Pacello da Mercogliano (c. 1455–1534) was a designer of gardens and

hydraulic engineer Hydraulic engineering as a sub-discipline of civil engineering is concerned with the flow and conveyance of fluids, principally water and sewage. One feature of these systems is the extensive use of gravity as the motive force to cause the mov ...

, who is documented as working for Charles VIII at

Amboise Amboise (; ) is a commune in the Indre-et-Loire department in central France. Today a small market town, it was once home of the French royal court. Geography Amboise lies on the banks of the river Loire, east of Tours. It is also about away ...

with the responsibility of bringing water from the

Loire The Loire (, also ; ; oc, Léger, ; la, Liger) is the longest river in France and the 171st longest in the world. With a length of , it drains , more than a fifth of France's land, while its average discharge is only half that of the Rhône ...

up to the garden

parterre A ''parterre'' is a part of a formal garden constructed on a level substrate, consisting of symmetrical patterns, made up by plant beds, low hedges or coloured gravels, which are separated and connected by paths. Typically it was the part of ...

s laid out to one side of the château. He was assisting the architect-engineer

Fra Giocondo Giovanni Giocondo, Order of Friars Minor, (c. 1433 – 1515) was an Italian friar, architect, antiquary, archaeologist, and classical scholar. Biography Giovanni Giocondo was born in Verona around 1433. He joined the Dominican Order at the ...

, who had translated

Frontinus Sextus Julius Frontinus (c. 40 – 103 AD) was a prominent Roman civil engineer, author, soldier and senator of the late 1st century AD. He was a successful general under Domitian, commanding forces in Roman Britain, and on the Rhine and Danube ...

's essay on the ancient

aqueducts of Rome The Romans constructed aqueducts throughout their Republic and later Empire, to bring water from outside sources into cities and towns. Aqueduct water supplied public baths, latrines, fountains, and private households; it also supported mining o ...

, . After Charles VIII's death in 1498, both men continued to be employed by

Louis XII Louis XII (27 June 14621 January 1515), was King of France from 1498 to 1515 and King of Naples from 1501 to 1504. The son of Charles, Duke of Orléans, and Maria of Cleves, he succeeded his 2nd cousin once removed and brother in law at the tim ...

Blois Blois ( ; ) is a commune and the capital city of Loir-et-Cher department, in Centre-Val de Loire, France, on the banks of the lower Loire river between Orléans and Tours. With 45,898 inhabitants by 2019, Blois is the most populated city of the ...

, whence he had removed the court. At the

Château de Gaillon The Château de Gaillon is a French Renaissance castle located in Gaillon, Normandy region of France. History The somewhat battered and denuded Château de Gaillon, begun in 1502 on ancient foundations was the summer archiepiscopal residence of G ...

, begun in 1502, Georges Cardinal d'Amboise employed Pacello on the gardens.P. Lesueur, "Pacello da Mercogliano et les jardins d'Amboise, Blois et Gaillon", ''Bulletin de la Société de l'histoire de l'art français'' (1935:90-117, noted by Roberto Weiss, "The Castle of Gaillon in 1509-10", ''Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes'' 16.1/2 (1953:1-12), p. 2 note 9. Neither there, nor at Amboise or Blois, where the foundations of the castles crowned steep defensible sites, was Pacello able to tie the axes of his garden

s to a facade of the château in any meaningful way, as was becoming the usual practice on sloping sites below Italian

villa A villa is a type of house that was originally an ancient Roman upper class country house. Since its origins in the Roman villa, the idea and function of a villa have evolved considerably. After the fall of the Roman Republic, villas became s ...

s. In the plans of all three châteaux that were drawn after c. 1566 and appeared in

Jacques Androuet du Cerceau Jacques I Androuet du Cerceau, also given as Du Cerceau, DuCerceau, or Ducerceau (1510–1584) was a well-known French designer of architecture, ornament, furniture, metalwork and other decorative designs during the 16th century, and the founder ...

's ''Les plus excellents bastimens de France'' (1576), it is difficult to judge what of Pacello's patterned plantings may still be recognized. Nevertheless, he may be considered one of the founding spirits of the

French formal garden The French formal garden, also called the (), is a style of garden based on symmetry and the principle of imposing order on nature. Its epitome is generally considered to be the Gardens of Versailles designed during the 17th century by the ...

Notes

References

* William Howard Adams, 1969. ''The French Garden 1500-1800'' (New York: Braziller) pp 10, 13, 16. * Carmine Mastroianni, " Leonardo da Vinci da Roma ad Amboise. Gli ultimi anni di un genio del Rinascimento in fuga dall'Italia", Ed. Efesto, 2019. {{ACArt

Mercogliano Mercogliano is an Italian town and ''comune'' in the province of Avellino, Campania, southern Italy. Geography Mercogliano is a hill town located near the western suburb of Avellino and below the mount Partenio (or Montevergine). The municipality ...

1450s births 1534 deaths