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EUROPEAN GARDENS: AN HISTORICAL ATLAS and THE VILLA: FORM AND IDEOLOGY OF COUNTRY HOUSES

European Gardens." An His¢orical Atlas will be of greatest value to those with more than a casual interest in the history of European gardens. In it readers will find illustrations and brief narrative accounts (more or less in chronological order) of landmark historic gardens such as Pliny the Younger’s villas, the Monastery of St. Gall, Villa Isola Bella, Versailles, Stowe, and the Crystal Palace. A similar treatment is used for major designers such as Vignola, LeNotre, Kent, Bridgeman and Brown, Repton, Puckler-Muskau, Loudon, and Jekyll. Because the book is an atlas, the treatment of such projects and designers is quite brief. As an atlas, it seems incomplete. Missing are important projects that one would expect to find in such a work (Villa Lante, for example). The garden history novice could easily find a more thorough and enlightening treatment in many other books. For those who have a more developed interest in garden history, however, the book also offers one-page discussions of less common projects such as Giuseppe Piermarini’s design for a public park in Milan (constructed 1782-1788, some fifty-five years before Birkenhead), a 1930s rooftop garden by Le Corbusier, Frank Lloyd Wright’s 1953 design for the Masieri Memorial in Venice, Quinlan Terry’s 1975 classical garden pavilion, and Gary Rieveschl’s avant-garde floral ribbons planted in Berlin and Bremen during the 1980s. Lesser known designers, such as hydraulic experts Hero of Alexandria and Salomon de Caus, and art nouveau designer Franz Lebitsch are also included, The illustrations in the book (some in color) are of excellent quality. The author primarily used contemporary drawings and photos to give readers a more meaningful experience. Most, although not all, illustrations have their sources identified. Thus one wanting to explore a particular design or topic in more detail is usually provided the means to do so. Vercelloni has also provided a bountiful supply of bibliographic sources. Both suggest that the author is well read and willing to share ideas and their origins with others. Some problems make using the book troublesome. The foreword states that the book is "a historical atlas of the idea of the [European] garden" (p. 7). One therefore expects the table of contents to identify major ideas or concepts. Instead, it reads, "Foreword, Plates, Bibliography and Index of names, places and themes" (p. 5). Such ideas are not easily found in the index either. Unfortunately two of its pages were reversed in printing. Thus "Halfpenny, William" is followed by "Mountaine, Dydymous" (pp. 204205) and "symmetry" is followed by "Hamilton, Lady" (pp. 205-206). Nor did the index identify major themes by italics or boldface type. If the reader has prior knowledge of major concepts in garden history, no problem. For the layperson or undergraduate student, however, using this atlas could be a frustration. Each plate includes the idea being discussed at the top of the page. But that gives equal weight to "garlands, tulipomania and oriental rocks" (Plates 5, 54, and 58, respectively) and "illusory garden, the grand manner and landscape and picturesque" (Plates 7, 73, and 129, respectively). The text does discuss ideas and concepts. But even there a systematic treatment is not apparent. For example, below each illustration, in large type, is a paragraph that spreads across the entire page. Below that, in smaller type, are two columns of additional narrative. One would assume that the large-type paragraph is a summary of the concept being discussed. Not so. To use Plate 6 (" 1st Century A.D./Pompeii/the garden and the home") as an example, the paragraph identifies the photo (thereconstructed peristyle garden at the J. E Getty Museum), mentions that Getty intended it as a cultural criticism of contemporary architecture, and ends by stating that "the geometrical organization of the oleanders,.., and vine-clad pergolas forms the botanical scenery of this much-debated reconstruction of a Roman urban garden’~ (Plate 6). The remainder of the narrative does not give much insight into the concept of a Pompeiian home and garden either. The author expresses his belief that WilheminaJashemski’s more recent work at Pompeii proves the veracity of the reconstruction, cites a belief that reconstruction of historical gardens needs more practical experiments, and then gives an overview of Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe’s design for the Moody Foundation Historical Gardens in Galveston, Texas. It is not that the narrative fails to be interesting, thoughtful, or worthwhile. Without prior knowledge of the subject, however, the reader would be hard pressed to distinguish major ideas from interesting but less important ones. There are also disconcerting proofreading errors. Plate 16, for example, is entitled "15th Century..." but the narrative attributes the botanical work being discussed as being popular "between the fourth and fifth centuries." Similarly, Plate 44 is entitled, "1599..." but the text says Giusto Utens’s lunettes were commissioned "at the end of the seventeenth century." One final criticism. Some conclusions by the author are inadequately substantiated. Plate 47, for example, shows the design for a garden in Holland, circa 1583, by Hans Vredeman de Vries. The text tells where the print came from, describes the scene, and then.concludes by stating, "The elegance of the guests, their behaviour, and the large banquet [six people] show that in the sixteenth century, one single cultural rnodel was established for gardens in every European nation" (Plate 47). That asks the reader to