Wharton, Edith; Parrish, Maxfield [Ill.]: Italian villas and their gardens (London: John Lane, 1904)

VILLAS NEAR ROME
of the inclusion of the woodland in the garden-scheme.
All the sixteenth-century villas had small groves ad-
jacent to the house, and the shade of the natural wood-
land was used, if possible, as a backing to the gardens;
but at the Villa Lante it is boldly worked into the gen-
eral scheme, the terraces and garden-architecture are
skilfully blent with it, and its recesses are pierced by
grass alleys leading to clearings where pools surrounded
by stone seats slumber under the spreading branches.
The harmonizing of wood and garden is one of the
characteristic features of the villas at Frascati; but as
these are mostly later in date than the Lante grounds,
priority of invention may be claimed for the designer
of the latter. It was undoubtedly from the Italian park
of the Renaissance that Le Notre learned the use of the
woodland as an adjunct to the garden ; but in France
these parks had for the most part to be planted, whereas
in Italy the garden-architect could use the natural
woodland, which was usually hilly, and the effects thus
produced were far more varied and interesting than
those possible in the flat artificial parks of France.
II
VILLA D’ESTE
Of the three great villas built by cardinals beyond the
immediate outskirts of Rome, the third and the most
famous is the Villa d’Este at Tivoli.

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