Edge the beds before the portico with box, clip box into figures of animals set facing one another, and in the garden beyond cut it into many shapes, even into the letters of the owner’s name.
Terraces on the axis of the villa
On a hillside, cut the garden into level terraces held by retaining walls, join them by stairs and ramps on a single axis that runs from the house, and lead water down the axis from level to level.
Bramante’s Belvedere Court joined the Vatican palace to a villa on the hill above by three terraces, a long court below and gardens above, linked by stairs on one axis. The design was copied all over Italy. At the Villa d’Este the steep slope below the palace is cut into terraces crossed by walks, of which the Walk of the Hundred Fountains is one, and the central axis drops through them by stairs and ramps to the fishponds and the parterre at the bottom.
The terrace solves three problems at once. It makes level ground on a slope for planting and walking; it gives views from each level down the garden and out over the country; and it gives water a sequence of falls, each of which can feed a fountain. Water was costly to bring (at Tivoli it came from the river Aniene through a channel under the town) and was used again and again as it ran down.
Related rules
Give the villa garden porticoes for sun and for shade, grottoes made in imitation of nature with tufa and shells, evergreens planted in straight rows at equal distances, and hedges of box; set vines on columns over the walks.
Lay the ideal garden out on a circular plan in concentric rings, woods outside, then meadows and orchards, then gardens of knots and clipped evergreens divided by walks, with water and the fountain of the goddess at the centre.
Bring water down a slope in a stepped stone channel whose scrolled sides break it into ripples and small falls, on the axis of the garden, so that the water itself becomes an ornament as it descends.
Beside the house, enclose a small garden with walls or high hedges for the owner’s private use, with flowers, herbs, fruit trees and a fountain, apart from the public garden on the axis.
Cite this page Chris Paton, “Terraces on the axis of the villa”, The Textbook of Architecture, https://textbookofarchitecture.com/rule/italian-terraced-axis. Text, drawings and models licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0.