traced back as far as Michelangelo. It was Bernini who first expressed
in his fountains the tremulous motion and shifting curves of water, and
who put into his garden-sculpture that rustle of _plein air_ which the
modern painter seeks to express in his landscapes. To trace the gradual
development of this _rapprochement_ to nature at a period so highly
artificial would be beyond the scope of these articles; but in judging
the baroque garden architecture and sculpture of the late Renaissance,
it should be remembered that they are not the expression of a wilful
eccentricity, but an attempted link between the highly conventionalized
forms of urban art and that life of the fields and woods which was
beginning to charm the imagination of poets and painters.
On the height above the Acqua Sola gardens, on the eastern side of
Genoa, lies Alessi’s other great country house, the Villa Pallavicini
alle Peschiere—not to be confounded with the ridiculous Villa
Pallavicini at Pegli, a brummagem creation of the early nineteenth
century, to which the guide-books still send throngs of unsuspecting
tourists, who come back imagining that this tawdry jumble of weeping
willows and Chinese pagodas, mock Gothic ruins and exotic vegetation,
represents the typical “Italian garden,” of which so much is said and so
little really known.
The Villa Pallavicini alle Peschiere (a drawing of which may be seen in
Rubens’s collection) is in site and design a typical Genoese suburban
house of the sixteenth century. The lower story has a series of arched
windows between Ionic pilasters; above are square-headed windows with
upper lights, divided by fluted Corinthian pilasters and surmounted by a
beautiful cornice and a roof-balustrade of unusual design, in which
groups of balusters alternate with oblong panels of richly carved
openwork. The very slightly projecting wings have, on both stories,
arched recesses in which heroic statues are painted in _grisaille_.
The narrow ledge of ground on which the villa is built permits only of a
broad terrace in front of the house, with a central basin surmounted by
a beautiful winged figure and enclosed in stone-edged flower-beds.
Stately flights of steps lead down to a lower terrace, of which the
mighty retaining-wall is faced by a Doric portico, with a recessed
loggia behind it. From this level other flights of steps, flanked by
great balustraded walls nearly a hundred feet high, descend to a third
terrace, narrower than the others, whence one looks down into
lower-lying gardens, wedged into every projecting shelf of ground
between palace roofs and towering slopes of masonry; while directly
beneath this crowded foreground sparkles the blue expanse of the
Mediterranean.
On a higher ledge, above the Villa Pallavicini, lies the Villa
Durazzo-Grapollo, perhaps also a work of Alessi’s. Here the unusual
extent of ground about the house has permitted an interesting
development of landscape-architecture. A fine pedimented gateway with
rusticated piers gives admission to a straight avenue of plane-trees
leading up to the house, which is a dignified building with two stories,
a _mezzanine_ and an attic. The windows on the ground floor are
square-headed, with oblong sunk panels above; while on the first floor
there is a slightly baroque movement about the architraves, and every
other window is surmounted by a curious shell-shaped pediment. On the
garden side a beautiful marble balcony forms the central motive of the
_piano nobile_, and the roof is enclosed in a balustrade with alternate
solid panels and groups of balusters. The plan is oblong, with slightly
projecting wings, adorned on both stories with coupled pilasters, which
on the lower floor are rusticated and above are fluted Corinthian,
painted on the stucco surface of the house. This painting of
architectural ornament is very characteristic of Genoese architecture,
and was done with such skill that, at a little distance, it is often
impossible to distinguish a projecting architectural member from its
frescoed counterfeit.
In front of the villa is a long narrow formal garden, supported on three
sides by a lofty retaining-wall. Down the middle of this garden, on an
axis with the central doorway of the façade, runs a canal terminated by
reclining figures of river-gods and marble dolphins spouting water. An
ilex-walk flanks it on each side, and at the farther end a balustrade
encloses this upper garden, and two flights of steps, with the usual
central niche, lead to the next level. Here there is a much greater
extent of ground, and the old formal lines have been broken up into the
winding paths and shrubberies of a _jardin anglais_. Even here, however,
traces of the original plan may be discovered, and statues and fountains
are scattered with charming effect among the irregular plantations,
while paths between clipped walls of green lead to beautiful distant
views of the sea and mountains. Specially interesting is the treatment
of the lateral retaining-walls of the upper garden. In these immense
ramparts of masonry have been cut tunnels decorated with shell-work and
stucco ornament, which lead up by a succession of wide steps to the
ground on a level with the house. One of these tunnels contains a series
of pools of water, which finally pour into a stream winding through a
romantic _boschetto_ on a lower level. Here, as at the Villa Scassi, all
the garden-architecture is pure and dignified in style, and there is
great beauty in the broad and simple treatment of the upper terrace,
with its canal and ilex-walks.
From the terraces of the Villa Durazzo one looks forth over the hillside
of San Francesco d’Albaro, the suburb which balances Sampierdarena on
the east. Happily this charming district is still a fashionable
villeggiatura, and the houses which Alessi built on its slopes stand
above an almost unaltered landscape of garden and vineyard. A fine road
crosses the Bisagno and leads up between high walls and beautiful
hanging gardens, passing at every turn some charming villa-façade in its
setting of cypresses and camellias. Among these, one should not overlook
the exquisite little Paradisino, a pale-green toy villa with Ionic
pilasters and classic pediment, perched above a high terrace on the left
of the ascent.
Just above stands the Paradiso (or Villa Cambiaso), another masterpiece
of Alessi’s,[5] to which it is almost impossible to obtain admission.
Unfortunately, the house stands far back from the road, above
intervening terraces and groves, and one can obtain only an imperfect
glimpse of its beautiful façade, which is as ornate and imposing as that
of the Villa Scassi, and of garden-walks lined with clipped hedges and
statues.
Footnote 5:
In his “Baukunst der Renaissance in Italien” (Part II, Vol. V) Dr.
Josef Durm, without citing his authority, says that the Villa Paradiso
was built in 1600 by Andrea Ceresola, called Vanove.
At Alessi’s other Villa Cambiaso, higher up the hill of San Francesco
d’Albaro, a more hospitable welcome awaits the sight-seer. Here
admission is easily obtained, and it is possible to study and photograph
at leisure. This villa is remarkable for the beauty of the central
loggia on the ground floor of the façade: a grand Doric arcade, leading
into a two-storied atrium designed in the severest classical spirit. So
suggestive is this of the great loggia of the Villa Bombicci, near
Florence, that one understands why Alessi was called the pupil of
Michelangelo. At the back of the house there is (as at the Villa
Bombicci) a fine upper loggia, and the wide spacing of the windows on
the ground floor, and the massiveness and simplicity of all the
architectural details, inevitably recall the Tuscan style. Little is
left of the old gardens save a _tapis vert_ flanked by clipped hedges,
which descends to an iron grille on a lower road; but the broad grassy
space about the house has a boundary-wall with a continuous marble
bench, like that at the Villa Pia in the Vatican gardens.
In the valley between San Francesco d’Albaro and the Bisagno lies the
dismal suburb of San Fruttuoso. Here one must seek, through a waste of
dusty streets lined with half-finished tenements, for what must once
have been the most beautiful of Genoese pleasure-houses—the Villa
Imperiali, probably built by Fra Montorsoli. It stands high above broad
terraced grounds of unusual extent, backed by a hanging wood; but all
the old gardens have been destroyed, save the beautiful upper terrace,
and even the house has suffered some injury, though not enough to
detract greatly from its general effect. Here at last one finds that
union of lightness and majesty which characterizes the Villa Medici and
other Roman houses of its kind. The long elevation, with wings set back,
has a rusticated basement, surmounted by two stories and an attic above
the cornice. There is no order, but the whole façade is richly frescoed
in a severe architectural style, with niches, statues in grisaille, and
other ornaments, all executed by a skilful hand. The windows on the
first floor have broken pediments with a shell-like movement, and those
above show the same treatment, alternating with the usual triangular
pediment. But the crowning distinction of the house consists in the two
exquisite loggias which form the angles of the second story. These tall
arcades, resting on slender columns, give a wonderful effect of
spreading lightness to the façade, and break up its great bulk without
disturbing the general impression of strength and dignity. As a skilful
distribution of masses the elevation of the Villa Imperiali deserves the
most careful study, and it is to be regretted that it can no longer be
seen in combination with the wide-spread terraces which once formed a
part of its composition.
LOMBARD VILLAS
[Illustration: VILLA CICOGNA, BISUSCHIO]
VI
LOMBARD VILLAS
On the walls of the muniment-room of the old Borromeo palace in Milan,
Michelino, a little-known painter of the fifteenth century, has depicted
the sports and diversions of that noble family. Here may be seen ladies
in peaked hennins and long drooping sleeves, with their shock-headed
gallants in fur-edged tunics and pointed shoes, engaged in curious games
and dances, against the background of Lake Maggiore and the Borromean
Islands.
It takes the modern traveller an effort of mental readjustment to
recognize in this “clump of peakèd isles”—bare Leonardesque rocks
thrusting themselves splinter-wise above the lake—the smiling groves and
terraces of the Isola Bella and the Isola Madre. For in those days the
Borromei had not converted their rocky islands into the hanging gardens
which to later travellers became one of the most important sights of the
“grand tour”; and one may learn from this curious fresco with what
seemingly hopeless problems the Italian garden-art dealt, and how, while
audaciously remodelling nature, it contrived to keep in harmony with the
surroundings amid which it worked.
The Isola Madre, the largest of the Borromean group, was the first to be
built on and planted. The plain Renaissance palace still looks down on a
series of walled gardens and a grove of cypress, laurel and pine; but
the greater part of the island has been turned into an English park of
no special interest save to the horticulturist, who may study here the
immense variety of exotic plants which flourish in the mild climate of
the lakes. The Isola Bella, that pyramid of flower-laden terraces rising
opposite Stresa, in a lovely bend of the lake, began to take its present
shape about 1632, when Count Carlo III built a _casino di delizie_ on
the rocky pinnacle. His son, Count Vitaliano IV, continued and completed
the work. He levelled the pointed rocks, filled their interstices with
countless loads of soil from the mainland, and summoned Carlo Fontana
and a group of Milanese architects to raise the palace and
garden-pavilions above terraces created by Castelli and Crivelli, while
the waterworks were entrusted to Mora of Rome, the statuary and other
ornamental sculpture to Vismara. The work was completed in 1671, and the
island, which had been created a baronial fief, was renamed Isola
Isabella, after the count’s mother—a name which euphony, and the general
admiration the place excited, soon combined to contract to Isola Bella.
The island is built up in ten terraces, narrowing successively toward
the top, the lowest resting on great vaulted arcades which project into
the lake and are used as a winter shelter for the lemon-trees of the
upper gardens. Each terrace is enclosed in a marble balustrade, richly
ornamented with vases, statues and obelisks, and planted with a
profusion of roses, camellias, jasmine, myrtle and pomegranate, among
which groups of cypresses lift their dark shafts. Against the
retaining-walls oranges and lemons are espaliered, and flowers border
every path and wreathe every balustrade and stairway. It seems probable,
from the old descriptions of the Isola Bella, that it was originally
planted much as it now appears; in fact, the gardens of the Italian
lakes are probably the only old pleasure-grounds of Italy where flowers
have always been used in profusion. In the equable lake climate, neither
cold in winter, like the Lombard plains, nor parched in summer, like the
South, the passion for horticulture seems to have developed early, and
the landscape-architect was accustomed to mingle bright colours with his
architectural masses, instead of relying on a setting of uniform
verdure.
The topmost terrace of the Isola Bella is crowned by a mount, against
which is built a water-theatre of excessively baroque design. This
architectural composition faces the southern front of the palace, a
large and not very interesting building standing to the north of the
gardens; while the southern extremity of the island terminates in a
beautiful garden-pavilion, hexagonal in shape, with rusticated coigns
and a crowning balustrade beset with statues. Even the narrow reef
projecting into the lake below this pavilion has been converted into
another series of terraces, with connecting flights of steps, which
carry down to the water’s edge the exuberant verdure of the upper
gardens.
The palace is more remarkable for what it contains in the way of
furniture and decoration than for any architectural value. Its great
bulk and heavy outline are quite disproportionate to the airy elegance
of the gardens it overlooks, and house and grounds seem in this case to
have been designed without any regard to each other. The palace has,
however, one feature of peculiar interest to the student of
villa-architecture, namely, the beautiful series of rooms in the south
basement, opening on the gardens, and decorated with the most exquisite
ornamentation of pebble-work and seashells, mingled with delicately
tinted stucco. These low vaulted rooms, with marble floors, grotto-like
walls, and fountains dripping into fluted conchs, are like a poet’s
notion of some twilight refuge from summer heats, where the languid
green air has the coolness of water; even the fantastic consoles, tables
and benches, in which cool-glimmering mosaics are combined with carved
wood and stucco painted in faint greens and rose-tints, might have been
made of mother-of-pearl, coral and seaweed for the adornment of some
submarine palace. As examples of the decoration of a garden-house in a
hot climate, these rooms are unmatched in Italy, and their treatment
offers appropriate suggestions to the modern garden-architect in search
of effects of coolness.
To show how little the gardens of the Isola Bella have been changed
since they were first laid out, it is worth while to quote the
description of Bishop Burnet, that delightful artist in orthography and
punctuation, who descended into Italy in the year 1685, with his
“port-mangles” laden upon “mullets.”
“From _Lugane_,” the bishop’s breathless periods begin, “I went to the
_Lago Maggiore_, which is a great and noble Lake, it is six and fifty
Miles long, and in most places six Miles broad, and a hundred Fathoms
deep about the middle of it, it makes a great Bay to the Westward, and
there lies here two Islands called the _Borromean_ Islands, that are
certainly the loveliest spots of ground in the World, there is nothing
in all Italy that can be compared to them, they have the full view of
the Lake, and the ground rises so sweetly in them that nothing can be
imagined like the Terraces here, they belong to two Counts of the
_Borromean_ family. I was only in one of them, which belongs to the head
of the Family, who is Nephew to the famous Cardinal known by the name of
St _Carlo_.... The whole Island is a garden ... and because the figure
of the Island was not made regular by Nature, they have built great
Vaults and Portica’s along the Rock, which are all made Grotesque, and
so they have brought it into a regular form by laying earth over those
Vaults. There is first a Garden to the East that rises up from the Lake
by five rows of Terrasses, on the three sides of the Garden that are
watered by the Lake, the Stairs are noble, the Walls are all covered
with Oranges and Citrons, and a more beautiful spot of a Garden cannot
be seen: There are two buildings in the two corners of this Garden, the
one is only a Mill for fetching up the Water, and the other is a noble
Summer-House [the hexagonal pavilion] all Wainscotted, if I may speak
so, with Alabaster and Marble of a fine colour inclining to red, from
this Garden one goes in a level to all the rest of the Alleys and
Parterres, Herb-Gardens and Flower-Gardens, in all which there are
Varieties of Fountains and Arbors, but the great Parterre is a
surprizing thing, for as it is well furnished with Statues and
Fountains, and is of a vast extent, and justly situated to the Palace,
so at the further-end of it there is a great Mount, that face of it that
looks to the Parterre is made like a Theatre all full of Fountains and
Statues, the height rising up in five several rows ... and round this
Mount, answering to the five rows into which the Theatre is divided,
there goes as Many Terrasses of noble Walks, the Walls are all as close
covered with Oranges and Citrons as any of our Walls in _England_ are
with Laurel: the top of the Mount is seventy foot long and forty broad,
and here is a vast Cistern into which the Mill plays up the water that
must furnish all the Fountains.... The freshness of the Air, it being
both in a Lake and near the Mountains, the fragrant smell, the beautiful
Prospect, and the delighting Variety that is here makes it such a
habitation for Summer that perhaps the whole World hath nothing like
it.”
[Illustration: VILLA ISOLA BELLA, LAKE MAGGIORE]
Seventeenth-century travellers were unanimous in extolling the Isola
Bella, though, as might have been expected, their praise was chiefly for
those elaborations and ingenuities of planning and engineering which
give least pleasure in the present day. Toward the middle of the
eighteenth century a critical reaction set in. Tourists, enamoured of
the new “English garden,” and of Rousseau’s descriptions of the “bosquet
de Julie,” could see nothing to admire in the ordered architecture of
the Borromean Islands. The sentimental sight-seer, sighing for sham
Gothic ruins, for glades planted “after Poussin,” and for all the
laboured naturalism of Repton and Capability Brown, shuddered at the
frank artifice of the old Italian garden-architecture. The quarrel then
begun still goes on, and sympathies are divided between the
artificial-natural and the frankly conventional. The time has come,
however, when it is recognized that both these manners _are_ manners,
the one as artificial as the other, and each to be judged, not by any
ethical standard of “sincerity,” but on its own æsthetic merits. This
has enabled modern critics to take a fairer view of such avowedly
conventional compositions as the Isola Bella, a garden in comparison
with which the grounds of the great Roman villas are as naturalistic as
the age of Rousseau could have desired.
Thus impartially judged, the Isola Bella still seems to many too
complete a negation of nature; nor can it appear otherwise to those who
judge of it only from pictures and photographs, who have not seen it in
its environment. For the landscape surrounding the Borromean Islands has
precisely that quality of artificiality, of exquisitely skilful
arrangement and manipulation, which seems to justify, in the
garden-architect, almost any excesses of the fancy. The Roman landscape,
grandiose and ample, seems an unaltered part of nature; so do the subtly
modelled hills and valleys of central Italy: all these scenes have the
deficiencies, the repetitions, the meannesses and profusions, with which
nature throws her great masses on the canvas of the world; but the lake
scenery appears to have been designed by a lingering and fastidious
hand, bent on eliminating every crudeness and harshness, and on blending
all natural forms, from the bare mountain-peak to the melting curve of
the shore, in one harmony of ever-varying and ever-beautiful lines.
The effect produced is undoubtedly one of artificiality, of a chosen
exclusion of certain natural qualities, such as gloom, barrenness, and
the frank ugliness into which nature sometimes lapses. There is an
almost forced gaiety about the landscape of the lakes, a fixed smile of
perennial loveliness. And it is as a complement to this attitude that
the Borromean gardens justify themselves. Are they real? No; but neither
is the landscape about them. Are they like any other gardens on earth?
No; but neither are the mountains and shores about them like earthly
shores and mountains. They are Armida’s gardens anchored in a lake of
dreams, and they should be compared, not with this or that actual piece
of planted ground, but with a page of Ariosto or Boiardo.
From the garden-student’s point of view, there is nothing in Lombardy as
important as the Isola Bella. In these rich Northern provinces, as in
the environs of Florence, the old gardens have suffered from the
affluence of their owners, and scarcely any have been allowed to retain
their original outline. The enthusiasm for the English garden swept over
Lombardy like a tidal wave, obliterating terraces and grottoes,
substituting winding paths for pleached alleys, and transforming level
box-parterres into rolling lawns which turn as brown as door-mats under
the scorching Lombard sun.
On the lakes, where the garden-architect was often restricted to a
narrow ledge of ground between mountains and water, these
transformations were less easy, for the new style required a
considerable expanse of ground for its development. Along the shores of
Como especially, where the ground rises so abruptly from the lake,
landscape effects were difficult to produce, nor was it easy to discover
a naturalistic substitute for the marble terraces built above the water.
Even here, however, the narrow gardens have been as much modified as
space permitted, the straight paths have been made to wind, and spotty
flower-beds in grass have replaced the ordered box-gardens with their
gravelled walks and their lemon-trees in earthen vases.