Page - 445 - in Jacopo Strada and Cultural Patronage at the Imperial Court - The Antique as Innovation, Volume 1

445The Neugebäude From these walkways one looked down upon the inner garden, which was divided by garden paths into four identical sections, each of which in its turn was divided into four compartments and had a fountain at its centre. It prob- ably included a green tunnel, similar to the ‘tria amoenissima cubicula’, the ‘three most pleasant chambers’ of evergreen shrubs that Maximilian had had constructed fifteen years before in his Prater garden.21 Such a green tunnel soon became a standard element in gardens of the late Renaissance: one of the best examples is that in the garden of the Villa d’Este in Tivoli [Fig. 9.19].22 A similar green tunnel in the Royal Gardens at Prague castle had been commis- sioned by Ferdinand i only a few years before, for which not only the docu- ments, but even the designs have been preserved [Fig. 9.18]. The finished result may have looked a little like the ‘galleries de charpenterie’ at Montargis, bowers in carpentry intended to be overgrown with ivy, illustrated by Jaques Androuet du Cerceau [Fig. 9.21].23 Bongars described the outer garden which surrounded the giardino segreto as ‘un parc d’arbres fruitiers bien plantez à ligne et un beau labyrinthe’. The 21 Hagen 1874. Bongars described ‘palissades, fleurs, etc’, which Lietzmann translates by ‘Sträuchern, Blumen usw’, that is ‘shrubs, flowers and so on’; but Bongars’ ‘palissades’ more likely referred to the wooden railings dividing the compartments, and the frame of wooden posts and latticework supporting climbers or evergreens. 22 This famous engraving by Etienne du Pérac was commissioned in 1571 by Cardinal Ippolito d’Este in response to a request from Maximilian ii. 23 Prague, National Archives, cdkm iv, Kart. 191, fol. 457v, 452, 457r., published in Dobalová/ Hausenblasová/ Muchka 2008; a megalomaniac version is illustrated in Hans Puech- feldner Ein Nützliches Künstbüech der Gärdtnerey, one of three volumes full of idealized gardens designs presented to Rudolf ii between 1591 and 1594, which to some extent re- flects the practice at the Imperial court, cf. De Jong 1998 and Dobalová 2005, p. 46, Fig. 7; Androuet Du Cerceau 1576, pl. 33. Figure 9.21 The ‘gallery in carpentry to be covered in ivy’ at the Château de Montargis, in Jacques Androuet du Cerceau’s Les plus excellent Bastiment de la France, i, 1576.