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Standing on a garden wall or assembling in a ‘rustic cabinet’: seasonal statuaryat the Villa GamberaiaMaia Wellington Gahtan aa The Walters Art Museum , BaltimorePublished online: 20 Jun 2012.

To cite this article: Maia Wellington Gahtan (2002) Standing on a garden wall or assembling in a ‘rustic cabinet’: seasonal statuary at the Villa Gamberaia, Studies inthe History of Gardens & Designed Landscapes: An International Quarterly, 22:1, 34-55, DOI: 10.1080/14601176.2002.10435253

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Standing on a garden wall or assembling tn a (rustic cabinet': seasonal statuary at the Villa Gamberaia

MAlA WELLINGTON GAHTAN

Attention to the seasons is common to villas and villa gardens from ancient Roman times to the present day - from the seasonal dining rooms recommended by Vitruvius 1 to our own use of water and dense vegetation to create cool spaces for summer repose. In the RenaiSsance and Baroque periods, the iconography of Central Italian villa decoration, stucchi, and garden statuary often reflected its setting with respect to these seasonal features. In many cases, representatwns of the seasons themselves attested to the relationshrp of the villa and garden to nature's changes. At the Villa

Gamberaia, Settignano, full-figure seasonal allegories are placed along the 'great wall' (figure r) and seasonal busts populate the gabinetto rnstico behind

thrs wall (figure 2). The purposes of this paper are to revrew the current placement of the statues m relation to the available histoncal documentat1on and to show how these seasonal representations relate to their local environ­ments and contribute to the larger IConographic progranune. In the process of this discussion, I shall examine traditional uses and meanings of seasonal

rmagery in Central Italian villas and gardens. 2

The summer garden and the Capponi

Although one rrught find seasonal cycles m many villa contexts, they were often located in summer apartments with northern exposures, loggias or cooler areas of the garden reserved for summer use. Perhaps the cycle of

34

I '

r r _ __.

FIGURE r. Great Wall wtth Seasonal Sculpture, seventeenth to eighteenth centunes, Villa

Gamberaia (Photographzc Archive, Villa Gamberaza)

the seasons served as a rerrunder to enjoy the good season while it lasts -a kmd of real world or 'silver age' counterpart to the 'golden age' theme so appreciated during the Renaissance. The first known example of this

lSSNq.60-1176~2002 TAYLOR&: FRANCIS LTD

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FIGURE 2. Gabinetto Rustico, seventeenth-nineteenth centuries, Villa Gamberara (Photographic Archrve, Vrlla Gamberaia).

assoe1ation rs the Villa Madama, which, not comcidentally, contains some of

the earliest allegories of the seasons in a villa context. Designed by Raphael

for Cardinal Giulio de' MediCl (later Clement vu), the Villa Madama

features stuccoed images of the seasons in the centre of the grand loggia

ceiling. Located at the northwest end of the villa complex and facing the

prine1pal garden, the loggia's large arches provided cool breezes and a view

of green vegetation. This area's explicit association wrth summer follows

ancient Roman practice and is recorded in a letter by Raphael. 3 Later

examples of the seasons in 'summer' zones include the summer apartments at

the Villa Faroese, Caprarola and the nymphaeum at the Villa Giulia, Rome.4

When the Villa Gamberaia and its gardens were under construction

for Zanobi Lapi in the first third of the seventeenth century, its architect

distingmshed a cooler 'summer' zone of the garden from the larger ensemble.

This summer zone included a wooded area, a lemon garden and a grotto­

like space connecting these areas, the space which has been affectionately

termed the gabinetto rustico ('rustic cabinet') at least smce the eighteenth

century. 5 These three areas are all located behind a great wall that separates

them from a grassy area in front of one of the villa's entrances. In an original

analysiS of the garden's arcrutectural composition, Judith A. Kinnard suggested

that this green alley Irrutates a city street, the wall providing a visual

impression of facing buildings.6 Considenng the wall and alley m this light

further unifies the three 'summer' areas on the north-eastern srde of the wall.

It is m this area - along the top of the great wall and witrun the gabinetto

rustico - that the seasonal imagery is to be found.

The preClse nature of these areas during the Lapr ownership is not

well known. 7 However, the concurrent construction of the villa and limonaia

next to the old farmhouse ensures that the lemon garden on Its flat plam

also dates from the early seventeenth century. 8 The contours of the landscape

would have demanded a transition between the farmhouse/ limonaia adjacent

to the lemon garden and the newly constructed mam vrlla residence. The

wall contaming the lemon garden and woods and the gabinetto rustico wrth its

multiple staircases to the level of the house proVIde an elegant and unique

solution to the problem of connecting these two significant areas of the

garden. Part of its uniqueness is due to its uniting the peaceful intimacy of a

small walled 'secret' garden with the fountains, rocaille work and water jokes

usually associated wrth subterranean grottos and nymphaea. That such a

combmation was considered to be novel, rf not extraordinary, rs suggested by

Its having been termed a 'gabinetto rustico ad uso di grotta' (rustrc closet

used as a grotto) m an erghteenth-century document.9 Its cruciform shape

further contributes to the chamber's meditative quality by recalling the

maJestic ruins of an old abbey. While the basic arcrutectural form certamly

belongs to the Lapi penod, it 1s also likely that the gabinetto rustico possessed

water and a grotto-like character from its inception. 10

How much of the gabinetto's onginal decoratiOn - the rocaille, spugne,

busts, obelisks and urns - was retained in the later projects we see today 1s

still a matter of speculation. The two rughly decorative UITlS at the entrance

to the gabinetto rustico depict lions, a reference to the Lapi farruly found

elsewhere in the sculpture of the villa. These are the only decorative features

that must date from the Lapi period of ownership. Other elements such as

the seasonal busts, the obelisks and the greater share of the urns, as I shall

explam below, would seem to reflect Capporu predilections. At the very

least, they represent a later phase of the garden's decoration when Florentine

taste had entered a rococo phase. I I

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In 1717 Vincenzio Maria Capponi and Fiero Capponi inherited the

property. Upon the death of Vincenzio Mana in 1725, the villa was passed

on to his four sons, Cappone, Giovan Vincenzio, Lorenzo and Scipione.

From the start, it was Scipione who took greatest interest m the upkeep of

the villa. According to a diary entry recording a visit to the property by

Giovanni Battista Fagiuoh dated 23 April 1727, the villa had been restored by

Scipione: 'si ando alia bella villa gil dei Lapi a Gamberaia, a nuovo nsarcita e

nobilmente ammobigliata dal Marchese Scipione Capponi' (we went to the

beautiful villa at Gamberaia which had belonged to the Lapi, newly restored

and nobly funushed by Marquis Scipwne Capporu). 12 The early date of thrs

entry suggests that Scipwne may have been responsible for renovatwns even

while hrs father was still alive. In any case, sometime before his death,

Vmcenzio Maria had an estate plan drafted. 13 It probably reflected adrutions

made by himself or by his son. This estate plan or cabreo contained a

ground plan and selected views of the more elaborate man-made portions,

including the 'gabmetto rust1co ad uso ill grotta' and nyrnphaeum. The cabreo,

unfortunately, is lost or destroyed but reproductions were made before Its

disappearance and these are preserved at the Villa Gamberaia today.

On the cabreo one can see the early eighteenth-century disposition of

the north side of the gabinetto rustico (figure 3). It is instrucnve to compare

thrs drawing with this same side as it exists today (figure 2) and as It existed

when Charles Latham photographed the garden m 1905 (figures 4-5). Two

notable alterations mclude the fountain (which has taken the place of a statue

in the niche) and the two busts supported on pedestals which had at some

pomt replaced the original obehsks With balls on top. The cabreo shows

two other statues in niches whrch, unfortunately, are unidennfiable today,

for they would have contributed to the larger interpretanon of thlS garden

space. 14

From Latham's photographs one also nouces that most of the lower

balustrade pillars have been replaced since 1905, as the decorative elements

present in the photograph of these pillars were restricted to hanging pods

of seeds (figure 5). The balustrade pillars around the upper registers, how­

ever, included flowers, fruits and seeds, perhaps refernng to the four seasons

in a manner not unlike the seasonal garlands framing many Della Robbia

terracotta roundels. Close inspection of existrng balustrade supports in these

upper registers reveals several original examples, a couple of which are

attached to the onginal comer pilasters. These agricultural pillars probably

served as models for replacing those m the lower portion of the garden,

which today bear the same motifs (figure 2). Latham (and Edward Lawson

after hun in 1918) also recorded a cruciform in rocaille work in the large

mche at the 'apse' end of the gabinetto, a decoration that today leaves no

trace. 15 Combining this 'mosaic' cross with the semicircular shape of the

ruche and the cruciform shape of the space invites an mterpretation of stair

case entrances as openings mto a Romanesque church's annular crypt

or ambulatory (figure 6). Unfortunately, the cabreo cannot help determine

the date of these 'ecclesiastical' decoranons, though the basic architectural

features must reflect Its iniual construction. 16

The Informanon presented in these visual documents and particularly in

the eighteenth-century cabreo are important for our purposes because they

confirm that the current configuration of many of the decorative elements no

longer reflects the original programme. The decoranons that correspond to

the cabreo mclude a large decoranve basin and a small one on the balustrade,

a few of the obelisks and urns, and perhaps the seasonal busts. The upper

registers of the cabreo depict two types of decoratwns, oddly shaped urns,

busts, one small basin, one spherical decoration and one larger urn. In other

portions of the cabreo - depicting the parterre and limonaia - the urns are

all of the same odd type. The cabreo also depicts five busts, making the total

number ten for both sides. 17 Two existed at each comer of the entrance:

another two at the edges of the balustrade before the stairs begin. Eight more

cluster on top of the balustrade at the other 'apse' end (figure 7). Five of the

twelve current busts occupy similar locations on the cabreo (assummg a mirror

image of this arrangement on the opposlte side). Of these five depicted on

the cabreo, only two - those representing Autumn and Winter - are ~ld enough to have been represented in this document. The other three are

nineteenth-century replacements.

Four of the twelve busts in the garden today belong to the eighteenth

century (figure 8). These represent the four seasons. The seasonal allegones

are easily idennfied for they possess the characterutic attributes of flowers

(Spring), grain (Summer), grapes (Autumn) and a shawl (Winter) (figure 9-12).

As they are busts lacking hands, the sculptor has placed the attrlbutes rn the1r

hair as has been customary in such allegories smce the Late Antique period.

Like their full-figure counterparts standing on the nearby wall, Spring

and Summer are female and Autumn and Winter are male. The Iconography

of both sets of seasons is a traditional one, codified in the mid-siXteenth

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SEASONAL STATUARY AT THE VILLA GAMBERAIA

. j.

''

FIGURE 3. Capponi Cabreo, detail of the gabinetto rustJco, 111125 (Photographic Archive, Villa Gamberaia).

century. An example of the use of similar attributes and gender, well known

to any Florentine sculptor, exists in Anunannan's Four Seasons which were

erected at the ends of the bndge of S. Tnniti, Florence.

It 1s possible then, that the male seasons of Autumn and Winter, placed

on e1ther side of the gabinetto's entrance, retain their original location.

Autumn is near his full-figure counterpart on the left while Wmter is near

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FIGURE 4- Gabinetto Rusnco, photograph by CHARLES LATHAM, The Gardens of Italy (1905) (The George Peabody Library of The Johns Hopkins University).

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FIGURE 5. Upper Balustrade of the gabmetto rustico, photograph by CHARLES LATHAM, The Gardens ofltaly (1905) (The George Peabody Library of The Johns Hopkins University)

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aJIES.I. Dl !. ~ARIA DELLA PI EVE _

(A!IEZZO)

.,. ~, =• =•r -(----~--' - - -

FIGURE 6_ Nave, Santa Maria d1 Pieve, Arezzo (Ministero per 1 Bem Culturali e

Ambientali, Rome)_

40

FIGURE 7- Locations of busts in the cabreo of the Villa Camberaia

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I I I FIGURE 8. Current locatwns of seasonal busts at the Vrlla Gamberara.

his counterpart on the right (figure 8). Therr posrtions correspond to two of the proposed busts on the cabreo. The placement of the others - Summer

flanking a fountain ruche (and replacmg the obelisk in the cabreo) and Spring

at the far end above the grotto - is of more recent invention. They might, however, have originally occupred the other two entrance locations - further in from the gate than therr male counterparts (figure r3). In this hypothetical configuration Summer would look at Autumn, wlule Spnng would glance towards the garden floor. Alternatively, all four might have been moved. In this case, the fact that both Spnng and Summer glance to the left whrle Autumn and Winter glance to the right could be better accommodated. ' 8

In this hypothetical reconstruction, I have assumed that the seasonal busts were symmetrically placed. Smce their very first appearances in ancrent Roman sepulchral imagery through their later resurgence in Renaissance

crvic and domestic architecture, allegories of the seasons have always been symmetrically configured. Further evrdence for their original symmetncal drsposition may be found in two nearby Capponi commrsswns whose visual similanties are too striking to overlook: the secret garden of Vrlla La Pietra, Florence and the enclosed garden of Palazzo Cappom (Vra Giusti), Florence. In both ensembles, four busts of the seasons and od1er busts wrthout attributes commrngle with urns partly made of volcanic stone. At Villa la Pietra, most likely decorated in the last decade of the seventeenth century for Scipione Capponi, the seasonal busts and urns decorate the top of the limonaialpomario at the far end of the secret garden, while other busts alternate with urns on the side walls of the enclosed space (figure r4). The seasonal busts are situated in the far corners of the pomaria, Spnng and Summer on the left-hand side and Autumn and Winter on the nght. Non­seasonal male and female busts alternate on the srde walls wrth urns. At the Palazzo Capponi, decorated in the first decade of the eighteenth century for Scipione's son, Alessandro Capporu, the seasonal busts, urns, and other busts decorate the top of a building that was used as both a limonaia

and uccelliera but which also housed a grotto (figure rs). The seasonal busts are situated at the far ends of the limonaia, Autumn and Summer on the

left-hand side, and Spring and Winter on the right. Four busts without particular iconographic features occupy the zone close to the centre and urns are interspersed between them. The acute srmlianties between the articulation of the upper zone, the rocaille designs, the materials, and alter­nation of busts and urns of the Palazzo Capponi's limonaia and La Pietra's

limonaia have led one scholar to hypotheslZe that they may have been executed by the same artisans, under the direction of Ferdinanda Ruggeri, then an assistant of Carlo Fontana. 19

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FIGURE 9. Bust of Spring, eighteenth century,

Villa Gamberaia.

FIGURE ro. Bust of Summer, eighteenth

century, VII/a Camberata

The fact that both projects also feature four busts of seasons would seem to strengthen the associat:J.on between these gardens and the gabinetto rustico of the V ilia GamberaJa, also owned by members of the Capponi fanuly smce

I7I7 (albeit a less promment branch). The three sets of seasonal busts, moreover, are very similar in style, iconography, and date, though I believe that a different hand executed each set. 2° Further study of the eighteenth­century busts of all three Capponi residences might shed further light on 1ssues of iconography, artists' workshops, and Florent:J.ne taste m the early eighteenth century.~ 1

The full-figure allegories of the seasons standing on the wall at the Villa Gamberaia have no parallels in these other Capponi properties_ The cabreo

does not include a view of this portion of the garden, though if the statues were in place at the time of its composition, one might reasonably expect it to have included them. The wall Itself possesses e1ght ra1sed pedestals (figure r), which, judging by the cabreo's rendition of other portions of the

FIGURE II Bust of Autumn, eighteenth

century, Vrlla Camberara.

FIGURE 12. Bust of Winter, erghteenth

century, Villa Camberaia.

garden, probably once supported urns.22 Perhaps more importantly, however, the late eighteenth-century character of these statues argues against their

belong~ng to the same decorative programme as the seasonal busts, though they must also have been commissioned by the Capponi family who owned

the villa nntil r854. That Autumn and Wmter statues respond to the placement of the Autumn and Winter busts would support the hypothesis that they were erected with the earlier decoration in mind. The mterpretat:J.on of both sets of seasons, moreover, will be shown to reflect a broader dialogue with thelr local environments and mstoncal traditions, whether or not they derive further mearungs through association with other Capponi commissions.

Seasons standing on a garden wall

While it is not my intention to trace a complete history of seasonal decorations, I would like to cite a few precedents and themes that serve to delineate

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FIGURE I3- Proposed original locations of seasonal busts at the Villa Gamberaia.

better the specral qualities of the Villa Gamberara's seasonal statuary. In particular, I shall outlme a lustoncal tendency to utilize seasonal unages in contexts marking the transltlon from one kmd of space or order of

FIGURE I4 Pomario, late seventeenth century, VIlla La Pzetra, Floreme.

reality to another. This affiruty between seasons and transitions may ulti­mately stem from therr mtrinsic association with celestial change, though few Florentme garden owners would consider their seasonal statues in such abstract terms.

Smce Hellenistic times, images of the seasons populated public monuments and illustrated books. In these contexts their cyclical regularity provided earthly confirmation of planetary movements. The Stoics emphasized the divine character of the seasons, a philosophical position that carried over into the Late Antique period in which the succession of the seasons denoted a kind of teleological proof of drvine providence. 23 Frequently used thereafter in sepulchral contexts, seasonal allegories also promised the perpetuation of life after death, just as spring follows wmter. 24 Wrth sinular reasonmg, the Church Fathers vrewed the commg of spring after the death of winter as a sure proof of Resurrection. 25 In Late Antique and Early Chnstran tombs and sarcophagr reflecting these attitudes, the seasons were not deprcted as the female horai descnbed by Heswd or the gods and goddesses described by

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FIGURE 15. Limonaia, early ezghteenth century, Palazzo Capponi, Florence.

Lucretius. Instead, they were represented as pure allegories with attributes much like the ones used in the RenaJ.ssance and Baroque periods for which they served as models (figure r 6).

By the later Middle Ages, images of the labours of the months had replaced allegones of the seasons as the primary vehicle for depicting the solar year m pubhc contexts. 26 Unlike the more abstract seasonal allegones, the labours of the months could serve the dual purpose of indrcatmg the cosmic order (like the seasons) and man's fallen state (through the motif of labour). These labours were particularly popular in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries around church portals where they were usually paired with or replaced scenes of Adam and Eve bemg sent to work in the fields. The Cathedral of Modena includes both the labours of the months and Adam sent to the fields. The relief sculpture on the facade illustrates the Fall of Man and his barushment from the eternal spring of Paradise to seasonal labours of our world. The

44

south portal of the cathedral depicts the labours of the months (figure 17).

While the yearly cycle of the Early Christian sarcophagus straddled. the threshold between life and death, on the church portal, the year - divided into twelve months mstead of four seasons - denoted the threshold between sacred and secular space, between the promise of celestial paradise and the reality of the terrestrial world.

Allegories of the yearly cycle first enter Central Italian villa imagery when Lorenzo de' Medrci commissiOned a majolica frieze illustrating cychcal time for the entrance to hrs villa at Poggw a Caiano. The frieze, which dates from c. r 480 and was executed by Bertoldo dr Gwvanni, represents the birth of bme on the left side, the seasons and months on the nght side with the timegod, Janus at the centre (figure r8). Using Ovid and Vrrgil rather than Genesis as thematic sources, the frieze, nevertheless, illustrates the corrung into being of time's terrestrial order. In thrs context, Janus represents

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riGURE r6. Late Antzque sarcophagus with Four Seasons, Palazzo Mattei, Rome (from P. Bartoli and P. Bellon, Admzranda Romanarum Antiquitatum (Rome: 1693), plate 78).

Lorenzo, Janus's temple represents Lorenzo's house (Poggio a Caiano), and the figures of cyclical time represent Lorenzo's well-ordered state. 27 It IS

surely not coincidental that this first example of seasons in a country villa both thematizes the question of the ongin of cyclical time and incorporates the traditional fa<;:ade/portal placement of that theme. In Lorenzo's case the literal threshold of the villa serves as a transition between the natural order of

the garden and the villa under Lorenzo's control.

As noted above, the ceiling of the Villa Madama's summer loggia contains stucco allegories of the seasons, which may have been inspired by a similar IConographic arrangement found iri one of the vaults of Hadnan's Villa. This

loggia IS also a transitional space. One passes through tlus loggra to amve at the mam garden. In addition to participating m the decoration of the 'summer rooms', these seasons perform the role of announcirig the change visible m the garden to which the loggia leads. Wlule I do not wish

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\J .. ·

.. r:: ' ~~" ~~~£-J"-

FIGURE 17. Labours of the months, end of the twelfth century, South Portal

of the Cathedral, Modena

to 11Uply that guarding these limmal spaces was the seasons' only role, it is true that threshold zones possess much more than their fair share of seasonal allegories.

The particular assooation of seasons or cyclical time m general with gateways was further fueled by antiquarian Interpretations of the 'Arch of Janus' in the Forum Boarium, Rome. Believed to be a temple dechcated to the Etrusco-Roman tlmegod Janus, the arch offered antiquanans an irresistible opportunity to drsplay their irrgenuity. Each of the four sides of thrs arcus

quadrifrons was allegorized as one of the four seasons and its twelve decorative niches were interpreted as the twelve months. 28 Pirro Ligorio certainly drew on such ant:J.quarian scholarship as well as on the allegones of the four seasons on the Arch of Septimus Severns m the Roman Forum when he designed the courtyard gates of Pius rv's Casrno in the Vatican Gardens. On either side of each arch, he represented four child seasons (two pam of two) to mark those opemngs to the courtyard space between Pius rv's Casino and Loggia irr the Vatican gardens (figure 19). A century later irr Tuscany, allegories of the four seasons return to the entrance of the villa itself At Villa Mansi, the seasons are relief roundels recalling the stucchr of the Villa Madama. At the Villa Torrigiani, they are full-figure statues like those standirrg on the Villa Gamberara wall (figure 20). In both villas, the cyclical time imagery of Lorenzo's Poggio a Caiano would seem to have come full orcle, returnirrg agam to the villa's entrance.

The full-length seasons standirrg on the retaillillg wall at the Villa Gamberaia ought to be read, I believe, within the tradition of seasonal imagery outlined here. Like these earlier allegories, the Villa Gamberaia seasons mark the

transition from the garden as a whole to that portion aimed at provrdmg coolness in summer. Tills area is also one of the portions of the garden that would change most drastically irr winter when the lemon trees are taken indoors. Recalling Kinnard's argument that the wall was irrtended to SllUulate

houses across the street would make the analogy to a villa with seasons on the exterior fa<;:ade such as Villa Torrigiani even tighter. Whether these erghteenth-century statues mutate such rites of passage from irrside to outside

or merely mark off the enclosed summer gardens, they guarded a limirral space.

Seasons in a rustic cabinet

The earlier seasonal busts of the Gamberaia may also ful£ill a role as boundary markers, especrally rf they had once been placed at the entrance to the gabinetto rustico. Guarding a percerved boundary was probably the pnrnary role of the first known seasonal busts (as opposed to full-figure statues),

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-FIGURE r8. Portal and fritze, 1480, Villa Medici, Poggw a Caiano.

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FIGURE 19. Pirro ugorio, Gate with Seasons, 156lr-6], Casino of Pius IV (Archivio

Jotograjiw, Musei Vatiami).

like those of Villa Medici, Castello, that bordered an enclosed garden. 29

However, the gabinetto rustiw is more than an enclosed garden; it IS also a kmd of grotto, a property it shares with the garden arcrutecture of the other

FIGURE 20. Statues of the Four Seasons, 167o-8o, Villa Torrigianr, Camigliano (LU).

two Capponi residences. At Palazzo Capponi, a full-fledged grotto exists mside the limonaia. At Villa La Pietra grottesque decorations are limited to the exterior of the limonaia. At the Villa Gamberaia, the enure cruciform space of the gabinetto rustico was conceived as a grotto with rocaille decorations, niches, statues, water jokes and a fountain at the far end. Aside from the

possible Christian symbolism, the only real distmction between the gabinetto

rustico and a standard grotto IS that the gabinetto rustuo has no roof The fact that the sun is permitted to shine inside transforms one's impression from

that of a dark cavern to that of a gay space with plants carpetmg its floor. The gabinetto rustico is a unique semi-grotto superimposed upon an intimate enclosed garden. Any interpretation of the seasonal busts must also reflect this unique semi-grotto status.

Imagery in grottos varies widely. Themes of coolness, water, winds, winter, rmcrocosm and macrocosm, death, deluge, and change are common, the latter themes growing in compleXIty as one moves from the siXteenth through the seventeenth centuries. Direct allusions to the seasons are not common in

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grottos, although one well-known example exists m the underground nymphaeurn at the Villa Giuha, Rome. On the ceiling of tlus semicircular cave, frescoed images of the seasons, planets, and elements enJOY the company of statues of nymphs and other aquatic references. The: emphasis is on the cyclical harmony of nature, and the relationship of earthly matter and heavenly movements. 30 Like the grottesque loggia of the Villa Madama, this grotto offers a seasonal 'silver age' response to the many gardens alludmg to the 'golden age' of pastoral plenty.

Indirect allusions to the seasons or 'silver age' are very common. The

seventeenth-century grotto of the wrnds at one end of the enclosed garden of Flora at the Villa Torrig:tam, Camigliano, for example, contains death and

underworld motifS combined with the promise of regeneration. Hercules with Cerberus guards the entrance and images of urns in stucco decorate its intenor walls. Next to the urns are statues of the winds under the command of Aeolus - the windgod commonly identified with Winter. Since a statue of Flora sits on top of the grotto vault, the ensemble as a whole invites the interpretatiOn of a natural cycle of death and resurrection occurring each year With the passage from winter to spring. 3 '

In her survey of grottos and their meamngs, Naorru Miller notes that many grottos attempt to present the macrocosm of the universe in mimature. 32

Like outdoor Wunderkammem, these grottos offered their visitors collections of the natural and the man-made engineered into aesthetic and structural

harmony. 33 Pan, allegonzed as the maahina del mondo, for example, was a dominant figure at the most Eunous grotto in the vioruty of Florence until Its destruction in the nineteenth century: the Villa Medici at Pratolino. Similar iconographic roles were played by water organs whose music was presumed to provide an earthly counterpart to the harmony of the celestial spheres. 34 Eugenio Battisti offers a compelling metaphorical synthesis of this aspect. He presents the grotto as the mverse of the cupola:

The late siXteenth century opposes a theme of archaic drama qUite unusual to the Chnstian west to the cupola: the natural or artificial cave. In a certain sense, the cave is hke Dante's Hell - a reversed cupola, onented towards the earth mstead of towards the heavens. Its most interesting part is not so much the most lummous part, but rather the darkest part; we must proceed towards the darkness, knowing that we are not moving towards knowledge but towards mystery. In addit:J.on, the cave has the capacity to accompany and progressively take us deeper mto the heart of nature. 35

At the Villa Gamberaia, busts of the four seasons combine with rustic urns, obelisks, and nature symbolism. 36 Like the Villa Giuha nymphaeum and the Villa Torrigiam 'Grotto of Flora', the gabinetto rustico unites symbols of death - urns and obelisks - with allegories of the cyclical course of nature. 37 Unhke the 'Wunderkammer' type of grotto so popular in the late Cinquecento and Seicento, the gabinetto rustico does not thematize the underground mechanism of change nor does it lead the VIsitor towards dark mysteries. 38 It is a poetic melancholy space of meditation, a solemn reflection of the natural order as it is. Looking at the urns, seasons and seed motifS m the original balustrades still VlSlble in Latham's photographs, one is easily remrnded of Shelley's Ode to the West Wind written in Florence in r8r9 m

which the poet describes the necessity of the seed's death in winter for the arrival of spring blossoms:

The wmged seeds, where they lie cold and low, Each hke a corpse within its grave, until Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow ....

Although it would be mistaken to posit any real connection between the Bntish poet and the Florentine garden artist(s), Shelley's poem does represent an attitude towards death farnihar across Europe in this period. An attitude quite unlike the grim reaper popular m late Middle Ages and the Baroque periods, it reaches back to the Early Christian Church whose main con­ceptual source was surely the same Biblical passage that ultimately inspired the romantic poet:

Amen amen dico vobis nisi granum fi:ument:J. cadens m terrarn mortuum fuent ipsum solum manet si autem mortuum fuerit multum fructum adfert. Qm amat animarn suarn perdet earn et qm odit arnimarn suam m hoc mundo in VItam aetemarn custocbt earn. Qohn 12:24-5)39

The death connoted in these verses and at the Villa Gamberau's gabinetto rustico m the urns, obelisks, seasons, and seeds does not snuff out life. Rather, death (and/ or rebirth) is recognized as part of the course of life.

In an Italian Neo-Classical context, Bellori best sums up this attitude when he discusses what was then thought to be Ovid's tomb. Written towards the end of the seventeenth century, Bellori's beautifully illustrated

book went though many seventeenth- and eighteenth-century editions. Bellon characterizes Ovid's tomb as a grotto that celebrates the passage of

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time. It depicts the four seasons surrounding the central figure of Pegasus. In

Bellori's interpretation, the seasons signifY 'temporum felicitas'. He further

explams that seasons are often found in sepulchral settings for they signifY the purification and resurrection of the soul - a N eoplatonic versron of what

the Gamberaia's gabinetto mstico- or indeed, the Torrigiani grotto or various paintings by Poussin - reflect.40 Bellori also adds that the sun usually

accompanies the seasons, interpreting the figure of Pegasus as an alternative symbol for the sun's yearly course:

Le figure eli queste lunette & le altre sirruli con fruttr, e fiori non ha dubbro che corespondono aile stagioni, col meelisuno senrimento & allegona, che ora acceneremo, per !Spiegare il concerto della pittura. Trovansi spesso nelle Arche sepolcrali come anche ne glr altn marmi e medaglie, le quattro stagioru figurate per simbolo della felicita dei tempi, e questo trtolo sr legge in pru rovesci dr medaglre antiche, TEMPORUM FELICITAS FELICIA TEMPORA, essen­doVI scolpiti quattro putti, che le quattro tempi dell'anno rappresentando con glr stessr simboli che veeliarno espressr. E benche quest! sr addattino alia felicita dell'Imperio cagronata dal buon govemo degl' Imperadori, ner sepolcn pen) vollero sigruficare che 1' Anime purgate, e mondo avessero heto soggrorno ne Carnpr elisi, & IV! albergassero felicamente, finche per lo corso lunghissimo del sole tornassero eli nuovo in vita, come seguiteremo apresso, parlandosi del Pegaso in quahta del sole autore, e motore de' tempi dell'anno. Si aggiunge, che 1' ore, e le stagwni furono riputate le medesime, avendo m cura le porte del Crelo; che talvolta riportassero l'Arurne dall'Inferno, come finge Teocnto di Adone, dall'ore ricondotto a Venere dal fiume Acheronte onde per tal cagione ancora le figurarono ne' sepolcri ... Y

While one nught expect Bellori to associate Pegasus with Apollo in

his role as poet, instead, Bellori emphasized the temporal! cyclical aspect of

the sungod, revealing how deeply ingrained this association was. Indeed

representations of the sun surrounded by the seasons were especially common

ill the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries testifYing to this penod's acute

desire to connect heavenly and earthly change. One need look no further

than the limonaia of the Palazzo Capponi to find a Florentine example of this kind of association. Under the seasonal busts and in the center of the

fimonaia's facade IS a sundial (figure 15).

The Villa Gamberaia's gabinetto mstico possesses no rmages of the sun and

no sundial. Instead, the real sun would seem to fulfill tills symbolic purpose. Lacking a roof, tills grotto cum enclosed garden allows the real sun to pass

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overhead. Could the real sun, then, have replaced the standard symbolic

one? Could the obelisks - commonly used as sundials - have partly been

meant to underscore the presence of the real sun? If this was indeed the sun's iconographic role, it would not have been the first time that nature was used

to complete a symbolic programme. Already in the early sixteenth century, the underworld grotto of the Villa Famesina had used the Tiber to symbolize the River Styx . .P

Comparing the Iconographic ensemble of the Villa Gamberara's gabinetto mstico, situated next to the villa's lemon garden, with that of the limonaia of

the Palazzo Capponi with its urns, seasons, and sundial, moreover, supports

just such a symbolic reading of the sun: here too, the visible record of the

real sun enhances the meanmg of the sculptural program. While a sundial

with its precise measuring of solar time might seem out of place in the Villa

Gamberaia's vaguely theatrical and slightly melancholy setting, the simple symbolic integration of the real sun's cyclical motion overhead would have

served the less hour-conscious purpose of bunging the seasonal busts, obelisks, urns, and seeds into sharper focus.

Conclusion

While it is hkely that the Capponi family can be credited with the

accumulation of seasonal statuary - on the wall and in the gabinetto mstiw -it is clear that in the cases of each set, they were building on earlier

conceptual and architectural foundations. The walled summer garden already

exrsted, as did a cruciform grotto garden, or gabinetto mstico. This latt~r, representing an elegant solution to the problem of joinirrg the lemon garden and limonaia with the main house, was conceived ill such as way as to recall

an apse and ambulatory or armular crypt of a medieval church, whether or

not such an assooation was onginally ill tended. 43 Decorative elements such

as the urns, obelisks and balustrades with seed mot:t£5 changing to seasonal motifS as one ascends, may reflect an original conceit of death and rebirth, an

interpretation which accords well in such a semi-grotto setting and may

account for the (perhaps later) inclusion of a rocaille cross at the far end.

Unlike a standard grotto cave, however, the open-air gabinetto mstico carmot

offer the vrsitor a ghrnpse of the earthly change hidden underground, though it could make a direct association between celestial and terrestrial change.

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The seasonal busts were created to complement this serru-grotto rcono­

graphy. Placed near ground level on the balustrade, these seasons responded

to both the presence of the real sun and to the subterranean changes

resulting from the sun's cyclical movement overhead. Like Bellori's Pegasus,

the sun offers a celestial point of reference to the seasonal changes below.

At the Villa Garnberaia, the seasonal busts occupied a transitional ground­

level space between the level of the grotto floor and that of the sun above.

Star1ding watch on the great wall, the later seasonal statues contribute to the

isolation and special character of tills summer zone by marking its outer

boundaries. They face what was the villa's main entrarlce, announcmg the

extraordmary and complex accretion of seasonal meamngs wruch will confront

the visitor once he passes to the other srde of the garden gate. Serene yet

uplifting in a vaguely melancholy way, the Villa Gamberaia's summer closet

fulfills the promise of centuries of seasonal traditions using a quintessentially

rococo vocabulary.

I.. Vrrnuvws, De arrhitedura, vr.4.2. In ills scheme, the summer dining room should face north so that it benefits from tills cooler exposure. The spring and autumn dmmg rooms should face east so that they reiD.al!l temperate ill those seasons.

2. On the parucular and conservative character of Tuscan gardens, see GEORGINA MASSON, 'Florentme and Tuscan gardens of the seven­teenth and erghteenth centuries', Apollo, c (1974), pp 2 r o--r 7. After the sixteenth century, there was substantial Roman mfluence on Tuscan gardens. An excellent general discussron of Baroque gardens 1S jOHN DrxoN HuNT, 'll giardino Barocco: pili Barocco del Barocco', ill MARIA ADRIAN! Grusn and ALESSANDRO TAGLIOLINI (eds), fl giardino delle muse. Arti e artifici nel barocco europeo. Am del IV

Colloquia intemazionale Pietrasanta 8-10 settembre 1993

(Florence, 1995), pp. 5-14. See also the general studies of ALESSANDRO T AGLIOLINI, Storia del giardino ltaliano: gli artisti, l'invenzione, le forme, dal/'antichita a/ XIX secolo (Florence, 1991); and W. HANSMANN, Gartenkunst der Renaissarue and Barock (Cologne, 1983).

3. Modeled on two letters by Pliny describing his own villas at Como and Tusculurn, Raphael's discussion also imitated Pliny's summer and winter divisions. For the text of this letter, see P. FosTER, 'Raphael on the Villa Madama: the text of a lost letter', Romisches Jahrbuch for Kunstgeschichte, IX (1967-{)8),

NOTES

pp. 307-12. For a very useful drscussron of tills letter m relation to the villa's arcrutectural design and iconograpruc program, see DAVID COFFIN, The Villa m the Ufe of Renaissarue Rome (Princeton,

1979). pp 245-57-4- The Villa Farnese, Caprarola was originally a

fortress that was then turned into a country estate by Alessandro Farnese. He also commissioned elaborate fresco cycles from the workshops of Taddeo and Fedenco Zuccari. The northern portion of the ground floor houses the summer apartments. The ground floor of these summer apartments includes four rooms, each dedicated to one of the four seasons and decorated with a cycle of appropriate imagery. On the decorations of the Villa Farnese, see LOREN PARTRIDGE, 'The Frescoes of the Villa Farnese at Caprarola'. PhD dissertation, Harvard Univemty, 1969; CoFFIN, Villa, pp. 281-3 ro; and CRISTINA AciDINI-LUCHINAT, Taddeo e Federico Zuaari . .fratelli pittori del Cinquecento (Milan, 1999), pp. r 56-227. For an in-depth discuss10n of the artistic tastes of Alessandro Farnese who commissioned the frescoes and his employmg of Annibale Caro as IConographer, see CLARE RoBERTSON, 'fl Gran Cardinale': Alessandro Farnese, Patron of the Arts (New Haven and London, 1992). In this case, as at the Villa Madama, we have precise documentation clarifYmg the very conscious distinction between summer and winter zones. It is interesting that both

The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore

of these villas use seasonal imagery. Other cases of seasonal =gery may be equally as deliberate but we lack the documentary evrdence. The practice of placing seasonal imagery ill summer contexts also occurred m Northern Italy. For example, at the Villa Trento Eolia, Costozze di Longare, the seasonal frescoes occupy the water-cooled summer lounge, a building m Its own right, separated from the mam house.

5. Above the representation of the gab1netto rustiw on an eighteenth-century estate plan (dlScussed below), is the irucription 'Facciata laterale del Gabinetto rustuo ad uso ill Grotta segniato rn Pianta con la lettera o '

6. Judith A. Kinnard, 'The Villa Gamberara in Settignano: the street in the garden'. Journal of Garden History, vr (1986), pp. r-19.

7· For the most detailed account of these spaces under the Lap! ownership, see Mario Bevilacqua's paper ill this volume, esp. p. r.

8. The immature line of trees that appear in Zocchi's etchmg of 1744 strongly suggests that the Lapi had not planted these. Interestmgly enough, the cabreo shows them at about the same height (see note 13).

9. See note 5. ro. For all historical information with ample archival

references on the Lapi and Capponi periods of ownership, see Bevilacqua ill tills rssue.

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I I. The ongomg archival work of BeVllacqua may further advance our knowledge m these patronage matters.

12. Bevliacqua, n. 25, in this Issue: 'Biblioteca

Riccardiana, MS 3457lr7, c. 33 v.

I3. Unfortunately, a precise date cannot be attributed either to the drafung of the cab reo or to the various configurations of decorative elements It represents. The fact that 'Marchese Vmcenzio Capporu' appears on it strongly suggests that it was drafted before his death in 1725. It is not, however, excluded that 'Marchese Vmcenzio' refers to his son, Giovan Vincenzw. The height of cypress trees on the north-east srde of the parterre is the same as it is on the Zoccru etching, r.e. reaching the level of the arches in the loggia. Tills fact would seem to place the date of the cab reo later than I 72 5, or at the very earliest, c. I 72 5. Regardillg the decorative elements, the cabreo shows embrordered parterres, a feature which cannot represent the onginal Lapi layout, as these French features were not common unt:J..! the last third of the seventeenth century. DAVID CoFFIN, in Gardens and Gardening in Papal Rome (Pnnceton, I99I), pp. r6o-5, notes that the first certain illdication of embroidered parterres may be found ill Falda's Gzardini di Roma (Rome, I67o) The fashion for these French designs most certainly arnved in Florence somewhat later.

14. Today some of the niches contain unglazed terracotta statues whose presence can be documented since

1898. They were certarnly produced sometime m the mid-nmeteenth century and represent peasants and other rustle figures. Two more statues exist ill the courtyard of the Villa Gamberaia but it is

unlikely that these figures occupied niches in the early seventeenth century.

15. Much damage was done to the villa and garden during World War II. Perhaps tills was when the lower balustrades and some of the rocaille work was destroyed. MARIACHIARA POZZANA, Una guida per wnoscere Vzlla Gamberaia (Florence, I988), p. 39, discusses the use of the villa as a strategic head­quarters for the German Army. Gruuo CESARE

52

LENS! ORLANDI CARDIN! ill Le Ville di Firenze di qua d'Amo (Florence, 1954) also discusses the damage done during the War and illcludes a photograph of the house as rt looked in his day (figure 252) Much of the upper story was ill very poor conditiOn. Today, one can see a thick layer of cement that entirely covers all three ruches at the far 'apse' end of the gabznetto rustico.

16. There are very few examples of overt Christian symbolism in Central Italian gardens. Pius rv's Casino m the Vaocan Gardens contains Old Testament frescos, but there is no architectural or exterior Christian symbolism. Near the fountain and grotto at Cardrnal Madruz.zo's Soriano in Cimino rs a representation of Moses smkmg the rock, a reference to baptism. Both of these are highly origmal and peculiar commissions of the early I 560S and both reflect Counter-Reformation ideas More locally, the Boboli gardens also contain a 'Moses grotto' with his statue, allegoncal figures of ills virtues and an octagonal pool (erght also being a reference to Baptism and Resurrection; KRAUTHEIMER, note 22). The ICOnography of this grotto dates from the early seventeenth century.

None of these examples possesses rmagery from the New Testament, nor do they attempt to replicate an ecclesiastical space. On the Casillo of Pius IV, see GRAHAM SMITH, 'The stucco decoration of the Casillo of Pius rv', Zeitschrift for Kunstgeschichte, XXXVII (1974), pp. I!6--56, rdem, The Casino of Pzus IV (Princeton, 1977); and MARCELLO FAGIOLO and MARIA LUISA MADONNA, 'La Roma di Pro IV: la "Civitas Pra", la "Salus Medica", la "Custodia Angelica" ', Arte fllustrata, LI

(1972), pp. 383-402. On the Boboli gardens, see particularly the eighteenth-century description by FRANCESCO MARIA SOLDAN!, n Reale Giardzno di Bobolz nella sua pianta e nelle sue statue (Florence, I780), pp. I I-I4. One Italian garden-like structure is Bemarclino Cairni's 'Via Crucis' erected on a tall

mountain at V arallo (No) and illtended to replicate Jerusalem's Via Crucis for those who could not

make the journey to the Holy Land. On this

extraordinary Renaissance 'garden,' see MARZIANO BARNARD!, n Sacra Monte di Varallo (Turin, I96I). Constructed on the same lines as Caimr's Via Cruas is Jacob von Sandart's etched title plate for a Jesuit volume by R. P. Philippa Krselio, which represents a pavilion in a formal garden with stations of the cross; fllustrated Bartsch, p. 575. Perhaps also relevant rs Alexander Pope's grotto in Twickenham, England, which contams a Crown of Thoms and Chnst's words engraved at its entry pomts. On the latter, see NAOMI MILLER, Heavenly Caves: Reflections on the Garden Grotto (New York, 1982), p. 83 Smce the cabreo does not refer to the rocaille cross or any ecclesiasocal features, I am inclined to hypothesize that the rocaille cross belongs to a nmeteenth-century reinterpretation of the space when taste had entered a 'medievalism' phase. On the topic of sacred mterpretations of garden spaces, see MARCELLO FAGIOLO and MARIA ADRIAN! GIUSTI, Lo specchio del ParadiSo. n gzardzno e il sacra dall'Antico all'Ottocenta (Milan, 1998).

17. A sixth bust rs possibly represented at the far right end after the small basill. This figure, how­ever, is incomplete. It may also represent part of the satyr holding a basill currently in this location. This statue is from the late seventeenth or early erghteenth century.

I8. For example, if Winter occupied the curtent

location of Autumn, Spring occupied the current location of Winter, and Autumn and Summer took the positrons behind, then all four seasons would face the visitor as he enters. Argumg agamst such an hypothesis is the fact that the full-figure statues of the seasons would seem to respond to the place­ment of the Autumn and Winter busts, since they stand next to them on both srdes. Of course, the busts could have been moved to accommodate the later statues.

19. FIORELLA FACCHINETTI, 'Grotta, uccellena o limonaia: lo sfondo scenico del giardrno di Palazzo Capporu', in !SABELLA LAP! BALLERINI and LITTA MARIA

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MEDRI (eels), Artifid d'=tue e giardim: Ia cultura delle grotte e dei ninfei in Italia ~ in Europa. Atti del V Convegno Intemazionale sui Parchi e Giardini Stona (Florence, 1999), pp 95-ro6. The grotto and rocaille work of the limonaia was done by Bartolomeo Nencioni di Pratolino and Carlo Fontana designed the bm.ldmg. Ruggen's name derives from Gmdo Cartoca's descnptrve history of La Pietra: '11 r 5

giugno 1697 rl Marchese Alessandro Capporu acquisto il possesso dell' Arte della Lana e vi edifico la villa, valendosi forse dell' opera degli stessi architetti Fontana e Ruggeri che contemporaneamente

costruivano per lui il sontuoso palazzo dr Via S. Sebastiana'; I Dintomi di Firenze, 1 (Rome, r968; repr. of r9o6 edn), pp. 185--6. A third Capponi villa eJGSts at Arcetn. Its garden IS much smaller, con­sisting mainly of a walled enclosed space of irregular shape. It too possesses urns but no statuary.

20. The style of the Villa Gamberara seasonal busts IS

vaguely related to that of the Florentine sculptor Giuseppe Piamontrru (1663-1744) who was a student of Giovan Battista Foggini, though they are certainly not by his hand. The busts at the Villa Gamberaia appear to be a cruder, more 'commercial' version of his finer works. Francesca Baldry, Collections Care Coordinator at Villa La Pietra, has recently alerted me to her discovery of terracotta bozzetti for the four seasonal busts at Villa La Pietra. In her view, they are quite similar to those at the Villa Gamberaia. The attribution of these sculptures will form part of a comprehensive study of the villa and gardens undertaken by consultants to New York Umversity. On Piamontini, see SANDRO BELLEsr's amply illustrated 'L'antrco e I virtuoSISSirni tardobarocchi nell' opera di Giuseppe Piamontrru', Paragone, XLII (1991), pp. 21-38. Giuseppe Piamontrni's busts as well as busts by other con­temporary Florentine sculptors ill the Palazzo Corsini are discussed by MARA VrSONA, 'Gh Scu.ltori peril Salone di Palazzo Corsini a Firenze', Antichita viva, XXVII (1988), pp. 22-3 r. A useful reference work on Florentine sculpture of tills

period is GIOVANNI PRATES! (ed.), Repertorio della Scultura Fiorentina del Seicento e Settecento (Florence,

1993)-21. Whereas the non-seasonal busts at these other

Cappom residences appear to be contemporaneous Wlth the seasonal busts, the other busts at the Villa Gamberaia are not. The Gamberaia busts divide into four distmct groups, the seasonal group beillg distmct from all of the others and the earliest ill date. The non-seasonal busts at these other Cappom gardens lack attributes, other than a srmple alter­nation of male and female figures. At the Villa Gamberara, one possesses a grape headdress, Its mate a laurel headdress, and at least three of the others have some mirumal attributes. Two pairs stare head on at the viewer, while the others tilt their heads.

22. Zocchr's 1744 etching famtly shows a balustrade above this wall. In this case these raised portions would have served as structural supports.

23. The most comprehensive treatment of Late Antique seasonal imagery and their literary parallels IS strll GEORGE HANFMANN, The Season Sarcophagus in Dumbarton Oaks, 2 vols (Cambndge, MA, 1951). For more general discussions of seasonal imagery, see RosMOND TuvE, Seasons and Months. Studies in a Tradition of Middle English Poetry (Paris, 1933); ILJA M. VELDMAN, 'Seasons, planets and tempera­ments ill the work of Maarten van Heemskerck: cosmo-astrologrcal allegory in sixteenth-century Netherlandish pnnts', m Simiolus, XI (r98o), pp. 149-76; ELIZABETH CROPPER, 'VIrtue's Wmtry Reward: Pietro Testa's Etchings of the Seasons', in

the Journal of the Warbur;g and Courtauld Institutes, XXXVII (1974), pp. 249-79- WILLIAM R. CRELLY, 'Two allegories of the seasons by Simon Vouet and their iconography', in MosHE BARASCH and Lucy FREEMAN SANDLER (eels), Art the Ape of Nature: Studies in Honor of H. W Janson (New York, 1981), pp. 401-24; and 'Four parts of time on Earth: the Sun's seasonal effects', Chapter Three of my PhD dissertation 'Trme's Narrative in the Italian

Renaissance Imagmatron', Yale Uruversity, 1995; and the references cited ill these sources. On ISSues of divine providence particularly, see HANFMANN,

The Season Sarcophagus, pp. 107, 149-50; A. S. REASE, 'Caeli enarrant', Harvard Theological Review, xxxrv (1941), pp. 193-200; and A. BRIDOUX, Le Stozcisme et Son Influence (Paris, 1966), pp. 197-207.

24. HANFMANN, The Season Sarcophagus, esp. pp. r8rf. 25. Hanfinarm discusses Tertulhan in this regard, whom

he sees as combinmg Stoicism with neo-Platonism; Ibid., pp. I9Q-I. St Augustme, however, contrasts the cychcal return of seasons Wlth the urn que event of the Resurrection.

26. This short sketch IS necessarily a Simphficatron of a very complex toprc Images of the seasons con­tinued to be produced after the Early Christian penod, particularly m scientific manuscripts mvolvmg tetrads. However, both the public art descnbed here and slightly later Books of Hours privilege the twelve labours of the months (as opposed to the allegories of the four seasons) as the means to represent the cychcal year. On the concept of labour m the context of the Fall of Man, see EMILE MALE, The Gothzc Image. Relzgious Art in France of the Thirteenth Century (New York, 1958), pp. 64--66, passim.

27. The seasons had earher been used by Ambrogro Lorenzetti as allegories for the well-ordered state: they frame his 'Good Government' in the Siena Palazzo Pubblico. A few decades later a follower of his copied them for the state hall of Asciano On Ambrogio Lorenzettl m context, see RANDOLF STARN and LOREN PARTRIDGE, Arts of Power: Three Halls of State zn Italy 1JOo-16oo (Berkeley, 1992), pp. 46-80. On Lorenzo's frieze, see 'The cradle of time', Chapter Four of my PhD dissertation, and passim.

28. BARTOLOMEO MARLIANI in his 1534 antiquarian tract on Rome, L'AntuJuta dz Rorna, was the first to integrate Biondo FlaVIa's errors and Macrobius'

theories (Saturnalia I, 9, r6) to interpret the Janus arch ill terms of symbohc segments of tune: the

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STUDIES IN THE HISTORY OF GARDENS AND DESIGNED LANDSCAPES : GAHTAN

twelve ruches on each facade of the arch as the twelve months of the year. His theory apparently had an afterlife throughout the sixteenth century for antiquarians such as Demozio. These anoquanans' ideas are detailed in PHILIP J. jACKS, 'Baronius and the anoqwties of Rome', m RoMEO DE MAIO et al. (eds), Baromo e l'arte. Atti del convegno intemazionale di studi (Sora 1o-13 ottobre 1984) (Sora, I985), pp. 77--<)6, esp pp. 94-5. One could consider the four-faced Janus statues at Bomarzo to be eVIdence of amsts/ anoquanans plaYJng With Janus' quad­ripartite nature. In this statue, each face represents one of the four seasons. On Bomarzo, see the thoughtful study by HoRST BREDEKAMP, Vidno Orsini e il basco sacra di Bomarzo · un pmuipe artrsta ed anarchico, trans. from the German by FRANCO PIGNATTI (Rome, 1989).

29. Accordmg to Giorgio Vasari in his 'Life of Tribolo': 'Voleva dunque fare, ed a cosi fare l'aveva gmchzwsarnente consighato messer Benedetto Varchi, stato ne' tempi nostn poeta, oratore e filosofo eccellentissimo, che nelle teste di sopra e ill sotto andassino I quattro tempi dell'anno cwe Primavera, State, Autunno e Verno, e che ciascuno fusse stituato in que! luogo dove pnJ. SI truova la stagione sua .. .'. MILANESI (ed.), VI, pp. 83-4. We know that they occupied the corners of the garden for V asari also gives the garden layout. Although these and many other decorative features are no longer extant or perhaps were never produced, the walled formal garden sb.ll remains in which one can easily imagine these boundary markers. On the Villa Medici at Castello, see D. R. WRIGHT, 'The Villa Media at Olmo a Castello: Its history and Its IConography', PhD dissertation, Princeton University, I976; and CLAUDIA LAZZARO, The Italian Garden (New Haven, I990), esp. p. 326.

30. COFFIN, Villa, esp. pp. I58--6o. 3 I. A smlliar conclusiOn may be drawn from the

Iconography of the Grotto of Fame at the Villa Garzom, Collodi. Tills ascent up a hill to Fame combines urns, symbolizing death, and pine cones

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symbolizing the many seeds of Resurrection. Fame rises out of the top. Similar reasoning may also apply to the many grottos and fountains of the 'Deluge' (e.g. Buontalenti's grotto at the Boboli gardens, the large grotto at Pratolmo, the fountam at the Villa Lante, Bagrma).

p. MILLER, Heavenly Caves, pp. 13-28, 35-58, passim. 3 3. Isabella d'Este, for example, constructed a grotto full

of natural curiosities and precious stones next to her studio/a. Completed by I5o8, it led to a giardino segreto; C. M. BROWN, 'The grotta of Isabella d'Este', Gazette des Beaux-Arts, LXXXIX (I977),

pp I55-7r. 34· One of many types of hydrauhc machmes used

in Italian garden art, the water organ was probably the most memorable for it appealed to the ears while most garden ornament appealed to the eyes. A famous example was made for the Villa Aldobrandini, Frascati. On the concept of the harmony of the spheres in Renaissance culture, see CLAUDE PALISCA, Humanism in Italian Renaissaru:e Musical Thought (New Haven and London, 1985). Pan's role as the machine of the world may be found ill Signorelli's now destroyed 'Realm of Pan' and m Ripa's Iconologra.

3 5. 'II tardo Cmquecento, alia cupola, oppone un tema del tutto mconsueto all'occidente crisoano e d'una drammaociti arcaJca. la grotta naturale o artifioale. La grotta in un certo senso, e come l'mferno ill Dante una cupola capovolta, puntata verso la terra, mvece che verso il oelo. La sua rona di maggior interesse non e tanto la parte pnJ. lurrnnosa quanto quella piu buia; verso quel bmo dobbJamo procedere, pur sapendo di non tendere verso la conoscenza rna verso il rrnstero. La grotta, inoltre, ha la capac1ti d1 accompagnarci e sprofondarci progressivamente nel cuore della natura'; EuGENIO BATTISTI,

L'antirinascimento (Milan, 1989), pp. 207-8. 36. As noted above, the four or SJX statues that occup1ed

the ruches are no longer extant. They were nude figures, probably represenong gods from the Roman pantheon who have particular associations

with plant or water symbolism. Further information about the subject of these statues would modifY the illterpretation of the seasonal J.IIUgery presented here, though probably not change It substantially. Allegones of the seasons represent a different order of reality from representations of classical deioes, thus limiting their dialogue with other kmds of

figures. 37· While obelisks served many functions ill Early

Modern (as well as ancient) Italy, their primary significance was funerary. One need only recall the great obelisk moved by Sixtus v to the square in front of St Peter's, which was thought to contain Caesar's ashes in its ball. A second important use of obelisks m anoent and modern times was as a sundial.

3 8 On the Idea of an outdoor Wunderlwmmer, see G. B. ARMENINI, De' ven precetti della pittura (I587), edited by MARINA GORRERI (Turin, 1988), Book III, Chapter 13. Also LEONELLO PuPPI, 'The Villa Garden of the Veneto from the Frfi:eenth to the Eighteenth Centuries', ill The Italian Garden (Washington, DC, 1972), pp. 83-114, esp. pp. 104-5, where he contrasts this Central Itahan concept of the garden with V enetJan sensibilities.

39· Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fail into the ground and rue, It abideth alone: but If It rue, it bnngeth forth much fruit. He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life m this world shall keep It unto lrfe eternal (trans:

Kmg James versiOn). 40. I especially have ill mind two of Poussin's Roman

works: Et in Arcadw Ego, and Dame to the Music of Trme.

41. 'The figures of these lunettes and other sumlar ones With fruits and flowers certainly correspond to the seasons, and these are made Wlth the same feelmg and allegory wruch we now note in order to explain the idea behind the painong. The four seasons are often found figured as symbols of the good fomme of the times on sepulchral arches as well as on other marbles and medallions, and tills

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motto can be read on reverses of various antique medallions: GOOD FOR TUNE OF THE TIMES TO FORTUNATE TIMES, beillg sculpted as four putti wluch represent the four tunes of the year with the same symbols that we see expressed here. And even though used to represent the good fortune of the empire because of the good rule of the emperors, in tombs, however, they signified that the purified soul and world would have a happy sojourn m the Elysian fields and lodge there happily until, followmg the long course of the sun, they come agam to life, just as will follow in our discussion of Pegasus ill ills role as the sun, author and engrne of the tunes of the year. One should add that the hours were reputedly the same as the seasons, who took care of the gates of Heaven, and which sometimes brought the soul out from Hell

as Theocntus recounts of Adorns who was brought to Venus by the hours from the Acheron nver so that, for tills reason, one still represents them m tombs ... '; GIAN PIETRO BELLORI, I.e pztture antiche del/( Grotte dz Roma e del sepolao dei Nasom (Rome, 1706), p. 46. A few lmes later he implies that in this context, Pegasus and the sun are inter­changeable: 'le stagioni ... dopo il cw longhissrrno corso, e nrculazione credevano tornar di nuovo m VIta. Ne' sepolcri e nelle sepolcri lucerne spesse volte VIene figurato il Pegaso, siccome il sole, e !a luna per srrnbolo dell'immortahci dell' Anima rispetto alla credenza medisima dell'eterruci dr questa Pianeta, e del corso suo perpetuo, come riputarono gli Egui che edrfi.carono le !oro pnarrudi, e sepolcn, Immitando !a forma del raggio solare per I' oprnione, che il sole, e !a luna da essi mtesi sotto I norni di

Oriside e d'Iside fossero eterru ... '; p. 47- For Bellori's mfluence on an eighteenth-century fresco programme, see AMALIA PACIA, 'EsotJ.smo, cultura archeologica e paesagg:w negli affreschi di Palazzo Colonna', in Ville e palazzi. illusiom scenica e miti

archwlogici (Rome, 1987), pp. 125-53. 42· On the iconographic use of the Tiber, see CoFFIN,

Gardens and Gardenmg, pp. n-8. For a more com­plete discussiOn of the architecture and iconography, see idem, Villa, pp. 87-r IO, passim.

43. It is also wotth considering the resurgence of interest in catacomb churches in this penod. ANTONIO Bosw and PAOLO ARINGHI's Larin work, Roma subterranea novzmma in qua ... antiqua christianorum et prampue martyrum coemetena, tituli, etc ... (165 r) was translated into Italian and republished by the

VatJcan Press ill 1737-54.

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