The engraving at the top of this article is by Hendrick van Schoel and dates from 1579. It shows the Cortile del Belvedere with the Vatican gardens beyond. While most gardeners would barely recognize the Cortile del Belvedere as a garden, it was one of the most revolutionary gardens ever created. It was designed by Donato Bramante for Pope Julius II. Construction began in 1504 and was almost complete when this engraving was made.
To get an idea of the vast scale of this garden, the lower court, which was unplanted and intended to function as a theater for pageants, was a rectangle measuring roughly 75 by 140 meters. The intermediate and upper courts featured parterres and all three levels were linked by grand staircases. The entire cortile was one unified architectural space. This was quite different from earlier Renaissance gardens, in which each parterre design was treated as a garden within a garden and stairs were mainly utilitarian.
The Cortile del Belvedere takes its name from the Belvedere, a villa constructed between 1485 and 1487 for Pope Innocent VII to serve as a retreat from the Vatican palace. It was the first such villa to be built in Rome since the fall of the Roman Empire a thousand years earlier. The villa was located at the top of a hill and separated from the palace by a small valley. The original villa still exists, but is hidden under later additions. It is the building on the right side of the engraving. The Vatican palace is on the left. The Cortile del Belvedere was designed to unite the villa with the palace and to function as vast outdoor room.
The detail below shows the simple parterres of the upper courts or terraces. While many later formal gardens feature grand stairs, this is their first known use in a garden; there is no evidence that ancient Roman gardens had such stairs. Some Roman temples did feature terraces linked by grand stairs and Bramante adapted the idea to this garden.
The monumental niche which terminates the vista from the palace to the villa was not part of Bramante's design. Bramante's villa had a low profile. Beginning in 1563, the villa was expanded by Pirro Ligorio into a palace for Pope Pius IV by adding upper stories. The famous court of antique statues remained unchanged. It is shown in the detail below.
This courtyard was completed during the life of Pope Julius II. It was always known for the sculpture rather than its architecture, so there are no good surviving images of it. There were large niches in each corner, you can see one of them in the detail above. There were also statue niches along the walls. The famous Laocoon group was purchased by Julius II soon after its discovery and between 1506 and 1797 it stood in the center niche along the long side of the rectangle opposite the niche in the engraving above. The Apollo Belvedere was probably found on an an estate belonging to Julius II and by 1523 it stood in the corner niche opposite the one shown in the detail. It was also removed by the French in 1797. When the statues in this courtyard were returned in 1816, it was decided to place them indoors in the new museum. The sculpture courtyard was transformed into a much grander architectural space as shown in the engraving below.
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