Garden Sculpture & Fountains added much to the decorative effect of the Roman garden. Carved balustrades, benches, tables, bas-reliefs, and statuary were considered the most important part of many gardens, and were beautifully designed. To supply this ornamentation, shiploads of the finest sculptures, statuary, and artistic fountains were exported from Greece to adorn Italian pleasure grounds.
As in Greece, garden statues were usually set up in honor of some appropriate divinity. Accordingly, images of the Graces, the Seasons, Pan, Sylvanus, Flora, Pomona, and Vertumnus were frequently erected. Terminal statues with knobs below the shoulders, from which a votive garland of flowers might be hung, seem especially fit for the open air.
Refreshment being one of the most desirable luxuries for human beings and a necessity for the vegetation, an abundance of water fountains were indispensably connected with out-of-door dwelling-places. In the baths, fish-ponds, and fountains, great ingenuity was displayed to please the eye while the body was being reinvigorated.
From an elaborate chateau d’eau to a slender font of a drinking water fountain, almost...