DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.68272#0286
268
THE GARDENS OF ITALY.
Republic, by which he helped to defend the city during an eleven months’ siege. The
great brown walls, with one remaining tower, look almost impregnable, and present a curious
contrast to the frivolous little garden planted on them a hundred years later. Here we look
over the ridge in the opposite direction to all the rest of the grounds, and very lovely the view
is, the Apennines from this point taking an exquisite intense blue, like lapis-lazuli, while groups
of dark cypresses stand out against the silver foam of the olive gardens.
At the entrance to the garden is a belvedere, from which we overlook the town. There
are few open spaces in these gardens ; the whole consists of a sort of bocage of ilexes, overarching
in dense shade, in whose gloom their rich black trunks and branches look almost uncanny.
Elsewhere the ilexes are clipped into long green walls in which niches are cut for seats and
marble statues.
A very imposing avenue of tall cypresses leads away from the flower garden to the south-
west down a steep hill ; outside it, on either hand, runs a pleached alley of ilexes ; and
half way down, where it is
PALACE, AT FLORENCE.
From "Edifices Toscane."
broken by groups of statuary,
another very wide alley branches
off to right and left, each ending
at a fountain. 'rhe effect of
this avenue, with its dark senti-
nels against the blue sky and
the glimmering forms of god
and goddess, is very grand,
and must have been much more
harmonious before the broad
pathway was vulgarised by
gravel. Formerly, of course,
it had only a dark, moss-grown
road, set across, every yard
or so, by a low, transverse bar
of grooved grey stone, like one
or two which still remain.
The path sweeps down,
and we come to another en-
closure, a break as striking as,
and quite different from, any
we have yet seen, illustrating
the clever way in which the
garden artists of the Renais-
sance understood how to space
out their ground and how to
lead up to surprises. The
avenue (Figs. 278 and 279) of
approach being so stately
some adequate goal was felt to be necessary. This is afforded by a giardino del Iago,
a miniature lake set in close-cut walls like all the rest, enclosing a fantastically shaped
island, an isolotto, in the centre, which is reached by bridges and boats (Figs. 280 to 282). It is
all balustraded about and set with pots of lemon trees, and over the whole towers Giorgio
Vasari’s and Gian Bologna’s fountain, a great shallow basin, upon which stands a figure of
Oceanus (Fig. 283). A stone pathway with seats at intervals encircles the toy lake. Publicity has
well nigh obliterated the charm of the Court garden, but a little of it may still be recalled.
The little meadow beyond was once called 1’Ucellaja, and snares used to be set here for
catching small birds.
Ghosts are not common in Italy, but this old pleasure ground is credited with one. Boboli
was the name of the owner who cultivated the land and sold it to the Medici. After he had
THE GARDENS OF ITALY.
Republic, by which he helped to defend the city during an eleven months’ siege. The
great brown walls, with one remaining tower, look almost impregnable, and present a curious
contrast to the frivolous little garden planted on them a hundred years later. Here we look
over the ridge in the opposite direction to all the rest of the grounds, and very lovely the view
is, the Apennines from this point taking an exquisite intense blue, like lapis-lazuli, while groups
of dark cypresses stand out against the silver foam of the olive gardens.
At the entrance to the garden is a belvedere, from which we overlook the town. There
are few open spaces in these gardens ; the whole consists of a sort of bocage of ilexes, overarching
in dense shade, in whose gloom their rich black trunks and branches look almost uncanny.
Elsewhere the ilexes are clipped into long green walls in which niches are cut for seats and
marble statues.
A very imposing avenue of tall cypresses leads away from the flower garden to the south-
west down a steep hill ; outside it, on either hand, runs a pleached alley of ilexes ; and
half way down, where it is
PALACE, AT FLORENCE.
From "Edifices Toscane."
broken by groups of statuary,
another very wide alley branches
off to right and left, each ending
at a fountain. 'rhe effect of
this avenue, with its dark senti-
nels against the blue sky and
the glimmering forms of god
and goddess, is very grand,
and must have been much more
harmonious before the broad
pathway was vulgarised by
gravel. Formerly, of course,
it had only a dark, moss-grown
road, set across, every yard
or so, by a low, transverse bar
of grooved grey stone, like one
or two which still remain.
The path sweeps down,
and we come to another en-
closure, a break as striking as,
and quite different from, any
we have yet seen, illustrating
the clever way in which the
garden artists of the Renais-
sance understood how to space
out their ground and how to
lead up to surprises. The
avenue (Figs. 278 and 279) of
approach being so stately
some adequate goal was felt to be necessary. This is afforded by a giardino del Iago,
a miniature lake set in close-cut walls like all the rest, enclosing a fantastically shaped
island, an isolotto, in the centre, which is reached by bridges and boats (Figs. 280 to 282). It is
all balustraded about and set with pots of lemon trees, and over the whole towers Giorgio
Vasari’s and Gian Bologna’s fountain, a great shallow basin, upon which stands a figure of
Oceanus (Fig. 283). A stone pathway with seats at intervals encircles the toy lake. Publicity has
well nigh obliterated the charm of the Court garden, but a little of it may still be recalled.
The little meadow beyond was once called 1’Ucellaja, and snares used to be set here for
catching small birds.
Ghosts are not common in Italy, but this old pleasure ground is credited with one. Boboli
was the name of the owner who cultivated the land and sold it to the Medici. After he had