Principles of Garden Design: Pliny and the Renaissance Garden

Italian gardening is most easily understood if it is thought of as falling into three main periods. The first, between 1450 and 1503, begins with the writings of Alberti and ends with Bramante's plan for the Belvedere at Rome; the second, brief and wonderful, from the creation of the Belvedere to the death of Vignola, 1503 - 1573; and the third, a long decline, from 1573-1775, when the Italian garden can be seen to have come to an end with the King of Naples' Caserta. These divisions have no more real validity than any chopping up of time, but provided one regards them as loosely revealing essential differences of approach they are useful. It would not be difficult to pick features in each period that were characteristic of either of the others. The first of the moderns to lay down principles of garden design was the architect Leone Battista Alberti. Alberti was a Venetian, but like most men of talent in Italy he was drawn into the orbit of Cosimo dei Medici and became in spirit a Florentine. Certainly the initial impetus came as usual from Florence. As the wealth and power of the merchant city grew, so villas were built upon the slopes of the hills and began to shed the signs of their castle origin. The sites for them were chosen not for security, (though at first this was not forgotten) but for the prospect. The effect of this outward-looking mood upon the details of the garden was chiefly that the spirit of sanctuary no longer pervaded everything; it was still possible to have small enclosed gardens within the garden, to plant groves and to build arbours and grottoes, but because these were closely contrasted with vistas down avenues and long views over the Tuscan countryside they gained in intensity of effect and the emotional range of a garden designer increased enormously. The medieval garden had been basically a square subdivided into other squares by paths which were frequently covered with pergolas. To enjoy the garden one traversed these green tunnels and peeped out upon the open squares between. A large expanse of garden was rarely to be seen at one glance and such vistas as there were resembled the view down the barrel of a cannon. The first step in opening up the garden was to place it on sloping ground, so that it was possible to look out over the surrounding wall; the second step was to turn the pergolas into avenues open to the sky, so that the eye was free to follow them to the end and beyond.