. Italian gardens. terrace, with the garden spreadout beneath its windows. Below the garden comes the steeply slopingground chequered with corn and vine and olive, with here a line ofsombre cypress and there a group of dark stone-pines indicating thepresence of some villa ; then the wide grey plain, and that city ofdomes and towers and the greyer hills beyond. Parallel to the terracewall a double stairway of a dozen steps or so, arching over a little grotto,leads to the parterre. The whole face of the terrace and the stairwayitself is embowered in roses of all sorts and other luxuriant climbin
. Italian gardens. terrace, with the garden spreadout beneath its windows. Below the garden comes the steeply slopingground chequered with corn and vine and olive, with here a line ofsombre cypress and there a group of dark stone-pines indicating thepresence of some villa ; then the wide grey plain, and that city ofdomes and towers and the greyer hills beyond. Parallel to the terracewall a double stairway of a dozen steps or so, arching over a little grotto,leads to the parterre. The whole face of the terrace and the stairwayitself is embowered in roses of all sorts and other luxuriant climbing plants,with espaliers of lemon between. The shape of the garden being a somewhat extended oblong, themain paths keep to the good safe rule and follow the lines of theboundary wall, while others, crossing, meet the main central of the rectangular plots thus formed are further subdivided intosmaller beds by narrow paths, eighteen inches only in width, marked outwith rounded kerbs of local sandstone. 100. Placed in the centre of the parterre, in line with the stairway on theone hand and the belvedere on the other, is the most important feature ofthe garden—the Fountain of Venus. The figure from which the foun-tain derives its name has been attributed to Giambologna ; certainly it isa piece of sculpture of which even he had no need to be ashamed, thoughprobably, like the charming little fountain figure in the Buontalentigrotto of the Boboli gardens, it is an early work. Venus or water nymph, it is all one, so only she stand sweetly againstthe deep blue sky, the purity of the marble enhanced by the warm greystone basin and the strong shadow cast on the slim pedestal below. The great fluted tazza, above which the goddess stands, receives thespent water that rises in one slender jet and breaks into spray above this tazza the water, instead of brimming over in the usual way,escapes through the lips of four masks, set together Janus-wise closebeneath the overhang
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, bookidcu3192, booksubjectgardens
