DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16632#0251
222
History of Garden Art
The ruins of ancient sculptures had quite a different bearing for the garden. Such
objects were continually coming to light out of the rubbish heap, and soon there were
so many of them that the houses could no longer contain them all. Presently the idea
came that they would make suitable ornaments for a garden. At the beginning of the
fifteenth century the first timid attempts were made to put them there. Learned men
and artists first created garden museums. The humanist Poggio relates how he set up
antique statues in the little garden that he laid out about 1483 at his own villa in Terra
Nuova, and how his friends, the other speakers in the dialogue De Nobilitate, laughed
heartily at him. He had put up these marble statues, they said, instead of his beggarly
ancestors to give an appearance of nobility. Proudly did the great humanist take up the
jest: he had won his nobility, he said, by finding and collecting antique remains. But
what was now criticised as a novelty, and was scarcely to be found in gardens of the middle
of the century, was destined to become a universal custom, as the soils of Italy and Greece
delivered up ever more and more of their buried treasures. Poggio's things passed into the
Medicean collection, and (together with another of Niccolo Niccoli and certain acquisi-
tions of Cosimo's) laid the foundation of that enormous collection of art treasures.
Cosimo himself was already putting antiques in his gardens: there was a Marsyas at the
door of his palace at Florence. Lorenzo put up a casino, and laid out gardens on the
Piazza San Marco, where later his second wife would sit when she was a widow. Here,
we are told, "in loggia, in private rooms, and in the garden arbours" he set out his
antiques, and established a drawing school, wherein Michael Angelo learned the art of
sculpture from the study of these ancient statues.
The works of Mantegna, which Lorenzo thought worthy of a visit in 1487, also
belonged to these early collections, and enjoyed a great reputation. The beautiful round
court at Mantegna's house in Mantua, now poorly preserved, had niches where the artist
liked to set up his well-beloved treasures. Bembo also, rather later, after his separation
from Leo X., made a garden at Padua, where the summer-house served as a studio; and
round about it among espaliers of lemons and oranges of various unusual kinds he set up
his collection of antique statues.
Rome, comparatively late in developing the new form of gardens, was also behind
Florence in ornamenting her gardens with statues. It was the man who made Rome's
future, and stood on the very threshold of the new city, Pope Julius II., who set the finest
example. Already as cardinal he had vied with the Medici in collecting statues, which he
placed in the garden at the great Penitentiary at S. Pietro in Vinculi. When he became
Pope, he transferred them to the Vatican, and placed them in the court of Innocent VIII.,
undoubtedly the Belvedere, and thereby laid the foundation of what is probably the most
important collection in the world. The court was at that time for practical purposes greater
than it is now, for the corridors and corner rooms where the statues are had not then
been made. In the vast space there was a garden, which the ambassadors from Venice,
who were left there for a while in 1523, described in glowing colours (Fig. 159). "At
the end of the loggia" (the present Chiaramonte), they say, "one steps into a very lovely
garden, one half of which is full of bright flowers and laurels, mulberries and cypresses,
and the other half paved with square terra-cotta tiles. At each corner stands a fine orange-
tree, and there are a great many of these, all in excellent order."
Nothing but the Belvedere can be meant, for this alone lies at the end of the loggia,
History of Garden Art
The ruins of ancient sculptures had quite a different bearing for the garden. Such
objects were continually coming to light out of the rubbish heap, and soon there were
so many of them that the houses could no longer contain them all. Presently the idea
came that they would make suitable ornaments for a garden. At the beginning of the
fifteenth century the first timid attempts were made to put them there. Learned men
and artists first created garden museums. The humanist Poggio relates how he set up
antique statues in the little garden that he laid out about 1483 at his own villa in Terra
Nuova, and how his friends, the other speakers in the dialogue De Nobilitate, laughed
heartily at him. He had put up these marble statues, they said, instead of his beggarly
ancestors to give an appearance of nobility. Proudly did the great humanist take up the
jest: he had won his nobility, he said, by finding and collecting antique remains. But
what was now criticised as a novelty, and was scarcely to be found in gardens of the middle
of the century, was destined to become a universal custom, as the soils of Italy and Greece
delivered up ever more and more of their buried treasures. Poggio's things passed into the
Medicean collection, and (together with another of Niccolo Niccoli and certain acquisi-
tions of Cosimo's) laid the foundation of that enormous collection of art treasures.
Cosimo himself was already putting antiques in his gardens: there was a Marsyas at the
door of his palace at Florence. Lorenzo put up a casino, and laid out gardens on the
Piazza San Marco, where later his second wife would sit when she was a widow. Here,
we are told, "in loggia, in private rooms, and in the garden arbours" he set out his
antiques, and established a drawing school, wherein Michael Angelo learned the art of
sculpture from the study of these ancient statues.
The works of Mantegna, which Lorenzo thought worthy of a visit in 1487, also
belonged to these early collections, and enjoyed a great reputation. The beautiful round
court at Mantegna's house in Mantua, now poorly preserved, had niches where the artist
liked to set up his well-beloved treasures. Bembo also, rather later, after his separation
from Leo X., made a garden at Padua, where the summer-house served as a studio; and
round about it among espaliers of lemons and oranges of various unusual kinds he set up
his collection of antique statues.
Rome, comparatively late in developing the new form of gardens, was also behind
Florence in ornamenting her gardens with statues. It was the man who made Rome's
future, and stood on the very threshold of the new city, Pope Julius II., who set the finest
example. Already as cardinal he had vied with the Medici in collecting statues, which he
placed in the garden at the great Penitentiary at S. Pietro in Vinculi. When he became
Pope, he transferred them to the Vatican, and placed them in the court of Innocent VIII.,
undoubtedly the Belvedere, and thereby laid the foundation of what is probably the most
important collection in the world. The court was at that time for practical purposes greater
than it is now, for the corridors and corner rooms where the statues are had not then
been made. In the vast space there was a garden, which the ambassadors from Venice,
who were left there for a while in 1523, described in glowing colours (Fig. 159). "At
the end of the loggia" (the present Chiaramonte), they say, "one steps into a very lovely
garden, one half of which is full of bright flowers and laurels, mulberries and cypresses,
and the other half paved with square terra-cotta tiles. At each corner stands a fine orange-
tree, and there are a great many of these, all in excellent order."
Nothing but the Belvedere can be meant, for this alone lies at the end of the loggia,