DOI chapter:
I. Florentine villas
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61216#0060
ITALIAN VILLAS
by marble benches and statues on fine rusticated ped-
estals. Unhappily, fountain and statues have lately
been scrubbed to preternatural whiteness, and the same
spirit of improvement has turned the old parterres into
sunburnt turf, and dotted it with copper beeches and
pampas-grass. Montaigne alludes to the berceaux, or
pleached walks, and to the close-set cypresses which
made a delicious coolness in this garden; and as one
looks across its sun-scorched expanse one perceives that
its lack of charm is explained by lack of shade.
As is usual in Italian gardens built against a hillside,
the retaining-wall at the back serves for the great dec-
orative motive at Castello. It is reached by wide
marble steps, and flanked at the sides by symmetrical
lemon-houses. On the central axis of the garden, the
wall has a wide opening between columns, and on each
side an arched recess, equidistant between the lemon-
houses and the central opening. Within the latter is
one of those huge grottoes1 which for two centuries or
more were the delight of Italian garden-architects.
The roof is decorated with masks and arabesques in
coloured shell-work, and in the niches of the tufa of
which the background is formed are strange groups of
life-sized animals, a camel, a monkey, a stag with real
antlers, a wild boar with real tusks, and various small
animals and birds, some made of coloured marbles which
correspond with their natural tints ; while beneath these
1 This grotto and its sculptures are the work of II Tribolo, who also built
the aqueduct bringing thither the waters of the Arno and the Mugnone.
34
by marble benches and statues on fine rusticated ped-
estals. Unhappily, fountain and statues have lately
been scrubbed to preternatural whiteness, and the same
spirit of improvement has turned the old parterres into
sunburnt turf, and dotted it with copper beeches and
pampas-grass. Montaigne alludes to the berceaux, or
pleached walks, and to the close-set cypresses which
made a delicious coolness in this garden; and as one
looks across its sun-scorched expanse one perceives that
its lack of charm is explained by lack of shade.
As is usual in Italian gardens built against a hillside,
the retaining-wall at the back serves for the great dec-
orative motive at Castello. It is reached by wide
marble steps, and flanked at the sides by symmetrical
lemon-houses. On the central axis of the garden, the
wall has a wide opening between columns, and on each
side an arched recess, equidistant between the lemon-
houses and the central opening. Within the latter is
one of those huge grottoes1 which for two centuries or
more were the delight of Italian garden-architects.
The roof is decorated with masks and arabesques in
coloured shell-work, and in the niches of the tufa of
which the background is formed are strange groups of
life-sized animals, a camel, a monkey, a stag with real
antlers, a wild boar with real tusks, and various small
animals and birds, some made of coloured marbles which
correspond with their natural tints ; while beneath these
1 This grotto and its sculptures are the work of II Tribolo, who also built
the aqueduct bringing thither the waters of the Arno and the Mugnone.
34