DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16632#0483
454
History of Garden Art
during the last years of his life, at Richmond, where he died young and unexpectedly
in 1612. It was to please the restless merry boy, who always loved to live and play out
of doors, that Salomon de Caus had several different projects carried out at Richmond,
and more particularly a series of ingenious inventions for water novelties, so as to "satisfy
that fine appetite for knowledge, always striving after something new." It was now that
he discovered how water could be shot upward by the expansion of steam, and this con-
ferred on him the great honour of being reckoned among the discoverers of the steam
engine. He had commissions to construct fountains in country places, as for example
at Hatfield House for Lord Salisbury. Unfortunately we know very little about the Rich-
mond garden, for when the young heir died there was an end to the activities of de Caus
in England. His pupil Elizabeth, after her marriage with the Count Palatine Frederick,
summoned Salomon to Heidelberg, where there was great scope for his work m the
construction of the garden at the castle. But he left his son Isaac in England, and in 1615
the Earl of Pembroke employed him at Wilton House in Wiltshire, where he created one
of the most important gardens in all England. The father and the son both had literary
leanings, and they made their works known with pen and pencil. The garden at Wilton
House (Fig. 352) and also the Heidelberg garden were pictured in full detail in twenty-four
copperplates, and a book was published (in 1615) under the title of Hortus Pembrochianus.
The wide stretch of ground, four thousand feet long and four hundred feet broad,
was divided into three sections, one behind the other, cut by generous paths. The first
consists of parterres, with beds cleverly hemmed in by low hedges, every four with one
fountain and its waterspout, and connected in fours with one marble statue set up in
FIG. 352. THE GARDEN AT WILTON HOUSE, NEAR SALISBURY (" HORTUS PEMBROCHIANUS")
History of Garden Art
during the last years of his life, at Richmond, where he died young and unexpectedly
in 1612. It was to please the restless merry boy, who always loved to live and play out
of doors, that Salomon de Caus had several different projects carried out at Richmond,
and more particularly a series of ingenious inventions for water novelties, so as to "satisfy
that fine appetite for knowledge, always striving after something new." It was now that
he discovered how water could be shot upward by the expansion of steam, and this con-
ferred on him the great honour of being reckoned among the discoverers of the steam
engine. He had commissions to construct fountains in country places, as for example
at Hatfield House for Lord Salisbury. Unfortunately we know very little about the Rich-
mond garden, for when the young heir died there was an end to the activities of de Caus
in England. His pupil Elizabeth, after her marriage with the Count Palatine Frederick,
summoned Salomon to Heidelberg, where there was great scope for his work m the
construction of the garden at the castle. But he left his son Isaac in England, and in 1615
the Earl of Pembroke employed him at Wilton House in Wiltshire, where he created one
of the most important gardens in all England. The father and the son both had literary
leanings, and they made their works known with pen and pencil. The garden at Wilton
House (Fig. 352) and also the Heidelberg garden were pictured in full detail in twenty-four
copperplates, and a book was published (in 1615) under the title of Hortus Pembrochianus.
The wide stretch of ground, four thousand feet long and four hundred feet broad,
was divided into three sections, one behind the other, cut by generous paths. The first
consists of parterres, with beds cleverly hemmed in by low hedges, every four with one
fountain and its waterspout, and connected in fours with one marble statue set up in
FIG. 352. THE GARDEN AT WILTON HOUSE, NEAR SALISBURY (" HORTUS PEMBROCHIANUS")