The things formed by nature serve as art's material, while a single formless thing serves as nature's material.
Set against the backdrop of the rolling countryside of Tivoli, a short bus ride into the hills above Rome, the Villa D'Este fulfills the Renaissance ideal of garden design as a perfect unity between art and nature. One of the tenets of the Neo-Platonic philosophy of the Italian Renaissance, which pervaded the art and literature of the time, held that an individual life was to complete God's creation and make the world a more beautiful place. And while nature was already perfect in its pristine state, it could also be used as the artist's material. During the Renaissance garden design grew to be an art equal to architecture. Rich families were the trendsetters in garden design. They expressed their appreciation for the beauty of the outside world by creating homes and gardens that combined the indoors and outdoors in a unified space.
Renaissance artists and poets had a penchant for evoking the spirit of a past 'golden age,' and writings on Arcadia and other mythic Greek gardens of bliss and perfection were an inspiration in Renaissance garden design. Arcadia was an artistic product, not a garden like any on earth, but a place of ideal beauty, where mythological creatures and human beings co-existed in a state of purity. A Renaissance garden was nature brought to its height of perfection by the artist's touch. Renaissance literature also contains many references to the locus amoenus, or 'pleasant place'-where one could escape life's pain and struggles and rest in the contemplation of harmony and beauty. A book which particularly influenced Renaissance garden design is Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, The Strife of Love in a Dream, published in Venice in 1499 with 168 woodcuts. Set among ancient architectural settings with the harmonic properties and proportions revered by Renaissance artists, it tells the story of a man searching for his ideal love, who he finds in a perfect garden by a fountain of Venus.
In conformity with the Renaissance garden scheme, the Villa D'Este is geometrically laid out, its main axis balanced by cross axes, and has around five hundred jets in various kinds of water features. Comissioned by Cardinal Ippolito II D'Este, Governor of Tivoli, work began on the Villa D'Este and its gardens in 1550. The Cardinal took much of the marble used in the building of the gardens, as well as some of the statues, from the ruins of the nearby Villa Adriana, the one time retreat of Emperor Hadrian. Ancient Roman methods of hydraulic engineering had to be used to enable a sufficient supply of water, from the Aniene River and the Rivellese spring, to power all of the fountains, cascades, and pools. Designed by architect Pirro Ligurio, an architect steeped in knowledge of the ancient world, Villa D'Este like other Renaissance gardens has lots of space, pathways, grottoes decorated with paintings and mosaics, and statues of gods and goddesses. Although Villa D'Este was created for the enjoyment of the nobility, the legacy of this Renaissance patron and the artists who worked for him now benefits everyone who cares to visit. Included today in the UNESCO world heritage list, the Villa D'Este is a tour de force in the late Renaissance mannerist style of garden design and architecture.
One first enters a courtyard with a fountain on a side wall containing a sleeping nymph lying in a grotto, surrounded by apple boughs. These symbols recall the Greek mythological creatures known as the Hesperides, nymphs who care for a garden of great joy and contentment, said to be located on a blessed island near the ancient world ocean. And the apples in the Garden of the Hesperides were supposed to confer immortality. The rooms in the Villa itself also contain many references to classical Greek and Roman mythology and are the work some of the great Mannerist artists. From the main Sala, or central large room, there is a magnificent view down the central axis of the garden. No other Italian Renaissance garden has a more lavish display of fountains as the Villa D'Este.
The Fountain of the Organ contains a kind of hydraulic and pneumatic system that once played tunes evocative of birds and wind. Today, thanks to modern organ specialists, it again plays music. It is decorated with reliefs of Apollo, the inventor of music, and Orpheus, whose melodious voice was said to calm even wild animals.
(Click to hear the fountain play music.)
The fountain of Diana of Ephesus has water flowing from her numerous breasts, symbolizing fertility and abundance, both of nature and of intellect. This goddess, known as Artemis to the Greeks, originated in Ephesus in present day Turkey, where her sacred temple was once one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Other fountains include the Fountain of the Dragon, the Oval Fountain, and the Avenue of the Hundred Fountains.
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