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

GENOESE VILLAS
in the Scassi gardens, has shown to the full his charac-
teristic gift for preserving unity of conception in multi-
plicity of form.”
There could be no better definition of the garden-
science of the Italian Renaissance; and if, as it seems
probable, the Scassi gardens are earlier in date than the
Boboli and the Orti Farnesiani, they certainly fill an
important place in the evolution of the pleasure-ground ;
but the Vatican gardens, if they were really designed by
Antonio da Sangallo, must still be regarded as the
source from which the later school of landscape-archi-
tects drew their first inspiration. It was certainly here,
and in the unfinished gardens of the Villa Madama,
that the earliest attempts were made to bring the un-
tamed forms of nature into relation with the disciplined
lines of architecture.
Herr Gurlitt is, however, quite right in calling atten-
tion to the remarkable manner in which the architectural
lines of the Scassi gardens have been adapted to their
site, and also to the skill with which Alessi contrived
the successive transition from the formal surroundings
of the house to the sylvan freedom of the wooded hill-
top beneath which it lies.
A broad terrace, gently sloping with the natural grade
of the land, leads up to a long level walk beneath the
high retaining-wall which sustains the second terrace.
In the centre of this retaining-wall is a beautifully de-
signed triple niche, divided by Atlantides supporting a

15

183