‘L'uso d' ornare i fonti’ Galeazzo Alessi and the construction of grottoes in Genoese gardens

Abstract

At the end of the sixteenth century, in his Trauato1, the Lombard writer Giovan Paolo Lomazzo identified Genoa alongside Rome and Fontainebleau as one of the principal centres where the art of constructing grottoes in gardens was developed. Although this statement was to be confirmed by the testimony of visitors and local historians right up to the nineteenth century, the attention which modern scholarship has devoted to this vogue for grottoes in Genoa is in inverse proportion to the interest which it aroused among its contemporaries. In particular, the close consideration which Vasari, in his survey of Alessi's works, gave to the ‘lake and island of Signor Adamo Centurione’ and the ‘fountain of Captain Larcaro’, with the following lengthy and detailed description ofthe ‘pool which he constructed for the house of Signor G. B. Grimaldi’2 proves that these works were especially important in defining the most characteristic and ‘modern’ features of the art of the Perugian architect during his time in Genoa.

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