DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16632#0315
286
History of Garden Art
Pratolino had acquired most of its statues by Montaigne's day, and in this special
matter its garden marks a sort of turning-point. Comic statues were soon to be allowed
by Alberti; but the number of antiques had so far kept everything else out, and we hear
very little of the comic style in the gardens of the High Renaissance. In Pratolino,
however, the inferior works are much to the fore, such as the woman wringing out the
clothes, or a peasant pouring water out of a pot with a laughing boy looking at him.
It is not that antiques or sham-antiques vanish entirely from the garden, but it was
thought better to put the most valuable specimens in the newly set up museums, or at any
rate in the magnificent public gardens. At the end of the sixteenth century the Idyll
FIG. 217. BOBOLI GARDENS, FLORENCE—GROUND-PLAN
appeared in the garden at much the same time as in literature, and even antique scenes
were treated in an idyllic or a comic way; Apollo and the Muses are seen playing on the
flute, or Cupid suddenly twists round on his plinth, and spurts water into the face of
the spectator.
Yet another novelty is introduced at Pratolino—the extensive use of tufa m the
grottoes. Montaigne praises it as something quite new and unknown in his country: in
Italy it had already been used for fountain work in country places; but grottoes were still
ornamented till the middle of the century almost exclusively with coloured mosaics, which
gave quite a different effect to architectural designs. To judge by the scanty remains we
have, this sort of ornament was the most conspicuous at the Villa d'Este. At the Palazzo
del Te an attempt is made by Giulio Romano, but still in modest fashion, to introduce
tufa as an ornament for walls. After this a picturesque covering of tufa seems to have
become the ordinary thing, and later on, to have adopted very fantastic shapes.
History of Garden Art
Pratolino had acquired most of its statues by Montaigne's day, and in this special
matter its garden marks a sort of turning-point. Comic statues were soon to be allowed
by Alberti; but the number of antiques had so far kept everything else out, and we hear
very little of the comic style in the gardens of the High Renaissance. In Pratolino,
however, the inferior works are much to the fore, such as the woman wringing out the
clothes, or a peasant pouring water out of a pot with a laughing boy looking at him.
It is not that antiques or sham-antiques vanish entirely from the garden, but it was
thought better to put the most valuable specimens in the newly set up museums, or at any
rate in the magnificent public gardens. At the end of the sixteenth century the Idyll
FIG. 217. BOBOLI GARDENS, FLORENCE—GROUND-PLAN
appeared in the garden at much the same time as in literature, and even antique scenes
were treated in an idyllic or a comic way; Apollo and the Muses are seen playing on the
flute, or Cupid suddenly twists round on his plinth, and spurts water into the face of
the spectator.
Yet another novelty is introduced at Pratolino—the extensive use of tufa m the
grottoes. Montaigne praises it as something quite new and unknown in his country: in
Italy it had already been used for fountain work in country places; but grottoes were still
ornamented till the middle of the century almost exclusively with coloured mosaics, which
gave quite a different effect to architectural designs. To judge by the scanty remains we
have, this sort of ornament was the most conspicuous at the Villa d'Este. At the Palazzo
del Te an attempt is made by Giulio Romano, but still in modest fashion, to introduce
tufa as an ornament for walls. After this a picturesque covering of tufa seems to have
become the ordinary thing, and later on, to have adopted very fantastic shapes.