Page:An Encyclopædia of Cottage, Farm, and Villa Architecture and Furniture.djvu/799

 PRINCIPLES FOR DESIGNING VILLAS. 775 beyond bare shelter and utility ; but, having already recommended the essay of Mr. Hope (which will be found in vol. ix. of the Gardener's Magazine'), we shall conclude tliis section with some quotations from the work of Meason. 1657. The Landscape Architecture of Itahj, iNIeason observes, is the result of time and of a great variety of circumstances. The Roman villas were, no doubt, originally Grecian edifices adapted to the particular situations in which they were placed ; and we are cer- tain, from the descriptions which remain of them, that they extended over the surface rather than towered in stories one above another. After Italy was invaded by the Goths of the north and the Saracens of the south, and became a prey to barbarians from one end of the country to the other, those who remained stationary, as proprietors of the soil, left their villas in the plains, and betook themselves to situations where they could with facility fortify themselves against the attacks of invaders. Hence the fc-w villas, which we know to have existed in the middle Jiges, are in a mixed style of Roman and castellated Architecture ; and this mixed style has prevailed in the villas of Italy from that period to the present. 1658. The Transition from the Roman Villas to the Italian castles or monastic esta- blishments of the middle ages is thus given by Castellan, and G. L. Meason. Castellan maintains that several monasteries, built on the ruins of Roman villas, retain the ancient distribution of the parts of the buildings ; the courts surrounded with porticoes, which are used for walks ; the roon^s entering upon the portico, without communicating with one another ; the basins, with fountains in the courts ; the terraces upon arcades ; the oratories in the gardens ; all these have a striking analogy to the ancient villa. At an ancient villa near Brundusium, our author foimd the amhulacrum, or covered walk, prettv entire. " One of the celebrated villas of LucuUus," observes G. L. Meason, " formerly belonging to INIarius, and afterwards an imperial residence of Tiberius, situated on the promontory of IMisenum (Capo Miseno), existed a. d. 480. To this retreat was sent, by the clemency of Odoacer, king of the Heruli Goths, the last feeble representative of the Roman emjierors of the West, called in derision Augiistulus. The villa had gr^duflly been' changed into a strong castle, to protect it against the sea attacks of the Vandals. These invasions by sea of the Vandals, and, subsequently, of the Normans and Saracens, rm'ned probably the crowd of Roman villas on the Nea- politan shores. The villas on the fertile plains of Italy would suffer from the invasions by land ; but many villa castles or fortified residences remained after the tenth century, in the hilly districts of the Vicentine and Veronese territories ; as their rural nobility descended into the cities of Padua, Verona, Vicenza, and Trevisa, and took part with the Guelf faction. In the thirteenth century, 150 castles were computed to be in the Milanese. It was probably to a Roman villa that Avitus, lieutenant of the emperor Maximus, and afterwards himself a short-lived emperor, retired, a. d. 460. It was situated near Clermont in Auvergne, on the margin of a lake, into which rushed a torrent of mountain cascades. The villa contained baths, summer and winter apartments, and porticoes. Sidonius, the son-in-law of Avitus, has, in imitation of Pliny, given a prolix but obscure description of it.' (^Landscape Arch, of Italy, &e.) The same author (G. L. Meason), in his gi-aphic illustrations, has given an example, from a landscape of Giotto, of T^hat appears to be " a monastery, constructed on a more ancient edifice." 1412 5 ''llll|i,!|,i;-J^,"^ fig. 1412. He has also given an Italian baronial castle of the fourteenth or fifteenth century from Titian, characterised by round towers, fig. 1413; one from Breemberg,