Spirit of Gardens for Relaxation: Pliny and the Renaissance Garden

A quite different source of gardens lay in that sense of awe which primitive man felt in certain natural scenery. This is a state of mind for which there is no precise term, but one which most men can still feel especially in circumstances remote from the dulling effect of everyday experience; for example, at night in the bows of a ship, at sunrise on a mountain peak, at dusk in a forest clearing. These sensations of awe led men to worship the genius of the place from which it emanated. To such spots men returned again and again, ostensibly to please the Spirit with offerings, but really in order to enjoy the sensation, a sensation akin to fear yet not fear, a sensation dwarfing yet ennobling, not unlike that which a note might feel when included in a symphony. Not only were the more remarkable scenes the homes of great deities, but every small stream became in time the manifestation of a nymph and every tree had a resident dryad. Where this spirit was alive a garden was not only a sanctuary but also a temple for gods. These two emotions, joy in relief from stress and hunger for spiritual reawakening, are the remote source of leisured man's garden-making. Both are present although muted in the gardens of Pompeii. In the House of the Vetii at Pompeii the peristyle is about fifty feet long by twenty-seven feet wide. When these buildings were uncovered insufficient attention was paid to those slight evidences that may have told something of the planting of the open space. There were many ornamental stone basins of water and numbers of small statues which served as conduits; there were also marble tables and Hermes pillars and presumably, though this is not certain, plants. Shade was provided by the surrounding portico and there was therefore little need for trees, although in one Pompeian garden there are signs that trees had been planted to shade an upstairs window. In Greece the peristyle was often fully paved, which prevented planting, but here there is no reason why planting should not have been direct into the soil, and it may be that the garden as it is now reconstructed is not far from the mark. To grow plants in such enclosed courtyards must have been rather like cultivating house-plants, for only top-light was available and in the smaller courts few species could have flourished. It is true a small nursery has been uncovered with ranks of painted flower pots which were sold for standing in the peristyles or for use on roof-gardens or balconies, but probably plants were a small part of the peristyle's attraction, for it was still more a room than a garden.