accurate, in that artificial
rudeness which is now the characteristic feature
of English park scenery.f In fact, this author
himself may justly be considered as the father of
good taste in this respect, as the paper to which
I have alluded, contains the fundamental prin-
ciples of ornamental gardening· as it is now
practised at home, and even on the continent
under the appellation of the English style. How-
ever, if we must give the credit of the invention
to a poet, Tasso is best entitled to it, not only
because he furnished Milton with some of the
leading features of his description; but because
he laid down the very first principle of the art^
* Lib. v. Epist. 6.
f Spect. 414»
CLASSICAL TOUR
Ch. x
of art, is always the last quality which it attains.
The ancients had no notion of the species of
garden I am speaking of, as appears from Pliny’s
account of his villas, round which we find xystus
concisus in plurimas species, distinctusque huxo
. . . pulvinus cui bestiarum effigies invicem ad-
ver sas buxus inscripsit ambulatid pressis
varieque tonsis viridibus inclusaC The moderns,
if we may believe Addison, were not ignorant of
it even before his time, as the gardens both in
France and Italy were at that period laid out,
if his description be accurate, in that artificial
rudeness which is now the characteristic feature
of English park scenery.f In fact, this author
himself may justly be considered as the father of
good taste in this respect, as the paper to which
I have alluded, contains the fundamental prin-
ciples of ornamental gardening· as it is now
practised at home, and even on the continent
under the appellation of the English style. How-
ever, if we must give the credit of the invention
to a poet, Tasso is best entitled to it, not only
because he furnished Milton with some of the
leading features of his description; but because
he laid down the very first principle of the art^
* Lib. v. Epist. 6.
f Spect. 414»