DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16632#0238
The Italian Renaissance and Baroque
209
with great plausibility may be set down to Alberti. This is at Villa Quaracchi, the country
house of Giovanni Rucellai, a rich Florentine merchant for whom Alberti acted as
architect and friend. Commissioned by Rucellai, he made the plans for the facade of Santa
Maria Novella at Florence, the palace in the Via della Vigna (opposite the so-called Loggia
dei Rucellai), which "outside Florence, on the right of the road that leads to Pistoia, is
a great palace with trenches for water and beautiful gardens." As Alberti held staunchly
to his main principle that an architect is only the designer and not the builder, and
accordingly made nothing but plans, it is difficult to be quite certain about his works;
but we are fully justified in saying that this villa and garden appear to be the true child
of his genius.
We can see a portrait bust of Giovanni Rucellai in the Kaiser-Friedrich Museum,
an intelligent, somewhat pensive head, showing a curious mixture of kindliness and strength.
An unwelcome time of leisure, caused by the plague in 1459, was the occasion for his
beginning a kind of diary. In this little book, "which contained something of everything,"
he set down important family events, mercantile news, philosophical and moral remarks,
and poetry, and also talked of "all the beautiful and attractive parts of his garden."
Owing to the superabundance of these, it is not very easy to get a picture of the complete
plan. The pergolas are the most striking feature, three of them passing right through the
garden, the length of which is a hundred ells (arms, braccia). These pergolas supply the
necessary shade on the paths, and are sometimes of a barrel-like form, as in the chief
avenue, and cut out of evergreen oaks, sometimes clipped to a point. The open paths
have lattice-work on either side, with fine vines trained on it and white roses between,
"which when they are in flower are so lovely that no pen can give the sense of joy
and peace that the eye receives."
The chief pergola starts from the front door, and has a small loggia above it; it
has sidewalks on either hand, and breast-high espaliers of box, over which the arms of
the family and their relatives are placed as an ornament in a festoon. At the end 01
this pergola there is another door leading into a little walled-in garden which includes
a small meadow: here we find terra-cotta vases and perhaps beds, with pots set all round,
which contain Damascus violets, marjoram, basil, and many other sweet-smelling herbs.
Here also there are hedges of box cut into divers shapes which we shall speak of later—
especially one fine round bush made into steps, the peculiar joy and pride of a garden
at that date. In the same line as the chief pergola there runs perfectly straight on the
farther side of this procinto a continuation which takes the form of an avenue of lofty
trees and wild vines reaching all the way to the Arno, a distance of 160 ells. The master,
dining at his table in the chief hall, was able to see the vessels passing by.
The house, whose situation on level and healthy ground is insisted upon, would also
(as Alberti, the designer, desired) be set on a gently rising eminence. The mam garden,
however, was mostly orchard, with a wide hedge round it, composed of laurel, plum,
juniper, and various clipped shrubs. It had plenty of seats in it, and there was a pretty,
neatly kept footpath. Inside this hedge there was a great variety of fruit-trees, some
foreign and rare; among them was a sycamore of which Rucellai was particularly proud,
and which he may have brought home from an expedition to Palestine. There was a rose-
garden within the same hedge, and close to the pergola a tangle of rose and honeysuckle
round a circular stone, one arbour of firs and laurels, and another of honeysuckle. The
209
with great plausibility may be set down to Alberti. This is at Villa Quaracchi, the country
house of Giovanni Rucellai, a rich Florentine merchant for whom Alberti acted as
architect and friend. Commissioned by Rucellai, he made the plans for the facade of Santa
Maria Novella at Florence, the palace in the Via della Vigna (opposite the so-called Loggia
dei Rucellai), which "outside Florence, on the right of the road that leads to Pistoia, is
a great palace with trenches for water and beautiful gardens." As Alberti held staunchly
to his main principle that an architect is only the designer and not the builder, and
accordingly made nothing but plans, it is difficult to be quite certain about his works;
but we are fully justified in saying that this villa and garden appear to be the true child
of his genius.
We can see a portrait bust of Giovanni Rucellai in the Kaiser-Friedrich Museum,
an intelligent, somewhat pensive head, showing a curious mixture of kindliness and strength.
An unwelcome time of leisure, caused by the plague in 1459, was the occasion for his
beginning a kind of diary. In this little book, "which contained something of everything,"
he set down important family events, mercantile news, philosophical and moral remarks,
and poetry, and also talked of "all the beautiful and attractive parts of his garden."
Owing to the superabundance of these, it is not very easy to get a picture of the complete
plan. The pergolas are the most striking feature, three of them passing right through the
garden, the length of which is a hundred ells (arms, braccia). These pergolas supply the
necessary shade on the paths, and are sometimes of a barrel-like form, as in the chief
avenue, and cut out of evergreen oaks, sometimes clipped to a point. The open paths
have lattice-work on either side, with fine vines trained on it and white roses between,
"which when they are in flower are so lovely that no pen can give the sense of joy
and peace that the eye receives."
The chief pergola starts from the front door, and has a small loggia above it; it
has sidewalks on either hand, and breast-high espaliers of box, over which the arms of
the family and their relatives are placed as an ornament in a festoon. At the end 01
this pergola there is another door leading into a little walled-in garden which includes
a small meadow: here we find terra-cotta vases and perhaps beds, with pots set all round,
which contain Damascus violets, marjoram, basil, and many other sweet-smelling herbs.
Here also there are hedges of box cut into divers shapes which we shall speak of later—
especially one fine round bush made into steps, the peculiar joy and pride of a garden
at that date. In the same line as the chief pergola there runs perfectly straight on the
farther side of this procinto a continuation which takes the form of an avenue of lofty
trees and wild vines reaching all the way to the Arno, a distance of 160 ells. The master,
dining at his table in the chief hall, was able to see the vessels passing by.
The house, whose situation on level and healthy ground is insisted upon, would also
(as Alberti, the designer, desired) be set on a gently rising eminence. The mam garden,
however, was mostly orchard, with a wide hedge round it, composed of laurel, plum,
juniper, and various clipped shrubs. It had plenty of seats in it, and there was a pretty,
neatly kept footpath. Inside this hedge there was a great variety of fruit-trees, some
foreign and rare; among them was a sycamore of which Rucellai was particularly proud,
and which he may have brought home from an expedition to Palestine. There was a rose-
garden within the same hedge, and close to the pergola a tangle of rose and honeysuckle
round a circular stone, one arbour of firs and laurels, and another of honeysuckle. The