John Dixon Hunt

GARDEN AND GROVE

GARDEN AND GROVE The Italian Renaissance Garden in the English Imagination, 1600-1750

John Dixon Hunt

PENN

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Hunt, John Dixon. Garden and grove : the Italian Renaissance garden in the English imagination, 1600-1750 I John Dixon Hunt. p. em. Originally published: London: J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd, 1986. With new pref. "The Franklin Jasper Walls lectures"-Pref. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8122-1604-0 (pbk. : alk. paper) l. Gardens, English-Italian influences. 2. Gardens, Italian• Influence. 3. Gardens, Renaissance-England. 4. Gardens, Renaissance-Italy-Influence. I. Title. SB457.6.H86 1996 712'.0942'09032-dc20 96-11371 CIP List of Contents

List of Illustrations Vll Preface to the 1996 Edition Xlll

Preface XV Introduction xvii

Part One ITALY: THE GARDEN OF THE WORLD Firm 1 The garden on the Grand Tour 3 2 Classical ground and classical gardens 11 3 Villa and vigna 30 4 Ovid in the garden 42 5 Garden and theatre 59 6 Cabinets of curiosity 73 7 Variety 83 8 Art and Nature 90

Part Two ENGLAND: THE WORLD OF THE GARDEN 101 9 'My patterne for a countrey seat' 103 i. Elizabethan beginnings ii. Gardens in the masque iii. Jacobean garden mania iv. The Danvers brothers, and Lucy Harington v. Grottoes vi. Wilton House gardens 10 'The way of Italian gardens' 143 i. 'Great Changes in Gardens' ii. Evelyn at Wotton and Albury iii. Aubrey, and 'variety' iv. Scenes and scenery v. The scientific garden vi. After 1688 ... 11 'Palladian' Gardening 180 i. How English was the English Landscape Garden? ii. 'Rural Gardening' iii. Castell, Burlington, and Pope iv. Kent v. The progress of gardening

Notes (together with abbreviations of travel writings 223 used throughout) Index 261 The Franklin Jasper Wails Lectures

Franklin Jasper Walls, who died in 1963, bequeathed his residuary estate to The Pierpont Morgan Library to establish a lecture series in the fine arts, iconography, and archaeology, with the provision that the lectures be ultimately published in book form. Throughout his life, Mr Walls was interested in the fine arts and in the study of art history. When the Association of Fellows of The Pierpont Morgan Library was organized in 1949, he became one of the founding members. He was particularly concerned with the Library's lecture programme, and served on the Association's Lecture Committee. Without ever revealing his testamentary plans, he followed with keen attention the design and construction of the Library's new Lecture Hall, completed a few months before his death. Professor Hunt's lectures, here printed in revised and expanded form, are the ninth series ofthe Franklin Jasper Walls Lectures to be published. List of Illustrations

1 Johann Cristoph Volkamer, Palace and gardens of the Principe Doria, 8 late seventeenth century drawing (Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Niirnberg). 2 Jan Massys, Venus Cythera, painting of 1561 (Nationalmuseum, Stock- 9 holm). 3 Panorama of the hills of Frascati, covered with villas, from Jean Blaeu, 16 Theatre d' I talie (1704). 4 Reconstruction of Nero's gardens on Monte Vaticano, from P. Totti, 17 Ritratto di Roma antica (1627 edition). 5 Reconstruction of the grounds of Nero's Domus Aurea (Golden House), 17 from P. Totti, Ritratto di Roma antica. 6 Villa Lante, Bagnaia, fromDescrizione di Roma Moderna (1697 edition). 17 7 Reconstruction of the gardens of Ovid, from Giacomo Lauro, Antiquae 18 urbis splendor (1612). 8 Reconstruction of the gardens of Sallust, from Roma antica e moderna 19 (1750). 9 The Villa Medici, from G. B. Falda, Li Giardini di Roma (1683). 19 10 Virgil's tomb drawn by John Raymond and published in Il Mercurio 20 Italico (1648). 11 Detail from G. B. Falda's map of Rome (1676). 21 12 Remains of Roman baths with modern gardens, from A. Donati, Roma 22 vetus ac recens utriusque aedificiis illustrata (1694). 13 The Horti Bellaiani and the Baths of Diocletian, from Etienne du Perac's 23 map of Rome (1577). 14 Henrick van Cleef III, The Vatican Belvedere sculpture gardens, painting 25 of 1550 (Musee des Beaux-Arts, Brussels). 15 Henrick van Cleef III, Cardinal C esi' s Antique Sculpture Garden, painting 25 of 1584 (The National Gallery, Prague). 16 The Villa Ludovisi, from Falda, Li Giardini di Roma. 26

Vll List of illustrations

17 The Villa Mattei, from Falda, Li Giardini di Roma. 27 18 The Orti Farnesiani on the Palatine Hill, from B. Marliani, Urbis Romae 29 Topographia (1588 edition). 19 The Duke of Parma's gardens (formerly the Orti Farnesiani) on the 29 Palatine Hill, from Falda, Li Giardini di Roma. 20 Paul Brill, The month of May: walking on the terrace, drawing of 1598 34 (Louvre, Cabinet des Dessins). 21 Paul Brill, The month of March: work in the vineyard, drawing of 1598 34 (Louvre, Cabinet des Dessins). 22 Gustave, Utens, The Medici Villa of Castello, painted lunette of 1599 35 (Museo Topografico, Florence). 23 Gustave Utens, The Medici Villa of Poggio a Caiano, painted lunette of 36 1599 (Museo Topografico, Florence). 24 Ettore Romagnoli, drawing of the Villa Celsa, near Siena, dated 1863 37 (Municipal Library, Siena). 25 Inigo Jones, A Peaceful Country, masque design of ?1640 (Trustees of 39 the Chatsworth Settlement: photograph, Courtauld Institute). 26 John Evelyn, drawing of Italian countryside after Titian, dated 1656 40 (Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Fund). 27 Anonymous design for a 'Belvidera After ye Antique ... ',dated 1723 41 on the proposed building (Map Room, The British Library). 28 Walk of the Hundred Fountains with the bas-reliefs from Ovid's 44 Metamorphoses, from Falda, Le Fontane ... di Roma (1675-1691), Part IV. 29 The Hall of Apollo, Villa Aldobrandini, Frascati, from Falda, Le 46 F ontane, Part III. 30 Domenichino and assistants, Apollo and Daphne, fresco originally in the 47 Hall of Apollo, Villa Aldobrandini, Frascati, 1605-6 (National Gallery, London). 31 The Water Theatre, Villa Aldobrandini, Frascati, from Falda, Le F on- 48 tane, Part III. 32 The first room of Buonta1enti's grotto, Boboli Gardens, Florence 49 (Gabinetto Fotografico, Superintendent for Monuments of Florence). 33 Gerrit Houckgeest, Loggia of a Renaissance Palace, painting of mid- 51 seventeenth century (Louvre). 34 The nymphaeum and its courtyard in the Villa Giulia, Rome, from 52 Falda, Le F ontane, Part III. 35 The catena d'acqua at the Villa Lante, Bagnaia. 53 36 Gustave Utens, The Medici Villa of Pratolino, painted lunette of 1599 55 (Museo Topografico, Florence). 37 Giovanni Guerra, hydraulic show in a grotto at Pratolino, drawing of 56 about 1600 (Albertina, Vienna). 38 Giambologna, statue of the Apennines, Pratolino. 57 39 Grotto, from Salomon de Caus, Les Raisons des Forces M ouvantes (161 5). 60

Vlll List of illustrations

40 The gardens of the Villa Madia, near Lucca, in a late seventeenth- 61 century engraving. 41 Exedra in the Vatican Belvedere, from Serlio, Tutto l' opere d' architettura, 62 Book III (1619). 42 Theatre in the gardens of the Isola Bella, Lake Maggiore, from M. A. 62 Dal Re, Ville di Delizia (1726). 43 Villa D'Este, Tivoli, engraving from Jean Blaeu, Theiitred'ltalie (1704). 64 44 Fountain of the Dragons, Villa D'Este, Tivoli, from Falda,Le Fontane 65 di Roma. 45 The Grotta del Mugnone, Pratolino, engraving by Stephano della Bella. 66 46 Giovanni Guerra, Parnassus, Pratolino, and the 'theatre' for viewing it, 66 drawing of about 1600 (Albertina, Vienna). 47 Water theatre, Villa Mondragone, Frascati, from Falda, Le Fontane di 67 Roma. 48 The satyric scene, from Serlio, Tutto l' opere dell' architettura, Book II. 70 49 Fountain theatre in the gardens of the Villa Doria Pamphili, Rome, from 71 Falda, Le F ontane di Roma. 50 G. F. Barbieri, theatrical performance with audience in a garden, draw- 72 ing of the mid-seventeenth century (British Museum, Department of Prints and Drawings). 51 Rockwork within a grotto and grotto plan, from Joseph Furttenbach, 75 Newes Itinerarium Italiae (1627). 52 Imaginary garden, from Furttenbach, Architectura civilis (1628). 86 53 Plan of the Villa Borghese, Rome, from Falda, Li Giardini di Roma. 87 54 View of the grounds of the Villa Borghese, Roma, from Falda, Li 87 Giardini di Roma. 55 Plan of the grounds of the Villa Doria Pamphili, from Falda,Li Giardini 88 di Roma. 56 The Villa Medici, Fiesole. 89 57 Jan Siberechts, Wollaton Hall, Nottinghamshire, oil painting of 1697 108 (Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection). 58 Wimbledon House, drawing probably copied from an engraving of 109 1678, undated (London Borough of Lambeth, Archives Department). 59 Wimbledon House, view of the garden front in 1678, drawn and 109 engraved by Henry Winstanley (London Borough of Lambeth, Archives Department). 60 Inigo Jones, Garden backdrop for a masque, drawing of 1630s (Trustees 116 of the Chatsworth Settlement: photograph, Courtauld Institute). 61 Inigo Jones, Garden backdrop for a masque, drawing of 1630s (Trustees 117 of the Chatsworth Settlement: photograph, Courtauld Institute). 62 Daniel Mytens, portrait of the Countess of Arundel, 1618 (National 121 Portrait Gallery, London; on display at Arundel). 63 Anonymous, detail from the portrait of the Earl of Arundel, about 1627 121 (Welbeck Abbey Collection: photograph, Courtauld Institute).

IX List of illustrations

64 Hydraulic device of Hercules slaying the dragon, from John Bate, The 123 Mysteries of Art and Nature (1634). 65 Design for reclining giant in Richmond Gardens, from Salomon de 124 Caus, Les Raisons des Forces Mouvantes (1624). 66 Robert Peake, detail from a portrait of Henry, Prince of Wales, about 125 1610 (National Portrait Gallery, London). 67 John Aubrey, drawing of Sir John Danvers's garden at Chelsea, 1691 128 (The Bodleian Library, Oxford). 68 The Duke of Beaufort's garden, detail of engraving from Britannia 129 Illustrata (1707). 69 Anonymous,Massey's Court, Llanerch, oil painting of 1662 (Yale Center 132 for British Art, Yale University). 70 Cornelius Johnson, detail of portrait of Baron Capel and his family, 133 about 1639 (National Portrait Gallery, London). 71 Anonymous, drawing of the grotto at Woburn Abbey, perhaps 134 nineteenth century (Cecil Higgins Art Gallery, Bedford). 72 Attributed to Isaac de Caus, drawing of grotto with Mercury and Europa 134 (Victoria and Albert Museum). 73 Rycott, Oxfordshire, detail of engraving from Britannia Illustrata 136 (1707). 74 Grotto created by Thomas Bushell at Endstone, engraving from Robert 137 Plot, The Natural History of Oxfordshire (1677). 75 Engraved view of Wilton House gardens, from Isaac de Caus,Le]ardin 140 de Wilton (about 1645). 76 Detail of amphitheatre in the hillside at Wilton, engraving from de Caus, 141 Le Jardin de Wilton. 77 St Germain-en-Laye, engraving of 1614. 146 78 George Lambert, Wotton in Surrey, oil painting of 1739 (Private 147 Collection). 79 John Evelyn, drawing of Wotton from the top of the terraces, 1653 (The 148 British Museum Print Room: courtesy Evelyn Trustees). 80 The tunnel at Posilippo, Naples, engraving from P. A. Paoli,Antiquita di 149 Pozzuoli . .. (1768). 81 Pirro Ligorio, detail of reconstruction plan of ancient Rome, sixteenth- 150 century engraving (Biblioteca Hertziana, Rome). 82 Aerial view of the terraces at Albury, Surrey (Cambridge University 151 Committee for Aerial Photography). 83 Pirro Ligorio, drawing of reconstruction of the Temple of Fortune at 151 Praeneste (the modern Palestrina), sixteenth century (Vatican Library). 84 Titlepage cartouche of John Aubrey's manuscript, Designatio de 154 Easton-Piers in Com: Wilts, 1669 (The Bodleian Library, Oxford). 85 Aubrey, drawing of house and gardens at Easton-Piercy, 1669 (The 155 Bodleian Library, Oxford). 86 Aubrey, elevation of the site of house and gardens at Easton-Piercy, 1669 156 (The Bodleian Library, Oxford).

X List of illustrations

87 Aubrey, drawing of figures and machinery for grotto at Easton-Piercy, 156 1669 (The Bodleian Library, Oxford). 88 Bretby, Derbyshire, detail of engraving fromBritannia lllustrata ( 1707). 164 89 Aerial photograph of Harrington, Cambridgeshire (Cambridge Univer- 166 sity Committee for Aerial Photography). 90 L. Knyff, Durdans House, Surrey, oil painting of 1673 (Trustees of the 167 Will of 8th Earl of Berkeley Deceased: photograph, Courtauld Insti- tute). 91 William Stukeley, drawing of Marske Hall, Yorkshire, eighteenth cen- 168 tury (The Bodleian Library, Oxford, Gough Maps 229, item 469). 92 Anonymous, drawing of 'Mr Yatsings house on black down near 168 Fernhurst', eighteenth century (The British Library, Department of Manuscripts, Add MS. 5675). 93 Edward Haytley, Sir Roger and Lady Bradshaigh, oil painting of 1746 169 (Wigan Metropolitan Borough Council). 94 William Stukeley, drawing of layout of Grimsthorpe, 1736 (the Bodleian 178 Library, Oxford: MS Top.Gen.d.14.fo1io 36 verso). 95 Claremont amphitheatre, engraving of 1734 by Rocque (London 190 Borough of Lambeth Archives Department). 96 William Stukeley, 'The antient manner of Temples in Groves', drawing 192 (The Bodleian Library, Oxford: Gough Maps 229, item 322). 97 Frontispiece to Batty Langley, New Principles of Gardening (1728). 193 98 View in the gardens of the Villa Doria Pamphili, engraving from D. 193 Barriere, Villa Pamphilia .... (1660s or 1670s). 99 Reconstruction of the younger Pliny's villa estate at Lauren tum, engrav- 195 ing from Castell, The Villas of the Ancients Illustrated (1728). 100 The villa of Servilius Vatia, seventeenth-century engraving. 196 101 Chiswick House gardens, engraved plan by Rocque, 1736 (Ministry of 198 Public Buildings & Works, Crown Copyright). 102 Jacques Rigaud, the obelisk at Chiswick, drawing of about 1733 (Trus- 199 tees of the Chatsworth Settlement: photograph British Museum). 103 H. van Swanevelt, Grotto of the Nymph Egeria, seventeenth-century 203 engraving (National Gallery of Art, Washington, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund). 104 William Kent, design for the hillside at Chatsworth, drawing of(?) 1730s 207 (Trustees of the Chatsworth Settlement: photograph, Courtauld Institute). 105 The Temple of Ancient Virtue, Stowe (photograph R. & H. Chapman). 210 106 Gaspar van Wittel (Vanvitelli), View of Tivoli, oil painting, late 17th or 211 early 18th century (Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore). 107 The Temple of British Worthies, Stowe (photograph R. & H. Chap- 212 man). 108 Copy of Scheemakers's statue of a Lion attacking a Horse, at Rousham, 213 Oxfordshire.

xi List of illustrations

109 The Fountain of Rome, Villa D'Este, Tivoli, engraving from Falda, Le 213 F ontane di Roma, Part IV. 110 The Praeneste Terrace, Rousham. 214 111 William Kent, The Vale of Venus at Rousham, drawing of the late 1730s 215 or early 1740s (Rousham House, Oxfordshire). 112 Rustic fountain in the upper gardens of the Villa Aldobrandini, Frascati, 216 from Falda, Le Fontane ... , Part III. 113 Eighteenth-century view of Llanerch, engraving (National Library of 218 Wales).

Photographs of Figures 17, 42, 51, 97 and 107 are from the Dumbarton Oaks (Trustees for Harvard University) Garden Library. Grateful thanks to Dr Peter Willis and Professor Jacques Carre for the loan of photographs of Figures 93 and 101 respectively.

xii Preface to the 1996 Edition

Much has happened in garden history since Garden and Grove was first published ten years ago in 1986. Our knowledge of garden sites and garden archives has taken huge strides, and as a result we now move to and fro across this field of study with more assurance and also with many more, as well as with more intricate, demands. Yet if our agenda for study has been augmented, its initial list of topics has surprisingly been con• firmed: garden history has established itself as a unique and efficient, if small, addition to our perspectives on the past. Garden and Grove, I like to think, contributed to that a variety of ways. In the first place it never was simply 'a book about gardens'. It argued for the creation of gardens as being part of a wider cultural experience. If they were studied in that way, then garden history could open the doors to a much richer understanding of culture to which it uniquely possesses the key. For alone among the arts, garden-making involves what is conversationally called 'nature', the materials of the organic world. And it therefore mirrors a fuller spectrum of human interests. But gardens do more than reflect-like cultural landscapes but with more concentrated focus, they are sites where human beings discover and realize whole patterns of belief, authority, and social structure. Second, if gardens reveal the mentality of the creators, designers, and societies that produce them, then it follows that their historians must track the roots of garden theory and practice into many human concerns and corners that are not necessarily labelled 'garden material'. To listen properly to the various voices at work in garden-making and garden experience means drawing strategically upon many different disciplines, visual and verbal. It also requires that we read often between the lines; in the case of Garden and Grove this meant, among others, lines of travel writings and political observations. Often thoughtless or trivial remarks can be made to yield a harvest of tacit assumptions about gardens. Third, if that assumption about the compilation of evidence and about the inter• penetration of ideas, attitudes, and experiences in gardens implies new methods of en• quiry and analysis, it opens up an even larger problem: the whole topic of garden histo• riography. The ambition of Garden and Grove was to redraft one chapter by wrenching

Xlll Preface to the 1996 Edition the history of eighteenth-century English landscaping out of the grasp of a received nar• rative that derives ultimately from Horace Walpole. It was he who identified the 'natural' garden as ineluctably English, what a character in Tom Stoppard's Arcadia calls 'nature as God intended'. This 'most perfect perfection' was, naturally for Walpole, the ne plus ultra of garden-making, and so it seemed inconceivable that anyone would wish to lay out grounds in any other way. Astonishingly, continental Europeans and North Americans systematically bought into this notion, until the garden's very resilient sense of its own responsibilities reasserted local priorities and fresh directions. Gardens and Grove also tried to reconfigure English garden history not as a narrative or battle of styles ('formal' versus 'informal'), not as the triumph of a supreme mode, but as the evolution of a complex cluster of attitudes towards culture and the natural world. That my ambition was not shared entirely by its first readers can be gauged from some of the original reviewers, who thought an Englishman ought to be seen to be defending one of his country's great inventions, the 'English' landscape garden, from foreign takeover. Ten years on I am even more convinced that fresh narratives of garden-making are ur• gently needed, and that these must paradoxically both transcend national boundaries• gardens, for all their rootedness, are a transferable commodity-and be especially atten• tive to how gardens represent locality. Finally, if garden history itself has changed for the better in the last decade, so too has my own professional affiliation. In moving out ofliterary studies into landscape archi• tecture, first at Dumbarton Oaks, then at the Oak Spring Garden Library Foundation, and now in the Department of Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning at the University of Pennsylvania, I have happily benefitted greatly from contact with a wider range of gardens and landscape materials as well as an exchange of ideas with many more scholars and practitioners. These last alone would probably mean that were Garden and Grove (re)written today it would be a different book. Above all, it would attend to the relations of gardens with terraculture (especially in the circle of Samuel Hartlib and its influence during the latter half of the seventeenth century and on Stephen Switzer); it would expand its scope to find a more vital role in its history for the work of George London and Henry Wise and the French connections of English design around 1700; it would pay far more attention to garden design as a material practice that makes physical things that live in time and space. But those are themes for future research and publication. Meanwhile, with a few modest revisions and corrections, a new edition of Garden and Grove is offered for its own sake and for the promotion of continuing debate on the issues in garden history rehearsed briefly here. I am grateful to the University of Pennsylvania Press and its readers for enabling the book's continued existence.

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