The practice of garden and landscape history requires using primary and secondary sources, such as poetry, literature, travel descriptions, letters, and
architectural records. The links below take you to some important resources for studying the history of the villa as a landscape type.

Alberti, Leon Battista. On the Art of Building in Ten Books. (mid fifteenth century)

Columella. On Agriculture. (second century BCE)

Crescenzi, Piero de’. Liber ruralium commodorum . (1305-1309)

Erasmus. The Godly Feast. (1522)

James, Henry, “Roman Rides.” Atlantic Monthly 32 (March 1873): 190-98.

James, Henry, “Roman Neighborhoods.” Atlantic Monthly 32 (December 1873): 671-80.

James, Henry, “The After-Season in Rome.” Nation 16 (June 1873): 399-400.

James, Henry,“From a Roman Note-Book.” Galaxy 16 (November 1873): 679-86.

James, Henry, “A Few Other Roman Neighborhoods.” Italian Hours. University Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 1992 [Originally written in 1909].

Lipsius, Iustus. Two Bookes of Constancie. (1584)

Michel de Montaigne. Travel Journal. (1580–1581)

Palladio, Andrea. The Four Books on Architecture. (1570)

Pliny the Younger. Letter on the Laurentian Villa. (first century)

Pliny the Younger. Letters on the Tuscan Villa. (first century)

Varro, Marcus Terentius. On Agriculture. (first century BCE)

Vitruvius. The Ten Books on Architecture. (first century BCE)

Title page from Friedrich Krubsacius’ reconstruction of Plinys Laurentian Villa, 1760. ©NYBG