DOI chapter:
V. Genoese villas
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61216#0239
ITALIAN VILLAS
delicately carved entablature, while a double flight of
steps encloses this central composition. Niches with
statues and marble seats also adorn the lateral walls of
the gardens, and on the upper terrace is a long tank or
canal, flanked by clipped shrubs and statues. Thence
an inclined path leads to a rusticated temple with co-
lonies torses, and statues in niches above fluted basins
into which water once flowed; and beyond this there is
a winding ascent to the grove which crowns the hill.
All the architectural details of the garden are remark-
able for a classical purity and refinement, except the
rusticated temple, of which the fantastic columns are
carved to resemble tree-trunks. This may be of later
date; but if contemporary, its baroque style was prob-
ably intended to mark the transition from the formality
of the lower gardens to the rustic character of the natu-
ralistic landscape above — to form, in fact, a gate from
the garden to the park.
The end of the sixteenth century saw this gradual
recognition of nature, and adoption of her forms, in the
architecture and sculpture of the Italian pleasure-house,
and more especially in those outlying constructions
which connected the formal and the sylvan portions of
the grounds. “ In mid-Renaissance garden-architecture,”
as Herr Tuckermann puts it, “ the relation between art
and landscape is reversed. Previously the garden had
had to adapt itself to architecture; now architectural
forms are forced into a resemblance with nature.”
184
delicately carved entablature, while a double flight of
steps encloses this central composition. Niches with
statues and marble seats also adorn the lateral walls of
the gardens, and on the upper terrace is a long tank or
canal, flanked by clipped shrubs and statues. Thence
an inclined path leads to a rusticated temple with co-
lonies torses, and statues in niches above fluted basins
into which water once flowed; and beyond this there is
a winding ascent to the grove which crowns the hill.
All the architectural details of the garden are remark-
able for a classical purity and refinement, except the
rusticated temple, of which the fantastic columns are
carved to resemble tree-trunks. This may be of later
date; but if contemporary, its baroque style was prob-
ably intended to mark the transition from the formality
of the lower gardens to the rustic character of the natu-
ralistic landscape above — to form, in fact, a gate from
the garden to the park.
The end of the sixteenth century saw this gradual
recognition of nature, and adoption of her forms, in the
architecture and sculpture of the Italian pleasure-house,
and more especially in those outlying constructions
which connected the formal and the sylvan portions of
the grounds. “ In mid-Renaissance garden-architecture,”
as Herr Tuckermann puts it, “ the relation between art
and landscape is reversed. Previously the garden had
had to adapt itself to architecture; now architectural
forms are forced into a resemblance with nature.”
184