Castell's Pliny: Rewriting the Past for the Present

Twentieth-century English garden historians have long praised Robert Castell's Villas of the Ancients Illustrated as conferring classical authority and providing form and direction to the newly fashionable appreciation of naturalistic scenery in the early eighteenth century. Challenging this reading, this essay strives to show that Castell's Pliny represents an ingenious rewriting of the past for the present and that as such it is valuable above anything else as a revealing pointer to the very different gardening ideas which were transplanted from China to England and which played a most decisive inspirational role in the diversely significant English landscaping revolution.