Engineering Music

The musical technologies of early modern Italian pleasure gardens

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Welcome to the early modern pleasure garden 
 
 
 
 
The machines of the pleasure gardens drew on all the senses. You could see the thin veils issuing forth from the overhead rocks and the streams gushing from underground. You could taste the crystalline waters. You could smell the herbaceous greenness of the sun drenched mountainsides and the musty dampness of the grottoes. You could feel the fine dew condensing on your skin. The sounds of the garden guided the visitors through the sometimes confusing terrain, and the various water effects "moaned like those in pain, bellowed like those enraged and sang like the merry." Music filled the garden and gave it life.

 


Kimberly Parke