CLARICI, Paolo Bartolomeo Istoria e coltura delle piante che sono pe`l fiore pi ragguardevoli, e pi distinte per ornare un giardino in tutto il tempo dellanno; con un copioso trattato degli agrumi. Opera postuma consacrata a sua Eccelenza il Sig. Gerardo Sagredo. Venice, Andrea Poletti, 1726
4to (239 x 170 mm), pp. [xxxiv] 761 [3], with engraved portrait of the author, engraved vignette on title, and large folding engraved plan (530 x 775 mm) of the Villa Marocco and its gardens; small marginal tear in folding plate, a fine, crisp copy in contemporary vellum. 3250 First edition of Claricis highly important work on flowers and flower gardens, one of the major documents in the study of northern Italian, and particularly Venetian, flower gardens in the early eighteenth century. Clarici, who was born in Ancona in 1664 and died in Padua in 1725, spent most of his life in the Veneto, where his literary and scientific tastes brought him the friendship of many members of the great Venetian families. Prominent among these was Gerardo Sagredo, Procurator of St Mark's, for whom he laid out a splendid garden in the Venetian style for the family villa at Marocco... Clarici used a print of a birds-eye view of this Marocco garden in his book as an ideal example of layout. This is interesting for two reasons - even with all the complexities of eighteenth-century parterres, fountains, fish ponds and a green theatre, the garden still conforms to the basic Venetian layout of a rectangle dominated by a vista leading up to the house; also it was predominantly a flower garden (Georgina Masson, Italian gardens, q.v.). The major part of the book consists of a detailed survey of plants, and flowering plants in particular. Clarici discusses the history of the importation of exotics, the development of varieties and hybrids, various techniques of floriculture, confusions in nomenclature, and the role of various botanic gardens in Italy in introducing new species (Masson emphasises the value of the work in tracing the history of exotic plant introductions in Italy). Clarici also has chapters on plants grown for their scents, for the colour of their leaves, etc. Over 170 botanical works are cited. The work also is important for its formulation of the socioeconomic role of gardens. The tendency to conceive the garden as the grandiloquent area of a private and separate enjoyment, manifested by Scamozzi, is taken up again, one hundred years later, by Clarici, who emphasizes precisely the gardens value as privilege, as almost a symbol of a social condition based on a rigid class distinction, ontologically guaranteed. However, in furnishing practical instructions for concrete realizations, Clarici seems preoccupied with recommending respect for a size proportionate to the ideas behind the architectural habitat (Puppi, in The Italian Garden, Dumbarton Oaks 1972). The portrait depicts Clarici holding a bouquet. It is signed F. Zucchi, who also engraved the vignette, which depicts two winged putti with a dwarf lemon tree in a pot, surrounded by a watering can, a trowel, and flowers. Zucchi was also the engraver of the large plan, which was designed by Giovanni Filippini. Pritzel 1728; NUC: MBH MH-A TxReTR
3250
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