Mosaic Fountain Niche in the House of the Bear at Pompeii. Such niches were a favourite feature of Pompeian gardens once running water had been
laid on during the first century A.D. The decoration includes an incrustation of pumice and lines of shells, recalling the origin of the niches in the
form of natural grottoes sacred to the nymphs or Muses. The mosaic is composed largely of brightly coloured glass tesserae, rare in floor-decoration.
The further development of topiary, as distinct from formal plans, apparently knew no bounds. By the time that the Natural History was published
Pliny could report not only that cypresses were clipped to form hedges but also that they -were shaped into elaborate tableaux portraying 'hunt scenes,
fleets of ships, and other images'; and in his nephew's villa at Tifernum in Tuscany there were box trees cut into the shapes of wild animals and into
numerous other forms, including the letters of Pliny's and his gardeners' names. It was the description of the gardens at Tifernum that inspired the box
parterres and labyrinths of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The same improvements in water-supply which favoured diversification in types of
planting also ushered in the age of the garden fountain. Already in the wall-paintings from Boscoreale, dated around 40-30 B.C., we see a depiction of
a piano-shaped marble fountain at the mouth of a vine-draped grotto; while Pro-pertius, writing in the 20s, reveals that a fountain decorated with a
sleeping