DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16632#0150
122
History of Garden Art
there are two more basins with fountains. There are also marble tables, shells, and little
pillars with a Hermes on them. The wavy flower-beds, fashionable at the time, are bordered
with box; and there are knots of ivy, bushes and flowers, thus repeating the ideas that
are depicted on the walls of the surrounding portico.
One remarkable type remains in the only suburban villa found at Pompeii, that of
Diomedes (Fig. 89). This villa
suburbana is something between
a house in town and a villa urbana
in the country. Vitruvius insists,
in his short notes appended to
his account of the town house,
that in the villa suburbana one
must not go straight into the
atrium, for the peristyle has to
be next to the entrance. The
atrium comes second, and then
the portico, which will look out
on the garden. In the villa of
Diomedes we do as a fact step
straight into a great peristyle
from the street, and this actually
has one corner on the street
front. The ground-plan, a group,
connected as in a town house,
forms an isosceles triangle, with
the street for hypotenuse. From
the entrance a stairway leads to
the peristyle, which may be
pictured as a small garden with
a basin in the middle. Beside
one of the sides of the triangle
there is a garden on the level of
the street, unfortunately not ex-
cavated, into which a bedroom
in the Cyzicene style protrudes
at an acute angle. Rooms like
FIG. 89. PLAN OF THE VILLA OF DIOMEDES thiS Wel"e S Greek ^VentlOn, and
Vitruvius says they were not used
in Italy; in this age, however, they belong to the general luxury of Roman houses, and Pliny
mentions them in his letters. The garden would probably be a tree-garden, which would
give shade and quietude to the bedroom. At the other side of the triangle the ground drops
sharply; so there is another story, where perhaps the slaves lived. One steps down into a
lower garden with a colonnade round it, the roof of which can be reached from the top of
the terrace. In the garden remains of trees were dug up, but unhappily these were set aside
without examination. Opposite the terrace is a raised pergola, and a large basin in front with
History of Garden Art
there are two more basins with fountains. There are also marble tables, shells, and little
pillars with a Hermes on them. The wavy flower-beds, fashionable at the time, are bordered
with box; and there are knots of ivy, bushes and flowers, thus repeating the ideas that
are depicted on the walls of the surrounding portico.
One remarkable type remains in the only suburban villa found at Pompeii, that of
Diomedes (Fig. 89). This villa
suburbana is something between
a house in town and a villa urbana
in the country. Vitruvius insists,
in his short notes appended to
his account of the town house,
that in the villa suburbana one
must not go straight into the
atrium, for the peristyle has to
be next to the entrance. The
atrium comes second, and then
the portico, which will look out
on the garden. In the villa of
Diomedes we do as a fact step
straight into a great peristyle
from the street, and this actually
has one corner on the street
front. The ground-plan, a group,
connected as in a town house,
forms an isosceles triangle, with
the street for hypotenuse. From
the entrance a stairway leads to
the peristyle, which may be
pictured as a small garden with
a basin in the middle. Beside
one of the sides of the triangle
there is a garden on the level of
the street, unfortunately not ex-
cavated, into which a bedroom
in the Cyzicene style protrudes
at an acute angle. Rooms like
FIG. 89. PLAN OF THE VILLA OF DIOMEDES thiS Wel"e S Greek ^VentlOn, and
Vitruvius says they were not used
in Italy; in this age, however, they belong to the general luxury of Roman houses, and Pliny
mentions them in his letters. The garden would probably be a tree-garden, which would
give shade and quietude to the bedroom. At the other side of the triangle the ground drops
sharply; so there is another story, where perhaps the slaves lived. One steps down into a
lower garden with a colonnade round it, the roof of which can be reached from the top of
the terrace. In the garden remains of trees were dug up, but unhappily these were set aside
without examination. Opposite the terrace is a raised pergola, and a large basin in front with