97.In the beginning of the eighteenth century, Italy was visited by Volckamer, a German traveller, whom Hirschfeld considers as a good judge, and deserving credit. Volckamer represents the Italian gardens as inferior to those of France in point of superb alleys, lofty clipped hedges, and cabinets of verdure; but, he adds, that they please the greater part of travellers from the north of Europe, more than the French gardens, from the greater variety of plants which they contain, and their almost perpetual luxuriance and verdure. Among the fine gardens of Italy, he includes those of Venerie, Stupigni, and Vigna della Regina, near Turin, which do not appear to have been visited by Evelyn. The beauties of most of the gardens near Rome he considers as depending more on their situations, distant views, classic remains and associations, luxuriant vegetation, and fine climate, than on their design, which, he says, exhibits �all the puerilities of the French taste, without its formal grandeur.� (Nachrichten von Italien, 1ster band.)
