VILLA VALMARANA, VICENZA
The Villa Capra has not preserved its old gardens, and at the Villa Giacomelli, at Maser, Palladio’s other famous country house, the grounds have been so modernized and stripped of all their characteristic features that it is difficult to judge of their original design; but one feels that all Palladio’s rural architecture lacked that touch of fancy and freedom which, in the Roman school, facilitated the transition of manner from the house to the garden-pavilion, and from the pavilion to the half-rustic grotto and the woodland temple.
The Villa Valmarana, also at Vicenza, on the Monte Berico, not far from the Rotonda, has something of the intimate charm lacking in the latter. The low and simply designed house is notable only for the charming frescoes with which Tiepolo adorned its rooms; but the beautiful loggia in the garden is attributed to Palladio, and this, together with the old beech-alleys, the charming frescoed fountain, the garden-wall crowned by Venetian grotesques, forms a composition of exceptional picturesqueness.
The beautiful country-side between Vicenza and Verona is strewn with old villas, many of which would doubtless repay study; but there are no gardens of note in this part of Veneto, except the famous Giusti gardens at Verona, probably better known to sightseers than any others in northern Italy. In spite of all their charm, however, the dusky massing of their old cypresses, and their winding walks along the cliff-side, the Giusti gardens preserve few traces of their original design, and are therefore not especially important to the student of Italian garden-architecture. More interesting in this connection is the Villa Cuzzano, about seven miles from Verona, a beautiful old house standing above a terrace-garden planted with an elaborate parterre de broderie. Behind the villa is a spacious court bounded by a line of low buildings with a central chapel. The interior of the house has been little changed, and is an interesting example of north Italian villa planning and decoration. The passion of the Italian architects for composition and continuity of design is seen in the careful placing of the chapel, which is exactly on an axis with the central saloon of the villa, so that, standing in the chapel, one looks across the court, through this lofty saloon, and out on the beautiful hilly landscape beyond. It was by such means that the villa-architects obtained, with simple materials and in a limited space, impressions of distance, and sensations of the unexpected, for which one looks in vain in the haphazard and slipshod designs of the present day.
LIST OF BOOKS MENTIONED
| ITALIAN | |
| Gianfrancesco Costa | Le Delizie del Fiume Brenta. 1750. |
| Giovanni Falda | Giardini di Roma. N. d. |
| Peter Paul Rubens | Palazzi di Genova. 1622. |
| Rafaello Soprani | Vite de’ Pittori, Scultori ed Architetti Genovesi. (Second edition, revised, enlarged and supplied with notes by C. G. Ratti. 1768.) |
| Giuseppe Zocchi | Vedute delle Ville e d’altri luoghi della Toscana. 1744. |
| FRENCH | |
| Le Président de Brosses | Lettres Familières écrites d’Italie en 1739 et 1740. |
| L. Dussieux | Artistes Français a l’Etranger. |
| Michel de Montaigne | Journal du Voyage en Italie par la Suisse et l’Allemagne en 1580 et 1581. |
| Percier et Fontaine | Choix des plus célèbres Maisons de Plaisance de Rome et de ses Environs. 1809. |
| Marc Antonio del Rè | Maisons de Plaisance de l’Etat de Milan. Milan. 1743. |
| Georges Riat | L’Art des Jardins. N. d. |
| Eugène Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc | Dictionnaire Raisonné de l’Architecture Française. 1858. |
| GERMAN | |
| Jacob Burckhardt | Der Cicerone. 1901. |
| Jacob Burckhardt | Geschichte der Renaissance in Italien. 1891. |
| Josef Durm | Die Baustile: Die Baukunst der Renaissance in Italien. 1903. |
| Gustav Ebe | Die Spätrenaissance. 1886. |
| Cornelius Gurlitt | Geschichte des Barockstils in Italien. 1887. |
| W. C. Tuckermann | Die Gartenkunst der Italienischen Renaissance-Zeit. 1884. |
| ENGLISH | |
| Michael Bryan | Dictionary of Painters and Engravers, biographical and critical. Revised and enlarged by Robert Edmund Graves, B.A., 1886. |
| G. Burnet, D.D., Bishop of Salisbury. | Some Letters, containing an Account of what seemed most remarkable in Switzerland, Italy, etc. 1686. |
| John Evelyn | Diary, 1644. |
ARCHITECTS AND LANDSCAPE-GARDENERS MENTIONED
ALESSI (GALEAZZO)
1512-1572
Though Alessi was a native of Perugia his best-known buildings were erected in Genoa. Among them are the Villa Pallavicini alle Peschiere, the Villa Imperiali (now Scassi), the Villa Giustiniani (now Cambiaso), the Palazzo Parodi, the public granaries, and the church of the Madonna di Carignano. He also laid out the Strada Nuova in Genoa. His chief works in other places are: the Palazzo Marin (now the Municipio) in Milan; the Palazzo Antinori, and the front of the church of S. Maria del Popolo at Perugia; and the church of the Madonna degli Angeli near Assisi.