THE GARDENS OF IT^LY COUNTRY LIFE THE SPIRIT OF THE ITALIAN GARDEN. BY CHARLES GASCOYNE. FHE GARDENS OF ITALY \\ITH HISTORICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE NOTES E MARCH PHILLIPPS EDITED BY ARTHUR T. BOLTON i * F.S.A., F.R.LBA. LONDON: PUBLISHED AT THE OFFICES OF COUNTRY LIFE, LTD., 20, TAVISTOCK STREET, COVENT GARDEN, W.C. 2; AND BY GEORGE NEWNES, LTD., 8-u, SOUTHAMPTON STREET, STRAND, W.C. 2; NEW YORK: CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS MCMX1X r • •• • * * • < • • * * »*• ::,..:/-. 77//1 <7.-/ /W/i.Y.S' (;/•' ITALY PREFACE. WHEN I set out before the Great War to prepare a new edition of THE GARDENS OF ITALY it was with no calculated intention of doing more than a little revision and expansion. The interest of the subject has proved so great, however, that the present volume is, for all practical purposes, a new book. The magnificent series of photographs taken by the late Charles Latham has been retained, save for the elimination of a few subjects of minor interest, and about a hundred and fifty new photographs have been added to make the series of villas and gardens more comprehensive. Miss Evelyn March Phillipps' original text, with its valuable historical notes and the delightfully told stories of the people who lived in these old palaces and gardens, has been retained as far as possible. My work has been to add architectural notes throughout, to enlarge considerably the sections relating to the Roman and Florentine examples, to write entirely new chapters on the villas and gardens of Venetia, the lake district, and Genoa, to contribute a general introduction, and, not least important, to gather together a valuable series of plans. For these I have drawn freely on various sources, including Gauthier and Reinhardt for Genoa, and Percier et Fontaine for Rome. Although the garden plans by the latter, now reproduced, were made as long ago as 1809, they are in general so clear and correct that I thought it better to give them in their original state. Those which I checked on the spot did not show differences of such importance as to make it necessary to alter the originals. They contain in some instances restorations which Percier et Fontaine thought were justified to complete the original schemes. In some cases, e.g., the Palatine Hill, the drawings by these authors are all that now remain, and their labours in recording these old gardens deserve our warmest recognition. Returning to Italy for the purposes of this work, after nearly a quarter of a century, I was greatly impressed with the improved condition of the country. This is reflected in the better- cared-for condition of many of these gardens and villas. Though some losses have occurred, it does not seem fair to bring the customary charges against the Italians of indifference to their own past. I take this opportunity of thanking the owners who in many cases have very cordially helped me : the views of the interiors at Dei Collazzi and the account of the Villa Font'- All- 'Erta in particular are owing to such kindness. Two illustrations of the Villa Madama are reproduced from the Royal Institute of British Architects' Journal, by kind permission of Mr. Halsey Ricardo, F.R.I. B.A. To my friend Mr. Lawrence Weaver, C.B.E., F.S.A., I make particular acknowledg- ment, for the work of revision has been the subject of many pleasant consultations, and to his help and counsel is due much that should serve the reader's convenience and pleasure. ARTHUR T. BOLTON, F.S.A., F.R.I.B.A. THE GAKDKXS OF ITALY. in CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. Introductory PAGE I CHAPTER II. Roman Villas and Gardens — Prefatory Note 19 CHAPTER III. The Vatican Gardens, Rome CHAPTER IV. }'illa Madama, Ponte Molle, Rome. The Farnesian Gardens, formerly on the Palatine Hill, Rome. The Villa Papa Giulio - CHAPTER V . ' Villa Medici, Rome CHAPTER VI. Villa Borghese, and the Borghese Palace, Rome - CHAPTER VII. Gardens of the Quirinal, and some Street Fountains in Rome CHAPTER VIII. Palazzo Borghese and the Colonna Gardens, Rome - CHAPTER IX. Palazzo Doria Pamfdi, Cor so. The Palazzo Barberini. Villa Aldobrandini. Villa Sciarra. The British Embassy CHAPTER X. Villa Pamphilj Doria, Rome CHAPTER XL Villa Albani, Rome CHAPTER XII. The Villas o/ Frascati 21 40 53 67 79 98 1 06 123 144 CHAI-TKK XI II. The Villa Torlonia CHAPTER XIV. The Villa Aldobrandini CHAPTER XV. The Villa Falconieri CHAPTER XVI. The Villa Mon Dragone and Villa Borghese, Frascati CHAPTER XVII. The Tivoli Falls, the Villa d'Este and. Hadrian's Villa - CHAPTER XVIII. Caprarola - CHAPTER XIX. The Villa Lante, Bagnaia • PAGE 149 160 170 176 187 212 236 CHAPTER XX. Florentine Gardens and Villas -Intro- ductory Note - ' 259 CHAPTER XXI. The Boboli Gardens, Florence 261 CHAPTER XXII. Poggio Cajano, Caste.llo and Pelraja and Villa Mcdicea Careggi, Florence - 274 CHAPTER XXIII. Villa llondi and Villa Palmieri, Florence - 288 CHAPTER XXIV. Villa Medici and the Villa Fonl'-All'-Ertu - 301 IV CONTENTS. CHAPTER XXV. PAGE Villa dci Collazzi, Tavarnuzzi, and Villa Gamberaia, Florence 308 CHAPTER XXVI. Villa Salviati, Florence, and Villa Garzoni, Collodi, near Pescia 325 CHAPTER XXVII. Venetian Gardens and Villas 344 CHAPTER XXVIII. The Pisani Palace at Stra, and the Malcon- tenta Villa on the Brenta, Venice 346 CHAPTER XXIX. Villa di Mascr in Provincia di Treviso and Possagno - 35° CHAPTER XXX. Gardens and Villas in the Lake District Introductory. Villa d'Este at Cernobbio and Villas on Lake Como PAGE 555 CHAPTER XXXI. Gardens and Villas in the Italian Lake District : Lago Maggiore 362 CHAPTER XXXII. Genoese Gardens and Villas — Introductory 369 CHAPTER XXXIII. Palazzo Andrea Doria, Villas Rosazzo, Cambioso, Paradiso and others at Genoa- 373 A Short Bibliography of Works on and relating to Italian Gardens - 390 Index 391 THE GARI)I-:\S 01- ITALY. ILLUSTRATIONS. CHAPTER I. Italian Renaissance Landscape ol the Knily Period, by Leonardo Da Vinci Italian Renaissance Landscape of the Middle Period, by Rubens Italian Renaissance Landscape ot the hate IVriod, by Titian Garden Picture at the Villa Di I 'a pa Giiihio An Italian Farmyard A Washing Place Belvedere Belvedere Loggia or Camera Alfresca Wayside Chapel o. Fountain Ganymede : Boboli Gardens Sarcophagus as a Water Trough, Villa Borghese, Frascati Palazzo Bevilacqua, Bologna : The Lion of Bramantiro . The Venus of Gian di Bologna in the Boboli Gardens A Wall Fountain in the Villa Doria, Genoa .... The Garden Front and Belvedere Interior of the Loggia The Water Tower at the Villa Attree, Brighton Detail of Centre Bay of Garden Front Site and Garden Plans Bowood : The Terrace Gardens in front of tl e Diocletian Wing Trent ham, Staffordshire The Italian Garden at Trentham Trent ham : The Finish of the Italian Garden at the Shore of the Lake ......... Harewood, YorkshL e : The Terrace Gardens The Bastion Terrace at Harewood Shrublands : Looking down the Hundred Steps Shrublands : The Ixjwer Garden at the foot of the Great Stairway . . CHAPTER III. Plan of the Vatican Gardens The Vatican Gardens and St. Peter's North Descent in the Vatican Gardens .... St. Peter's from the Vatican Gardens .... Oval Court of Villa Pia from the South-West The Western Terrace The North-West Avenue Vatican Gardens : The Casino Del Papa 01 Villa Pia Bronze Fir Cone : An Old Roman Fountain in Bramante's Hemicycle ending the Belvedere Court The East Pavilion from North East Pavilion The Oval Court from the East Pavilion . . . . South Porch from the West Pavilion Stairway up to the level of the Oval Court of the V.lla Pia The East Porch and St. Peter's Facade of the Villa Pia Fountain in Oval Court in front of the Villa P^a or Casiro Del Papa St. Peter's from the Oval Court of the Villa P;a . Vestibule of West Pavilion ..".... Vestibule of East Pavilion r v,i I 3 3 I 5 6 7 8 8 9 9 10 10 10 1 1 i i 12 13 13 15 16 16 1 8 21 22 22 23 *4 25 •25 26 a 7 28 3' 3^ 33 34 36 37 38 CHAPTER IV. Villa Madama, 1'onti- Mollr, K.nn.- Tne Loggia actually built Villa Madam. i, I'n.ili- Mulle, Rome Villa Madama : Restored Plan of Original Scheme Villa Madam i II i Faniesian Gardens on the Palatine : Entrance Gate- way by Vignola Plan ol the harnese Gardens on the Palatine, now destroyed for the Excavations of the Palaces of the Caesars Section of the Faniesian Gardens on the Palatine Villa Di Papa Giulio, now the Etruscan Museum, at Rome Detail of the Casino Villa Di Papa Giulio : The Casiro Villa Di Papa Giulio Villa Di Papa Giulio Villa Di Papa Giulio PAGE 40 40 41 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 48 49 49 5° 5" 51 Inside the Courtyard Amannato's Portico Fresco Decoration of Semicircular Barrel Vault of Cortile Sunk Court and Open Pavilion looking into Garden Court Villa Di Papa Giulio : Bathing Pool in Sunk Court . CHAPTER V. The Villa Medici 53 Plan of the Villa Medici 51 Roman Marble Relief built into the Walls of the Villa Medici 55 Ancient Sculpture in the Garden of the Villa Medici, Rome 56 Gates of the Pincio Gardens and Villa Medici, and the Famous View over Rome 57 Villa Medici from the Upper Terrace 58 Fountain of Venn: 50. The Loggia 60 Steps of the loggia 61 The Southern Terrace . . 6> The Garden from the Villa 63 East End of the South Terrace 65 North Walk 66 ( IIAl'TKK VI. In the Lower Avenue 67 Plan of Villa Borghese, Rome .... 68 A Temple in the Garden. . 6cj Fountain in the Crossways 70 Arch of Triumph 71 Sea-Horses, Central Avenue 73 Loggia of the Lions .... ... 74 Terrace Wall, South ho < • -' Pilotta from the Palace to the Garden Terraces . . 93 Palazzo Colonna in Borgo, near St. Peter's, Rome . . 95 Colonna Gardens : Central Stairway, looking up Cascade 96 CHAPTER IX. Plan of Doria Palace 98 Courtyard, Palazzo Doria, Corso, Rom^ .... 99 Entrance, Palazzo Barberini 100 Plan of the Palazzo Barberini, Strada Felice, Rome . 101 Villa Aldobrandini, Via Nazionale, Rome . . . . 101 Seasons of the Year, Vdla Sciarra, Rome . . . .102 Circular Avemie, Villa Sciarra, Rome 102 Cupids' Fountain, Villa Sciarra 103 The Roman Wall in the Garden of the British Embassy 104 Cacti and Cypress in the Garden of the British Embassy 105 CHAPTER X. St. Peter's from the Carriage Drive 106 Plan of the Villa Pamphilj Doria (Bel Respire), outside the Porta San Pancraz o, Rome ...... 107 North Side of the Villa 108 The Southern Aspect 109 The Parterre no From the South- West 1 1 1 South- West End of Garden 112 The Western Stairway 113 Corner of Western Terrace 114 Pamphilj Doria : Fountain of Venus, South Terrace . 115 Between Villa and Terrace 116 The Villa from the South 117 Cascades, Western Gardens 118 On the Cascade Terrace 119 Terrace of the Cascades 120 Terrace of the Rotunda 121 CHAPTER XI. Villa Albani : Juno and Jupiter 123 Plan of the Villa Albani, outside Porta Salaria, Rome . 124 Villa Albani : Roman Reliefs 125 Villa Albani : The East Terrace 126 The Entrance 127 The Circle of the Cypresses 128 The Villa 129 Garden Front, Villa Albani 130 The South Terrace . . . .' 131 The South Terrace Ascent 132 Loggia of the Villa : Looking East 133 Villa Albani : Marble and Stone 134 The South Pavilion 134 Loggia of the Villa : Looking West 135 End of the Colonnade, South Pavilion . . . .136 The Carriage Drive : West 137 Roman Temple and Fountain 138 A Marble Temple 139 Fountain and Mosaic Pavement 140 Cypress Hedges 141 The Cypress Hedge . . . . . . . . 142 CHAPTER XII. The Great Cypress Avenue 145 Ilex Avenue, Villa Barberini, Castel Gondolfo, near Frascati 147 CHAPTER XIIT. PAGE The Approach 149 The Central Stairway up to the Great Terrace . .150 West End of Great Terrace . . . . . . .151 Villa Torlonia : The Sloping Carriage Ways at the centre of Terrace on eithei side of the Wall Fountain . .152 Villa Torlonia : The East End of ( in at Terrace and the Descent to the Approach 152 The East Stairway up to the Great Terrace . . . 153 The Eastern Approach, the Great Terrace .... 154 The Western Stairway and the V-IJp 155 Cascade and Basin . . . . . . . . .156 The Dark Pool on the Summ't above the Cascade . 157 Falling Water : The Cascade from the Upper Level . 158 CHAPTER XIV. Enclosing Wall of the Villa Aldobrandini towards the Piazza at Frascati . . . . . . . .160 V.lla Ah'obrandini : Screen Wall to the Piazza . . 161 Plan of the Villa Aldobrandini at Frascati . . .162 Villa Aldobrandini : South- West Aspect . . . .163 Bronze Fountain Ship, Villa Aldobrandini . . . 164 Oaks in the Pleasaunce 164 Detail of the Central Niches of the Alcove . . .165 View of the Great He mi cycle at the Back of the Villa Aldobrandini at Frascati 166 The Courtyard at the Back of the Villa, with the semi- circulai Alcove and the Cascade above . . .167 Waterfalls in the Stream above the Cascade . . . 168 CHAPTER XV. The disused Entrance of the Villa Falconieri at Frascati 170 Entrance Gateway of the Villa Forecourt . . . 171 The Centre Block of the South Front of the Villa Falconieri 1 71 Gateway in the Forecourt Wai!, Villa Falconieri . .172 The Mirrored Cypresses of the Upper Pool . . -173 The Stairway to the Upper Pool 1 74 CHAPTER XVI. The Gateway of the Villa Mon Dragone . . . .176 Garden ascent, Villa Borghese, Frascati . . . 177 Plan of the Villa Mon Dragone at Frascati . . . 1 78 The Fountain of Paul V, Villa Mon Dragone . . 1 79 The Pope's Chimneys, North End of the Great Terrace . 180 The Dragon Fountain . . . - . • • .181 Ascent to the Fountain Terrace at the opposite end of the Flower Garden to the Loggia 182 Drive on the Fountain Terrace 183 The Loggia of the Flower Garden ... .184 Gateway of the Villa Borghese, Frascati . . . 1 85 Side Portico at the Villa Borghese, Frascati . . .186 CHAPTER XVII. The Falls of the Tivoli and Vesta's Temple . . .187 General View of TivDli and the Falls 188 The Villa d'Este at Tivoli 189 View looking up the main Axis of the Villa d'Este . .189 Old Roman Tomb in the Plain below Tivoli . . 190 Olive Tree and distant view of Tivoli 19° Plan of the Villa d'Este at Tivoli 191 The Temple of Vesta at Tivoli 192 Villa d'Este, Tivoli : View looking down the Main Axis from the level of the Great Terrace . . . • 193 The Alley of the Hundred Fountains .... 194 By the Hundred Fountains . . . • • • -19-4 View from the Great Terrace looking over Tivoli West- wards . . . . • • • • • • J95 Villa d'Este : Fountains on Eastern Terrace . • • 196 Villa d'Este : The Fountain of the Dragons, on the Main Ax's of the Gardens 197 Western Ascent, the Fountain of the Dragons . . .198 Gallery of the Hundred Fountains, below the Great Terrace ot the Villa d'Este 199 ILLUSTRATIONS. VI 1 The Fountain of tl I'll.- i >ueen's i Tlu- Canal,,! Great Pools below the Organ Fountain ,le ol tlir Fountain 01 the < >i ga n .. 1 1 1 s Mair\\ay Wall Fountain in 1. Tin- lower end ol the Main \xis I'loUing tow.uds the original 1 A Stairway in the Villa Hadriana, livoli • Plan ol tin- Vill.i lladnana inrnt ol the Great Ti ei • lladnana, Tivoh . II,.,,. I be Imperial I1 the Villa Hadriara. Tivoh The Long Wan of the Pecile, Villa Hadrians PAGB joo J(> I JOJ ZO ; jo | Jos ZO6 207 JoS 210 21 I CHAPTER XVIII. • >la - ' - Plan oi i In- Farnese Palace al Caprarola a1 the first Hoor level -'3 Plan of tin- Casino an, I I pp.-r Gardens at Caj.rarola behind the I felai i- -M ( >Id P' the Palace, attributed to Vignola 215 ! atrance 1-Voni ol Caprarola 215 inal figure ilace 216 The Ascent to the Entrance -"' The Circular Coi tile J17 Till- Upper Corridor of the » irnlar Corl !<-, showily the Frescoed Decoration 217 I he F.ridge Irom Palace to C.ardi-n acioss tl e Moat . 218 The Approach •, o, Caprarola .... 219 i ol tic Casino. Caprarola .... 220 The Fountain below tl e Pa item- ol i 1 ,- Casino at Capiarola 221 North Front of the Casino, Caprarola 222 Terrace of the Hermes 223 The Casino of Caprarola 224 Souti of the Parterre 225 West Side of tl e Par, ,-rre of the Casino at Caprarola . 226 Hern; - • ii Terrace Wall of the Parterre of the Casino at C.'aprarola 227 The Western S'auway from tie Parti rre to the Upper Plateau of the Casito at Caprarola .... 229 Gateway of tlie Eastern Stairway fioin tie Parterre of the inoal * a prarola to the Upper Plateau . . 230 The E.I-.I Cornel of the Parterre, si owing one of the Four Ponds 231 Tlie Western half of II. e Parterre of tlie Casino at Capraiola 232 K ist Side of the Parterre of the Casino at Caprarola . 233 The end of the Garden : An open Hemicycle of Fountain Niches behind tin- Casino at Caprarola . . . 234 CHAPTER XIX. Cardinal Montalto's Fountain at Villa I^ante, Bagnaia . 236 Villa Lante, liagnaia, near Viterbo 237 North Gate 238 The Two Casin, 239 The Fountain of Pegasus, Villa Lante .... 240 The Water Garden at the Villa I^ante . . . .241 The North Walk. Villa Lante 242 General View of the Garden of the Villa Lante . . 243 View looking up the Garden from one of the Island Bridges, Villa I^ante, Bagnaia J I I The Isolotto Garden 245 The Island Fountain, with the Crest of the Mnnialto, Villa Lante, F>agnaia J |<> Inner circle of the Fountain on vi.e h.lai.,1, V.ila haute, Bagnaia 247 Two Ways to the Fust Teiiace, Villa Lante, Bagua.a . 248 Tl:e Stairway up by the side of the ( asmo, Villa Lanlc. Bagnaia 249 From the Fiist to u.i- Second Terrace .... 250 The Crescent Fountains between the First and Sciond Terraces 251 The Second Ten ace, With Stairway and Fountain loading up to the Third Plateau, Villa I .ante, Bagnaia . . 252 Fountain of the Rivel Gods, and Stairway to the Third Plateau Detail of the Fountain and Stairway 1 ol t he Stall \\.l\ Weslcni Pavilion, I PP''1 Court Canal Cascade —Up ('anal ( aSI ade Down oi the Cascade, Villa I The Dolphin Fountain The Garden Loggia ol the Villa Lante ( IIAPTER XX. At Florence : Shelley's View PAGl -35 -5° 2;j<> 257 258 259 261 264 265 266 267 ( IIAPTER XXI. II ,- Fountain above the Grotto in the Cortile of the Pitti Palace, Florence Plan of the Pitti Palace at Florence, wit n part of tlie Boboli i iardens 2^2 North-East end of the Amphitheatre ... -263 Seats of the Amphitheatre and Steps up to the Fountain above the Grotto Fountain by Gian Bologna in the Lake of Neptune in the Upper Gardens Looking up the Great Avenue Looking down the Great Avenue and acioss me Isolotto . Plan of the Isolotto in the Boboli Gardens, Pitti Palace, Florence 268 The West Gate Bridge to the Isolotto and Avenue beyond 269 Part of the Circular Lake surrounding the Isolotto . . 270 Balustrade of the Isolotto 271 Giorgio Vasari's and Gian Bologna's Fountain on the Isolotto 272 The Gates of Isolotto, Boboli Gardens, Florei.ci; . .273 CHAPTER XXII. Entrance to the Grotto under the Terrace Plateau of the Villa Poggio Cajano 274 The Great Hall of the V,lla Poggio Cajano . . . 275 The Villa Poggio Cajano from Inside the Enclosure . . 270 Castcllo — Fountain by Gian Bologna ... . 277 Cast i Ho— Tue Gai cien behind ti e V.il; . 278 Castello— East Terrace 279 Villa Castello : Vjew over the Garden laid out behind the Palace 28i A Fountain of Colouic-d Marble in Grotto unuer Upper Terrace at Castello 282 V.lla Petraja — Distant View 283 The Wall Decorations of the Salon of the Villa 1'etraja . 283 IVtiaja — Fountain by II Tribolo 284 V.lla Medicea di Careggi, Florence 285 Loggia of the Villa Meriicea di Careggi .... 285 Villa Medicea di Careggi : The Garden . . . .280 Vdla Medicea di Careggi : Detail of Loggia . • • 287 CHAPTER XXIII. The Well in the Cortile of the Villa liondi, Florence . . 288 The Cortile of the Villa Bondi 289 Entrance, Villa Bondi 21)0 Orangery of the Villa 292 Villa Palmieri 293 The Villa Palmieri from the Garden 294 The Western Stairway J'*.=> Cortile of the Villa Palmieri 2«,(> Part of Circular Walk J<>7 Looking on to Florence 298 Southern Terraces 299 ( IIAPTER XXIV. The Drive In ...... East Front, Villa Medici, below Fiesole The Loggia The Drive Out 301 303 3«5 306 Vlll ILLUSTRATIONS. CHAPTER XXV. Villa del Collazzi : The Chapel .... South Front of the Villa del Collazzi Villa del Colazzi : Interior of the Great Hall Villa dei Collazzi : The Back Facade The Altar-Kece, by Santo di Tito, in the Cnapel Villa dei Collazzi : The Open Court, South Front Villa dei Collazzi : General View The Entrance to the Villa The Loggia The Terrace of the Villa Gambera.a Villa Gamberaia, Wall of the Limonaia Garden Villa Gamberaia : Limonaia The Terrace Garden from Bowling Green Gate . The Bowling Green On the Limonaia Terrace Western Garden and Villa Sheltered by Ilex Hedge The Terrace Garden from the North Western Garden from the Villa Balcony The Terrace Garden The Way Out . CHAPTER XXVI. Villa Salviati : South-East Corner Garden Boundary The earlier tower-like buildings of the Villa Salviati West Terrace and later buildings of the Villa Salviati South Aspect of the Orangeries : The Barocco additions to the Villa Salviati Fountain of Jove V.lla Salviati : The Orange Trees in the Western Garden The Parterre .... Sheltered Walk of the Ilex at Collodi, near Pescia : The Gardener's Villa Salviati Villa Salviati Villa Garzoni, House The Theatre, Villa Garzoni .... East Ascent, Villa Garzoni, at Collodi, near Pescia . Villa Garzoni at Collodi, near Pescia : The House and Garden Villa Garzoni, Cypress Trees and Box enclosing Walls . The South Terraces at the V.lla Garzoni at Collodi, near Pescia The View from the Entrance Gate of the Villa Garzoni at Collodi, near Pescia Villa Garzoni : The semicircular ascent to the Upper Terraces The Fourth Terrace of the Villa Garzoni . The Upper Cascade at the Villa Garzoni .... CHAPTER XXVII. Detail of Stuccowork by Vittoria, at Maser 308 3°9 310 3'" 310 312 3'3 314 3'5 3>5 3i6 3'7 3i8 319 3«0 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 34° 341 342 344 CHAPTER XXVIII. The P.sani Palace at Stra, on the Brenta : The centre feature of the Facade 346 The Pisani Palace at Stra : Facade towards the Brenta . 347 The Pisani Palace at Stra : The Stable Buildings . . 347 Elevation of the Villa Malcontenta, facing the Brenta, between Padua and Venice 348 Plan of the Villa of Malcontenta ...•••• 34s Section of the Palace at Malcontenta 349 CHAPTER XXIX. Palladio's Church at Maser and the Entrance to the V.lla 350 Section of the Church at Maser 35 T Villa di Maser : The Main Approach 35 2 Maser near Treviso : Plan of the Villa for D. and M. Barbero 35- PAGE Section of Villa at Maser near Treviso .... 353 The Hemicycle behind the Villa, with Vittoria's Stuccoes 353 Villa di Maser : Details of Stuccoes 354 CHAPTER XXX. The Cypress Avenue of Ascent, Villa d'Este, Cernobbio on Como The Commencement of the Ascent, Villa d'Este, Cernobbio Villa Carlotta, on Lake Como Balbianello : The Loggia on the Summit .... Balbianello on the Como side The Balustraded Plateau at Balbianello .... The Cypress Avenue of San Giovanni, Lake Como . CHAPTER XXXI. Isola Bella, Lower Terrace Walk Isola Bella, the Hanging Garden Isola Bella, the Reservoir, Terraced with Gardens . La go Maggiore, with the Islands Isola Bella and Madre . Isola Bella. A Barocco Composition Throne Room, Isola Bella Isola Bella. The Hall of Tapestries State Bedchamber, Isola Bella CHAPTER XXXII. Fountain in the Court of the Palazzo Podesta, Genoa View in the Cortile of the Palazzo Durazzo, Via Balbi, Genoa Plan of the Palazzo Durazzo, Via Balbi, Genoa View in the Cortile of the Palazzo dell' Universita in Genoa, Via Balbi • 355 356 356 358 359 359 360 362 363 364 365 366 367 367 368 369 37° 37° 371 Plan of the Palazzo dell' Universita 371 Section of the Palazzo dell' Universita • 372 CHAPTER XXXIII. The Andrea Doria Palace on the Quays at Genoa . 373 Original Plan of the Gardens of the Palazzo Andrea Doria at Genoa 374 Restored View of the Palazzo Andrea Doria on the Quays at Genoa, before the Gardens were reduced at Front and Back 375 View on the Terrace looking through the Return Arcades on the Harbour Front of the Andrea Doria Palace . 375 The Terraced Garden of the Palazzo Rosazza . . . 376 Original Plan of the House and Garden before the Railway was made in front 377 View of the Villa Cambiaso showing the Sloping Ascent of the Garden 378 Detail of the Elevation of the Villa Cambiaso . . 379 Plan of the Villa Cambiaso 379 Back Facade of the Villa Cambiaso showing the Upper Loggia . . 380 Section of the Villa Cambiaso showing the Upper and Lower Loggias View of the Upper Loggia, Villa Cambiaso Villa Paradise at St. Francesco d'Albaro, Genoa 38'2 Section of the Villa Paradiso si owing the Approach Road 382 Interior of the Loggia of the Villa Paradiso . . • 383 Ground and First Floor Plans of the Villa Paradiso, Ger.oa 383 The Palazzo Imperiale at St. Francesco d'Albaro, Genoa, Plans of the original lay-out 384 Palazzo Imperiale, St. Francesco d'Albaro . . • 385 Palazzo Delle Peschiere, Ger.oa . Plan of the Palazzo Delle Peschiere (Pallavincini) Plan of the Palazzo Scassi, San Pier D' Arena, Genoa 387 Restored View of the Gardens of the Palazzo Scassi at San Pier D'Arena, Genoa View of the Palazzo Scassi at San P.er D'Arena, Genoa . 388 Villa Gropallo 3&9 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY. The Spirit of the Italian Garden — The Influence of Antiquity — Baroque and the analogy of Nature— iHd, Farm and Garden The Italian note in English Garden Design — Work of Sir Charles Barry. WHATEVER may have been the vanished charm that placed the mysterious Hanging Gardens of Babylon among the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, it is hard to believe that it surpassed the achieved magic of the Italian gardens of the Golden Age of the Renaissance. The Villas of Italy have ever been the despair of the garden architects of the whole of Europe. The very madness of the imitation has not succeeded in obscuring the great lessons that they continue to teach. Whether we regard the garden as a creation by itself, or as the outdoor continuation of the house and of the life originating within it, it is to Italy that we turn in our search for a model. The best examples teach the lesson of a sane and artistic adaptation of means to ends — the reconciliation of man's handiwork with the surrounding creation of Nature. To the end of time there will be those who are unable to form their own synthesis of a style, and to judge of the achievements and tendencies of an art from more than one, or possibly two examples. Thus it is that knowledge of one Italian garden, real or alleged, is sufficient to give them a distaste for the Italian School of architecture and gardening as a whole. The critic is welcomed who talks of midget-haunted ponds, damp fountains, tedious flights of steps, useless balustrades and an ensemble based on a stonemason's yard. To such the Italian might fitly reply in the sense of Dante : " With them I held no converse ; I looked and passed on." The attraction of Italy for the Northern races, and for the " Inglese " in particular, is a fact not only of long standing and historical interest, but also of ever-fresh recurrence. The first essential should be a stay of such continuous duration, combined with such wanderings through the less known parts of the peninsula, as will impress on the mind of the English visitor certain fundamental — ^^ w*-^| points of likeness and dis- similarity. Of these, first, perhaps, in importance is the historic sense that is woven through the fabric of Italian life. That Sanctuario on the hill is, no doubt, of the latest barocco, but climb up the hillside and on the way you will pass the hewn caves of the Etruscans. The very church walls themselves embed solid massive relics of the con- structions of Republican or Imperial Rome. All the Middle Ages, passing in a flash, have left a mere trace in some altar-piece vV I. — ITALIAN RENAISSANCE LANDSCAPE OF THE EARLY PERIOD, BY LEONARDO DA VINCI. 2 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. or tomb canopy. Thus it is that the insular Briton is thrown back to the days of Ultima Thule. He has come back a mere colonial visiting the centre of his world, that mysterious mother city to which his milestoned roads had ever taught him to look. Much, therefore, that seems of vast importance in his island home dwindles away, and a sense of the permanent and unchanging law of greatness in life and art is awakened in the most restless child of the present century. In this receptive mood it becomes possible to examine with profit the local conditions that have shaped Italian art. It is only when we see how present and past are woven in one fabric that we can grasp essentials and avoid the pitfalls of the thought-evading imitator. The Italian garden in its most striking development is the child of the hill city and the mountain torrent. It derives its charm from a climate that is the reverse of our own. A country where summer fetes and promenades can be arranged six weeks ahead with a certainty of fine weather for their fulfilment is a lasting amazement. A summer which means sunshine, and not fog and rain, gives point to fountains, pergolas, tree-shaped theatres, casinos and all those accessories of open-air life in the garden which distinguish the great Italian villa. Consider, too, the glorious music of the waters in days when the heat and dryness of an unbroken, cloudless August sap the energy even of the sun-worshipping ' Inglese." At midday to leave the cool and darkened casa is to encounter at the street door the equivalent of the hot blast of a stokehole. The reality of the upper chamber, or belvedere, the arcaded living-room at the top of the house, is felt as part of the mechanism of daily life, and no mere gazebo for an occasional view, seldom or never visited. (Figs. 7, 8 and 9.) To live in a hill city is to learn the essentials of the city state ; to feel that the politics of Hellas and Rome were matters of life and death and no mere argumentative 2. — ITALIAN RENAISSANCE LANDSCAPE OF THE MIDDLE PERIOD, BY RUBENS. ldeals interesting alone to constitutional 1 a w - makers. Ostracism is a living force in a community enclosed in walls whose circuit is a morning walk. Party politics meant something when failure to secure an election on your side implied death, prison or banishment. Art responded to the pressure of life passed under strenuous conditions ; the Italian garden is the outcome of a dream of peace and rest amid a sea of tumultuous happenings. In the hill city there is no foreground , but the view leaps the chasm to command widespread plains and narrow valleys bounded by opposing heights. The middle distance is full of interest, spread over with cultivated olive and vineyards, intersected by the windings of the dusty highways where bullock trains labour up the slopes. The gaily painted carts pass with their freight of brightly clad peasants, horsemen and mule riders advance at a quicker pace, and the occasional beggar limps to some friendly wayside seat or roadside fountain as a refuge of shade and repose. It is usual to look back to La Hypnerotomachia di Poliphilo, or dream of the monk Poliphilus, by Francesco Colonna (1433-1527),* for the early beginnings of garden illustration and for the dawnings of the ideals which the Renaissance was so fully to realise. The earliest landscapes, back- grounds of the sacred altar-pieces, show a dawning perception of artistic value of the beauty of hill and valley, of peasant hut and rural life in the open fields. Three types of landscapes of as many epochs are given, those of Leonardo da Vinci, Rubens and Titian (Figs, i, 2 and 3). * Aldus, 1499. also Venice, 1545, Paris, 1561. In point of fact, garden ^art can be traced far back through illustrations from early illuminated MSS. INTRODUCTORY. & I •< •&**&£ J^Wfe& No art ever flies direct to its imagined goal. The Italian dream of the ideal garden was heavily weighted by the mass and profusion of the salvage of antiquity. Raphael even was de- flected from his school of painting to the cares and pursuits of a director of excavations. We cannot understand Italian villas and gardens unless we realise that the museum had yet to be disengaged from the lordly pleasure house. Whether architect 3. — ITALIAN RENAISSANCE LANDSCAPE OF THE LATE PERIOD, BY TITIAN. or sculptor, the artist had perforce one eye and hand on the antique and the other on his own new creation, and this duality of interest is a great condition of the work of the time. Vignola owed his start and development as an architect to investigations undertaken by a learned circle of Vitruvian commentators, for whom he acted as draughtsman. Palladio's measured examples of antiquity amount to a century of plates in one book alone. Pirro Ligorio was great in the special branch of ancient domestic architecture, and his conception 4. — GARDEN PICTURE AT THE VILLA DI PAPA GIULIO. THE GARDENS OF ITALY. of the Italian villa is heavily charged with the desire to re-create the past greatness of Rome. The energy of creation was still, however, in its first momentum, and the antique was a stimulus rather than a clog. To live as the Romans, to re-create the gardens of Lucullus, Cicero and Hadrian was an ideal that produced works which live for themselves and not as mere lesson books of a vanished past. Perhaps it was fortunate that the ancient writings and descriptions of the Greek and Roman villas and gardens were, as they still remain even now, so obscure that the restorations on paper of various learned authorities are all wildly divergent. Cicero's and Pliny's villas, for instance, as usually put forward in schemes of restoration, seem outside the bounds of probability and practical building politics. This absence of direct examples gave free play to a skilful adaptation of ideals to actual requirements and sites. The Villa Madama at the Gate of Rome, an incompleted fragment of a great idea, was a forerunner of much that was afterwards attempted and in part achieved. The Villa Lante at Bagnaia (Chap. XIX), while a masterpiece of artistic gardening, is a most modest and practicable creation for its special situation and purpose. It is difficult to think of a more pleasant place in which to spend a glorious Italian afternoon. The water rushing down the quaint troughs is checked by the scrolls of the masonry as in the watercourses of nature. It is an artistic treatment of a naturally observed fact. The music of the waters beneath the shade serves as a Lethe passage that blots out the glaring memories of the dusty highway without. The balance of the broad and massive twin casinos is the outcome of a fine masonic sense. They are veritable everlasting cubes of stone, relieved by a fretted surface of pilaster treatment that has none of the worrying obligations of an Order. The central fountain presents a modest appreciation of human form, true in scale and vigorous in an attitude that stops short of the affectation of a studied pose. The island 5. — AN ITALIAN FARMYARD. i \TRonrcroRY. 6. — A WASHING PLACE. with its four graceful bridges, is truly related to the sculptural group that it supports, to the surrounding parterre and the twin casinos, and the scheme, as a whole, is free from the taint of the theatrical. Lastly, the garden works vanish naturally into the larger field of the wooded hillside ; man's calculated effort ceases at the embrace of an unsophisticated nature that can never be eliminated. It is this transition which marks the true garden architect, who alone knows where to stay his hand. The Villa d'Este at Tivoli (Chap. XVII) is another work which must always rank as one of the greatest creations of Italian garden art. It must be understood as a vast conception of the music of water. The great structural organ is, as it were, a mere key to a scheme whose parent idea is that of so spreading the force of a mountain torrent over the descending slopes of the garden as to create a great tone poem of rushing water. The long terrace, with a hundred dripping fountains, conveys the idea of recitative. The foaming cascades are floods of sound that rise and fall with the varying volume of the waters. The aspiring single jet plays a fantasia of its own. In the face of an idea of this kind the excessive rusticity of some of the structural features is of minor importance. The Italian architect and sculptor were apt in the later phases of the Renaissance to be misled by a false analogy of nature. That is not really natural which is most deliberately assimilated to the accidents of nature, as a column is no closer to nature, but really further removed, when it is sculptured as a tree with the bark on. The barocco satyr and fawn are degenerate in outraging of the modesty of nature, which does not fix the play of passion in an unyielding mould. Few more fatal steps were taken in the Renaissance than those which smudged the lines of architectural propriety and lost the sense of a building art. The constructed rustic cliff THE GARDENS OF ITALY. is a fallacy as detrimental as the built up shellwork that outranges the scale of nature. The abuse of sculpture by a wild profusion of application has always been fatal to architectural effect. The more expressive the art, the greater the need for a curb on false heroics. Correggio's painting of the dome at Parma was not the only instance of a disorder which cuts away the very basis of decorative art. It is an aspect of the last phase of Italian garden art that cannot be ignored, and some of our illustrations exemplify the points. Tivoli in itself provides a great lesson in water treatment. The famous Vesta Temple is an architectural recognition or outward sign of a great natural force that has the power to captivate and awe the least receptive of mortals. As we descend the great crater the increasing force of water, as it hastens to lose itself in unfathomable depths and secret caverns, stuns the imagination. The tumult pervades the senses, stimulated by a marvellous atmospheric freshness, due to the vapourised water that also causes rocks to clothe them- selves in a veil of greenery. Everyday notions of life grow weak in the presence of the living forces of nature, and the sense of the abnormal weakens to the point where the voice of the Sybil becomes well-nigh audible. Italy, however, has other and widely different aspects. There is the interminable grandeur of the great plains, the Roman Campagna and the Lombard fields that stretch m to the Alpine wall of defence. These also had their lessons for the garden architects. The long lines of poplars, ribbons of green shade that bind the cities as points of interest to form a connected whole, appear reflected in balanced plans that convey a sense of scale and 7.— BELVEDERE. °rder in the garden Scheme- Canal and embanked river have their counterparts, and the regular scheme of vine and olive forms the foreground of many an attractive villa. The Italian farm links naturally with the house (Figs. 5 and 6). The historic partnership of noble owner with actual farmer and the sharing of profits paid in kind profoundly influence the disposition and growth of the dwelling. Those vast " lay-outs " of the eighteenth century Palladians in England, offices and stables, greenhouse and chapel, etc., pressed into service by an unsuitable symmetry, are a clumsy perversion of the easy naturalism of the Italian villa-farm, where the cart sheds and stables are natural porticoes in extension of the main house, built, if you will, in a farmyard. On the road from Venice to Padua by the Brenta such portico sheds can be seen and appreciated in their brick and timber built originals. Margaret Symonds, in her Days Spent on a Doge's Farm, gives a graphic account of the life in such a palatial farmhouse. l\TRODl'CTORY. Above the upper floor, the piano nobile, the vast roof is the granary of the farm, and no one heeds the wild skirmishes of the rats. When the Great Lady, ruler of the entire district, goes forth a trumpet blast announces the fact. She regulates the lives of her dependants in every detail, including their marriages. It is an intimate union of the life of the countryside in its lowest as well as its more developed form. We understand how from Roman days the I'alax/o of the family in the Citta had its wine shop on the ground floor, where the produce of the family vineyard was openly sold. Thanks to this union of villa and farm, we get the delightful foregrounds of vines and olive trees. The low, horizontal lines of the casa are contrasted by the aspiring poplar, whose vertical lines express so much energy, controlled always within the graceful outline of the mass. In the larger villas a massive campanile, or tower belvedere, centres the group of related though divergent buildings. In the early morning the wide eaves cast shadows reaching to the very foot of the walls, a shadow screen which rises slowly till at noon its depth is that of their projection. The wide-spaced windows afford an adequate area of wall for true dignity, and the closed Venetians preserve the surface of the wall in a broad mass of brilliant, spark- ling sunshine. Creamy white buildings, with brown, golden- spotted roofs set in olive green tones and contrasted against dark poplar masses, and, over- head, brilliant, unfathomable depths of blue sky — -such is the unfading mental picture of the villas of the heart of Italy. Still there remains another, and yet different, group of impressions — the clustered hill- sides of the sea coasts and of the inland lakes where terraced masses of white dots are strewn profusely over green slopes that are well-nigh obliterated. An impatient desire to restore the solitude of nature is checked by the thought of the per- vading interest of human life and effort concentrated in areas of such continuing habitation. Such must have been the aspect of the shores of Baiae when the ire of the Roman satirist was provoked by the artificial peninsulas on which the wealthy erected their villas in the very sea itself. It is human life unwinding the same scroll with some slight variation only of the lettering within. Too much can be made of the absence of flowers, destined by brilliancy of colouring and shortness of life in such a climate to the wise restraint of some special enclosure. Here, in walled or balustraded surroundings, the orange, magnolia, myrtle and rose tree flourish with a surpassing effect due to their very scarcity of use. Italy has had little use for grass banks ; the masonic tradition is, fortunately, too strong, and no embanked terrace 8. — BELVEDERE. THE GARDENS OF ITALY. .. i 9. — LOGGIA OR CAMERA ALFRESCA. is too high for the descendants of the constructive Ro- mans. Such lofty plateaux, raised high on the hill slope, give a valu- able absence of foreground, and concentrate the in- terest on a com- manding prospect. There is a sense of seclusion combined with unlimited out- look. The hedge in Italy is mostly re- placed by the wall, endlessly different in construction, ranging from rough dry stone, or rubble, mortared and brick banded, to crude concrete plastered and finished with a coping of tiles. The hillside roads of Italy, climbing between such walls, topped with cypress and olive, are as fully characteristic as a Devonshire lane. The square-cut yew plays an important part enforcing the lines of balustrades and serves as a background to statues, while the dense and shapely tunnel- way of living greenery is not unknown. The pleached alley, though less common than the pergola, is fully as effective. Fortunately, the great value of the land in Italy for olive and vineyard, like that of Kent for orchards and hopfields, tends to restrict their villa gardens to moderate dimensions. Italy generally is free from the reproach that attaches to French gardening, that the lay-out is too vast for human enjoy- ment. There is no absurdity so great as that of extending the garden as though to the limit of the horizon itself. In trans- lating the ideas of Italy to other lands the worst mistakes have been those of scale. Things delightful in them- selves have, by exaggeration and wearisome repeti- tion, well-nigh lost their native charm. In England the Italian, French, Dutch and Oriental Schools have all 10. — WAYSIDE CHAPEL OR FOUNTAIN. had their admirers 1 \TR()I)l CTORY. 1 1 . — GANYMEDE : BOBOLI GARDENS. and from the confusion of modes has arisen that variety which, under the guise of the " English or natural garden," has wrought so much havoc among the old villa gardens of Italy. It is mrdless to elaborate the point here, for, indeed, too much has already been written on the subject. Except in so far as the " English garden ' is a r e a c t i o n against the crudities of the later barocco, with its theatrical and false naturalism, it is unlikely that a school so out of touch with archi- tecture can ever find a permanent home in Italy. At present some Italians who have not thought much on the subject are misled by the idea that the English garden stands for Nature, and is thereby in some mysterious way freer and better than Art. Inasmuch as nature, however, does not rain down houses ready fitted to selected beauty spots, it is obvious that by no reasoning can we eliminate the art of man. The capital defect of the natural school lies precisely in this, that it provides no setting for the indispensable house. To be complete in its logic according to the natural scheme the house should be built on the cut-and-cover principle, and then by a boulder-strewn gorge the natural man might emerge after the manner of a rabbit. At present this school has got no further in this direction than a futile drapery of creepers, as though a house were a clothes horse for damp greenery. The hillsides, lake shores and boundless plains of Italy will always compel a " lay-out " of the garden area around the house in accordance with its architecture and the dictates of a traditional good taste. Relations between Italy and England, always constant and cordial, have had their periods of closer contact at certain memorable epochs. Passing over the earlier ages with a brief reminiscence of Abbot Ware's visit to Rome in 1260, which gave us in Westminster Abbey, the Opus Alexandrinum pave- ment and tombs with inlays of Roman Cosmati we come direct to Shute's famous visit in 1550. We know that the first English work on architecture, the First and Chief Groundes, published 1563, has left J2. — SARCOPHAGUS AS A WATER TROUGH, its mark on the design of FRASCATI. VILLA BORGHESE, 10 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. Longleat, and who can estimate the extent of the influence of early travellers like Shute on the garden schemes of that great house-building age ? Inigo Jones in his two visits (1604 and 1614) must have passed by Caprarola and also visited the Farnesian gardens on the Palatine. His devotion to Palladio would take him down the Brenta and possibly out to the Barbaro Villa at Maser, in the region of Treviso. 13. — PALAZZO BEVILACQUA, BOLOGNA: THE LION OF BRAMANTINO. John Evelyn's visit is more fully recorded and established his authority in such matters, so that Charles II would always engage him in some flattering discussion of building and garden affairs. In the early years of 1700 Lord Burlington made his famous tour with " Inigo Jones " in one hand and " Palladio " in the other. He brought to England many original drawings of Palladio 14. — THE VENUS OF GIAN DI BOLOGNA IN THE BOBOLI GARDENS. 15. — A WALL FOUNTAIN IN THE VILLA DORIA, GENOA. INTRODUCTORY. ii 1 6. — THE GARDEN FRONT AND BELVEDERE. tmi't'iit between the doss has been taken away. obtained, it is understood, from the descendant of Palladio's friends the Barbaro brothers of the Villa Maser, the spot where, one tradition asserts, the great master had ended his days. Isaac Ware, who himself had been to Italy, boasts of the advantage of access to his lordship's cabinet containing these treasured originals while engaged in bringing out his "Palladio" of 1738. Burlington had accepted the dedication of Hopper's "Palladio" of 1736, and promoted the publication of Palladio's drawings of the Roman thermae. Burlington House was then the home of a school of architects, which in- cluded William Kent, Colin Camp- bell, Flitcroft, Ware and the Italian Leoni. Hogarth might rail and caricature, but knowledge of Italy became an essential of polite living. To visit Vicenza and absorb the rules of elegant building was a social qualification. Lord Chesterfield advised that three or four days 17. — INTERIOR OF THE LOGGIA- The sunblind casing is n Inter addition. 12 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. should be devoted to it, omitting, of course, " the base and mechanical part " of mere building as beneath a gentleman's notice. The course of English house-building throughout the eighteenth century reflects this order of ideas. We see Italians like Leoni and Borra brought over to guide milord in reconstructing his ancestral seat. Among the crowd of dilettante travellers, came, in 1755, a young, ener- getic and ver- satile Scotch architect, who was destined to modify pro- foundly the current of Palladian wor- ship. Robert Adam thought for himself, and by native genius estab- lished a fresh tradition in architecture. On gardening, however, he never seems to have really concentrated his mind. Vaguely in- fluenced by the coming naturalistic school, he drew land- scapes in a romantic, Gainsborough-like fashion, and never seems to have fully reasoned out the relation of house and garden. Valleys and hills too often suggest to him only vague dreams of castle-building, of ruinous walls and bridges and of great circular dungeon towers shadowed by piers and arches and perched on craggy cliffs. 19. DETAIL OF CENTRE BAY OF GARDEN FRONT. The simblhid is a later insertion. l8. — THE WATER TOWER AT THE VILLA ATTREE, BRIGHTON. None •ARK BRIGHTON •SIR CHARLES BARRY- ARCHITECT 1829 PLAN -OF PRIMCIPAL-TLOOR- •AND SITE PLAN SHOWING-GARDE N-B-i.- 2O. — SITE AND GARDEN PLANS. INTRODUCTORY. 21. — BOWOOD : THE TERRACE GARDENS IN FRONT OF THE DIOCLETIAN WING. i>, -.-.illicit by Robert Adam in 1768. Added by Sir Charles Barry in 1848. 22. — TRENTHAM, STAFFORDSHIRE. Sir Charles Barry R.A., Architect. 1838. THE GARDENS OF ITALY. C K H -S' •-^ W I - .. / \TKOnt 'CTORY. i6 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. 25.— HAREWOOD, YORKSHIRE : THE TERRACE GARDENS. 26.— THE BASTION TERRACE AT HAREWOOD. Built by Robert Adam and John Can, i759^77°- Altered and Gardens hud out by Sir Charles Barry, R.A., Architect, 1842. ] \T Sp O-i w H § K Q z 5 SB H ;= O w S a U) IX K en i8 INTRODUCTORY. of his houses appears to have appropriate surroundings, but, as at Shardeloes, Brasted and Compton Verney, a block of masonry standing amid trees, with rolling lawns about it, would seem to have satisfied his mind. Adam appears to suggest by his writings, so far as they touch the subject, that a building could be so spread out, broken up and grouped as to rise naturally out of the ground. Even Blenheim, the work of Vanbrugh, whom he admired and was the first to explain and defend, does not achieve this feat. Thus it was reserved for the next century and Sir Charles Barry to read the lesson of the great Roman villas and their gardens. Advocates of formal gardens have been singularly oblivious of the real part played by this great architect in retrieving the position of the formal garden in England. It may be said to have begun with Mr. Attree's villa at Brighton, built by him in 1829. Loudon, however, realised that in Barry a garden architect had appeared who could transform a mere flat expanse into a work of art, as at Trentham (Figs. 23 and 24). This great work arose out of the simple elegance of the Villa Attree in the Queen's Park, Brighton (1824). Of Barry's achievements, that of Shrublands (Figs. 27 and 28) was nearest to his own heart, and it must be a prejudiced mind that fails to appreciate the great stairway of a hundred steps, in four great flights, that descends from the house on the ridge to the lower plateau beneath. At Bo wood (Fig. 21) terraces and gardens were contrived that give effect to the long, low lines of Adam's Diocletian wing (Fig. 21 ), while at Harewood the great bastioned terrace provides an adequate base to an imposing mansion, the work of Robert Adam and John Carr (Figs. 25 and 26). Such an apparently simple scheme as the garden forecourt of Bridgewater House showed how ideas gained in Italy could be drawn upon profitably to meet modern needs. The imitations of those who have reduced the Italian garden to a byword by bad copies should not mislead us as to the true lessons to be learnt from the Gardens of Italy. The great tradition of Old English gardening will be best carried on if the study of the past is broad enough to include the study of those Italian originals that have been so fruitful a source of inspiration to the garden lovers of the past. A. T. B. 28. — SHRUBLANDS I THE LOWER GARDEN AT THE FOOT OF THE GREAT STAIRWAY. Sir Charles Barry, R.A., Architect, 1848-1853. THE GARDKXS Ol< ITALY. 19 CHAPTER II. ROMAN VILLAS AND GARDENS: PREFATORY NOTE. All roads led artists to koni" Tin- Heart of Italy— THE Rome of the Renaissance must never be submerged in the interest aroused by the vast remains of antiquity. It is, perhaps, as great a marvel as any, that the architects of that epoch, though caught in the first freshness and novelty of the discovery and resurrec- tion of the ancient art, were yet able to express their own age in a way which is quite distinct to us. To Rome came all the bright spirits of the age ; Florentines abounded, so that a Pope laughingly remarked that they were the fifth element. Vignola was from Modena, Palladio from Venetia, and Alessi from Perugia. From France came Desgodetz. John Shute and Inigo Jones, from England. Spaniards and Netherlander all alike were attracted by the fame of Raphael and Michael Angelo quite as much as by the grandeur of antiquity itself. Thus once more all roads led to Rome, and the influence of the Renaissance was there concentrated for a time in order that it might be better spread throughout the whole of Europe. There was, however, an clement of Roman palace building which attracted little attention, until Sir Charles Barry, by his Travellers' and Reform Clubs and allied Italian work, drew forcible attention to the value and importance of the real Roman astylar architecture. It is customary to trace this Roman style to Florence, and to consider it as merely a development of the Tuscan fortified house of medieval times. It is at least questionable if this is the true explanation. The marked features of the Roman style, the sheer walls unbroken in length and height, the crowning cornice, the largeness of scale and the cube solidity of the general mass seem instinctive characteristics that are of older origin, and may even be racial in type. It is at least curious that Barry was led to study the style by previous experience of travel in Egypt. In the Etruscan Museum at Rome are fragments of details decisively Egyptian, and that the Etruscans, a strange race of uncertain origin, had striking artistic gifts, all the contents of the wonderful collection in the Villa Papa Giulia sufficiently prove. The Etruscan gateway of Perugia, the remains of the Tabularium, and the great barrel arch of the Cloaca Maxima are all monuments which impress the imagination. That the heart of Italy, the land of the olive and vineyard, has an artistic instinct in architecture, which weakens as we go north, is the discovery that all travellers in Italy make sooner or later. Bad taste such as is met with in Venice and Milan is incredible further south. Cellini could speak of the School of Florence as having definite ideas on art and a standard criticism. When he quotes as an axiom, " All things act according to their nature," we feel that he is giving us at first hand one of their most important generalisations. It is the intellectual quality in Florentine work that holds the interest of all students of art ; that mastery which Raphael acknowledged when he raised his hat to Leonardo in Rome, recognising him to his followers as " the Master who taught us all." Horace Walpole, idle traveller as he was, expresses this sense of the special genius of the Italian race in architecture. That the Italians were decorators rather than architects seems a hasty deduction of a Gothic-minded student touring in North Italy. In a country which is never free from the fear of an earthquake tie-rods are a proper provision to arches, whether round or pointed. In daring construction the Italians have not been far short of the French mediaeval builders, and their rashness has at times been equally well punished. If architecture means the expression of 20 ROMAN VILLAS AND GARDENS. character, there are few more powerful styles than the Roman Renaissance as exemplified in her palaces. We know very little of the house building of old Rome, but as every discovery seems to tend towards establishing an equality of knowledge, so that there are very few things in building which we could show as distinctly unknown to antiquity, it is highly probable that Renaissance Rome, in its ordinary house building, is the direct descendant of old Rome, and that the ground idea goes still further back into Etruscan origins. That in the streets of old Rome there were great and lofty buildings is quite certain. The hundred foot wall of the apsidal screen which rose behind the Temple of Mars Ultor even in the days of Augustus gives us an idea of the scale of Roman building. The peculiar character of the Roman palace was, perhaps, evolved in embryo by the Etruscan, whose method of carrying the ridge pole on a pier, in preference to the use of a truss, may still be seen carried on in the common buildings of village and countryside. North Italian architects, like Bramante, were absorbed by the atmosphere of Rome ; Venetians, like Palladio, were transformed under the influence of the mighty remains of the past. This indelible influence of Rome is responsible for the massive grandeur of the great palaces and villas of the Renaissance in Rome, Frascati and Tivoli, and those in surrounding centres like Caprarola and Bagnaia. A. T. B. THE GARDENS OF ITALY. 21 CHAPTER III. THE VATICAN GARDENS, ROME. ALTHOUGH the Vatican hill was not surrounded with walls until the ninth century, the ground now occupied by the gardens has been a sacred spot from prehistoric times The earliest legends speak of it as the abode of a god. It was the fourteenth of the fourteen regions into which Augustus divided the city. Gardens such as those of Agrippina, and the still more famous ones of Domitian, were situated here. Here was the circus of Caligula, which was rendered conspicuous by the lofty obelisk which now adorns the Piaxxa of St. Peter. This obelisk, which towered over the spina of the circus, enjoys the distinction of never having been levelled to the ground, for it was only re-erected in its present position. Here was the sepulchre of Scipio, the young destroyer of Carthage, and that of Honorius and his wife Maria, daughter of Stilicho, the last great Roman general. Here stood a temple dedicated by Nero to the memory of Romulus, one to Mars, and one to Apollo, Pliny speaks of them, and all ancient writers concur that they were the most sublime of buildings. At the time that Aurelian had enclosed the city with walls the necessity for including the Vatican had not arisen, and it remained open and outside the city. As time wore on this part of outlying Rome was deserted, and shared the general decay. Writers in the eighth century characterise the Vaticanum as " the detestable fields," from the . TABVIA 8l5 ICHklOCRAPHI A VAT1CAN1 SVB PAVLO V DEL1NEATA MARTINO FfRRABOSCO 29. — PLAN OF THE VATICAN GARDENS. l-'rnm BIIIUIIII. 22 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. 30. — THE VATICAN GARDENS AND ST. PETER'S. 31. — NORTH DESCENT IN THE VATICAN GARDENS. THE VATICAN GARDENS, ROME. 23 superstitious and licentious rites carried on there, and from its generally evil reputation. In 848, when Leo IV was Pope, the dreaded Saracens appeared for the second time at Ostia, when a battle and a great storm led to their confusion and defeat, and numbers of slaves were brought to Rome and set to labour at restoring the walls. Leo's most celebrated undertaking was the fortification of the Vatican district, an event in the history of the city, for out of this fortification the Civitas Leonina, or Leonine City, arose, a new quarter of Rome, and a new fortress destined to be of great importance in later centuries. Hven after the building of St. Peter's, and after convents, hospitals and dwellings had grown up round it, the necessity for building walls for its protection had not occurred to any Pope till the time of Leo III. He began to build, and had he carried out his idea, the sack of the basilica by the Saracens could never have taken place. The work had been suspended, and the materials of the partially constructed walls had been carried off again for other purposes. Leo IV revived the project, and, with the help of the Emperor Lothar, worked hard to carry it 32. — ST. PETER S FROM THE VATICAN GARDENS. out. He distributed the expense so that every town in the ecclesiastical state, the convents and all the domains of the Church bore a part. The walls were begun in 848 and finished in 852. They stretched from Hadrian's Mausoleum, up the Vatican hill, then making a bend, crossed the hill and came straight down the other side. They were nearly forty feet in height, and defended by forty-four strong towers. One of these strong round corner towers still stands on the top of the Vatican hill, and is called the Saracens' Tower. The line of Leo's walls may still be traced along almost their entire route. For centuries Rome had witnessed no such festival as that which on June 27th, 852, celebrated the dedication of the Leonine City. The entire clergy, barefoot, their heads strewn with ashes, walked in procession, singing round the walls. Before them went the seven Cardinal-Bishops, who sprinkled the walls with holy water. At each gate the procession halted, and each time the Pope invoked blessings on the new quarter. The circuit ended, he distributed gifts of gold and silver as well as of silken palliums among the nobles, the 24 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. populace and the colony of foreigners. The walls were afterwards rebuilt by Pius IV, in the sixteenth century, and the earlier fortifications were almost entirely obliterated. Sixtus IV, the Pope to whom we owe the Sistine Chapel, first laid out the grounds extending up the hill as the gardens of the Vatican. The taste for gardens was just reviving, and the building of mediaeval castles was giving way to that of fascinating and luxurious villas ; and as Pope Sixtus created the garden, so it remains in great measure to-day. It has been enlarged from time to time, and in 1845 the grounds of the Hospital di San Spirito, a religious institution dating from the eighth century, were absorbed. A piece of the fa£ade of the Hospital, with its double cross, still stands against the walls. Pius IX laid out the carriage drive and built some supplementary walls. The gardens are entered from the Museum of Sculpture at the back of St. Peters', and for more than a cursory glimpse of them a special permit is required. This is obtained from one of the Cardinals, and requires to be vised by the major-domo, who is to be found near the 33. — OVAL COURT OF VILLA PIA FROM THE SOUTH-WEST. entrance to the Scala Regia. Armed with this, a delicious early morning wander can be enjoyed. The gardens are cleared at twelve, when the Pope generally walks or drives there. They are of horseshoe shape. On entering, a noble terrace stretches away and surrounds two sides of a large formal garden. This terrace, which has a beautiful view of the great dome, is the place where Leo XIII so often sat, and where the well known picture of him, surrounded by his Cardinals, was painted. It is sheltered by a high close-clipped wall of greenery in which statues are set at intervals; beyond are descending terraces with walks dark and shady with ilexes. Openings cut here and there reveal fountains flinging high their silver showers. At the end of the first stretch of terrace the carriage road mounts up the hill and encircles the grounds ; but more tempting than the wide, well kept drive is an irregular opening in the green wall, through which you pass into a bosky wood. Wild and shady, this is exquisite in the spring-time when the elms and birches are fresh with tender green, the ground starred with THE VATICAN GARDENS, ROME. 34. — THE WESTERN TERRACE. 35. — THE NORTH-WEST AVENUE. 26 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. 36. — VATICAN GARDENS I THE CASINO DEL PAPA OR VILLA PIA. Pirro Ligorio, Architect, From Percier and Foii/aiiie. THE VATICA^ (;. \RDE\S, ROME. 27 blue and white anemones and rosy cyclamen and bluebells, and the blackbirds and nightingales are singing in the undergrowth. At the top of the wood the ground opens out, and upon the crest of the hill is a small villa with plainly furnished rooms and a little chapel, built as a summer residence for Leo XIII. The long wall here, with the Saracenic tower, was that held by the Roman volunteers who fought so well against the French in 1(849. The sculptor W. W. Story speaks of his visit during the defence. " As we looked from the wall on this the third day after the battle, we saw the monks under the black flag looking for the unburied dead who had fallen in the ditches or among the hedges. The French had retreated without an effort to bury their dead, and a living, wounded man was found on this third day with the bodies of two dead soldiers lying across him." A little below this we come to a tiny summer-house, in which is a gilt chair where His Holiness 37. — BRONZE FIR CONE: AN OLD ROMAN FOUNTAIN IN BRAMANTE S HEMICYCLE ENDING THE BELVEDERE COURT. may rest after the climb up-hill. A shady pergola of vines stretches in front of it, under which the light is golden green on the hottest summer day, and this is a favourite promenade of the present, as it was of the late, Pope. Not far off is Pope Leo's little writing house, in which he used often to transact business with his secretary. During the great heat Leo XIII often went up to the garden at nine in the morning, after saying Mass, and spent the whole day in the garden, receiving everyone there, dining in the garden pavilion, guarded by the Swiss, to whom he generally sent a measure of good wine, and in the cool of the day he would take a drive, and not return to the Vatican till after sunset. The road passes near his little summer-house, and it was at this point that on his last drive the aged pontiff stopped the carriage and, raising himself, looked long over the Eternal City lying below him, with the Alban Hills rising far (i) Grass I .awn. t<) I'oml. (3) l." (4) Stairways to upper level. (5) Landings and entrance to ditch. (6) Entrance porches to (7)' Oval court paved with mosaic. (8) Vestibule with marble columns. (9) Salon. (10) Small salon. (See plan on page 26.) (n) Cabinet. (12) Staircase to first lloor and belvedere. (13) Dry ditches to isolate from planta- tions. 28 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. £ PS o w H 06 THE VATICAN G. -\RIW\S, ROME. 29 o J H cn THE GARDENS OF ITALY. THE VATICAN (;,1RDE\S, ROME. THE GARDENS OF ITALY. beyond, Pius IX used to ride here on his white mule, and the present Pope walks here nearly every day. Past a rough grotto fountain on the slope of the hill, the road leads downward to the lower and more formal part of the garden, past a fine wall fountain, where the water spouts in jets and stars over the brown lip of a basin fringed with maidenhair fern. As we look at the water gushing from the rocks we may recall that it was brought here in its plenty by Trajan after a terrible inundation had led him to restrain and divert the Tiber. This outlet, according to Falda's old book of gardens of 1640, went by the name of Fontana delli Torri, and from it the path winds to the entrance to a little palm garden, which of old was the garden of the simples. Immediately below is the entrance to the most beautiful spot in the garden, the Casino of Pius IV, the Villa Pia, the chef d'oeuvre of the famous architect, Pirro Ligorio. Built 1555—1560. 42. — STAIRWAY UP TO THE LEVEL OF THE OVAL COURT OF THE VILLA PIA. materials taken from the stadium of Domitian in Piazza Navona are said to have been used in the buildings.* A stone-paved courtyard is set round with low walls and seats, above which are ranged stone vases, in which grow stiff yet graceful aloes ; at either end is a beautiful porch-like recess, the arch of which is filled by graceful shell ornaments, while the sides have busts set in niches. The whole is decorated in the rich and fanciful style of the Renaissance with delicate painting and stucco-work. On one side is a large garden-house, airy, yet with a certain stateliness, its facade rich and dainty with arabesque stucco-work and bas-reliefs. The walls within are painted with gay medallions by Zuccaro, Baroccio and Santi di Tito. Here are two ancient mosaics, one representing a hunt, the other a bacchanalian dance. Some old terra-cotta pictures, which * Sec La Villa Pia, par Jules Bouchet, Paris, 1837, a monograph which contains a full account of this splendid casino, with complete drawings and details. Begun by Paul IV, who, like Pirro Ligorio, was a Neapolitan, in 1555, it was completed in 1561 by Pius IV, from whom it has taken its name. Ligorio was appointed architect of St. Peter's first with Michael Angelo arid then with Vignola. Failing to agree with Michael Angelo and wishing to alter his model, he was dismissed. In 1568 he went to Ferrara for the d'Estc family, and we lose sight of him. He died in 1580. Besides the Villa d'Este at Tivoli, the only other work besides this casino was the Palazzo Lancellotti at Rome. The authority of his many writings on antiquity has been disputed, but his zeal and knowledge were very great, and his taste must have been exquisite. — A. T. B. THE VATICAN GARDENS, ROM I'.. 33 43.— THE EAST PORCH AND ST. PETER'S. 34 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. 44. — FACADE OF THE VILLA PI A OR CASINO DEL PAPA. Pirro Ligorio's Masterpiece. THE VATICAN GARDtiXS. ROME. 35 •• a • '•%; '> THE GARDENS OF ITALY, *H > '-- H H os D O O ffi H O K 05 w L-i W PH THE VATIC AX (,'ARDEXS, ROM/-:. 37 m 47. — VESTIBULE OF WEST PAVILION. THE GARDENS OF ITALY. 48. — VESTIBULE OF EAST PAVILION. THE VATICAN (lARDKXS, ROME. 39 once adorned the Borgia apartments, were also placed here by Canova. Among the antiques are a Hermes, a little statue of /Esop, a helmeted Minerva, busts of emperors, and a sleeping ( i( nius. Charming putti ride sea-horses on the balustrade, and a fountain in the middle is flanked by two more boys playing with dolphins. Over all looms the great dome, filling the eye and the mind with its overwhelming sixe and significance. It is in such a summer garden that the old painters loved to place their monks and Fathers, holding a santa conversazione in the evening of a southern summer. Here Pius IV, who loved an easy, simple, outdoor life, used to converse \\ith his nephew and chief adviser, St. Carlo Borromeo. Here he assembled round him all the men of his time who were distinguished for their virtue and talents, and held those " Notte Yaticane ' meetings at which at first poetry and philosophy were discussed. After the necessity for Church reform became apparent both to the Pope and St. Carlo, these meetings were entirely devoted to the discussion of sacred subjects. When the luxurious court of Leo X was the centre of artistic and literary life, the witty and pleasure-loving Pope held banquets and gave conceits in these gardens, and a circle, to which ladies were admitted, listened to music and recitations of poets on these benches and beneath the shade of those pines and ilexes. Leaving the palazzetto by a broad flight of steps, more box-clipped hedges and long walks lead to a huge formal garden, to which Falda assigns the somewhat inappropriate name of the ' secret garden." It is laid out writh box-edged flower-beds, lemon and orange trees set in terra-cotta vases, and adorned with statues and four large fountains. A yet more interesting spot was the inner garden, or Giardino della Pigna, which is entered by a door at the end of the long gallery of the Museo Chiaramonti, but its shrubs and flowers were destroyed to make room for a column to the Council of 1870.* In front of the semicircular niche of Bramante is set up the famous pigna, or giant fir cone, eleven feet high, which was believed to have formed the apex of the mausoleum of Hadrian, or, as some antiquarians hold, was the central ornament of a fountain, perhaps of the Lake of Agrippa in the Campus Martius. Pope Symmachus early in the sixth century placed it over the fountain which he had made in front of the ancient basilica. It was still there in the time of Dante, who, describing a giant's head which he saw through the mist in the last circle of hell, says : " La faccia mi parea longa e grossa, Come la pina di S. Pietro in Roma." — Inf. xxxi, 58. It bears the name of the bronze founder who cast it, " P. Cincius, P. L. Salvius, fecit." The marble pedestal on which it stands is a much later work, though also Roman, and very probably was brought from the Antonine baths of Caracalla. The two graceful bronze peacocks which stand on either side may have belonged to the tomb of a Roman empress. The peacock, the bird of Juno, was the symbol of the apotheosis of an empress, and one was loosed when her pyre was lighted, as was an eagle, the bird of Jove, for an emperor's funeral. Behind the pigna is placed the splendid base of the column of Antoninus Pius, found in 1709 at Monte Citorio, with a bas-relief of a winged Genius guiding the emperor and Faustina to Olympus. This column was a memorial erected by the emperor's two adopted sons, Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus. Returning to the great garden and traversing the broad terrace, we come to still other long walks tunnelled in close-growing ilex, dark and shady even on the hottest day. Below the belvedere is the entrance to the gently sloping passage, up which Pope Giulio II used to ride his mule to the upper storey of the palace. Here, in a wide fountain basin, is set Bernini's beautiful bronze ship, executed for Paul V. It is still in good preservation ; its hull is decorated with mermaids, while cupids play in and out of the rigging. Its flag flies gaily, and an admiral gives orders through a speaking trumpet on its deck. The little cannon grin through the portholes, but its sails are ever furled. E. M. P. I his is really part ot the great cortilc formed by Bramante under Giulio II (1503-13), who connected the old summer palace of Innocent VIII of 1486 with the Vatican. This grand scheme was designed to overcome great difficulties in the levels and directions ol the older buildings, but it was unhappily destroyed when the Vatican library was built in 1588 across the centre. The Giardino ilella 1'igna is one seet ion only of the great cortile, which had magnificent apses at either end. The octagonal belvedere Court ot the present Papal museums is formed out of the court of Innocent's buildings. — A. T. P.. 4o THE GARDENS OF ITALY. CHAPTER IV. VILLA MADAMA, PONTE MOLLE, ROME. THE FARNESIAN GARDENS, FORMERLY ON THE PALATINE HILL, ROME. THE VILLA PAPA GIULIO. C"NG outside Rome, beyond the well known Porta del Popolo, this villa is approached via Ponte Molle. a fine old brick bridge of six arches thrown across a bend of the Tiber. There is a heavy solid bridge end, which gives a good vertical mass to finish the level lines of the roadway. This was added in 1805 by Valadier. The four central arches of the bridge are old Roman work. The Villa Madama stands well upon a bank or ledge in the hillside, with a background of trees. The position is a fine one, with Monte Mario rising up behind. The villa is now in the hands of builders for additions and alterations, and it is not open to be visited. It was never completed, and the scheme shown is an imaginary restoration with some basis derived from an old plan by Sangallo. Raphael's sup- posed connection with the scheme makes it one of great interest, while Giulio Romano and Giovanni da Undine were both certainly employed there in 1523. The epoch was one of such importance to the future development of Renais- sance gardens that too much attention can hardly be given to such works .as the Farnesian £^^T TT;Hl«rit71d ^ffHET-fl and the Vilk ~Madama' which * >^:^E^^"te^MJrr ! ' 'V T' were so dose together in point ot time. The Villa Madama was undertaken by Cardinal j Giulio de Medici, afterwards Clement VII, whose brother, Giovanni, was then Pope as Leo X, having arrived at the papacy at the early age of 50. — THE LOGGIA ACTUALLY BUILT. thirty-seven. Both the brothers 49. — VILLA MADAMA, PONTE MOLLE, ROME. Restored view of part actually limit. I'll. I. A MADAMA, 1<\-1R.\KS/A\ (1ARDENS AM) VILLA PAPA GIULIO. 41 took a lively interest in the scheme of this Villa Madama ; it was part of that " enjoy- ment of the Papacy which they had promised to them- selves. Leo X's death in 1521, after a reign of only eight years, however, brought about the early abandonment of the scheme. The villa is called Madama from Mar- gareta of Parma, daughter of Charles interesting the villa epoch at was undertaken appeared in the Journal of the Royal Institute of British 1911 lent. V. An paper on and the which it of January 2ist, have kindly been on VILLA MADAMA, PONTE MOLLE, ROME. .1 />/<;/; dru^-ii In1 Antonio Sun C,ii!!i>. Architects written by Mr. Halsey Ricardo, and two of the illustrations The late Professor Geymuller has also dealt with this villa in his. work on Raphael as Architect, asserting in a strong and plausible fashion his personal responsibility for the scheme. Varsari gives Giovanni da Undine as decorator and Giulio Romano (I492--I546) as architect, while the " annotator," who was almost contemporary with 52. — VILLA MADAMA : RESTORED PLAN OF ORIGINAL SCHEME. O»/v the ri<;!it-htiiut lo^<;i(i and part of circii/itr court ivus built. THE GARDENS OF ITALY. 53. — VILLA MADAMA. Restored plan of part built to a larger scale, from Percier de Fontaine. (1) Plan of Villa Madama. (5) Grand Salon. (2) Remains of circular entrance court. (6) Halls. (3) Vestibule. (7) Grand Canal. Grottoes in shell- (4) Loggia decorated G. Romano and G. Undine. work. End staircases to parterre (8) Parterre at level of villa. (9) Grottoes under second terrace. (10) Grand terrace overlooking the Tibci from PontK Molle to Rome. VILLA MAD AM A, FARNESIAN GARDENS .\\D VILLA /'.-!/>.-/ (;il LIO. 43 Vasari, says that Giulio Romano's designs differed from Raphael's in respect of that which he completed of what the latter had begun. In a letter written by Baldassare Castiglione to the Duke of Urbino on August i3th, 1522, he says that the design of the villa ordered by Monsignor de Medici was given by Raphael to him shortly before his death, and is at Mantua. There is a sketch of the villa in the background of the fresco of the Battle of Constantine, painted in 1524, the year that Giulio Romano left Rome. \ When Giulio had to leave Rome Giovanni also followed and helped him in Mantua. Here Giulio was architect for the Palazzo del Te, a single-storeyed Doric villa-palace, a building of much character. It has a fine loggia, opening into an enclosed garden court planned in the centre of the palace. The great arches of this loggia repose on a group of four columns, a daring combination which has rarely been successfully imitated. This building at Mantua places us in touch with the current architectural ideas of Raphael's school in Rome, and helps us to understand the scheme of the Villa Madama. Benvenuto Cellini called at Mantua on his way to France in 1528, and saw the Palazzo del Te in company with his old associate in Rome. He says in his memoirs : This painter lived 54. — THE FARNESIAN GARDENS ON THE PALATINE : ENTRANCE GATEWAY BY VIGNOLA. From Percier and Fontaine. like a nobleman, and was employed in a work for the Duke without the gate at Mantua at a place called the Te. This work was grand and magnificent, as it appears to this day." It is, in fact, by far the soundest of Romano's architectural essays. The whole question of Raphael's work as an architect is a very complex one. The truth probably is that he was too much occupied with his other works to have given really serious attention to architecture. As Bramante's nephew he had probably heard a good deal about it, and he was surrounded by some reliable and able architectural assistants, such as Antonio San Gallo and Baldassare Peruzzi. The latter, as the architect of the Farnesina, Agostino Chigi's villa, which Raphael was decorating with the Story of Galatea in 1512-13, had already displayed his extraordinary architectural gifts, which later on were to be so fully revealed in the Palazzo Massimi. It is difficult to follow out the entire scheme of the proposed Villa Madama, of which all that was built is a mere fragment of the original design. It would be quite characteristic of the age to plunge into so great an undertaking as this with only a very general idea of its final form. The whole plan was probably in quite a fluid state at the time of Raphael's death in 1520 44 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. .— PLAN OF THE FARNESE GARDENS ON THE PALATINE NOW DESTROYED FOR THE EXCAVATIONS OF THE PALACES OF THE C^SARS. From Percier and Fontaine. VILLA MAD AM A, FARNESIAN GARDENS AND VILLA PAPA GIULIO. 45 The Villa Madama will best be understood by reading into it much that afterwards followed. A circular court was to form the centre of the plan, to which the existing loggia appears as merely a side entrance. This of itself reveals the vast scale of the entire design. We should, therefore, imagine the leading features of Caprarola, Palazzo del Te, Alondragone, Villa d'Hstr and other subsequent examples to be anticipated here. Carried out as they would have been in the detail of the best period and with the decorations of Raphael's school, this Villa Madama would thus have been a unique masterpiece. Time and damp have so damaged the interior of the existing loggia that the only illustrations available are not clear enough to do justice to the work. The circle of Raphael's students in Rome, the artists and architects who formed that most brilliant school, was broken up by the sack of Rome in 1527. All must have participated in the discussions that this villa scheme called forth, so that the Villa Madama, PLAN ENTRANCE GATEWAY SECTION ^6. — SECTION OF THE FARNESIAN GARDENS ON THE PALATINE. ».' though not carried very far itself, led up to much that was subsequently effected. Like Inigo Jones's Palace at Whitehall, the scheme of the Villa Madama remains as a source of inspiration and an architectural ideal. The loss of the Farnesian Gardens is part of the price paid for our present knowledge of the vast palaces of the Caesars on the Palatine. The drawings reproduced from Percier and Fontaine's invaluable record show what an interesting scheme were these Farnesian Gardens on the Palatine. Seen by every visitor to Rome, they were among the best known examples of Italian gardening, and their influence was correspondingly widespread. For this reason these gardens have particularly been included in the present book. It will be seen that the scheme presents many analogies with the ascent to the casino in the gardens of (i) Kntnmc c from the (.'ainpo Yaccino. 12) Vestibule. (3) Semicircular court. (!) Stair\v;iy up to grotto. (5, 6) (irottoes under ground. (7) Stainviiys to lemur over (8) Stairways to level of pavilions. MI! C-raiul fountain. (Sse phm mi fxiKi' | | (10) Pavilions. (11) Plantations. (12) Sloping ways. (13) Tetrace. 46 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. (1) Kntrance. (2) Vestibule. (3) Circul;'.r portico. 1 |) Courtyard. (5) Open loggia to sunk court. (<>) Sunk court with grotto. (7) Balustraded opening to light the grotto. (8) Pavilion towards llower garden. ( ven the far-off aqueducts and the horizon line of mountains. The position, the most beautiful in Rome, 66. — THE VILLA MEDICI. 54 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. 67. — PLAN OF THE VILLA MEDICI, ROME. Annibale Lippi, Architect. About 1550. From Percier and Fontaine. VILLA MEDICI, ROME. 55 was well chosen by Lucullus, by Domitian, and by Sallust, for their pleasure gardens. A votive tablet discovered in 1868 proves that the site of the villa formed part of the gardens of the Acilii Glabriones, a family conspicuous in Roman history from the time of the battle of Thermopylae. Two members of the family, Maximus Acilius and Priscilla, embraced Christianity about A.D. 152, and were buried in the Catacomb of Priscilla on the Via Salaria. In the gardens of Lucullus avenues of carefully cut ilexes, bay and cypress over- shadowed fountains and were grouped round temples, shrines and porticoes gar- landed with roses and jas- mine. There stood that marvellous Hall of Apollo wherein Lucullus once feasted Cicero and Pompey at a cost of fifty thousand drachmae. Near by Messa- lina took desperate refuge, and heard the garden gates behind her being broken down by the centurion Euodus, bent on making an end of her. Here on the site of the gardens of Sallust, the millionaire historian, the statue of the dying Gaul was found. On the eastern side the villa garden is built upon the actual walls of Rome, those walls of Aurelian which were stormed at this very point by the Goths. A gate was opened by traitors, and the villa of Sallust was given over to fire and sword, its flaming towers providing a light to guide the con- querors to the first sack of Rome. On the south the ground slopes down by gentle degrees in gardens and ter- races. It adjoins that to which, long ages ago, the old senator Pincius gave his name, gardens which are still the favourite promenade of the Romans. From the height of the eastern wall we look down on those slopes where Alaric marshalled his army of Goths, and where on a later day was pitched the camp of Belisarius and his Byzantine host. Procopius says, " The greater 68.— ROMAN MARBLE RELIEF BUILT INTO THE WALLS OF THE VILLA MEDICI. (1) Entrance to villa. • (2) Open vestibule. (3) Grand gallery of antiques. (4) Terrace. (5) Grotto under same. (g) City walls. ((>) Pavilion on the wall of the city. (10) Vineyards. Nowa road down to the Borghrse Gardens. (7) Sloping carriage way. (n) Slope down to Piazxa di Spagna. (8) Great terrace with view over Koine. (12) Bosquet des Jardins. (See plan on page 54.) THE GARDENS OF ITALY. part of these buildings remains half burnt, even now in my time." The beauty of those famous gardens perished in 410. In the fifteenth century the ground on which the villa now stands was partly in the possession of Catherine de Medici and partly in that of Gio Ricci da Montepulciano, who was made Cardinal by Giulio III in 1551, and the deed by which Catherine made it entirely hers is still in the possession of the Ricci family in Rome. In 1540 Ricci had laid the first stone of the new building, but its accomplishment was left to Ferdinand de Medici, one of those ecclesiastical princes of the Renaissance whose dearest occupation it was to collect the precious re- mains of antiquity where- with to adorn those magni- ficent villas which remain as one of the chief charms of Italy. Ferdinand finished it, adorned it with antiques, with paintings and sculp- ture, planted the groups of ilex and myrtle, added the fountains, and finally be- stowed upon it his own family name. This prince, who was son of Cosimo I and after- wards succeeded his own brother as Grand Duke of Tuscany, was one of the most remarkable person- alities of his age. He was made a Cardinal at fifteen, and as he grew up so used the influence of his position that he practically governed the Papal States during the reign of Gregory XIII. When Ferdinand left Rome for Tuscany in 1587 the historian Galluzzi writes of him : "If Florence rejoiced at the coming of her prince, Rome groaned at losing him. His kindness, his humanity, his devotion in the time of public calamity, the emula- tion which his generous actions woke in all around had made him the object of the people's love and reverence. His disinterested character, his far-seeing intelligence caused him to be looked upon as the most powerful personage in Rome. No one knew better how to combat the indolence of Pope Gregory or to moderate the impulses of Sixtus V. His noble air and natural gfiety made him universally beloved. There was always room at his table for men of letters, whom he recompensed generously." He established in Rome a library and a printing press for 69. — ANCIENT SCULPTURE IN THE GARDEN OF THE VILLA MEDICI, ROME. VILLA MEDICI, ROME. 57 u % o O D O W a H o f— ( o Q - Q pi O w a: H S THE GARDENS OF ITALY. VILLA MEDICI, ROME. 59 • g HI r4 I 6o THE GARDENS OF ITALY. o o o CO VILLA MEDICI, ROM/-:. 6 1 o o o w - o Cfl p- w 62 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. Eastern literature. He was one of the principal patrons of Gian Bologna, the famous French sculptor, who worked in Italy. The beautiful bronze Mercury of this artist used to stand in the vestibule of the villa. After a happy and glorious reign this great prince died in Florence at the age of fifty-nine years, in 1608. He was one of the best examples of those ecclesiastical potentates who headed the movement in favour of arts and letters in the sixteenth century. In a work dated 1750, Pietro Rossini gives us a description of the villa, while probably much in the same state as it was when Ferdinand died. He tells us of the colossal statue of Rome, that statue which, it is supposed, was one of those which the flames spared when Sallust's villa was burnt. Passing through all changes and vicissitudes, this emblem has presided over the garden as it still does to-day. He speaks of " fourteen statues representing the story of Niobe " (he means the famous " Niobe and Her Children," now in the Pitti Palace). He describes the 75. — THE SOUTHERN TERRACE. wood of ilexes through which you ascend to that height on which tradition says once stood the Temple of the Sun. The sixty steps are still there, though the fountain constructed by the Duke of Tuscany no longer exists. Of the splendid lions which formerly stood there, but are now in Florence, one is an antique and one from the hand of Flaminia Vacca. Under the loggia stood various statues and the famous Medici vase. The great hall contained a Ganymede, an Apollo, two Venuses and a table designed by Michael Angelo. Among the pictures were a Titian and two by Andrea del Sarto. Another gallery had forty-five antique marbles, busts and statues. Above the balcony window was an alabaster bas-relief of Constantine the Great. Another writer tells of an obelisk, a porphyry bath, and reports that the ceilings of the second storey were decorated by Sebastian del Piombo. In this chamber to-day are only wooden panels, but in others the paintings, less precious, of Tempesta and the Zuccari still remain. Annibale Lippi seems to be accepted as the architect. It would seem as though he had borrowed some ideas — such as the Ionic capitals of the garden loggia — from Michael Angelo The loggia is upheld by six antique columns, two of granite and four of cipollino, of such VILLA MEDICI, ROMI- i > w 1 O 64. THE GARDENS OF ITALY. beauty that it is difficult to match them, even in Rome. On the outside of the villa, fronting the city, are granite columns, and the great door has a casing of beaten iron, fastened with a thousand round-headed nails. In this sturdy envelope may be descried three deep holes, which it is said were made by bullets fired from the Castle of St. Angelo. Not in time of war, bill as a joke, by order of Queen Christina of Sweden, who had promised to awake the master of the villa by " knocking at his door " to bid him make one of a hunting party. In the villa, above all, once stood the famous Venus de Medici. She was exiled to Florence in 1665. It was the one memorable act in a reign of one month of Innocent XI, who was persuaded that the statue was inimical to morality, and ought to be removed from the eyes of Rome. To imagine in some degree what the villa was like in its great days let us remember that v/hat we now see are only the remains of one hundred and twenty-eight statues, fifty-four busts, eight urns or sarcophagi, twenty-eight bas-reliefs and thirty-one columns of marble. The little chapel of St. Gaetano, which to-day is occupied as a studio, in the north-west corner received its name from the founder of the Order of Oratorians, who, in the fifteenth century, took refuge here with his disciples during the sack of Rome. Discovered by the Spanish soldiers, who were hunting for treasure, the saint was terribly tortured at their hands. They then seized the Father Paoletto, and hung him by the hair from a tree in the garden. Escaping, he attributed his preservation to a vow which he made to St. Francis de Paul. In 1633-34 tne palace served as an asylum to the immortal Galileo, at the time when he had to give an account of his system before the Inquisition. On discovering the satellites of Jupiter he had luckily given to them the name of " Stars of the Medici," and so doing earned the gratitude and powerful protection of that House. Marie de Medici, afterwards Queen of Henry IV, passed here a part of her youth. Her room was on the second storey, with windows looking south over the city. In 1770 the Emperor Joseph II and his brother, the Grand Duke Leopold of the House of Lorraine, sojourned here for a time, but it was then no longer owned by the Medici, and Lorraine and Austria were masters of Tuscany while the great House of Medici flickered out in 1737. Long before this the splendours of the villa had diminished. All had depended on one family, and followed its fortunes. Towards the end of the seventeenth century the splendour of the Medici was concentrated at Florence, and as one Grand Duke succeeded another he thought less and less of the villa, or only remembered to despoil it. Niobe and her children were taken to Florence ; the two lions went to the Loggia dei Lanzi ; the Mercury, the Cleopatra, the vase, all the most precious treasures vanished. In 1798 the Neapolitans pillaged its halls, and the little that was left became still less. In 1801 the property passed by negotiation to the Grand Duke of Parma, and two years later it became the property of the French Academy, the Directors of which have done much to restore its beauty. At every step you come across some beauty of nature or of art. The whole garden is set in marvellous hedges of clipped box, above which towers the dark velvet of stone pines. Sarcophagi serve as basins for the fountains, and crumbling statues gleam from niches cut in the thick greenery. Huge ancient receptacles for oil or wine stand on pedestals, and vases and tubs of lemon trees are placed on the richly carved capitals of broken columns. In front of the garden entrance is a broad gravelled court, in the midst of which is a fountain over- grown with arum lilies ; beyond it lies a formal garden, where oleanders bloom and magnolias make the air heavy with perfume. A charming statue of a dreaming Eros is to be seen reposing upon an old tomb. At the entrance to a long alley, between two columns united by an architrave beneath which once stood a famous statue of Cleopatra, is now placed an antique statue of Apollo. It has been restored by the addition of a most beautiful head, said to be of Meleager, and attributed to the hand of Scopas himself. Standing in such a graceful setting of columns, with roses rioting all round and dark ilexes as a background, this statue is one of the most striking features of the garden. Velazquez has left two interesting sketches, which are now in Madrid, of the long gallery in the garden, and of a fountain with ilexes. Within the villa it is possible to descend a stair to the depth of eighty feet, to where, beneath a vault, flow the crystal waters of the Acqua Virga, which rises eight miles from Rome, and feeds many of the fountains of the city. VILLA MEDICI, ROME. w W H S H t> O CO w a H fa O H W 66 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. For a hundred years the history of the villa has been bound up with that of the French Academy. A fine bronze bust beneath the gallery commemorates M. Suvee, the Director at whose suggestion the villa was bought. The Act is dated May i8th, 1803, and is signed for France in the name of the First Consul of the Republic. M. Suvee writes at the end of the year : "I have just transferred the establishment to the new palace ; nothing is ready for us, but the impatience of the students, as well as my own, made it impossible to put it off longer." The French Academy was founded by Louis XIV in 1648 at the instigation of the great Minister Colbert. Its annals show a long list of famous names, among them Gaspard and Nicolas Poussin, Horace Vernet, Boucher, Fragonard, David, Ingres, Corot. To-day it maintains twenty-four students who have gained the Prix de Rome, and who live here for four years, with a studio and an ample allowance, besides extra sums for materials and travelling. All the students dine together in a large hall hung with portraits of the former members for a hundred years past. The splendid library is hung with exquisite Gobelins tapestry, the gift of Louis XIV, whose statue, together with that of Louis XVIII, stands in one of the salons. The tapestries, which are from designs by Raphael and his pupils, had long lain in some obscure corner, but were unearthed by the painter Ingres. Ingres placed upon the walls many classic fragments, and. set up plaster models of the old statues upon the pedestals. Copies of the lions and of Gian Bologna's Mercury have also been placed where their originals formerly stood. During the last few years a special interest has been reawakened in some of the bas-reliefs which are built into the facade of the villa. Three of these are fragments from the Ara Pacis, the celebrated altar of Augustus, which has been excavated from beneath a palace in the Corso. A short stair leads up to the roof of the garden gallery, where a fine view is obtained of the villa, with its stone pines, and in the distance the heights of Monte Mario and the dome of St. Peter's. Behind this terrace lies a deep, dark ilex wood, a haunt for fauns and dryads, and through its shades you mount up to where the Temple of the Sun once stood, and where now all Rome goes sooner or later to watch the glorious sunsets. All round the little belvedere the ilexes are clipped into a marvellous bocage, which stretches away in a perspective of smooth green convexity. The sky grows golden and scarlet and fades into a hue of clearest green, and before you can descend the first lights have begun to twinkle amidst the purple depths of the city spread out far beneath your feet. E. M. P. 78. — NORTH WALK. THE GARDEXS ()T ITALY. 67 CHAPTER VI. VILLA BORGHESE AND THE BORGHESE PALACE, ROME. THE end of the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth centuries in Rome saw the creation of the greater part of the modern aristocracy. With the one exception of the Farnese, no Pope of the Renaissance had founded a great family, but now came the period of nepotism, and each successive Pope was ambitious of founding a princely House. Great Roman families were established, and the magnificent palaces and villas required by their unbounded taste for pomp and display spread over vast sites hitherto covered by mean buildings, gardens or vineyards. The family of Borghese was one of the earliest to rise into splendour. In 1605 Camillo Borghese was raised to the papal throne as Paul V, and the splendid patron of art to whom we owe the villa, Scipione Caffarelli, born in 1576, was the Pope's nephew on his sister's side. He had been brought up at Perugia, where his wit and versatility excited the highest expectations. Immediately on his uncle's accession he was sent for to the Vatican, and the Pope formally adopted him, giving him the name and arms of the Borghese. He was created a Cardinal, and at once assumed the superintendence of the palace, the direction of politics and management of State affairs. In April, 1608, the State archives record that Cardinal Scipione Borghese intends to establish a grand villa outside Porta Pinciana. In the 79. — IN THE LOWER AVENUE. 68 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. following years we more than once find Pope Paul presenting him with " another vineyard " to add to its extent. The nucleus was a small vineyard lying beside the long western wall, called Muro Torto, which had belonged to the family before Camillo's accession. In the year 1612 the church benefices conferred on the Cardinal were computed to secure him an income of one hundred and fifty thousand scudi. The Pope loaded him with presents, jewels, vessels of silver and magnificent furniture. It is only fair, however, to recollect that both he and the Pope rivalled one another in acts of generosity and munificence towards others. Cardinal Scipione was deeply beloved. His gentleness, courtesy, and kindness of heart, gained him the title of " the delight of Rome." The gossiping archives of the time constantly mention instances of his goodness and his popularity. A lady, whose daughter is shamefully 80. — PLAN OF VILLA BORGHESE, ROME. Now a public park. (1) Entrance on Porta del Popolo side. (2) Family pavilion. (3) Flower garden and hothouses. (4) Lake with island temple of vEsculapius. (5) Garden. (6) Hippodrome. (7) Pheasant house. (8) Chapel. (9) Museum. (10) Ruined temple. (n) Circular temple of Diana. (12) Ice house. (13) Grand palace. (14) Botany garden. (15) Aviary. (16) Gardeners' house. (17) Service buildings. (18) Entrance from Via Pinciana. (19) Kitchen gardens. (20) Private gardens. (21) Park for deer. VILLA BORGHESE AND THE BORGHESE PALACE, ROM/':. 69 w Q O — X H - J OH S — H oc 7o THE GARDENS OF ITALY. ill-treated by her husband, appeals to him in heartrending distress, another lays before him all the details of a lawsuit. Poets hasten to dedicate their works to him, while ambassadors come to see his latest acquisitions. He was one of the earliest and most generous patrons of Bernini, who has left us two splendid portrait busts of him, which are now in the Accademia in Venice. The eyes are small and piercing, yet good-tempered, the nose coarse, the mouth large and genial, while, as a whole, the countenance has a look of power and kindliness. The Cardinal's first idea in making the villa seems to have been that of having a place of his own outside the city to which he could invite Court personages and distinguished foreigners. He had already acquired an estate at Frascati, and had there built a superb villa ; but as Secretary of State, he found it difficult to go there frequently, much more so to transport thither the ecclesiastics of the Sacred College, the Roman nobility, the foreign ambassadors and the Court 82. — FOUNTAIN IN THE CROSSWAYS. ladies who made up the society in which he delighted. He designed the villa Borghese, more- over, in a measure for the benefit of the Roman people, to whom it was often opened. Scipione Borghese died in 1633, leaving all his possessions to his brother, Marc Antonio, who had been created Prince of Sulmona. In succeeding years there are continual records of vineyards and pieces of land being bought and thrown into the grounds of the villa. The Borghese princes always reserved the right to close it on certain days, but by about 1828 it had come to be looked upon almost as a place of public resort. In that year its owner complains of damage done to the fountains, and it was closed fora time, but was again opened at the urgent request of Cardinal Aldobrandini. In 1832 permission was given to open a restaurant, splendid public fetes were held there, and by 1865 it was thrown open on six days of the week. When an attempt was made to close it in 1884 the public rebelled, and the journals declared that the populace, citizens, artists, strangers, the Court, and the King and Queen, were all alike mortified and inconvenienced. For some time it was subject to capricious regulations, and it is a matter for congratulation that the largest and most splendid garden of Rome, which bounds the whole of one side of the city, is now at length freely thrown open as the property of the nation. VILLA BORGHESE AND THE BORGHESE PALACE, ROME. 71 V 83. — ARCH OF TRIUMPH. 72 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. Among those who succeeded the old Cardinal the best remembered personality is, perhaps, Pauline, the sister of Napoleon I, who married Don Camillo Borghese in 1803. Silvagni, in his Corte Romana, gives us a vivid description of her, her passion for dress, her beauty, white and transparent with a Greek profile, her hair done in curls a la Grecque, and her sylph-like form. In spite of her frivolity she was full of wit and delicacy, and all smiles and soft words, and was universally beloved. Her statue by Canova, as Venus Vincitrice, is one of the most popular attractions in the gallery. The Duchess d'Abrantes, who knew her well, declares in her memoirs that she was quite as beautiful as the statue. Early in the nineteenth century Charles IV, the abdicated King of Spain, had rooms in the villa. He was a miserable creature, with a wife of whom the Duchess d'Abrantes writes that ' she knew not how to be wife or guilty woman, or mother or sovereign." A more sympathetic memory that haunts these halls and woods is that of Lady Gwendoline Talbot, who in 1835 became the wife of a later Camillo Borghese. Her charity, simplicity, kindness and culture made a deep impression on Rome, where she was worshipped during her short married life. Silvagni gives a charming description of her as fair, with great brown eyes, a delicate profile, smiling mouth and masses of chestnut hair. She helped the poor, befriended and found dowries for orphans, and provided work for able-bodied women. Her courage and charity during a visitation of cholera in Rome were long remembered. She was the delight of her husband and the admiration of society, which, corrupt as it was, was still able to appreciate her angelic purity. In October, 1840, the villa was, according to custom, thrown open to the people, and a fete was held there. Lady Gwendoline, full of life, was there superintending the games, her delightful smile ever ready to greet her friends. The following day she had a sore throat, but after two days' illness was sufficiently recovered to sit up in bed and breakfast with her husband, whose anxiety was quite reassured. Later in the day the doctor came and found mischief hitherto unsuspected, and it was broken to her that she had only a few hours to live. In the midst of the anguish at parting with her husband and her four little children, she kept up his courage and her own, displaying the utmost resignation. Rome was in consternation, and the mourning for her was universal. Her husband was beside himself with grief, and even then the tragedy was not complete ; for in a few days three of the children had followed their mother and only the last with difficulty was saved. In later days the Borghese family ruined themselves by building speculations, and, after three hundred and eighty years of sumptuous splendour, the villa was sold to the State for three million lire. A writer in 1700, Montelatici, says that the grounds were divided into four parts : The Giardino Boscareccio, which embraced the whole piece from the entrance at Porta Pinciana to the Fountain of Horses and included the palace itself ; the piano della Prospettina, the stretch at the back of the villa, where there is a fine view towards Tivoli ; the park, or middle part, including the Giardino del Lago ; and the garden of Muro Torto, reaching to the west wall and going down to the entrance from the Piazza del Popolo. Broad, smooth carriage drives now make a complete circuit of the grounds and traverse them at intervals. Casinos of two storeys are placed in various parts and serve as park lodges, and there were originally many little buildings scattered about which have now disappeared. The slopes are rich in woods, park-like meadow stretches, groups of oaks and elms, and close, fine turf under the shade of pines and cypresses. It is the union of art and nature which gives to Italian pleasure-grounds their peculiar fascination. ' The ilex trees," says Hawthorne in Transformation, :' so ancient and time-honoured are they, seem to have lived for ages undisturbed. It has already passed out of their dreamy old memories that only a few years ago they were grievously imperilled by the Gaul's last assault upon the walls of Rome . . . never was there a more venerable quietude than that which sleeps among their sheltering boughs ; never a sweeter sunshine than that which gladdens the gentle gloom which these leafy patriarchs diffuse over the swelling and subsiding lawns. " In other parts of the grounds the stone pines lift their dense clumps upon a slender length of stem, so high that they look like green islands in the air, flinging down a shadow on the turf so far off that you scarcely know which tree has made it ... there is enough of human care bestowed long ago, and still bestowed, to prevent wildness growing to deformity, VILLA BORGHESE A\D THE RORCllESE PALACE, ROME. 73 - H a en O K i en oo 74 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. o J w ffi to O oo VILLA BORGHESE A.\D THE BORGIIKSE PALACE, ROM/-. 75 o o - X - w a oo THE GARDENS OF ITALY. 87. — THE CASINO IN THE VILLA BORGHESE, ROME. Now a museum of sculpture and painting. From Percier and Fontaine. VILLA BORGHESE AND THE BORGHESE PALACE, ROME. 77 and the result is an ideal landscape, a woodland scene that seems to have been projected out of the poet's mind. If the ancient Faun could reappear anywhere, it must surely be in such a scene as this." Imitation classic ruins are constructed here and there out of the ancient materials which abounded everywhere. The woodland is broken up by groups of interest. Mounting up from the Piazza del Popolo you reach an open space, guarded by two obelisks of red Egyptian granite, stone seats are set round against a low wall, a stone lion keeps guard above, and one tall cypress stands sentinel. Here is the entrance to the " Garden of the Lake," the most popular corner of the grounds. The enclosure is gay with flowers, brilliant in the spring with purple Judas trees. The lake itself is very pretty, with its swans and its pseudo-Greek temple reflected — *t nv -*-rss-\ -•**• • I II HJ^1!L f _ CGg pump _BCTT V/LLA BOK«;;t.SE FV'ORI Df POR7A PJ1VCIA.VA /•'.U.A/./.O Dl ,GK)VAJW VJIN5ANZJO FM.UMJNGO It jtamfa m A.-ni^ o.'It /'rf,-r rlr ,--i ^.' J r 88.— CASINO OF THE VILLA BORGHESE, ROME. From an old book of the Palaces of Rome. in the water. Fine sarcophagi and tombs are placed under the old trees, and in spring the glades are blue with ground ivy and bluebells. In the boscareccio and in the adjoining " park " were formerly situated the " seraglio of the tortoises," the " seraglio of the gazelles," the ' wood for hunting thrushes," and the ' Ragnaia," or enclosure for coursing hares. Numbers of animals were kept in the park : deer, goats, Indian pigs, ostriches, peacocks, swans and ducks, and small birds were as legitimate an object of the chase as they still are to-day in Italy. Finally we mount up to the nucleus of it all, the casino or pleasure-house which the princely Cardinal built to entertain his guests in. It was only a summer-house and never a home, for the dread malaria forbade its being dwelt in, save very occasionally. ' If you come hither in summer and stray through these glades in the golden sunset, fever walks arm-in-arm with you, and death awaits you at the end of the dim vista." It is set in a courtyard, with flights of steps, balustrades of travertine and fountains, and everywhere is sculptured the dragon and crowned eagle, the arms of the " most excellent House of Borghese." E. M. P. (1) Entrance. (2) Vestibule open to garden. (3) Hall. (4) Hall of Seneca. (5) Salle ties Yilles. (6) Hall of Apollo and Daphne. (7) Hall of the Emperors. (8) Hall of the Hermaphrodite. (9) Hall of the Gladiator. (See plan on page 76.) (10) Hall of the Egyptian, (n) Hall of the Roman. (12) Staircase. (13) Small botany gardens. VILLA BORGHESE AND THE BORGHESE PALACE, ROME. This sumptuous palace is likely to be regarded by the public, who are so freely admitted to its stately salons, as the veritable type of the Roman Palazzo. It is, however, rather late in date. Though built in 1615 from the designs of Giovanni Vasanzio (called II Fiammingo, or the Fleming), both Rainaldi and Fontana were employed upon the original gardens and waterworks. The Palazzo itself was rebuilt in 1782 by Marcantonio Borghese. The internal decorations are partly by Gavin Hamilton, who figures in the later history of the building of Lansdowne House originated by Robert Adam. The great saloon of the Borghese is an imposing room with its frescoes and mosaic floor. The vault is coved up without marked intersections, and the upper lighting is effective. There is a splendid room immediately behind with inlaid marble floor and paintings in the Pompeian style on the walls, while a large subject fresco occupies the centre of the vaulted ceiling. The doors of walnut and gold are effective features. The group of Apollo and Daphne, Bernini's masterpiece in 1616, at the age of eighteen, will always command attention as expressive of tendencies that were afterwards to be so largely developed. ' Dio, what a genius I had at that age ! ' One likes to remember that very human cry of the aged sculptor at the sight of his early work. Pauline Borghese, as Venus Vincitrice, by the agency of Canova, is another piece of sculpture that has a perennial interest for the visitor. Externally, the rising forecourt, with the famous balustrading, now only a reproduction, gives some degree of architectural setting to the villa. The fafade is effective, but rather tall ; the statues are somewhat small, and so is the arcaded loggia in relation to the large windows above. Some extension is given to the fa9ade by screen walls. The barrel- vaulted entrance loggia makes a fine feature. The old drawing reproduced (Fig. 89) is full of character : it shows, by comparison with the photograph, the translation due to the rebuilding, and the loss of the local character of the original structure. It is difficult to speak of the park : the very use by the public must of itself destroy any antique charm ; the confluence of crowds demands equivalent treatment. It is a park of unusual character, and there are one or two centres of special interest, but there is not much there to-day for the true lover of Italian gardens. A. T. B. 89. — CASINO OF THE VILLA BORGHESE, ROME. '/•///•: (;,iKi)i<:\s or ITALY. 79 CHAPTER VII. GARDENS OF THE QUIRINAL, AND SOME STREET FOUNTAINS IN ROME. THE long, central garden, of which passers-by can catch a glimpse beyond the guarded gates, runs the whole width of the grounds, and is flanked on either side by towering \\alls of close-clipped box and bay. These must be at least thirty feet high and of great width, with shady roads cut within them. Huge old ilex trees grow at intervals and throw their distorted black arms in all directions. These are more than three hundred years old, and are part of the garden which was originally planted here by Ippolito, Cardinal of Este, adjoining his town house ; his country seat being the famous Villa d'Este at Tivoli. These long and lofty bocages map out the garden, and between their ranks are lawns and parterres and the most goodly show of palm trees to be seen anywhere in Italy, unless it may be in Villa Pamphilj Doria. The larger ones would take two men to clasp their trunks. The garden is full of old Roman and Renaissance remains — sarcophagi, garden figures and vases. A great part of the garden has been turned into a riding-ground, which, of course, cannot be anything but unsightly. Looking upon this is the palazzina in which are the apartments occupied by the Royal Family, at the opposite end of the garden from the palace proper. It is absolutely quiet in the Royal garden. Nothing can be heard to tell us that we are in the very heart of a great capital. The distant chime of bells, the twittering of birds are the only sounds that reach our ears. A charming little parterre runs along the terrace which overlooks the distant town, and is fenced in by rose hedges on one side while on the other are masses of sweet peas trained to make a thick wall of shaded colour. From the terrace, on which are groups of garden statuary, the view extends over Rome, with St. Peter's towering on the Vatican hill and the fortress of Monte Mario rising to the west. Lean over the balustrade and the remains of a huge grotto may be seen in the courtyard below, with an organ fountain, evidently a relic of the old pleasure-ground of Cardinal d'Este, recalling as it does the splendid structure with which he decorated the slopes of Tivoli. Felice Peretti, after he had quarrelled with all the monks of Naples, in the sixteenth century, 90.— QUIRINAL : PI.AN OF THE PALACE. MONTE CAVALLO, ROME. 8o THE GARDENS OF ITALY. came to Rome and, being very learned, was set to expound the Fathers to the Abbot of SS. Apostoli, the monastery which lies just below the hill. He remained a long time as his guest, and the abbot and the imperious monk formed a firm friendship. No doubt they often walked in the Colonna Gardens, and Peretti, when he became Sixtus V in 1585, had learned to love the high, healthy air of the Quirinal hill. Gregory XIII had already begun building there, and Sixtus carried on and extended his plans, and so was built the palace in which till 1870 the 91. — THE WESTERN GARDEN. Popes resided for a part of every year. It was already a favourite site for gardens. Beside, those of Cardinal d'Este, Cardinal Carafa's gardens stretched along the site of the modern Via XX Settembre. It soon became the fashion to build summer palaces on the Quirinal hills as being healthier than the lower levels of Rome, and safer than journeying beyond the walls. Sixtus V died here, and since his time twenty-one other Popes have also died at the Quirinal, each making the curious bequest of his heart and viscera to the Church of SS. Vincent and Anastasius. GARDENS OF THE QUIRINAL, AND SOME STREET FOUNTAINS I\ ROME. 81 92. — A FEATURE OF THE GARDEN. 82 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. It is strange to think how quiet these gardens were lying on the day when Pius IX made his famous proclamation from the great balcony of the Quirinal. This was in the year 1846, and men are still living who can recall the frenzy of joy, hope and enthusiasm which his announcement of a political amnesty aroused. The piazza in front of the palace was thronged with a vast crowd, whose shouts of " Viva il Papa Re ! ' must have penetrated even to these shady walks. As still and peaceful it lay in the midst of the excited city with the birds singing in its ilex groves, on that still greater day, the 2Oth of September, 1870, when a detachment of soldiers, with a smith and his assistants, marched up to the palace entrance, and, with only a few scattered spectators looking on, forced open the doors and took possession in the name of the King of Italy. What angels of Hope, Justice and Liberty made entry with them ! E. M. P. The old Papal palace of Monte Cavallo, now the Italian Houses of Parliament, has had a long history. Paul III, in 1540, built a small house on Mont Quirinal. It was added to by Gregory XIII, who bought large gardens from Dukes d'Este. He constructed a block at the end of the court with an open loggia and an oval staircase with winding steps supported by columns, and formed a suite of rooms on the first floor as a Papal apartment. The raised centre portion known as the Torre de Venti was built by Martino Lunghi the elder. Sixtus V and his successor, Clement VIII, added the portico, forming the left wing of the court by Domenico Fontana, and began the front block to the Strada Pia. Paul V completed the right-hand side from the designs of Flaminio Ponzio, this portion containing a grand double staircase. Carlo Maderna designed the chapel on the first floor, the hall vestibule leading to it and the adjoining rooms. Wings were added along the Strada Pia by Urban VIII and Alexander VII from Lorenzo Bernini's designs, with additions by Ferdinando Fuga for Innocent XIII and Clement XII. The immense building thus grew up from small beginnings by a natural process of growth. The facade to the Strada Pia is fifteen windows wide, being two hundred and seventy feet in length by one hundred feet in height. A. T. B. Trevi, which gives its name to one of the fourteen " regions " of Rome, means the cross- roads. In Imperial times the long street leading straight from the Forum of Trajan struck across the street now called Tritone, by the arch of Claudius. The place was called the Fountain of Trevi long before the present splendid fountain was built. The name is connected now with the fountain, for who, hearing it, thinks of anything but the great sea-god, the plunging horses, the ceaseless rush and gush of the Virgin Water below that splendid fa9ade ? From the days of Agrippa the water has borne its name — given it in memory of a maiden who, meeting a tired and thirsty troop of Roman soldiers marching between Palestrina and Tivoli, led them to a secret spring, hidden in the hills, fresh and ice cold, known only to the shepherds. Agrippa in 733 first brought this water to Rome for the supply of his baths near the Pantheon, when its advent was celebrated by fifty-nine days of feasting. It originates on the old Via Collatinus, half way between Tivoli and Palestrina, and was brought into Rome by a subterranean channel fourteen miles long. The aqueduct passes near Ponte Nomentano, crosses the Via Nomentana and Via Salaria, and, having traversed Villa Borghese, divides at the foot of the Trinita dei Monti into two streams, one of which flows under Via Condotti, while the other debouches at Trevi. In later Roman times it suffered much from being turned aside to feed the Roman villas outside the walls. It was no one's business to preserve its aqueducts at that time, and so it lost its old reputation for purity, which, Pliny says, caused it at one time to be ranked even higher than the famous Aqua Marcia. Under Trajan the raids on it were put a stop to, and the water, in nineteen aqueducts, was dispersed over a great part of the town. Rome, which was accustomed to flood vast spaces for naval combats, and to use millions of gallons in the public baths, was poorly provided with water in private houses. In the time of the Empire, and long after, water was carried about by water-carriers. Sixtus V was the first to inaugurate that system of fountains for which Rome is so famous, and Paul III completed the work by carrying the waters of Bracciano to the Janiculum. The water of Trevi has been proved by analysis to be of great purity, and in 1819 it was still carried in barrels to many houses and convents in the town. Clement VII, Paul III and Gregory XIII would never drink any other, and carried it with them on journeys, even out of Italy. O' IRDE\S OF THE OriRI\ 1! , AND SOME STREET FOUNTAINS IN ROME. 83 93. ---THE TREVI FOUNTAIN, ROME. THE GARDENS OF ITALY. It is thought that in classic times a fountain must have stood near where the famous one is now placed, for an inscription was found in the immediate neighbourhood which evidently belonged to such a structure : Nymph of this place, guardian (if the sacred stream, I sleep, watch o'er me, while its murmur fills my dream. O, you \vlio approach this fount and tread its marbles, Disturb me not, if you bathe or drink, be silent. Nicholas V had already begun a fountain to a design in which, by three aqueducts, through three masks, the water was arranged to flow into a marble shell. This was the work of Leon Battista Alberta, and we cannot help giving a sigh over one of the beautiful lost works of the Renaissance. At that time, as Vasari tells us, the fountain faced towards Piazza Poli, but Urban VIII turned it round, as it is at present. In Via Nazzareno may be seen the low door which gives access to the aqueduct. It is large enough for a boat with two men to ascend it for some distance. The archives relate that on July 8th, 1643, Pope Urban, leaving •^ ! i N •- . i RRIM1SJ FON lll'A s; OLLI MIS KXXi 94. — THE ACQUA PAULA ON THE JANICULUM. the Vatican, went to stay at Monte Cavallo, and stopped on his way to see the Fountain of Trevi, which had just been turned about. Above it were raised the arms of Nicholas V, who had restored it. Pope Urban threw down the houses that had stood behind the fountain and made a piazza, so that it could be seen from Monte Cavallo, and, the pressure of the water being increased, it rose much higher than before. This Pope proposed to erect a grand fountain, and, with Bernini's co-operation, planned to adorn it with statues taken from the tomb of Cecilia Metella ; but the popular outcry against the dismantling of this splendid relic of antiquity was so strong that the Pope thought it prudent to abandon his project. As he had also laid a very unpopular tax upon wine, Pasquino wrote the following couplet upon him : Urban having raised the tax upon wine, Regaled the people of the Ouirinal with water. It was reserved for Clement XIII, in the eighteenth century, to inaugurate the fountain as we now see it ; an edifice which throws all other fountains of Rome almost into the shade. The GARDEXX 01' THE or/K/.Y.I/., .-/.\7) SOME STREET FOUNTAINS I\ ROME. 85 origin of its design has been much disputed. The art of constructing these grandiose foun- tains seems to have died with Bernini, making it difficult to believe that we do not here see his inspiration. It has all his fantastic impetuos- ity, his vigour, and his feeling for decoration. It is satisfactory that the researches of Signor Fraschetti have gone far to establish Bernini's claims to its conception. More than one diary of the time records that Bernini was planning a great facade for Pope Urban's new fountain ; and Prince Doria pos- sesses a sketch signed by Bernini and stamped by Innocent X, which has evidently been the original idea of the de- sign for the central group. It has the figure of Neptune grasping the trident and rising from a shell, the sea-horses, the dolphins, and the merman sounding his wreathed horn. Bernini always made numbers of sketches for every work he undertook. The first design of Salvi, whose nominal work it is, is much nearer to the Doria sketch than the ultimate execution which he directed. In an account of Salvi, to be seen in the Vatican library, his study of and reverence for Bernini's work are specially dwelt upon. The ornamentation of the fountain was carried out under 95. — THE QUATTRO FONTANE, ROME. ' an old engraving. DETAIL OF ONE OF THE ANGLE FOUNTAINS, QUATTRO FONTANE, ROME. 86 GARDENS OF THE OUIRINAL, AND SOME STREET FOUNTAINS IN ROME. Benedict XIII. In February, 1730, a mass of marble for the statues was landed at Ripa Grande, and Domenica Fontana and other sculptors were at work upon them. In October, 1732, they began to pull down the old fountain, and the Vatican archives are full of notes of progress and payments. What was meant to be the last sum was assigned in 1735 f°r the central crown, but a little later another fifteen thousand crowns were given for the final decorations. Niccola Salvi died, old and paralysed, before the work was finished, which was not until 1762. It seems probable that he unearthed and modified the design of the great sei-cento artist, but we cannot credit him with an originality and decorative feeling which he displayed in nothing else. The design is, indeed, to some extent spoilt by alteration, for Prince Doria's sketch is far more spirited. The god of the ocean is more majestic, the horses are more wild and graceful, and the existing fountain group looks cold and mannered by contrast. It is curious that public opinion, without troubling itself to enquire, has always attributed the fountain to Bernini. Memoirs of the time relate how fond Alfieri the poet was of Trevi, and how he would come there at daybreak on a summer morning from his house near Diocletian's baths and sit on one of the low benches fashioned out of the rock, close to the water's edge, and stay there dreaming and listening to the water, till the noise and bustle of the waking town drove him away. How many people have stopped to drink of the water, half mocking at, half believing in, the superstition that says it will bring them back to Rome providing they cast a coin into the waters ? It is a spell that has little force in these days of easy travel, when a run to Italy for a few weeks is a thing of yearly occurrence. It was different in the days when it was one of the great events of a lifetime, and when comparatively few could hope to make the long and costly journey a second time, E. M. P. The Acqua Paula on the Janiculum is a fine architectural fountain fa$ade whose sobriety is in marked contrast with many of the later works of the Renaissance period. It was constructed under Paul V in 1613 by Giovanni Fontana. The large scale assists in producing its imposing effect. The Quattro Fontana.— The old engraving reproduced shows a characteristic piece of street planning. The intersection of the Via Quattro Fontana and the Via del Quirinale provides a setting for four fountains planned on the canted corners. This idea has been the basis of many modern developments. A. T. B. THE GARDENS ()/< ITALY. CHAPTER VIII. PALAZZO BORGHESE, AND THE GOLONNA GARDENS, ROME. IT seems impossible for modern ideas of grandeur to compete with those of the Renaissance and of the seventeenth century in Italy. The Borghese, during the years of their power, acquired eighty estates in the Campagna of Rome. Cardinal Scipione, having a villa at the gates of Rome as magnificent as the chief palace of most great nobles, retained it merely as a summer- house and lived chiefly in his immense palace in the city itself.* It was begun in 1590 by Cardinal Deza from the designs of Martino Lunghi, and finished by order of the great Borghese Pope, Paul V, from the designs of Flaminio Ponzio. The architecture still has something of early Renaissance beauty. The courtvard is surrounded by a J 94 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. of her horse and the safety of her saddle, surrounding her with an atmosphere of love and tenderness, and, after long, animated conversations with her, showed himself coldly averse from the proposed marriage. On his return from this expedition he formally asked Mazarin for his niece's hand. Mazarin, who had the interests of France sincerely at heart, was uncom- promising in his refusal ; but the King declared his devotion to Maria herself and his determination that she should be his wife and Queen of France. For her he purchased the famous string of pearls which had belonged to Henrietta Maria, the exiled Queen of England, from which she never parted during her life, and it may be seen to-day on the neck of her descendant, Princess Rospigliosi. The Queen and Cardinal were absolutely determined against such a politically undesirable marriage, and Maria and her youngest sister were exiled to a convent at Brouage. She parted from the King with the memorable words that Racine puts into the mouth of Berenice : "Ah, Sire, vous etes roi ; vous pleurez et je pars." From Brouage she kept up a long and ardent corres- pondence with Louis, even after he had been persuaded into a betrothal with the Infanta of Spain, That Maria was his truest, purest love is not to be doubted. She had something proud, farouche, and chaste in her nature, which then and always preserved her from any less honourable connection. The King, urged on by public exigency, married the Infanta, and Maria suffered terribly from disappointed love and from the mortification of her position. She listened now to her uncle's wish to arrange a marriage for her, and the young Prince Charles of Lorraine was first thought of. Her enemies persuaded the King, on his return from Spain, that she had already transferred her affections to the Prince, and the unhappy girl was met by him with a cold contempt which aggravated her sorrow. The King himself had left his dull, sandy-haired bride on the homeward journey from Spain in order to make a pilgrimage to Brouage, to sleep in that room which Maria had occupied so long, and to weep bitterly through the night over her loss. The Cardinal decided that it was too dangerous to let her remain in France, and a marriage was speedily arranged with the young and handsome Colonna, who was attracted by the account of her charms and the rich dowry given by her uncle. She had never seen him, but all fates seeming alike, she allowed herself to be married by proxy, and set out for Milan to meet him. Before departing, however, she had a violent and agitating interview with the King, in which they poured out all their hearts, and Louis endeavoured to persuade her to throw aside all claims and to remain with him ; but the woman who had hoped to be his wife and Queen refused to accept such widely differing terms. Thereupon she left Paris, taking with her his promise of life-long protection, and thus was closed the first act of Maria Mancini's stormy life. The second opens on her arrival at Palazzo Colonna. She had been attacked during her journey by brain fever, and had lain ill for some time at Loreto, and as she recovered she was brought by easy stages to her new home by the husband who had met her at Milan. The great reception prepared had had to be abandoned, but all the household was drawn up to welcome her. She confesses that her first feeling at sight of the palace was one of disappointment, the courtyard not being particularly imposing. When, however, she passed into those spacious halls, so splendidly decorated by Pintoricchio, the Carracci and Guido Reni, cooled with fountains and hung with fine pictures, she was much struck, and, in spite of her weakness, was filled with admiration. She was so tired that she had to go at once to bed, but she sent to the Constable to beg him to share her meal ; so he dined by her bedside, and she seemed more kindly disposed to him than she had yet shown herself to be. As her health reasserted itself she received the visits of all the great Roman ladies. Her husband allowed her to live with the freedom of French society, much to the vexation of other Roman husbands, whose wives were accustomed to lead lives of almost cloistered seclusion. Prince Colonna surrounded her with care and attentions, and she has left a charming picture of their amusements. One hot evening he asked her to walk to see a lake. As they turned a corner, they found themselves in Piazza Navona, illuminated, flooded, and its mimic waters covered with gay boats, their flags flying and musicians on board. A larger bark with a bower of flowers and lights, awaited the princess ; a concert, fireworks and waterworks were thus thoughtfully organ- ised to remind her of the gay fetes she had left behind at Fontainebleau. PALAZZO BORGHESE, AND THE COLONNA GARDENS, ROME. 95 The Constable, who at this time adored his beautiful young wife, was always planning something new. As the heat of the day declined he would take her in a light carriage, drawn at a gallop by six matchless Barbs, to the Villa Borghese, which Prince Borghese had lent to him. Strolling in those wonderful gardens, listening to soft music, Maria drank in all the intoxication of the Roman nights. She was only twenty, and, with a charming and devoted lover whispering in her ear, her warm and affectionate nature awoke again to love and happiness. The five following years were the happiest of her life. She had three children, she lived a gay and brilliant life in the beautiful palace, she gave fetes in the gardens. Six weeks after her first son's birth she received visitors, sitting up in a wonderful bed made like a golden shell, supported by sea-horses and with little loves holding back curtains of cloth of gold. She herself was dressed in fine lawn and Venetian point, her rippling black hair caught up with gems and a necklace by Benvenuto Cellini himself around her throat. The despatches of the time are full of allusions to the lovely Connestabilessa and her marvellous bed. Suddenly all was changed ; from tenderness towards her husband she becomes cold, and only long after do old documents unveil the truth — that she had discovered an intrigue in which he was engaged with a Roman lady. From that time they drifted apart. Enough transpires to show how keenly Maria suffered, for his first infidelity was not the last by many. Yet she kept up the old gaiety with something of a power of enjoyment which never left her. Her lovely and reckless sister, Hortense, Duchess of Mazarin, joined her, and a young Frenchman, Jacques de Belbreuf, gives us a vivid description of the balls and masquerades, the dinners, the music and conversation which made up a society where all was ease and variety, and where the Princess Colonna and her sister won all hearts and turned all heads. Yet all the time her quarrels with her husband were increasing. In the spring of 1671 she was several times seized with violent illness, and became convinced that he was trying to poison Though it seems probable that the sus- her. picion was unfounded, it became so strong that she at length resolved to escape and claim the protection that Louis XIV had offered to her ; accordingly she and her sister fled from Rome 1MANTA DfL PALAZZO DELL EM SIG CARD COLONWA IKBORGa 104. — PALAZZO COLONNA IN BORGO, NEAR ST. PETER'S, ROME. with one or two trusted servants. It would take too long to tell of her adventures and disappoint- ments, for when, after incredible hardships by sea and land, she reached France Louis refused to receive her. He wrote kindly, he placed a handsome allowance at her disposal, but his recollection of her influence was too strong, and he would not risk the reopening of an old wound. In vain her husband urged her return. She was impressed, apparently not without some reason, with the certainty that he purposed to avail himself of the excuse of her flight to shut her up in one of his lonely castles, where she would never be heard of again. Such things were not uncommon, and a letter from Cardinal Cibo, hinting at such imprisonment, fell into her hands. She passed the next twenty years of her life in one convent or another, sometimes in France, sometimes in Spain. For a time she lived at the Court of Savoy, where its Duke, the chivalrous Charles Emmanuel, was sincerely and devotedly attached to her. There is a delightful account of her arrival at what was then one of the most brilliant of the Courts of Europe, and of the stupefaction of the Duke at her appearance when he went out to THE GARDENS OF ITALY. w o a, C3 O g 3 O 0 I H en os H " 116, — ST. PETER'S FROM THE CARRIAGE DRIVE. VILLA PAMP1IILJ DOR/,1, ROME. 107 •••'• /"•""•'f -t ,/i'iWttt* (/ff ( tf.rt .' t tf.r//t ffrtftCUMf ' f /f///iy-/1rt/.-' ."» C'/;///,/ /9//.r.r/>? / ' cV7if iff (trpff&l ffi/ff 1 tfufutt a!- 'P^ **.• l"\. .l/:Ji> ;: ffi ^K / -TflT %b.'JLr^v$:- e^ aSd^^r? r^SMv*. •;,,;• 117. — PLAN OF THE VILLA PAMPHILJ DORIA (BEL RESPIRO), OUTSIDE THE PORTA SAN PANCRAXK), ROME. lizard:. .\rcliit<'. M//V///J DOK/,1, R()M1<:. $ en w w H CO THE GARDENS OF ITALY. w O - H w H a K U O o N VILLA /Ml//'////// DOR/A, ROMI-l. 1 1 w O W H K H O crt w O Z g OS O Q 3 I-H — N THE GARDENS OF ITALY. w O w H _1 I— I > w w I VILLA PAMPIULJ DORIA, ROME. 117 127. — THE VILLA FROM THE SOUTH. n8 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. built over thirty-four classic tombs of great beauty, forming " a small village with streets, side walks arid squares." It stands high above the city, and merits its old name of Belrespiro. Of all Italian palaces, it most resembles an English country seat ; it is surrounded by a fairly extensive, undulating park, which is plentifully timbered with ilexes and stone pines. Nearer the house a cool, dark wood is railed off and remains inaccessible to the ordinary visitor. The villa is surrounded by a finely laid out formal garden, with geometrical beds set in box edging, and is adorned with fountains and sundials, statues, and lemon trees in terra- cotta vases. The prospects from the garden are entrancing and full of interest. In one direction the eye travels over the wide campagna to where Monte Cavo, with its flat top, the site of the ancient temple of Jupiter Latiarius, towers above the range of the Alban hills, while, looking in the opposite direction, there is such a view of St. Peter's as can be obtained from no other 128. — CASCADES, WESTERN GARDENS. point. The great mass of Vatican buildings, surmounted bv the dome, is seen by itself, cut off from the rest of Rome by the intervening hills. Behind rises Monte Mario and far away Soracte couches dimly on the plain. There are no traces of Donna Olimpia's reign to be seen at the superb Pamphilj palace in the Piazza Navona, where she spent more than half her life, but in the villa which she planned and her son built are to be seen inscriptions and busts. In the past there were many more, but the best were moved for greater security to the Doria palace; In that gallery we find Innocent X both in marble and bronze by Bernini, as well as Pamfilio Pamphilj, Olimpia's husband, a fine-looking man in his Spanish ruff and seventeenth century dress. Here, too, is Olimpia her- self, represented as no longer young, but still handsome, with piercing eyes, marked eyebrows, and close-shut mouth — in sum, a strong, resolute and imperious face. VILLA P.n/r/I/l/J DOKI.I, ROME. I 1C) 129. — ON THE CASCADE TERRACE. 120 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. There is a story that a fiery horse galloped through these gardens on April nth, 1655, heralding the death of Innocent X. In 1760 the last heir male of the house of Pamphilj died, and the property passed to that of the Borghese, into which family he had married, and by them it descended to the Dorias. In the last century, Silvagni, in his Corte Romana, recounts a love tragedy, in which a son of the house of Pamphilj Doria was one of the principal actors. The delightful gossip and historian describes a funeral that he witnessed while still a child, when the body of a beautiful young girl, dressed in white, with her long hair streaming round her, and her head crowned with roses, was borne on an open bier through the streets of Rome. The flaming torches in the evening twilight, the suppressed emotion of the crowds, and the waxen pallor of the face upon the bier had made an impression which the child never forgot. The cortege stopped under the walls of Doria palace, the murmur of the crowd grew loud and deep, as threats and imprecations were uttered. The lovely maiden was Vittoria Savorelli, who had died for love of Don Domenico, the second son of Prince Pamphilj Doria, and all Rome was alight with indignation. 130. — TERRACE OF THE CASCADES. The story was a sad and simple one. Vittoria was a lovely and accomplished girl, of a romantic, excitable temperament, full of strong religious enthusiasm, and entitled to a large fortune. Suitors were not lacking, but she showed no inclination towards any of them until, in the winter of 1836, at the age of nineteen, she met at a ball Don Domenico Doria, who was just twenty-one. He was a good-looking young fellow, a fine shot and rider, a beautiful dancer, but already dissipated and frivolous. He was much attracted by Donna Vittoria, sought her out, and distinguished her in every way, and her letters show very innocently how irresistible she found him, and how she gradually gave to him her whole heart. The son of the Pamphilj Doria was an excellent match, and no obstacles were thrown in the \vay of his suit. Vittoria tells how she celebrated a Triduo to the Virgin, and on returning home was rewarded by finding that the young man had sent his ambassador to her mother. ' I had no doubt they were speaking about me," she writes. " Never did I find the society of my young cousins so VILLA PAMPIIIIJ DOK/.l, ROMK. 121 i ID S K W U. O w u P5 W H CO M 122 VILLA PAMPHILJ DORIA, ROME. wearisome, but I was forced to endure it, and when they departed, mamma immediately called me, and said that the Marchese had come, in the name of Cuccio " (diminutive for Domenico, or Domenicuccio), " to make a formal request for my hand." Shortly after the engagement was announced a fearful visitation of cholera in Rome separated the lovers, the Savorelli going to Castel Gandolfo, and the Doria taking refuge in their villa. This gave occasion for an ardent correspondence, and when the lovers met again they grew every day more attached. In his letters Domenico calls his betrothed by the pet name of Tolla, and is profuse in his expressions of passionate fidelity. Her letters show how her warm and loving nature responds to his appeals, she looks forward to the future in the confidence of a perfect bliss. Like an eager, jealous child, she asks about his every movement, gives him directions about curling his hair, tells him what clothes he is to wear, and how he is to occupy his time. All seemed to promise well, but a sinister influence was already at work. A Cardinal uncle of Domenico, who had never approved of the match, persuaded his nephew to go on a journey to England, whither his elder brother was bound, being engaged to marry Lady Mary Talbot. Queen Victoria's Coronation was also to take place, and the Doria princes started, though Vittoria was inconsolable at the prospect of a long separation. Don Domenico left her with renewed protes- tations, gave her a ring, and bemoaned his hard fate at being parted from one whom, he took God to witness, he held already as his wife. By a sort of presentiment she wrote to a trusted friend : " He is gone, and I am a prey to all the terrors caused by a long absence, and the fear of losing him for ever. I am almost reduced to despair. I imagine myself abandoned, dishonoured, the talk of the city." For some time his letters were long, frequent and tender. He describes the Coronation, and says that he loves to see everywhere the dear name of Victoria. His last letter ends : ' My paper fails, but my heart does not follow suit, and is full of the most tender love for my Tolla. — Yours eternally, Cuccio." Only eight days later he wrote very coolly from Brussels, both to Vittoria and her father, saying that as his uncle opposed the match, he thought it his duty to break it off, and that he hoped they would soon forget him. The distracted parents, who felt that the sorrow would crush their child, made every effort to induce him to redeem his promise ; but his unscrupulous uncle sent him as a companion a man who worked upon his weak nature, led him into the wildest excesses, and soon what little good there w7as in him was swamped in evil, and he entirely renounced his confiding love. For a whole month the terrible truth was kept back from Vittoria, though day by day she grew more sad and anxious, as no letters came ; but at length it was broken to her. She wrote him one more letter, and when no reply came her health failed rapidly. Her father and mother persuaded Cardinal Odescalchi to exert his influence with the Doria Cardinal, but all to no purpose ; he remained inexorable, and Don Domenico himself was deaf to every entreaty. Vittoria pined away. She still kept her faithless lover's portrait ; but when all hope was gone she consecrated her ring to the Virgin. On September 25th, 1838, she wrote Domenico a last letter, and traced some loving words of forgiveness on the back of his picture, and a week after she died. When the city realised the news a storm of indignation arose. Her biography and letters were published, verses were composed, and a great public funeral marked the popular sympathy. Kdmond About gave the name of Tolla to one of his heroines in her honour, and feeling against Domenico ran high. He, meanwhile, was in Venice, where he received the news of her death with every mark of profound indifference. He waited a year before returning to Rome, and then appeared at a party given by the French Ambassador. He soon found, however, that he had miscalculated the tenacity of the public memory, and that it was unsafe for him to remain. He left Rome for ever, and settled at Genoa, where, ten years after Vittoria's death, he married a Genoese lady. He lived till 1873. His memory is still execrated, while that of the fair young girl, whom fate used so cruelly, is still dear to the hearts of the Roman people. These gardens had been the scene of fierce fighting in the siege of Rome in 1849, and a temple built in 1851 commemorates the French who fell here. A memorial of a different kind catches the eye, looking towards the eastward slopes. The name " Mary " in huge letters of clipped cypress reminds us that Lady Mary Talbot became the wife of Prince Doria in 1835. Her sister Gwendoline was married to Prince Borghese. E. M. P. 77//<: <•;.-] K/)/«;.Y.S' or ITALY. 123 CHAPTER XI. VILLA ALBANI, ROME. VILLA ALBANI differs from other Italian residences in this — that it was built entirely with a view to the treasures it \vas to contain, and that even to-day, curtailed as those treasures are, it is impossible to think of it apart from them. The shining marble rooms and the long terraces are peopled by a world of nurble men and women, and they have, and need, no other inhabitants. To no one in the eighteenth century does art owe more than to Cardinal Alexander Albani, whom his contemporaries called the Great Cardinal. His wondrous collection has rendered 132. — VILLA ALBANI I JUNO AND JUPITER. inestimable service to art and archaeology. Since the time of Winckelmann, the distinguished German professor, under whose care the villa grew, there has been no student of the antique in Italy who has not found here a mine of riches upon which to draw for explanation and illustration. No great writer has been able to tell the history of sculpture without at every moment quoting from Villa Albani. The successors of the Cardinal enriched the collection with a long list of precious paintings and drawings, and before the French bore away many of its possessions there were few places in which were gathered together so many examples of incontestable value and, moreover, of ascertained history. I24 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. flillllflif W J3SM31 I | n ; a^^-^^d as :»•'*'' = - •' a.^-"-^-,'! 'Q'S at i • v Gal- %i 133. — PLAN OF THE VILLA ALBANI, OUTSIDE PORTA SALARIA, ROME. 1746. Carlo Marchioni, Architect. From Percier and Fontaine. VILLA ALBANI, ROME. 125 The Cardinal from his youth showed a wish to revive the love of art in Rome and to turn haek the thoughts of men to the beauties of a classic past. He treated professional buyers and excavators with the greatest esteem, and paid for everything really beautiful that was brought to his notice with regal munificence. In 1757 he met with Winckelmann, and was soon attracted by his critical faculty and artistic knowledge ; the following year he offered him a salary and lodgings in his palace in Rome. He gave him fine rooms with beautiful views. His only duties were to be a companion to the Cardinal and to look after his library. He passed his time going with the Cardinal to examine ruins and to consider the positions to be given to his statues, a '.id soon became so intimate with him that he often went to chat at his bedside. He threw himself so enthusiastically into his patron's favourite pursuit that it seemed as if he built and bought for himself alone. Winckelmann in his letters gives us continual accounts of the rise and progress of this splendid collection, and speaks affectionately of the goodness and loyalty of heart of its owner. 134.— VILLA ALBANI : ROMAN RELIEFS. " What manner of man is he ? do you ask," he writes to a friend. ' He is a man who to great talents joins the most amiable of characters. He is sixty-three, but does not look forty, and he builds as if he were sure of living for another twenty-five years. His villa surpasses every- thing of modern times, except St. Peter's itself. He has erected the background he needed, and has been himself the sole architect." " This cardinal is the greatest antiquary in the world. He brings to light what has been buried in darkness, and pays for it with a generosity worthy of a king." In February, 1758, he writes : " The palace is adorned with such a quantity of columns of porphyry, granite, and oriental alabaster that before they were put in their appointed (1) Principal cntrarce. (2) Porch. -.•wants' quariei's. (4) Great <ry;'lid Ii (7) Temple with Ionic columns. (8) Small room with bronzes. (9) Pergola. («)) Billiard-room. (n) Fountains. (12) Great stairway to lower level. (13) Pond with statue. (14) Temple ruins. (See plan i page 124.) ( i -,) Pavilion. .10 17) Lower gardens, p;iri enlarged in cornel of plan. (18) Kitcl'e, i garden. (19) Grand panenv : LJV.ISS and (lowers. (20) Terrace at level of main villa- limited area well disposed and levels made the mosl ol. 126 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. places they seemed like a forest of marble." There are, in fact, one hundred and forty-four. The noble portico is composed of thirty-six large columns of Oriental granite and forty small ones, beautifully polished. Another writer says that Albani's nobility of soul made him so beloved that he was often given, or helped to find, things that might otherwise have escaped him. Immediately within the entrance we come upon a series of box avenues, all converging towards a circle formed by eleven splendid pines, which stand round a space in the middle of which rises an antique obelisk as the central feature. About it there is a curious story. It belonged to the Prince ot Palestrina, who refused to sell it to the Cardinal at any price. Shortly after the Prince went on a journey, whereupon the Cardinal sent a large body of men, who entered the garden by force, bore off the obelisk, and erected it in the gardens of the Villa Albani. As the Cardinal was excessively powerful in Rome, the Prince did not dare to bring an action against him, but made a joke of the whole affair, complimenting him on his exploit and remaining upon friendly terms with him. It is now surmounted by the mount and star of the Albani family, and stands -r . 135. — VILLA ALBANI : THE EAST TERRACE. out beautifully against a group of cypresses with a further background of deep blue mountains. Close-cut hedges of cypress, set with busts and terminal figures, screen the approach to the great formal garden which lies in front of the villa. The casino opposite is ablaze with masses of azaleas. "It is roses, roses all the way " in the long flower-beds, which are flanked by pots of lemon and orange trees. Noble fountains make a centre here and there. A river god reclines under a portico, for which the original drawing of Marchionni exists in an old book on the table within the house. In one of his letters Winckelmann says : ' ' The Cardinal has brought from Tivoli on a carro drawn by sixteen bullocks a female river deity of colossal size, well pre- served," and here, sure enough, she is, reclining on the edge of a marble reservoir. ' I write from our villa, which grows more beautiful every day," he says ; ' one of the last acquisitions is a colossal head of Trajan, in perfect preservation except the nose." The nose has been restored, and the colossal bust looms from a bower of honeysuckle. The Cardinal has just brought to his villa the few last of the best statues left in the Villa d'Este, at Tivoli." VILLA ALltAM, ROME. 127 w u 128 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. en w C/3 a u w _ ro I'll. I. I .ll.llAM, ROMK. [29 - H 00 CO 3o THE GARDENS OF ITALY. The lower storey of the villa is faced by a spacious open colonnade which runs its whole length, and along which stand statues and vases. In the photograph we can see, midway, a beautiful reclining statue of Agrippina. Within doors the rooms are gleaming with marble, rich with gilding, and still contain many masterpieces of painting and sculpture. One of Perugino's most exquisite panel paintings glows upon the wall ; above a mantelpiece is framed the splendid sulky Antinoiis, crowned with lotus blossom ; over another is that most lovely and delicate bas-relief of the parting of Orpheus and Eurydice. Archaic Greek reliefs, fine Roman work, alabaster vases, sarcophagi, statuettes, frescoes are placed with thought and care whichever way you turn ; bits of exquisite classic carving are let in as overdoors. At every turn inscriptions tell us how Alexander Albani built and adorned the edifice, and how Alexander Torlonia restored it in 1871. Winckelmann speaks of many beautiful things which have since disappeared, two hundred and ninety-four of the finest specimens having been carried off in the French invasion. He tells us, too, of the English visitors whom the Cardinal entertained — Milady Montagu, Milady Bute, Lord Baltimore, and " the celebrated and famous Wilkes of England." He speaks of the head of a Pallas, which he holds to be the most perfect beauty under the sun, as being snapped up while he was thinking about the price. He tells us he has become so wrapped up in the villa that he cannot bear anyone to visit it without him, and when a certain German count desired to go and visit it with one of his acquaint- ances he said, " No ! " plump. There is a charming small casino at the far side of the garden, which was probably the great Profes- sor's private apartment. It is easy to imagine him with the Cardinal exulting together over their new acquisitions, deciding their positions, and saun- tering in the gardens, which grew more beautiful year by year, while all the time Winckelmann was writing his famous works on art. His patron gave him time and opportunity for perfecting himself as a connoisseur. He was sent to other galleries to see any treasures they possessed, and thus he gradually acquired a certainty of eye and taste which made him the greatest living authority on sculpture. Truth, harmony, and beauty were his guiding principles, and he joined to wide knowledge and reading a ready and tenacious memory. He was an indefatigable worker, and book after book came from his hand on engraved gems, on the state of art and science in Italy, and, greatest of all, his work on the history of Greek art. The revised edition of this was just finished in 1768 when the pleasant friendship that had lasted for eleven years came to an end in a dismal tragedy. Winckelmann decided to go on a tour to Vienna to see his old friends and to accept some of the invitations which he had received from famous and learned men. In Vienna he was received with the most gratifying honours. The King and Queen loaded him with presents, the Ministers, many of them great connoisseurs and patrons of art, expressed their gratitude to the man who had written its history. He passed delightful days in the old villa of Schonbrun, where the Baron de Sperges invited him to meet the Queen and a bevy of archdukes and archduchesses. 139. — GARDEN FRONT VILLA ALBANI. VILLA ALBAXI, ROM I'.. w o < K » a H 5J H D O cfl W 132 THE GARDENS OF ITALY u a CO a K a H ffi H O CO VILLA ALBANI, RUMK. '33 o -. H O O o o '34 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. 143. — VILLA ALBANI : MARBLE AND STONE. 144. — THE SOUTH PAVILION. VILLA \LBANL ROMK. 135 136 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. O J H- ( > O en O U ffi H Q Z VILLA ALBANI, ROME. 137 _ — o < u w THE GARDENS OF ITALY. 148. — ROMAN TEMPLE AND FOUNTAIN. VILLA A Lit,] \ 7, ROME. '39 149. — A MARBLE TEMPLE. 140 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. On June ist he left Vienna on his return to Rome, from which he had with difficulty remained so long away. His letters written at this time to the Cardinal express his continual longing to get back. On his arrival at Trieste he was obliged to wait for a ship for Ancona, and struck up an acquaintance with a stranger, who lodged next door to him in the inn. Winckelmann. who was of a simple, open nature, took a liking to the man, talked freely to him of his journey, and displayed a gold medal given to him by Maria Theresa, and, moreover, admitted having a considerable sum of money in his possession. The stranger was a certain Francesco Archangeli, a malefactor who had been condemned to death, but whose sentence had w& 150.- -FOUNTAIN AND MOSAIC PAVEMENT. been commuted to banishment. One evening as Winckelmann sat writing in his room, working on the last references of his forthcoming book, Archangeli came in, and, with many protestations of regret, announced his impending departure. He begged the professor, as a last favour, to show him his gold medal once more, in order that he might take away a final remembrance of it. Winckelmann willingly agreed, and while he was stooping down to take it from his trunk the villain stole up behind him and tried to strangle him with a cord. He resisted desperately, and almost succeeded in throwing off the assassin, who thereupon drew a knife and stabbed him in five places. Archangeli then fied. without, however, obtaining possession of the coveted medal VILLA ,//./M.\Y, ROM I-:. 142 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. — o co CO W o w s H VILLA ALBANI, ROME. 143 The unfortunate man succeeded in arousing help, and a doctor was fetched, only to pronounce- that at least two of the wounds were mortal. Winckelmann lived long enough to make his will, and the register of the tribunal records that he died with the firmness of a hero and the piety of a Christian, resigning himself to death without lamentations, and pardoning his murderer. The latter was caught, convicted and broken on the wheel. His victim was buried in Rome amid universal mourning, and his bust was placed in the Pantheon with an inscription recording all that he had done for the cause of art. Another bust of him has since been placed by Prince Torlonia in the garden that he loved. The greatest service he rendered to art was to take the antique once more into the province of the artist. Hitherto only antiquaries had written about it, it was only looked upon as interesting from a historical or mythological point of view, but Winckelmann set it forth at once as the standard and guide which all artists should keep before them. The Cardinal lived for eleven years longer, and died at eighty-nine. In 1868 the villa was bought by Prince Torlonia, who has spent enormous sums on keeping it up, improving it, and repairing the ravages which time was beginning to make. It is a fortunate thing that the great Cardinal's famous collection has not been dispersed, but remains a wonderful monument of beauty and interest, as well as a standing proof of the magnificent liberality of those great art patrons of the past. E. M. P. 144 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. CHAPTER XII. THE VILLAS OF FRASCATI. THE four great villas at Erascati are complementary to each other, and constitute a remarkable group. The Torlornia is, perhaps, the most important from an artistic point of view, as its lay-out is remarkable for its harmonious homogeneity. The house is, perhaps, hardly adequate to the scale of the terraces, stairways and cascade, but it is a very pleasant specimen of Tuscan simplicity. Mondragone, on the other hand, is a veritable city as seen from the lofty point of Tusculum. Occupying the summit of a hill slope, with a great hollow square of buildings extending down to a pentagonal bastion, it resembles a miniature Caprarola. The detail in this instance is of the school of Vignola, and far surpasses the late, and somewhat faded, rococo of the great Aldobrandini Villa, which, however, commands attention by its vast lay-out both at front and back. The fourth example, the Villa Falconieri, is all in admirable proportion, possessing a great length of building surrounded by grand levels of forecourts, terraces and gardens at a lower level. The actual detail of the house is not very happily conceived, and it has been, perhaps, over-restored. The upper garden, with its cypress-surrounded basin of water, is unique in its pictorial appeal. Frascati is one of the few places which seem to justify their vast renown. The cluster of hills set with ancient settlements, Marino, Tusculum, Rocca del Papa and Grotta Ferrata, faces the great sea of the Roman Campagna, in which Rome seems but a mere speck marked by the knoll of St. Peter's dome. At such a distance it seems infinitely worth while to have piled up such a mass to form the umbilicus of a resuscitated Rome. A commencement of the Apennines, the Subiaco hills, forms a guardian range set against the sparkling waters of the distant Mediterranean where the ancient Roman port of Ostia is vaguely surmised. The masses of olive trees covering the slopes with silver greenery, the darker evergreen oaks and clustering pines crowning the crest give to Frascati the sense of a refuge city rising out of a desolate plain. Villas and houses of cream shading to brown, with darker tones in their roofs, nestle in the folds of the greenery that enwrap them. The striking mass of the Villa Aldobrandini tells out at a great distance, at which other lesser structures are merged in the general cluster of houses. The freshness of air, the strong frames and healthy visages of the peasant inhabitants bear out this impression of a sanctuary, and the earlier life of Latium is recalled as much as by the ruins of the Republican epoch. The jealous fury of the Roman populace that obliterated nearly all the traces of the ancient Tusculum seems understandable from the standpoint of the citadel plateau. From this point the main road to Naples, like a thread, unrolls itself into the distant tangle of hills from below the very walls that dominate it. Local patriotism insists on the identity of certain ancient vaulted chambers of massive early Roman concrete faced with reticulated stonework and banded with Roman bricks as the veritable habitation of Cicero. The marble fragments of sculpture and architectural detail found on the spot are clearly of a good epoch, while the open-air theatre, though small in scale, shows clear evidence of early Grecian influences. It has retained quite a ring of seats, about a dozen in height, as well as some substantial remains of the foundations of the scena. Cicero doubtless had a frame equal to many joltings, unless we are to suppose he was carried to and fro in a litter. The Renaissance architects had extensive ideas of slopes for carnage ways, but, great as the outspread of their carriage ways is on the plan, imagination boggles at the task of •/7//-; VILLAS or FRASCATI. w SU u H K O £ H ro 146 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. ascending in a cardinal's coach. A lattice basket of wood set over an axle and two wheels, with a sturdy pony and a portly Roman as driver, contrived the ascent to the Aldobrandini with some tremors for the passenger. The diagonal gutters shown on Percier and Fontaine's plan are extraordinary obstacles that one would imagine must have been fatal to any more solid conveyance. The water rushing down the slopes plays havoc with the volcanic subsoil, and these gutters are essential to prevent the deep and quaggy ruts which would otherwise cut these hill roads into ribbons. At Tusculum and at Marino are quarries of the tufa, or peperino stone, which forms such an element in this villa architecture. It varies from golden yellow to a brown which is almost chocolate ; the darker colour, no doubt, results from the material being wet. This masonry is largely and effec- tively used at Mondragone. Open in texture and incapable of small detail, it is admirably adapted to the scale of these villas. It is sparingly employed, because the main walling is a local bluish rock, used as rubble, sometimes brick banded, but all covered with plaster and cream wash. Some of the villa buildings, like the Falconieri, have the appearance of being entirely in plaster, but the grand gateway illustrated is a fine piece of solid masonry. Bricks have always been made of the local volcanic soil, and are of a very good red in colour. The Falconieri rooms are paved in brick with marble bands. The peperino stone lends itself admirably to the rough rustics and to the vigorous design of the carvings employed, as in the dragon spandrels of Mondragone. A. T. B. Tusculum of old for long centuries looked down upon Rome, for Rome was the most recent rather than the most ancient among the Latin cities. This Fatica di gloria e di sventure, Terra Latina (This Latin land, Tired out with glory and misfortune) goes back so far that its origin is lost in fabulous legends. It was said to have been founded by Telegonus, the son of Ulysses and Circe, and Mauritius, Prince of Tusculum, claimed to be descended from them. It is strange indeed, as one wanders up the lonely paths and slopes that lie behind Frascati, to think that all over this wild ground, where the goats crop and the gorse and wild thyme scent the air, rose The white streets of Tusculum, The proudest town of all. A great, well ordered city with its own laws and civil dignitaries, and all around it a rich and cultivated countryside, with vines and olives, corn lands and pasture. On the neighbouring hills the white walls of other cities glimmered in the sunshine, Palestrina, Prasneste, the ancient towns of Gabii and Labicum, and, on the shores of the Alban lake, that Alba Longa from which, five hundred years after the founding of Tusculum, a little band of outlaws was to descend into the plain, and there, where a hill rose beside the river, was to found Roma Immortalis. Tusculum saw Rome rise gradually to greatness. It intermarried, made treaties and fought with her in the wide plain below. It was probably over by Monte Porzio, in a depression that looks like an extinct crater, that Lake Regillus lay, where that battle was fought when out of forty thousand Latins only ten thousand came home, when Rome was only saved by her cavalry, and her generals voted a Temple to the Great Twin Brethren, whom, in the moment when all seemed lost, men had seen riding in their van. When, in the decline of the Republic and the rise of the Empire, men began to enjoy leisure they had the wish to escape from the bustle of towns, and peace reigning between Rome and prosperous Tusculum, the delightful slopes which lay below that city were singled out and villas rose in every part and of every description, from the smallest to the most sumptuous. The countryside was white with them ; the names of great numbers have been recovered, and the sites of many determined. There was the villa of the Octavii, where Villa Aldobrandini now stands ; Cato's was at Monte Porzio, that of Pliny the younger at Centrone. The Javoleni built where the ruins of Borghetto now stand, Cicero's stately school and halls stretched away to Grotta Ferrata, and on the site of Villa Torlonia glowed the gardens of Lucullus, most famous of all. Archaeologists believe that the ancient villas were laid out on much the same plan as those of a later time with a succession of terraces and marble balustrades, and arranged so THE VILLAS OF FRASCAT1. that the descending water could be utilised to the greatest possible advantage. In addition to all that taste and love of luxury could do, Lucullus maintained here his celebrated library, to which Cicero often had recourse. Here he gave magnificent banquets, with delicacies brought from all parts of the known world ; here, perhaps, he planted those cherry trees which he was the first to introduce into Europe, bringing them from Cerasus in Pontus. At his death his superb villa came into the hands of the Flavii. In the first century it was part of the Imperial domains and was restored and embellished by Domitian, and though the latter is said to have loved best his villa at Castel Gandolfo, numerous inscriptions, lead labels and pieces of sculpture show the care he bestowed on the adornment of this retreat at Frascati. What strikes us most as we examine the sites or read descriptions of the old classic villas is the lavish scale on which their halls and arrangements are planned. ' One loses oneself," says M. Gaston Boissier, writing of Pliny, ' in the enumeration which he makes of his apartments. He has dining-rooms of various sizes for all 154. — ILEX AVENUE, VILLA BARBERINI, CASTEL GONDOLFO, NEAR FRASCATI. occasions. He dines in this one when he is alone ; the other serves him to receive his friends in ; the third is the largest, and can contain the crowd of his invited guests. This one faces the sea, and while taking one's meal one beholds the waves breaking against the walls ; another is buried in the grounds, and in it one enjoys on all sides a view of the fields and of the scenes of rustic life. Nowadays one bedchamber usually satisfies the most exacting ; it would be difficult to say how many Pliny's villa contained. There are not only bedrooms for every want, but for every caprice. In some one can behold the sea from all the windows, in others one hears without seeing it. This room is in the form of an abside, and, by large openings, receives the sun at every hour of the day ; the other is obscure and cool, and only lets in just so much light that one may not be in total darkness. If the master desires to enliven himself, he remains in this open room, whence he can see all that passes outside ; if he desires to meditate he has a room just suited for the purpose, where he can shut himself up, and the apartment is so arranged that no noise ever reaches his ears. Let us add that these rooms are 148 THE VILLAS OF FRASCATI. adorned with fine mosaics, are often covered with . graceful pictures, and that they nearly all contain marble fountains. . . . To complete the whole, we must imagine baths, piscenice, tennis courts, porticoes extending in every direction for the enjoyment of all the views, alleys sanded for walks and for those who chose to ride on horseback, a large hippodrome, formed of a long alley straight and sombre, shaded by plane trees and laurels, while on all sides curved alleys wind, which cross and cut each other so as to render the space greater in appearance and the programme of enjoyment more varied." The pictures of gardens in the old houses of Rome and Pompeii show these alleys shut in by walls of hornbeam, with a round space in the middle where swans swim in a basin, and either little arbours disposed here and there or else a marble statue or a column, and seats spaced at intervals. In the fourth century came the terrible blow of the transportation of the Court to Constantinople. The old capital was left in fallen grandeur, and on those who still clung to their well loved country homes dawned the awful fate that awaited a small civilisation secluded in the midst of an uncivilised world. All that refinement and those choice collections, the outcome of loving scholarship and of learned leisure, were shattered and dissipated either by the invasions of the peoples of the north or by the Saracens. Those who could not fly were forced into the restricted space that could be protected by the city's cyclopean walls. Numerous signs of great devastations have been found among the ruins, but nothing that points to any restoration or after attempt to inhabit them. The city of Tusculum, still of considerable size, was saved by its tremendous walls, which enabled it to resist the terrible onslaughts of the barbarian devastators. Notwithstanding the visitations of these barbarous hordes, a little group of farmers gathered among the ruined gardens of Lucullus. They were probably retainers of the great house, and, united by their Christian faith, a church and monastery found place among them, and thus Frascati came into being. The Middle Ages saw the rise into importance of the great race of the Counts of Tusculum, under whom in the ninth and three following centuries Tusculum became once more a place of power and importance. They were a race whose whole history is full of deeds of cruelty and treachery ; but they figure as consuls and senators, and gave to Rome no less than seven Popes. The ruined castle of Borghetto, lying below, was one of their fastnesses, and the history of Tusculum is a record of perpetual combats with rival Popes and with the Roman people. Gradually the haughty town and its Counts degenerated, and in 1170 the last Count Ranio, made over the possession to Pope Alexander III, who made a triumphal entry into the town and fixed his residence there for more than two years. During this time the Ambassadors of Henry II of England came to Tusculum, bringing the news of the murder of Thomas a Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury. They were charged with the task of clearing the King from the accusation of having conspired to bring it about. As one of the conditions of accepting Alexander as their sovereign the Tusculans were required to level their impregnable walls. The work of destruction was carried out in 1172, and the ancient city was left in an absolutely defenceless condition. In 1191, Pope Celestin III and the Emperor Henry VI betrayed the unhappy city into the hands of its enemies, the ever- jealous Romans. On an April night they surprised and stormed the place ; the inhabitants defended themselves desperately, but a terrible massacre took place, and afterwards every building and temple was destroyed and the prehistoric walls of Telegonus were razed to the ground, and the symbolic salt was strewn over the ruins so that they should never be restored. E. M. P. THE GARDKXS Of' ITALY. CHAPTER XIII. THE VILLA TORLONIA. TWO stone piers crowned with eagles give access to a long avenue running direct to the grey mass of the villa at the far end whose brown roofs are spotted with golden lichen (Fig. 155). On the right the tree-planted avenue is held up by walls and over- hangs the hill slopes, while on the left the vast and complicated staircases and carriage- ways give access to a mighty upper terrace, from which the great cascade and features of the gardens at the higher levels are reached. It is this immense provision, as it were, for a great outdoor reception that captivates the mind at the Torlonia. It seems as if u all Rome ' might drive out and ascend these stairways and approaches for an uncrowded reception al fresco. Besides the double sloping roadways there are two great stairways, each forty feet in width, and two of half that width. Each ascent is in three flights of thirteen, eleven and ten steps, with broad landings between. The steps are eighteen inches by six inches. The great terrace at the top is, say, two hundred yards by twenty- one yards wide ; all dimensions of an extraordinary stateliness. The great cascade is centred upon one of these great stairways, being approached by an avenue seventeen yards wide running through a plantation, which is cut by cross roads with fountains at the intersections. 1:55. — THE APPROACH. THE GARDENS OF ITALY. One of the ways is a pleached alley. The main avenue leads to an oblong clearing about ninety yards by forty-five yards. From the centre of the long side of this open space and on the axis of the avenue the great cascade descends the hillside. The slope is upheld by a long wall fifteen feet high, decorated with twenty-one arched niches, in front of which is a narrow canal that expands into a large central basin (Fig. 163). You ascend through certain niches, which are nine and fourteen in the series, giving access to vaulted stairways, and find yourself at the level at which the cascade starts. It has a rise of seventy-four steps. At the head of the cascade is a balcony commanding a fine view down the axis line of the approach. The great cluster of trees backing the great terrace is distinct in the foreground. Immediately behind is a pool basin about thirty-six yards across, set in a circular clearing and surrounded by trees with stone seats at intervals. Radiating paths are driven through the wood, and the axis line finishes by a path leading to the boundary wall of the property. The villa itself is in a quiet Tuscan 156. — THE CENTRAL STAIRWAY UP TO THE GREAT TERRACE. style. As seen from the avenue, it is an interesting composition ; the advanced wing on the left acts as repeat of the tower-like mass on the right and gives an effect of balance without symmetry. It is built of rough local stone plastered, with tufa piers and dressings, delightful in colour and roughness. The villa has three storeys and a raised feature, forming a symmetrical design on its western face. A forecourt about sixty yards square, laid out on this western front, is entered from the main avenue. There is a semicircular bastion extension forty yards across, which is balustraded round and commands a fine view over the hill slopes lying below, from which it is built up. A raised basin, with a curvilinear body of built brickwork with a stone curb, is flanked by two fine trees, and forms the centralising feature of this forecourt. There are two wall fountains, with shells in their niche heads, set at an angle to the entrance doorway of the villa. A. T. B. The Colonna claim descent from the Conti, one of the oldest families in Italy. The last of the race, Fulvia Conti, married a Sforza in 1650, and by an alliance with the Sforza-Cesarini '/'///•: VILLA TORLOM.L - u OS W OS O UH O — C/3 U4 152 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. I-8. — VILLA TORLONIA : THE SLOPING CARRIAGE WAYS AT THE CENTRE OF TERRACE ON EITHER SIDE OF THE WALL FOUNTAIN. — VILLA TORLONIA: THE EAST END OF GREAT TERRACE AND THE DESCENT TO THE APPROACH. Till-: VILLA TORLOM \. *53 w o; 0 w K H O H I HH w a 154 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. '.»:. r '/•///•; VILLA TORLOM.l. •55 J _) H a I a: g x 156 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. M Q Z u Q 77//1 VILLA TORLOMA. '57 W o CO O w as H o oa CO IX) ffi H a o o Q w K H i58 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. • , V"/«V J*V?ik ** s**L»«£ STrS9f^«fe2«?» • 3Z'- •* ' . , ' •'. "^ .'"< . '• • 165. — FALLING WATER, THE CASCADE FROM THE UPPER LEVEL THE VILLA TORLONIA. 159 and the Torlonia the Villa Conti belongs to-day to Duke Torlonia. In 1607 Cardinal Tolomeo de Come, Bishop of Tusculum, sold the villa to Cardinal Seipione Borghese, and it afterwards belonged to Cardinals Altemps and Ludovisi. It was only in 1632 that it was bought by the Conti. This family has given to Rome twenty-three Popes, three anti-Popes, four saints, twenty-two cardinals and a whole bevy of martyrs, bishops, abbots and senators. Among those who lived here in other days was Henry, Cardinal of York, who, on the death of his brother, Charles Edward, caused himself to be proclaimed King of England by the title of Henry IX. He lived forty-two years at Frascati, of which he was the bishop ; there is a monument erected by him to his brother in the cathedral, and a bust of himself in the library which he founded. E. M. P. i6o THE GARDENS OF ITALY. CHAPTER XIV. THE VILLA ALDOBRANDINI. THE Villa Aldobrandini is an immense structure, of which the spectator can hardly get the full effect close at hand. It rises up above the modern piazza at Frascati, from which it is separated by the curious slotted wall and railings illustrated (Figs. 166 and 167). The lay-out in front is grand in its simple lines, which suit the rapidly rising ascent. This entrance is not actually used, and a long drive up the hillside roads brings the visitor round to an approach which enters into a roadway at the back of the house, where it is extended by the great hemicycle situated at the base of the cascade. Like all houses built on a plateau formed out of a hillside, the difficulty has been to secure an adequate area of ground at the rear. There is space here, but the scale of the hemicycle and of its features is so large that it fails to accord with that of the house. Such is the height of this retaining wall that the cascade itself is cut off from any ordinary point of view. The winding stairs in the wall lead up to the cascade, which, while on the same lines as that of the Torlonia. is distinctly inferior to it in design. It is flanked by two curious mosaic covered columns with spiral bands, down which the water was arranged to swirl. Above the cascade the main stream runs swiftly in an open channel through a clearing in the plantation. There is a niche with mosaics and two figures like Dresden peasants, between which the water pours down (Fig. 175). Behind this feature steps ascend to another level, also with an open channel for the stream, ending in a wall of rough ruins whence the water flows down over tufa rockwork. This level is that of 1 66. — ENCLOSING WALL OF THE VILLA ALDOBRANDINI TOWARDS THE PIAZZA AT FRASCATI. THE VILLA ALDOBRANDINI. 161 w B g o en QQ O Q 1 62 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. r;-"-" •" ' "^":-'"L-J'"'"""J-J"Jg^" '" - LLLLUJliLLj.JillI.IJUJ 1 68. — PLAN OF THE VILLA ALDOBRANDINI AT FRASCATI. Giacomo delta Porta, Architect, 1598. From Percier and Fontaine. THE VILLA ALDOBRANDINL 163 the top of the house, and the view from this point explains the lofty and narrow centre feature of the back front, which forms so characteristic a part of the outline of the villa. Seen between masses of trees, as the terminal of a vista, this tall, elegant bay with its Venetian loggia justifies itself. Behind is the boundless plain of the Campagna, against which it is silhouetted like a campanilli. The rush and murmur of the water as it speeds on its way down the slopes add to the singular charm of the spot. It explains the name of Belvedere often given to the villa. Built as the last work of Giacomo della Porta between 1598 and 1603, it was completed by Domenichino of Bologna. Cardinal Pietro Aldobrandini, nephew of Clement VIII, was the magnificent owner. He had added the Duchy of Ferrara to the Papal States, and the resources at his command must indeed have been great to enable him to undertake so immense a pleasure house. The waterworks were contrived by Giovanni Fontana and D'Orazio Olivieri, the greatest experts of the age. The interior of the house is not shown, but the chapel, comprised in the hemicycle, is interesting. 169. — VILLA ALDOBRANDINI, FRASCATI : SOUTH-WEST ASCENT. .The frescoes, perished by the damp, have been replaced by copies on canvas after the originals. There is a fine St. Sebastian under the lunette over the altar. St. Teresa and St. Francois de Salis, the latter of whom is visiting the prisons, occupy the sides of the chancel recess. In judging the architecture of this somewhat pompous hemicycle it is necessary to eliminate the rather crude colouring, the yellows, blues, etc., of its distemper washes. The crude mosaics and somewhat theatrical sculpture are also unfavourable elements (Figs. 172 and 174). The fact is that the visitor cannot but recall earlier instances where the same thing has been done with the happier results due to the employment of better architectural detail. The old trees, regularly i i Main entrance. (9) (2) Parterres. (10) Fountain opposite entrance. (n) i l) Sloping way to first terrace. (12) (5) Terrace in form of a circus. (13) (6) Quincunx of trees (14) (7) Fountains at base of terrace wall. (15) (16) (8) Cold rooms and grottoes under terrace. Parterres with flowers. Terrace at level of ground floor of Villa. Vestibule. Living-rooms. Terrace at level of first floor of Villa. Quincunx. Grass lawns with jet fountain. C'.rand stairways to gardens. (.Sec plan on page 162.) (17) Apsidal terrace with niches and foun- tains. (18) Cold rooms under terrace. (19) Water clvinnel between cascades. (20) Fountain which feeds waters of cascade. (21) Woods which rise in amphitheatre to top of mountain. 164 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. planted in the back fore- court, are charming masses of tangled branches, extending the lines of the building with solid masses of bocage (Fig. 171). There is an effective view of the main front from the lower level in sharp perspective which does justice to the mass of the centre block, which is about one hundred and sixty feet in extent of frontage alone (Fig. 169). A. T. B. President de Brosse, in the delightful and witty letters which portray I70.-BRONZE FOUNTAIN SHIP, VILLA ALDOBRANDINI. Rome jn the middle Qf the eighteenth century, gives an entertaining account of the rather puerile forms of amusement then in vogue. After an enthusiastic description of the Belvedere, as Villa Aldobrandini was then called, he describes groups of statues, some of which have now disappeared — a faun and centaur, the nine Muses and Apollo— all joining in a concert on musical instruments played 171.— OAKS IN THE PLEASAUNCE. /'///: VILLA ALDOBRANDINL 165 172. — DETAIL OF THE CENTRAL NICHES OF THE ALCOVE. 1 66 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. by water. He calls it " deplorable music." " What can be more chilling than to see these stone creatures, daubed with colour, making melancholy music without piping or moving ? ' He and his friends spent an afternoon at Frascati in getting thoroughly drenched. The fun began at Mondragone, round the " basin of the polypus," so called from leather pipes set round it. It looked dry and innocent, but, on a secret tap being turned, the water swelled into the pipes and they gradually turned their showers upon all within reach. De Brosse and his grave companions abandoned themselves to the sport of turning them against one another, with such gusto that they were soon soaked from head to foot. Having changed their wet clothes at the inn, they were presently, after sitting quietly at Villa Aldobrandini, listening to the doleful strains of the centaur, unsuspicious of a hundred little jets of water concealed in the stonework, which suddenly spurted upon them. Being thoroughly wet through again, he says, they gave them- selves up to these games for the rest of the evening, and he particularly commends " one 173. — VIEW OF THE GREAT HEMICYCLE AT THE BACK OF THE VILLA ALDOBRANDINI AT FRASCATI. excellent little staircase, which, as soon as you go up it, sends out jets of water which cross from right to left and from top to bottom, so that there is no escape." At the top of the stairs they were revenged on the mischievous comrade who had turned the tap. He tried to turn a fresh one, but this was constructed expressly pour tromper les trompeurs. It turned upon the farceur, by name Legouz, with astonishing force, a torrent as thick as his arm, which caught him full in the middle. " He fled with his breeches full of water, running out into his shoes." After this they had to eat their supper in dressing gowns, having no more dry clothes ; and, having eaten two or three pounds of nougat, in addition to a bad supper, it is not surprising to hear that they had a violent nightmare, and we only marvel that apparently no one died of rheumatism or inflammation of the lungs. The fine rooms of the palace were at one time hung with paintings by Domenichino, executed at the time when he was painting the famous frescoes at Grotta Ferrata, but, as they were THE VILLA ALDOBRANDINI. 167 ffi H w O 3 D O 5 H C0 W a H 03 o < m u B H Q K H K & O o H i68 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. Q < o C/3 < O w K H w O 03 $ K H en '-- H g en J - THE VILLA Al.DOHR. \\DI\I. 169 suffering from damp, they were carried off to the Borghese palace, that family being at that time proprietors of the villa. The gallery has paintings of the Temptation and Fall, the Expulsion from the Garden of Eden and other Old Testament scenes by Cavaliere d'Arpino, a fashionable and mediocre painter of the day. When Goethe was staying at Frascati he was invited to visit Prince Aldobrandini. A German artist named Kaisermann was just then engaged in painting the views of Frascati which are still to be seen on the walls of the grand saloon. Goethe gave the artist a com- mission to paint the town and the panorama beyond from the terrace, and the picture still hangs in the room in which the poet died at Weimar. The estates of the Aldobrandini were left to the Borghese on condition that they should belong to the second brother, who was to assume the name. A hundred years ago Don Paolo Borghese, Prince Aldobrandini, being afraid of the damp, fitted up a casino in the town of Frascati which was furnished with every comfort that his taste could devise. Here he j entertained parties of friends, including many English travellers of the day. He did the honours of Tusculum to the Duke of Gloucester among others, and was very proud of the possession of an English carpet which was the Duke's gift. Georges Sand wrote with true insight into the charm of these delicious haunts, with their fascinating combination of art and nature, aided, as it already was in her day, by the hand of Time. The over-artificial air had already vanished. The water no longer moved the musical instruments which roused the ire of De Brosse. " They still bound into marble shells, but the music is that of Nature, the stucco grottoes are hung with a ferny tapestry, the moss has laid its velvet upon staring mosaics, Nature has rebelled, has taken a forsaken look, we hear a note of ruin and a song of solitude." Nothing can adequately convey the charm of the deep woods which lie all around, where the sacred grove of Diana is believed once to have flung its shade. E. M. P. 170 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. CHAPTER XV. THE VILLA FALGONIERI. APROACHING this villa by the roughest of hill roads, which mainly run between walls enclosing valuable olive yards, the fine gateway, illustrated (Fig. 176) demands attention by the quality of its tufa masonry. This gateway of 1729 was erected by Cardinal Falconieri. It is closed, as will be seen, by an intrusive tree growth, and another gateway higher up, of lesser architectural interest, leads into an enclosure, from which again a third gateway (Fig. 177) admits to an extensive forecourt of about one hundred yards in width. The villa is of great extent, broken, however, by a very prominent centre (Fig. 178), from which its extensive arcaded wings are set back so far as to seem like separate buildings. The house suffers so much from pink and yellow washes that it is difficult to judge fairly of its architecture. The detail is of an inferior description, and there have been restora- tions evidently not abso- lutely in character with the original. The main niche head, for instance, is very poor in its decoration. The change of scale in main arches of the loggia is un- doubtedly a mistake, and the break downwards of the entablature is a detrimental whim. The strong feature of the design is the light and shade produced by the boldly advanced masses. The Palazzo is given as the work of Borromini (1599 - - 1667) in 1648, though the villa was laid out by Cardinal Rufini in 1546. The scheme therefore is one of successive growth. A tablet in the hall records 176. — THE DISUSED ENTRANCE OF THE VILLA FALCONIERI AT FRASCATI. a restoration in 1840. THE VILLA FALCONIERI. 177. — ENTRANCE GATEWAY OF THE VILLA FORECOURT. 178.— THE CENTRE BLOCK OF THE SOUTH FRONT OF THE VILLA FALCONIERI. 172 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. It is an interesting villa to visit, as the grand series of rooms is freely shown. The frescoes are late in date, and of that school which transforms the walls of an apartment into vistas of pro- jected architecture peopled with Signori and Signoras who promenade therein, while the artist himself sits on a balustrade and sketches the scene. The painter here is a figure in a blue coat and a red cocked hat, while beneath is inscribed : Ghezzius Hie Faciem Gestus se pinxit et artem Sed magnus ingenhim Pingere non potuit MDCCXXVII. The most interesting room is, perhaps, the last one on the left, which is what could be called to-day a palm court. It is the Camera del Primavera. Above walls of greenery a figure in the clouds throws down flowers to greet the spec- tator. There is a balcony from this room carried right round the end of this wing of the villa, from which a magnificent prospect is obtained. Immediately below are extensive terrace plateaux formally laid out with two good basins of water. The back of the house is all rough. There is a central porch on to the terrace, which has a double line of trees, below which the ground falls rapidly away dowrn the hill. From the forecourt a columned gateway in the wall on the right-hand side leads into a small enclosed yard with minor buildings, from which another and oppo- site gate, having dogs on the piers, leads out and up the winding slopes (Fig. 179). Imperceptibly passing round at the back of the house up to about the roof level of the villa, you reach the famous lake-pond, surrounded by tall cypress trees, one of the most characteristic of all the garden scenes in Italy, as our illustration (Fig. 181) well shows. Preceding this lake is an enclosure, with a good water basin and a double stairway, which, however, is rather small in scale and somewhat modern in feeling (Fig. 181). In an apse is a kind of doorway, and an imitation rock recess serves as the final outlet of the water. Above a tufa doorway in the forecourt is a tablet : Horatius Falconerius A.D. 1555. Rupe sub Hac, Vaga lympha fui hinc nomine sed mine, Rufina e domini nomine lympha vocor. Ille Eternim sparsos lattices collegit et undas auxit et extructo fornice elausit aquas. ^_ 1^ JJ. 179. — GATEWAY IN THE FORECOURT WALL, VILLA FALCONIERI. THE VILLA FALCON IERI. '73 I - - - W DC en % as (X O DS w X H O 00 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. This is the oldest of the villas of Frascati, and was laid out by Alessandro Rufini, Bishop of Melfi, in 1548. In the seventeenth century it passed to the Falconieri family, who confided its restoration and redecoration to Francesco Borromini, the most florid of all the baroque artists. The grounds are small, but there are several very picturesque gateways, and the loggia and interior are frescoed by Giro Ferri, the artist who, in company with Pietro di Cortona, decorated the Pitti Palace in Florence. The ceiling of the great hall represents Aurora in her car, beyond is a room with a fountain in the middle. The villa, is now the property of the monks of Tre Fontane, who migrate there in June to escape the heat and — THE STAIRWAY TO THE UPPER POOL, VILLA FALCONIERI. malaria of the plain. Earlier in the year their abbot is extremely kind and courteous in granting permission to visit and sketch the grounds. Antiquarians are divided as to whether Cicero's villa stood on the present site of Villa Falconieri or on that of the adjoining Villa Ruffinella. This last was at one time the residence of Lucien Bonaparte, the only one of the Emperor's brothers who never wore a crown. During his residence here, in 1818, it was the scene of one of the most audacious acts of brigandage ever committed in the Papal States. A party of robbers, who had long haunted Tusculum, seized the old priest of the family while out walking, and, having plundered and stripped him, bound him hand and foot. When the dinner hour arrived and the priest was missing, the household went out to look for him, and the robbers then entered the house and, attacking all the servants left, forced them to silence by their threats. One maid-servant, however, contrived THE VILLA FALCOMERI. i?5 to escape their notice and carried a warning to the family, who were at dinner, and all of them thus had time to hide except the Prince's secretary, the butler and a face/lino. In the meantime the old priest had contrived to escape. The next day the facchino was sent back to treat with the Prince, and to say that unless he sent a ransom of four thousand crowns the prisoners would all be put to death. He sent two thousand and an order on his banker for the remainder. This, however, merely enraged the brigands, who regarded it as a trap, and they returned the order, torn up, with a demand for tour thousand crowns more ; and with this impudent demand the Prince was forced to comply in order to save the lives of his attendants. The brigands were never caught. E. M. P. 176 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. CHAPTER XVI. THE VILLA MON DRAGONE AND VILLA BORGHESE, FRASGATI. THE Villa Mon Dragone, situated between Frascati and Monte Porzio, occupies a remarkable position on the slope of a hill. The front towards the open country is effective in sharp perspective, distinct with twin tower masses enclosing a framework of pilasters treated as flat surfaces, with features that are not too prominent, in true Vignola style. There are bastion extensions very reminiscent of Caprarola. The view from this front is indescribably beautiful. The hill ranges on the right extend round and die down into the great level of the boundless plains which reach to the Mediterranean Sea on the left. Beyond the two tall columns (Fig. 187) known as the Pope's chimneys lies a hill city, lending a peculiar interest to the landscape. The tall chimneys belong to the huge kitchens and offices constructed below this artificial terrace. They are in balanced pairs , one of which is a dummy. Between the columns on the great terrace is placed the fountain " My Dragon," well illustrated in our view (Fig. 186). The architecture of the villa is somewhat rough and careless on the fa9ades. There is a Michael Angelo element in the Ionic caps of the entrance doorway. The work was begun about 1567 from the designs of Martino Lunghi the Elder, and as Vignola died in 1573 it is questionable if he can have had much share in the work, in spite of the character of some of the detail and of his great reputation for this villa architecture. The fine open loggia towards the small garden was begun by Flaminio Ponzio, who lived about 1570 — 1615, and it was continued by G io Vasanzio . The] great fountain. 182. — THE GATEWAY OF THE VILLA MON DRAGONE. amphitheatre, terraces THE VILLA MOA l)RA(;u\l<: AM) I'lLLA lt()R(;/IKSK. I'RASCAT/. 177 u (h flf DC O O oa - u oo i78 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. " 184. — PLAN OF THE VILLA MON DRAGONE AT FRASCATI. Martino Lunghi the Elder, Architect, 1867. From Percier and Fontaine. THE VILLA MON DRAGONE AND VILLA RORC1IESE, l-k .ISC 1 77. 179 and outbuildings were due to Giovanni Fontana, and the plantation of the gardens to Carlo Rainaldi (1611 — 1691). The owner was Cardinal Marco Sitico d'Altemps, nephew of Pope Pius IV. Gregorx XIII enlarged it, but the completion was due to Paul V and his nephew, Cardinal Scipio Borghese. One can easily realise on visiting this vast structure how so many hands came to be engaged upon it and how its completion occupied so many years. Much has disappeared, the villa is now occupied as a college, and quadrangle and garden court have to serve as playgrounds. The avenues of orange trees, laurels and evergreen oaks that connected this villa with the Taverna have been destroyed. Entering the great quadrangle, a fine loggia in two storeys, each of five arches, framed by Doric and Ionic pilasters, attracts immediate attention. Dragons, boldly sculptured in the brown tufa masonry, fill in the spandrels, while the arches have large keystones. The main frieze is unbroken, and there is a solid parapet, with slight breaks over the pilasters only. Two slight tower masses are raised at the ends to flank this loggia feature, the whole contained within two advanced wings. The exterior of the villa hardly prepares the visitor for the completeness of this fine fa£ade, which faces towards the quadrangle. Immediately behind is a great two-storeyed hall, vaulted, but now quite plain inside. Beyond it is a loggia on the other face of the villa, still decorated, but now, like the front loggias, filled in with glazing. Leaving the great quadangle on the right the visitor enters a smaller oblong enclosure, in which, attached to the house, is a really magni- ficent portico of five great arches, the whole carried out in dark brown tufa, which, by reason of its colour, does not photo- graph very well. There is a main order framing the arches, and a minor carrying the imposts, both of the Ionic order. The detail has more of the character of the school of Michael Angelo than that of Vignola. The entablature is unbroken, and there is a simple, solid parapet. The spandrels are filled in with boldly carved dragons. The vaulting is decorated with stucco work in transverse bands dividing the cross-vaulted bays (Fig. 190). Facing this, at the other end of the enclosure, is the hemicycle with its sloping ways up. Within this apse is a lunette-shaped pond with balustrading. The main arches in this great niche have very shallow splays decorated with mosaics and stuccoes in perspective, the idea being to give greater apparent depth to the recesses, which in themselves are very shallow. The rusticated main pilasters are in the chocolate brown tufa masonry (Figs. 188 and 189). It is a distinguished piece of work in comparison with the far cruder hemicycle of the Aldobrandini villa, which might be considered as an enlarged and coarsened copy. A. T. B. When the western sun sets the three hundred and seventy-four windows of the Mon Dragone fa9ade ablaze, they can be seen even from Rome. The villa was erected by 185. — THE FOUNTAIN OF PAUL V, VILLA MON DRAGONE. (1) Principal avenue. (2) Slopes to first terrace. (3) Terraces with kitchens under. (.() (".rand vestibule. internal courts raised as bastions. :,(>) Principal courtyard. (7) (Inind gallery witli pictures. (8) Loggia to flower garden. (o) Flower garden. (10) Great dragon fountain hemi( y< le. (11) Living-room*. (12) Amphitheatre and terra< e. i8o THE GARDENS OF ITALY. 1 86. — THE POPE'S CHIMNEYS — NORTH END OF THE GREAT TERRACE. THE VILLA MON DRAGONS AND VILLA KORUIIKSK, IWASCAT1. 181 z O O w H oo I 82 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. < 3 o w ffi o H Z a o ^ S3 •2 O -J O X a OH O W O < DS « W H w S H w u en CO THE VILLA MON DRAGONE AND VILLA BORGHESE, FRASCATL 183 z 2 w K H I PS Q 00 184 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. z a Q OS w 6 w a H o rgan fountain. 1 '.ridges over the canal. (rdered by streams of water. (10) Fountain in centre of circular stairway. (u) Terrace of the hundred fountains. (22) (12) Arethusa fountain. (13) Baths decorated with shellwork. (23) arabesques and statues. (24) (14) Model of Old Rome. (23) i [ =,) Fountain under a gro'.to. j'-i (16) Double stairway with fountains. (2j) (18) Projecting loggia with terrace over. 128) (19) Great stairways up to level ol Pala//o. (20) ('.rand terrace with view of Koine. (21) Belvedere forming a finish to the terrac e. Wall fountain to correspond al other end of terrace. Living-room--. Cortile. Private '-rarden. l.o^«ia at end. Srr\i( e court. Iliirli enibankinent wall r.'isin-.' the plateau of the garden al>o\e l!ie slopes of the hill 192 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. spray. The morning sun, rising from behind the massive block of the palace, streams down with silvery magic. Hours might pass before, with reluctant steps, the visitor found his way down the line of the main axis and out on to the narrow side street, characteristic of Tivoli, the rough road that will lead down to the great Imperial Villa in the plain, which was both a quarry of artistic ideas as well as of materials to the men of the Renaissance. A. T. B. The story of the fallen condition of Tivoli, the ancient Tibur, and its revival in the sixteenth century, are proclaimed in a Latin oration of the poet Mureto, which runs almost literally : Years came1 and went, that joy of other days, Tilmr, lay ruined, lost her old-world praise. done were her streams and orchards, gone the last, The stately footprints of her buried past. Those scenes so oft the theme of classic lay, Mouldered, unkempt, unsightly in decay, Weeping their vanish'd joys, her sylvan daughters, Wandered by mourning Anio's fainting waters. A wayfarer in Tibur's heart might stand, And, "where is Tibur ?" cry; so mart' d the land. That godlike soul, the sacred choir's delight, Hypolytus brooked not so sad a sight. He bade the woodlands dress once more in green. With far-flung leafage, wandering o'er the scene. He bade fresh well-springs ooze from out the hills. And in a breath, forth leapt the new-born rills. Saved from the wreck of Time, hail the escape Of marbles fair, to Phidias owing shape. Brow bound with olive wan, joyful once more, Anio pours wealth into the common store. \Yell may those hallowed rills, these woodlands vie, In wafting one great name into the sky — List to the breezes, murmuring along, " Hypolytus " is still their tuneful song. The classics are full of the fame and prosperity of Tivoli in the days when Augustus held summer court in the mountains and Horace entertained at his villa ; but all these glories 200. — THE TEMPLE OF VESTA AT TIVOLI. THE TIVOLI FALLS, THE VILLA D'ESTE AM) I1.1DRI IN'S I'll.!..}. 193 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. disappeared with the glory of Rome. The town, though still possessing some importance, vv a s squalid and poverty- stricken, though from time to time the reigning Pope or some great Roman noble might seek a refuge in the mouldering old Castello striving to avoid the exhausting heat of the plains. It was in the spring of 1549 that the courtly and accomplished young Cardinal of Ferrara, Ippolito d'Este, was named Governor of Tivoli by Paul III. The son of Alfonso I, Duke of Ferrara, and Lucrezia Borgia, he must not be confused with his warlike and unscrupulous uncle of the same name, the brother of Isabella d'Este. This Ippolito was her nephew, and had already shown all the diplomatic qualities of his famous house. He had had a distinguished career as Ambassador to the Court of France, he was Bishop of Siena, Abbot of Jervaulx, held half-a-dozen other French dignities, was deep in the confidence of the Pope and of the leading Italian statesmen, and was known as a great patron of art and letters. 202. — THE ALLEY OF THE HUNDRED FOUNTAINS. 203. — BY THE HUNDRED FOUNTAINS. TIIK Tirol, i FALLS, THE VILLA /)7<:.S"/7-: AND l!.\Dkl.\\'S VILLA. 195 O - w O O g S o o - o w H DS O O « b »• .r jfi^ 196 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. THE TIVOLI FALLS, THE VILLA D'ESTE AM) HADRIAN'S VILLA. 197 206. — VILLA D'ESTE : THE FOUNTAIN OF THE DRAGONS, ON THE MAIN AXIS OF THE GARDENS. 198 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. O o — ffi H O 2 O to w ffi w O PS w cfi W THE TIVOLl FALLS, THE I'll. LA lYKSTK AND //,//>A'/. I Y'.S' VILLA. 199 w ~Q - u K H U. O w O H H '— O w X H £ O w ffl O UH s b O oo o 200 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. 209. — THE FOUNTAIN OF THE ORGAN. THE TIVOLI FALLS, THE VILLA D'ESTE AXD HADK/.IVS VILLA. 201 210. — THE QUEENS CASCADE OR ARETHUSA FOUNTAIN. 202 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. Popular, magnificent, beloved and admired, the Cardinal, according to the fashion of the day, was accompanied by a splendid cortege of more than two hundred and fifty nobles and distinguished litter ati as on a beautiful spring day he rode across that historic plain to take possession of his appointment. The Tiburtines mustered all their resources to give him a welcome : a band of horsemen and footmen met him outside the gates (he entered just where the tram-line now ends), the elders and magistrates proffered the keys of the city, a hundred children in white waved palm branches, trumpets pealed and salvoes of artillery were fired. " He was so gratified and pleased that his eyes were full of tears." Almost at once he must have formed the plan of living here and have decided to pull down the old Castello in which he was lodged. For a large sum of money the land was acquired from the municipality ; there were not wanting irreconcilables who protested against the destruction entailed of the humble homes which 211. — THE CANAL OR GREAT POOLS BELOW THE ORGAN FOUNTAIN. clustered down the mountain-side, but any individual hardship must have been counterbalanced by the employment and prosperity which the Cardinal brought with him. " A view," writes Fulvio Testi to the Duke of Modena in 1620, " which perhaps has not its equal in the world." It is not only the exquisite beauty of which Tivoli boasts, but the whole plain teems with memories " half as old as Time." Here have marched the Roman legions, here Brutus and Cassius have fled, red with Caesar's blood, here Zenobia passed to her long captivity. Yonder stood the villa of Maecenas, and blue Soracte watches unchanged as in the days when it saw the revels of the Antonines and the delights of Hadrian's Villa. Below the alley of the hundred fountains, enclosed in a graceful, curving stairway, down the balustrades of which cascades once dashed to the basin below, are the remains of the Fountain of the Dragon. This was designed to celebrate the visit of Pope Gregory XIII, whose crest was a dragon. It burst forth by torchlight on the closing evening of his stay, and we are told that he was " surprised and delighted " at the compliment. The rush of water from the upper end comes from the elaborate wall-fountain of the Organ, a splendid construction which played " madrigals and other music." Round one of the fountains were trees made of J THE TIVOLl FALLS, THE VILLA 1YKSTK AM) IIAI)KIA\'S VILLA. 203 204 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. copper and stucco, in which were perched mechanical birds, which sang " each in his natural voice " till a civetta or owl appeared, when they became silent ; the owl withdrew, and they sang again. The Cardinal employed Ligorio to excavate in Hadrian's Villa and in Tivoli itself, and the gardens were adorned with numbers of statues, many of them superb works of antiquity. In 1664 Archbishop Fabio Croce gives a list of over sixty groups, figures and busts " still remaining." The laying out of the grounds was largely completed in the lifetime of Cardinal Ippolito, and Mureto and Bulgarini, poet and historian, have left a pleasant picture of his life there. He died in 1572, and is buried in the cathedral of San Francesco in Tivoli. Mureto's funeral oration gives us a very full impression of a great churchman of the Renaissance. " Who," he says, " was ever more splendid and magnificent in every relation in life ? What sumptuous edifices he raised, what works of antiquity he unearthed, which, but for him, might never have been discovered. What illus- trious artists he inspired to make fresh experi- ments. What princes, what lawyers, what great and powerful men he gathered round him, receiving them like a splendid Cardinal, almost a King. How liberal and magnificent he was to the poor you know, oh Tiburtines, who remember his con- tinuous and daily alms- giving, and how, when sickness came, he sent every day to visit every 213. — SEAT IN THE ENCLOSURE CALLED THE BATHS. person who was sick SO No. ii on Plan. , , . . . . r that none should be left out or lack what was necessary for the recovery of their health or to keep their families during their sickness. No one more loved doctors and men of letters, no one had a greater number at his court, and no one treated them with more generosity. They would converse familiarly with him while he sat at his suppers and talk of public business, and towards them and his dependents he behaved with such familiar and homely kindness, like an equal, joking and talking, correcting faults with paternal love rather than with anger or pride. No one forgot injuries or ingratitude more easily, and was so ready to accord fresh benevolence. He proved his piety and religion in every hour of his life, and in the last moments of his mortal career he called upon God's sacred minister, he confessed his sins, and expressed his deep penitence for all in which he had come short, and then cast himself on the Divine mercy." We can picture him pacing these wide terraces surrounded by his court, or sitting on summer evenings at the old stone tables THE TIVOLI FALLS, THE VILLA D'ESTE AND II.IDRI.IX'S VILLA. c« 206 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. 215. — WALL FOUNTAIN IN ENCLOSED COURT, EAST TERRACE. THE r/roi.i EALLS, mi: VILLA ITESTE AND /IADKIA.VS VILLA. 207 2l6. — THE LOWER END OF THE MAIN AXIS LOOKING TOWARDS THE ORIGINAL ENTRANCE GATE. 208 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. which, with the seats round them, are still standing in the same places. His nephew, Cardinal Luigi, who succeeded him, leaves a less pleasant impression. He was as magnificent, and entertained lavishly, but was always in debt, and obliged at length to sell many of the priceless treasures which his uncle had collected. After his death the villa fell into disuse as a residence, and the finest statues were sold to the Capitol or carried to Modena. It then belonged to the Archduke Ferdinand of Austria, whose grand- father received it in marriage with the last heiress of the house of Este. Watteau was one of those who often visited the garden during his stay in Rome. He delighted in it, and has left numerous drawings made there. In our own time it was rented for many years by Cardinal Hohenlohe, a kind and courtly ecclesiastic, not unfit to dwell in the 217. — A STAIRWAY IN THE VILLA HADRIANA, TIVOLI. halls of the great Cardinal DIAGRAM PLAN OF THE RUINS OF THE VILLA ADRIANA NEAR TIVOLI. * « lo 3o 40 Co l»o 70 Sc tfg*****^ V^xH/m>4 'vk'V V'6' ,GREE:% THEATRE THE TIVOLI FALLS, THE VILLA D'ESTE .IM) 1 1 ADRIAN'S VILLA. 209 of Fcrrara. Liszt, the famous musician, was his guest for several summers, and we are told how he spent the hours composing and playing, mimicking the Angelus from the bells of the town, or varying the music of Chopin in rivalry with the liquid sounds of the silvery spray without. Fit successors these of all the poets, painters and philosophers who have wandered here. Needless to say, it is a haunt beloved of artists, and several well known Roman painters have their studios in Tivoli. The frescoes that adorn the long range of rooms in the Villa D'Este are wonderfully well preserved, and give an excellent idea of the villa decorations of the late Renaissance. They are by the brothers Xuccari, Tempesta, Mu/iano and Georgio Vasari. The eagle and the lily are introduced at every possible point. The scenes are chiefly symbolical. The white eagle looms large among the animals saved from the flood, Moses strikes the rock in allusion to the streams that flowed, at the will of the Cardinal, the gods banquet overhead in the great dining hall. The labours 219. — FRAGMENT OF THE GREAT THERMS, VILLA HADRIANA, TIVOLI. of Hercules upon one ceiling are a compliment to the reigning Duke Ercole, the Cardinal's brother. His own cipher, ' Hyp . est . Card . Ferrar.," runs across the wall, and above, Liberality, Generosity and Immortality suggest his virtues. Servants are painted coming in at simulated doors, and on the wralls of what was evidently the Cardinal's bedroom, w'.th a closet off it for a secretary or attendant, are shelves painted with a cardinal's hat and a bishop's mitre. Over the entrance to the dining hall the artist Zuccaro, painted as Mercury, follows us everywhere with his eyes. Above the doorway two charming piitti support the arms of the Cardinal. The end room, the Hall of Sports, is decorated with painted birds and hunting scenes. Here tradition says that Tasso wrote his Aminta and read it aloud to a chosen circle by the fountain dedicated to the Goddess of Nature at the bottom of the garden. Though there is no positive record of Tasso 's presence here, we know that he was secretary to Cardinal Luigi d'Este in 1572, the year before the Aminta was represented in Ferrara, and would naturally 2IO THE GARDENS OF ITALY. have attended his master when he came to Tivoli to escape the heat of Rome. When Pope Gregory visited Cardinal Luigi these bare walls were brave with green and crimson velvet, and the Pope's bed was hung with velvet curtains embroidered with seed pearls which had belonged to Henry II of France. E. M P Although our imagination boggles at the vast cost of the great Renaissance villas of Tivoli and Frascati, one can imagine one of those cardinal builders showing his guests over his works in progress, and concluding with the deprecatory remark : " This is a mere nothing, as you will see when I drive you over to the Villa of Hadrian. A poor cardinal cannot pretend to rival the undisputed master of the world." Of all the building emperors Hadrian would seem to have been one of the most capricious. We do not know enough about Nero's golden house to establish a comparison, but Diocletian's fortress palace of Spalatro is a reasonable and practical dwelling compared with Hadrian's Villa, which seems like some modern exhibition city, Roman only in its permanence. Hadrian's Villa to-dav, •• ' besides being a lovely park in the plains below the mountains of Tivoli, studded with cypresses, oaks, olive trees and dense thickets where the nightingales love to sing, is also a remarkable school of building construction (Figs. 219 and 220). It was probably begun in 125 A.D., and carried on for thirteen years up to Hadrian's death in 138 A.D. The epoch of Hadrian seems to have been one in which Roman brick-faced concrete reached its greatest development. The soundness of the method is shown by survivals through far worse ravages than those of some two thousand years of time. Every age has pillaged these remains, from Constantine to modern times, and Tivoli must be largely built out of its spoils. The excellence of the facework of small squares of tufa stone set diagonally, opus reticulatum, bonded by bands of the famous thin, flat Roman bricks, which resemble our paving tiles, might lead the spectator to suppose that he sees the finished face of the walls. It is clear, however, that all was hidden by marble casing and plasterwork. The diagonal disposition of the material must have commended itself to the practical minds of the Romans by the ease with which the facing could be placed in position ready for the filling in of the rubble concrete behind. The inlaid marble floors, where they exist in patches recently excavated, are gorgeous, and many marble fragments of columns, cornices, etc., remain to prove a high standard of architectural detail. The great vaults seem in many cases to have been lined with white, and probably also with colour mosaic. The cubes are oblongs of white marble, so as to have a tooth-like hold into their matrix. It is well-nigh impossible to ravel out the tangled skein of buildings which cover about one hundred and sixty acres of the present park-like grounds. In a general way we know that the Imperial idea was that of a souvenir in miniature of the great buildings of the Roman World which Hadrian had seen in his far-spread travels. The very variety of the restorations made on paper illustrates the complexity of the problem, while even the names assigned to the various structures differ. It is clear that one interesting block is a miniature of the great Imperial 220. — HEMICYCLE OF THE IMPERIAL PALACE AT THE VILLA HADRIANA, TIVOLI. THE TIVOLI FALLS, THE VILLA D'ESTE AND HADRIAN'S VILLA. 211 Thermae, and these ruins are remarkable for the skilful planning and construction of the piers and vaults. The great hemicycle at the end of the artificial valley dug out to represent the Egyptian pleasure resort at Canopus is a feature of great interest from the constructive point of view. One of the most intriguing constructions is a circular court ringed with an internal portico surrounding a marble paved canal whose floor still shows the grooves of the turning bridges which alone gave access to the central island. This island is said to have been a stage for music or theatricals, in which boats floating on the surrounding water might play a part. Certain it is that the island was covered with a " scenic " architecture of loggias and porticoes, doubtless of marble, and it looks as if the central feature resembled a shrine somewhat on the lines of the circular Temple of Baalbec. The Crypto Porticus is another singular feature of the ruins. Under a quadrangular cloister, as we should call it, is a basement constructed about one-third out of the ground, by which means openings are obtained to illuminate the under-cloister walk on one side through intersections in its vaulting. Remarkable effects of lighting, an idea which was not lost upon the Renaissance architects, as we may see in the case of the Massimi Palace at Rome by Peruzzi, were thus obtained. Probably these under-porticoes were the means by which the service of the Imperial Court was carried on without the slaves being too much in evidence. We know that there was a vast under-world to the great Roman Thermae by which the public was served as unobtrusively as on a modern liner. Everyone knows that these villa ruins have given their finest spoil to the great museums of the world. They were the quarries whence the Renaissance treasure-seekers, like Gavin Hamilton, obtained some of the best works which we possess of both the Greek and Roman sculptors. In what estimation did the serious architects and artists of Hadrian's time hold this Imperial caprice ? We suffer under the loss of the treatises of the trained men, and are ignorant of their standard of criticism. Many of the Imperial ruins were, we may well believe, works of very secondary importance, official art that received merely the customary applause of the crowd. Possibly the future may yet unfold some literary treasures that will place us in touch with the greater minds of this amazing transitional epoch. Hadrian's Villa to-day is better excavated and more instructive to the architect than it was twenty-five years ago, but we are brought no nearer to the haunting image of the captive Queen Zenobia, assigned to reside here by the conquering Aurelian, than when the long, hot afternoon could be passed amid thickets that veiled these mighty fragments with deep shades. The impression then was of a garden whose delightful charm, at once old and new, was reviving once again with the returning foliage of early summer and was animated once more by the thrilling voice of the nightingale. It was then a spot in which Rome, with its myriad interests and teeming activity, could be completely forgotten, and even the modern mind find rest in the contemplation of that past greatness which has never wholly lost the secret power of renewal. A. T. B. 221. — THE LONG WALL OF THE PECILE, VILLA HADRIANA. 212 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. CHAPTER XVIII. CAPRAROLA. THE aim ot travel is secured and its benefits received when out of dim memories some day shines out as an ineffaceable recollection. It is a commonplace of travelling experience that such days most often arise out of some departure from the beaten track. Such a day, distinct after twenty-four years, was that of the drive to Caprarola from Viterbo. In recollection the way seems to have unrolled itself through hours of brilliant sunshine along a ridge between two valleys, each offering a magnificent prospect. At one point far below lay a mirror-like lake, the Lago di Vico. It seemed the ideal hill- surrounded pool of art and magic. Above it rose the volcanic Monte Venere. The road had passed from Latium into Etruria, entering into the tangled centre of the peninsula, the region of those hill cities which have contributed so much to the formation of Italian art. The visit to Caprarola occu- pied the entire day, and two strong horses were required by the route across the hills, the head of the pass being nearly two thousand feet higher than Viterbo. The Farnese Palace, Vignola's masterpiece, revealed itself as a great dominating mass covering the end of a spur be- tween two deep valleys, with the ground falling away steeply in front. It stood up in a proud isolation, like St. Peter's, above its suburb (Fig. 222). The whole scheme of the pentagonal fortress palace explained itself upon the ground. Much that appeared to be complex on paper then appeared to be both natural and simple. Vignola's skill in the management of architectural detail has anticipated any objection arising out of the supposed crude- ness of mere fortress imitation. He has known how to infuse a sufficient element of the palace to make it clear that his structure, despite its warlike mien, is still the lordly pleasure house. The pentagonal plan in itself is a good one, as three sides are visible at once, and the slightly acute angles produce a sharp effect in cornice projections. The building looks all its height of eighty-four feet and is well crowned by a good corbel cornice of the Vignola type. A certain flatness of surface projections has been preserved, which makes for breadth of effect in the mass. The materials are stone and rubble, mainly plastered with a texture which is almost that of rough-cast. All the lower parts are hewn in the solid rock, and the remarkable vaulted sub -structures are partly built and partly live rock. The bastions provide terraces with fine points of view, but they are not in themselves very happy in relation to the general mass, and they might have been multiangular with advantage. The great ditch is carried round, and isolates the gardens which rise up at the rear. The lowest part of the garden is 222. — VIEW OF CAPRAROLA. The Palace facing down the valley at the end of the spur on which the gardens are laid out. From Percier and Fontaine. CAPRAROLA. 213 223. — PLAN OF THE FARNESE PALACE AT CAPRAROLA AT THE FIRST FLOOR LEVEL. Vignola, Architect. From Percier and Fontaine. (i) Open loggia. ' 1 1 Arcade of cortile. (3) Grand staircase. (4) Summer apartments. (5) \\ inter apartments. (6) Ditch. (7) Bridges to gardens. (8) Gardens at level of first floor. (9) Fountains. (10) Grottoes in shellwork. (n) Pavilions on the garden walls. 214 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. (1) Semicircular lawn surrounded by trees (2) Two terms, Silentia et Pudicita. (3) Pond. (4) Pavilion grottoes. (5) Cascade. (6) Circular stairs up to parterre. (7) Tank with statues and urns. (8) Parterres of flowers surrounded by balustrades with terms carrying vases. (9) Ponds fed by jets. (10) Stairways to level of top terrace. (n) Casino with first floor on level of top terrace arranged as two apartments connected by loggias, one towards plain and other to mountains. (12) Raised terrace with view. (rs) Fountains with jets. (14) Reservoirs in hill side. (15) Way out. (16) Gardens rising up slopes as amphitheatre. 224. — PLAN OF THE CASINO AND UPPER GARDENS AT CAPRAROLA BEHIND THE FARNESE PALACE. From Percler and Fontaine. CAPRAROLA. 215 about a hundred feet above the first approach to the palace. The actual ascent to the front entrance is immense, rising by those steep, diagonally scored roads which are also found at Frascati. Only a hill- driving countryman could contemplate with un- troubled mind such means of access and it is mar- vellous that any axle can stand the strain. Arrived at the main level, a beautiful circular arcaded court is seen to be the core of the plan of the palace (Figs. 229 and 230). This fine piece of Vignola's architecture is spacious, harmonious and well proportioned, and has a fine sweep of lines. It was, we may believe, the plan idea which Inigo Jones had in mind in his intended circular court for Whitehall, and the late Mr. Bryden, in the Local Government Building in Great George Street, has very ably developed the model on a large scale. The Caprarola cortile is sixty-six feet in diameter. A great circular staircase. 225. -OLD PRESPECTIVE FIGURE OF THE PALACE, ATTRIBUTED TO VIGNOLA. 226. — THE ENTRANCE FRONT OF CAPRAROLA. 2l6 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. 227. — OLD SECTIONAL FIGURE OF THE PALACE. in which pairs of columns carry the winding vault, leads up to the principal floor. At the top it is covered by a dome. These circular stairs have been much admired and imitated, but the later Renaissance architects, by applying to them the rigid lines of the Orders, introduced an element of confusion and contradiction which has never been successfully assimilated with the natural form of the structure. It is one of those things which the earlier men had done better, as we see at Blois, by an instinctive grasp of the poetry of its involuted development. The great rooms are noble and spacious, but the frescoes and decorations are not specially interesting, and the artists seem hardly to have risen to the greatness of the occasion. The pattern brick floors, in red and yellow, are characteristic and interesting, 228. — THE ASCENT TO THE ENTRANCE. CAPRAROLA. 217 229. — THE CIRCULAR CORTILE. as are also the wood-framed windows with their leaded glazing. In the great thickness of the walls are steps up to the window sills, which are kept high, as in old Italian palaces. The perspectives on the walls, drawn by Vignola him- self, are very interesting. The influence of this building was widely spread, for in France and England many and varied developments of its scheme were tried by the idealistic house planners of the Renaissance. A. T. B. The countryside here owned the Orsini as lords about the year 1200. The Farnese first came into notice in the fif- teenth century with Cardinal Alexander Far- nese and his two legiti- matised sons, Pier Luigi and Ranuccio. The family soon gained 230. — THE UPPER CORRIDOR OF THE CIRCULAR CORTILE, SHOWING THE FRESCOED DECORATION. 2l8 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. splendour from the power and influence of Giulia Farnese, the mistress of Pope Alexander Borgia. Paul III finally established the fortunes of the House when he became Pope in 1534 ; grand ideas of nepotism being his most distinguished characteristic. He created his nephew Prince of Parma and Piacenza, and, adding other Church lands, summed up the whole in the dukedom of Castro, and until the death of Pier Luigi in 1547 tne ducal residence was in Ronciglione. It appeared, however, to be more in the interests of the House that its representative should live in the centre of this part of the estates, and Pier Luigi's eldest son, Cardinal Alexander II, was therefore encouraged to build the palace of Caprarola. The state rooms were decorated by the brothers Zuccaro, J9^ftfc ^^^^^f" ^ Tcmpcsta, Pietro Bernini (the father of Lorenzo) and other minor artists. The three Zuccaro bro- thers came from Urbino in 1543 with the hope of emulating their great fellow-townsman Raphael, and, apparently, their talent satisfied the taste of the day for decor- ative work to an extent which procured them all the custom they could desire. They constituted a sort of firm which be- came known as the Zuccari. Taddeo was bv w thirty-seven years the elder, and his is the best work. He lies buried in the Pantheon, with the epitaph written by his brother Federigo, ' In death and in art resem- bling Raphael." We need not quarrel with this de- finition, but content our- selves with admitting the appropriate feeling for decoration which has given such a rich, gay and attractive appear- ance to these great halls, 231. — THE BRIDGE FROM PALACE TO GARDEN ACROSS THE MOAT. where pictures relating to the power and grandeur of the Farnese are set in frameworks of stucco looking like delicate lace, accompanied by airy and graceful " grotesques." These pictures are full of interest here, where all is so suggestive of the Farnese. The walls of the great Council Chamber have frescoes of all the towns that belonged to the family, Parma, Piacenza, Castro, Vignola, Scarpellino, Capo di Monte, Camina, Ronciglione, Fabrica, Isola and Caprarola. The chapel has old stained-glass windows. Another hall, " the Hall of the deeds of the Farnese," is given up to the great events of the House. The marriage of CAPRAROL.l. 219 -7 . 220 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. Orazio Farnese with Diana, daughter of Henry II of France, is represented, and that of Ottavio with a daughter of Charles V. All the characters in these and the other scenes are portraits, and in stiff gowns of gold brocade, or brocaded doublets and thick hose and ruffs, we see Catherine de Medici, Henry of Navarre, the Great Constable, the Dukes of Guise and Nemours, Mme. de Montpensier and Mile, de Rohan. Alessandro and Orazio are seen accompanying Charles V on a campaign against the Lutherans ; and in the bearers of the canopy held over the Emperor's head we have portraits of the three brothers Zuccari. Paul III, who took such care of his family, is shown appointing Pietro Farnese Commander of the Papal Forces, and Orazio Governor of Rome. Ranuccio receives the Golden Rose from his uncle, and the Pope himself is portrayed presiding at the Council of Trent, making peace between Francis I and Charles V, and giving the lucky hat to four Cardinals, who all afterwards became Popes. In several of the scenes, among all the other portraits, we dis- tinguish the pale, sensi- tive face, with short brown beard, of Cardinal Alexander II, the builder of the palace. In the Hall "del Mappamondo," the azure ceiling has all the con- stellations, the twelve signs of the Zodiac, and set round in twelve delicately moulded stucco frames are the fables relating to these signs. On the walls are figures symbolising Italy and Rome as the ruler of Christianity. Others typify the tropics and the four quarters of the globe, while over doors and windows are the heroes of geographical science — Amerigo Ves- pucci, Marco Polo, Columbus and Cortes. Besides these principal halls there are many smaller. The most attractive are four named after the seasons, which show some of the best work of the Zuccari. The ceiling of the " Spring " room is painted with a beautiful nude figure with worshippers at her feet. Above her head the signs of the Zodiac are placed so as to be caught by the rising sun. Garlands and sylvan scenes surround her personified figure. On the walls are the Rape of Europa, the combat of Hercules and Antaeus, and the specially appropriate myth of Persephone wandering with Demeter through the daffodil meadows of Enna. In the " Summer " room, which is disposed so as to be as cool as possible during the sultry season, groups of agriculturists. 233. — CASCADE IN FRONT OF THE CASINO, CAPRAROLA. CAPRAROLA. 22\ O K < O w K H w K K < PH W K a 2 H Z W X H 222 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. reaping, feasting, and leading teams of white oxen, surround the symbolical nymph. A very happily utilised fable is that of Phaeton, child of Apollo, who, having obtained his father's leave to drive one of his chariots, turned his four horses out of their usual course, with the result that the world was so burnt up by the excessive heat that Jove, indignant, flung the chariot and driver into the Po in the form of lightning, whence originates the ' summer lightning " that plays among the clouds on hot nights. ' Autumn ' has vines and fruits, intoxicated bacchantes borne by satyrs, the birth of Bacchus, the wine god returning from a trip to the Indies, having Indian houris among his attendants. One of those quaint and little known myths is here illustrated ; Bacchus, trampled underfoot by tyrant Titans, crushed to death, his limbs boiled over a fire, suddenly reappears, more comely than before. So was typified the vine, crushed, squeezed and fermented for wine, but still the scattered branches once more throwing out leaves and bearing grapes. In the " Winter " room, a solitary male figure represents the season. Circles of 235. — NORTH FRONT OF CASINO AT CAPRAROLA. children shivering with cold and warming themselves at fires, frozen rivers and leafless branches, such are the incidents that form the setting. The gods hold a council over the proposed destruction of the world, Vulcan binds Boreas, and Eolus, god of the winds, holds aloft a flag, while the clouds part after a terrible storm. A room at the back of the palace opens out on to a bridge which crosses the moat and leads into the garden (Fig. 231). Round four angles of the five-sided palace stretches a broad raised walk from the walls of which you look sheer down into the moat far below. Huge statues in pairs representing the seasons stand sentinel on these walls, with cypresses towering up between them. Ten of these cypresses were planted at the time the palace was built ; only four or five of them now remain, but these have grown to an enormous size, and in some places have forced their way quite through the wall and overhang the space below. The first plateau at the back is a formal garden of considerable extent, with clipped box hedges, grottoes, fountains and a fine open belvedere from which to gaze out over the far-stretching plain below. When CAPRAROLA. 223 PS w - w ffi H fa o W 0 W H CO N 224 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. 237. — THE CASINO OF CAPRAROLA : THE Sebastian!, a garrulous and admiring chronicler who lived in the little town, published a pamphlet on the subject in 1741, the lake in the middle of the lower garden was still filled with fish, and the fountains played without ceasing. In the middle, a huge lily, the crest of the Farnese, formed of lead, sent up a shower of water, which rose with such vehemence that it burst in fine clouds of spray, in which the sunbeams produced a rainbow. Against a retaining wall at the back is a spacious grotto worked in stucco, somewhat shabby and decadent nowadays. Its walls are sustained by six sylvan figures of gigantic size ; within sit groups of nymphs, playing on musical instruments. A huge vase spouts water in the centre. The pavement once showed a design of white lilies on a darker ground of marble. This grotto was the favourite private retreat of his Serenissimo, Cardinal Odoardo Farnese, who succeeded Cardinal Alessandro, and lived here the greater part of the year. The garden is still kept up, but in a somewhat perfunctory manner ; roses, however, riot in masses over the walls — great splendid blooms of royal crimson, sheets of Fortune's Yellow, huge creamy tea and shell-like pink blossoms effective against the background colour of dark cypress green. From the formal garden a wood of plane trees slopes gently up for some distance. On a May morning the ground underneath the tender greenery is carpeted with wild flowers - orchis, iris, saxifrage, cyclamen and Solomon's seal. Through an avenue of Scotch firs we reach the upper pleasure-ground, laid out some seventy years later by Cardinal Odoardo Farnese (the only part of the grounds with which Mr. Latham's photographs deal). Here he has given us the immense fountain basin, with broad stone edge, in which the water is of a deep blue colour, very striking against the rich dark green of the avenue of firs leading up to it. One slender jet of water springs from the Farnese lily in the centre of the basin. Above is the ascent, enclosed in arched and grottoed walls, between which comes an aqueduct formed of the twisted bodies of dolphins down which the water rushes, rippling and swirling in a thousand shell-like waves (Figs. 232 and 233). At the top recline the " Giants " ; two river gods pouring water from stone cornucopia (Fig. 234). Everywhere the silver grey, porous stone is softened with the dainty maidenhair fern and enriched with golden mosses. Perhaps the most beautiful of all Mr. Latham's illustrations are the two which show us the entrance to the heart of the garden, the low flight of four curving steps, flanked on either side by groups of figures (Figs. 236 and 238.) CAPRAROLA. 225 SOUTHERN EDGE OF THE PARTERRE. This is the garden of the Hermes and Caryatids. On one side stands the Casino or summer-house, a small villa having three storeys to the east and one to the west (Fig. 233) : it contains three or four rooms on each floor, and a gaily frescoed loggia looks out both on the east and west fronts. The peculiar distinction of this garden consists in the twenty-eight giant stone figures which stand round it on three sides. Interspersed with tall cypresses, they have a picturesque stateliness such as can hardly be matched elsewhere. Each one is different, with a beautiful natural variety : some stand in couples, whispering together (Fig. 242) ; a faun blows a conch shell into his companion's ear, who wards off the sound with his hands, another plays Pan's pipes ; one nymph, with her hands thrown up behind her head, seems to lean lazily back in a cypress bower ; others clasp young birds or bunches of grapes ; over all. Time has flung his hoary charm (Fig. 238). They stand out high and erect, and are seen against the melting blue of the far distance. A double stairway, rich in dolphins and sea-beasts, leads to the remains of another garden behind the Casino. Here still stands a slender fountain with a graceful semicircle of fountain gateways (Fig. 245), and from this one passes into the woods again. The upper part of the grounds is left to run wild, except that the box hedges are cut. It is impossible adequately to describe the charm of this high poised and lovely garden. It is in extraordinarily good preservation, and this is the more striking, because there is not the slightest sign of any restoration. As the photographs show, the carving of the stonework is as clear and well cut as ever. Look at the detail of the mouldings of the east and west stairways (Figs. 240 and 241), the bold and grotesque dolphins of the cascades. The whole garden has a look of weird melancholy, almost magical in its effect ; and, forlorn as it is, maybe it is yet more beautiful in its solitary silence than it could have been in its first hour of magnificence. The west of the garden terminates in the stables, erected for Cardinal Alessandro, from Vignola's designs. There is stabling for sixty horses. Overhead is a corridor in the form of a cross which divides four airy rooms, and on a higher storey is accommodation for the grooms and coachmen. One of the most striking features of the castle is the massive wall which entirely surrounds palace and the grounds. It is about three miles in circumference, a solid bastion of masonry, \ 226 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. 238. — WEST SIDE OF THE PARTERRE OF THE CASINO AT CAPRAROLA. CAPRAROLA. 227 239-— HERMES °N THE SOUTH TERRACE WALL OF THE PARTERRE OF THE CASINO AT CAPRAROLA. 228 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. descending into a hollowed-out, moat-like channel, from which the land slopes up on the opposite side. The grounds are, therefore, absolutely isolated and unapproachable, and can only be entered from the castle and by one other gate. In the Cardinal's time the woods at the back were full of deer, wild boar and game, and miniature hunting parties often took place. The splendour of Caprarola was short, and for more than a hundred and fifty years now it has been practically untenanted. In the days of Cardinal Alessandro and his successor, Odoardo, great state was kept. In 1596 there was a theatre in the garden, and Liberati's play, " Gli Intrighi d' Amore," was acted here. After Odoardo 's death the ducal seat was moved to Parma, and by 1650 much of the beautiful furniture had been taken there too. The male line became extinct in January, 1731, with Antonio Farnese, Duke of Parma, and Caprarola was left as dowry to his niece Elizabeth, who had married Philip V, King of Spain and Naples. By command of these monarchs, the whole palace was put into thorough order, the doors and windows repaired, and the roof entirely renewed and supplied, at great expense, with lead conduits. This accounts in great measure for the good condition in which the palace remains. The Queen conceded its use to Cardinal Acquaviva, Archbishop of Monreale, Protector of the Two Sicilies, and in Rome the vigilant Minister of His Majesty the King of Naples. Acquaviva also did a good deal in the way of restoration, mending stucco ornamentation, retouching and protecting the decaying frescoes, and, moreover, he refurnished the whole in a style which the somewhat fulsome Sebastiani pronounces to be " worthy of his great soul." He entertained continually summer parties of princes, clerics and nobility, in what, to quote our chronicler once more, " was esteemed the most artistic, commodious, and best decorated palace in the whole world." It still belongs to the ruined Bourbon family. Many are the noble guests who have been entertained at Caprarola. San Carlo Borrommeo stayed here for a few days in 1580. It was on that occasion that he made the speech to the Cardinal which is related in connection with the Villa Lante ; but even he was penetrated with the loveliness of Caprarola, and said to his host, ' What must Paradise be like ! ' Gregory XIII was the guest of Cardinal Alessandro in 1585. His attendant cardinals were lodged in the rooms over the stable, from which a special passage was made, communicating with the main building. The Chief Magistrate and all the citizens were at the gates to present the keys and to pay their homage to the Vicar of Christ, who in return presented the silver cross borne by his cross-bearer and a noble chalice to the cathedral, where they are still preserved, besides which he blessed the town and its inhabitants from the palace windows and enriched them with copious Indulgences. Among the attractions of the stately pageant was a procession of a hundred maidens, dressed in white, carrying olive branches and clashing cymbals. Cardinal Odoardo was the host of Clement VIII, and Sebastiani gives a further account of a visit paid by Queen Christina of Sweden in December, 1655, when she stopped at Caprarola, with a splendid suite, on her way to Bracciano, and was magnificently entertained by Duke Ranuccio. A feast and fireworks were given in her honour, she was shown all over the palace, and remarked of the Sala di Mappamondo that it deserved to be kept under a glass case. Gazing from the windows of the Hall of Hercules, lost in wonder at the beauty of the prospect, she exclaimed, " I dare not speak the name of Jesus, lest I should break the spell." The Anno Santo 1700 saw the flying visit of the reigning Duke, Antonio, Prince of Parma, the last direct descendant of the great Farnese House. His vassals, who scarcely knew him by sight, assembled to greet him, wild with delight and loyalty. He was moved to tears, made a touching speech, and went his way, to be seen no more at Caprarola. The exiled James Stuart was welcomed royally by Duke Francesco in 1714, and as the Duke took leave of " His Majesty, the King of England," he declared that the palace had acquired fresh lustre from his august presence. In October, 1739, Kasimir Vasa, Prince of Poland, and the Elector of Saxony, paid a visit incognito to Cardinal Acquaviva, and were shown the castle, where a choice assemblage of savants and Jesuits had come to meet them. One of the last notable guests was Prince Charles Edward, the Pretender, who was a visitor in 1740, and Sebastiani, who mentions his coming, was overpowered at the honour of being allowed to house some of the Prince's suite. CAPRAROLA. 229 r- < O z ? y w X H ta O I — - H O H W H < ffi H O 06 en w i H O T|- •N 230 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. o z w ffi H 1 CO z 3 H H cfl < H W B H I CAPRAROLA. 231 o K IJ o b W a o w O O O X CO w" W H H to O K w O u w K H 232 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. o K H < O £ — c« THE VILLA LANTE, BAGNAIA. 245 Q OS < o o o £2 w H 246 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. z o s z > o" o - ffi H V) O a H KH £ z" o fe Q Z w a 77//v VILLA LANTE, BAGNAIA. 247 < o - — - jj > cf £2 w a ^-c o z 2 ~ K H fa O 3 o BJ - 248 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. As years passed the magnificence of Cardinals became less liable to reproof, and no one thought of objecting when Cardinal Montalto, succeeding to the bishopric at length carried out Vignola's plan and added the second villa. This, uniform outwardly with the first, consists inside mainly of reception and guest chambers ; the original villa being reserved for the owner's own use. Neither is of more than one storey in height, and the chief part of the second villa is occupied by a fine hall, which has a very beautiful ceiling by Zuccaro, in stucco, gilding and fresco. It is in perfect preservation and recalls the famous one by the Carracci in the Farnese palace in Rome. The framework is composed of large female figures in high relief, white and gold, with outstretched arms, joining hands, between which are set mythological scenes. The frieze introduces the armorial bearings of Montalto ; a lion, together with the pear tree of his maternal house of the name of Peretti. The delightful formal garden below the twin villas had already been laid out by Cardinal Gambara, but it was reserved for Montalto to erect its crowning ornament in the magnificent 258. — TWO WAYS TO THE FIRST TERRACE, VILLA LANTE, BAGNAIA. central fountain which for beauty and originality of design and setting has hardly its equal in Italy (Fig. 246). Four huge tanks are enclosed by stone parapets on which stand vases, and in the middle rises a group of splendid young athletes, who hold aloft the high mount, the" Monte Alto," of the Cardinal. Against the blue distance the powerful figures are grandly relieved, black and gleaming. " Bronze," you say at once, but they are not bronze at all, but the finest, hardest travertine, which the sun and the water have transmuted into a material as hard as iron, so that it is difficult to believe that it is not really metal. Already in Canova's day the group had taken its present colour, and the sculptor marvelled at it, saying, as he tapped it with his hammer, " It will outlast marble." At the Villa Lante one Prince of the Church succeeded another and the ilexes grew taller and richer, till in 1656 Duke Ippolito of Lante laid a request before Pope Urban VIII that he would grant him its use for three generations to compensate him for the loss of Villa Lante on the Janiculum, which the Pope had confiscated in order to build fortifications on the site. Neither Urban nor his successor, Innocent X, would agree, THE VILLA LANTE, BAGNAIA. 249 O < pa w" H t-H o" H^ O a X H ii, O Q t-H cn W ffi H 5 25° THE GARDENS OF ITALY. w u < X H Q Z, O o w W O H THE VILLA LAXTE, BAGNAIA. 251 w t- 12 u H <« c/j 2 2 < E z en o fcL, H O K O w H •M 252 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. z O H O Z a < w z ^) O Xl Q Z as C/3 w O os w Q Z O o vO THE VILLA LANTE, BAGNAIA. 253 263.— FOUNTAIN OF THE RIVER GODS, AND STAIRWAY TO THIRD PLATEAU. 264. — DETAIL OF THE FOUNTAIN AND STAIRWAY. 254 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. holding that the namesake villa at Rome had been sacrificed for the public safety ; when, however, Alexander VII succeeded to the Papal Chair the Duke of Lante obtained his desire in return for six scudi paid yearly on St. Peter's Day. The grant was renewed in 1743, and again later, and, with some payment, the estate now belongs outright to this same family, the representative of the Houses of Montefeltro and della Rovere, which has itself given four Cardinals and one Pope to the Church. Various improvements are due to the Lante family. When French gardening was brought into fashion, and Louis XIV and Le Notre were setting the example of ribbon borders at Versailles, the Duke of that day brought a landscape gardener from France, who laid out the elaborate setting of box hedges and borders which surround the grand fountain (Figs. 253 and 254). The poor man finished his work by drowning himself in its waters, for what reason tradition does not say. The guest chambers of the villa are hung with very handsome old French papers, some of the earliest ever made. They are manufactured in small pieces of about a foot square, hand painted, with a bold, gay pattern of birds and flowers, and are as bright now as when they were new. There are very gay records of the life led here in 1820. The chatelaine then was Margherita Marescotti, wife of Don Vincenzo Lante. She was a leader of Florentine society, and gathered round her many gay and brilliant friends. Private theatricals and amateur recitations were the rage, and we can imagine the coming and going, the coaches swinging through the little town ; the castle in the village below packed, as well as the villa, with guests; the alfresco entertainments, the wit and merriment through the long hot summer days and nights. An old print in Villa Montalto shows Donna Margherita, who is said to have been extremely beautiful in her youth, as a handsome, genial woman, scarcely of middle age, in a Josephine dress of velvet, with a lace tucker and her hair in bunches of classic curls, sitting along with her two little girls, who wear high-waisted, scanty frocks, and their hair a la Chinoise. Among the family papers are some of the old libretti which were used by the talented amateur company. Donna Margherita was a devoted friend of the Countess of Albany, and there is some tradition, though no actual record, of visits paid to the villa by the wife of the unfortunate James Stuart. 265. — DETAIL OF THE STAIRWAY. THE VILLA L./.\TA\ BAGNAIA. O u OS w OH BH O « NH 5 ^H 5 > o < * Ol M W H w 256 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. 267. — CANAL CASCADE — UP. 268. — CANAL CASCADE — DOWN. 269 — DETAIL OF THE HEAD OF THE CASCADE, VILLA LANTE. Nothing can be more attractive or more deftly planned than the garden which surrounds the formal and well kept centre, with its artistic fountain and parterres gay with flowers. We can picture vividly the joyous gatherings here in bygone days — the songs, the gaiety, the artificial manners, the real enjoy- ment, of all that light- hearted, frivolous Court life which grew up in Italy in the seventeenth, and lasted up to the nine- teenth, century. This pleasaunce is the cul- minating point of the garden proper, and, above and beyond, it merges into deep ilex woods, with THE VILLA LANTE, BAG \.ll.l. 257 1 PL, - O Q w O r^ N 258 THE VILLA LANTE, BAGNAIA. long alleys and woodland walks ; spaces where here and there a lovely fountain, covered with green moss, flings its slender silver shaft aloft into the cool shade, and blue and white anemones and rose red cyclamen carpet the ground in spring. Still further beyond, the wide and shadowy woods which lie all round Bagnaia stretch up the spurs of Monte Cimerio. These woods are full of game, and the Duke of Lante enjoys excellent sport in them. The fountains have all names : there is the fountain of the Dolphin (Fig. 270) and of the Ducks, the fountain of the Chase and that of the Giants, the Chain Fountain and the Octagon. Some are marked by the insignia of the crab, and others by that of the mountain or by the three eagles of the Lante family. In 1772 Cardinal Marcello Lante made the grand entrance (Fig. 248) and erected a wrought iron gate. An enclosure called the Duchess's Garden is, indeed, given up to the ravages of some wild boar, brought from the Pontine marshes ; but, as it is within high walls and has no view, it is not to be regretted. The water was at one time diverted from the fountains by an earthquake, but a supply has now been brought from the hills at great expense, and flows freely in every part. Some of the old rooms which were formerly used for service have been decorated in keeping with the rest of the villa, and the whole presents a wonderfully complete example of an Italian country house, still lived in for the greater part of the year by its owners — owners who are the descendants of men who were foremost among the great rulers before the days of the Renaissance. E. M. P. 271. — THE GARDEN LOGGIA OF THE VILLA LANTE. THE GARDENS OF ITALY. CHAPTER XX. FLORENTINE GARDENS AND VILLAS.-INTRODUCTORY NOTE WHEN all the centres of interest in Italy have in turn been visited it will be strange if the traveller's recollections do not settle upon Florence, living its strenuous life, crowded within the narrow limits of the plain of the Arno ; on the city ringed about with olive clad hillsides, dotted with the white and brown villas characteristic of Tuscany. Here, if anywhere, we should find the simplicity of cultivated taste and that love of solid building which thinks beyond the lives of one century. In the true Tuscan villa the solid, vaulted ground floor is the factory of the farm, and all the work is there carried on which sustains the life lived on the Piano Nobile above. At the Villa dei Collazzi, illustrated later, are cellars and substructures of vast extent, the ' fattoria " of the estate. The entrance is through a wide doorway, adequate for ox carts to descend by a gentle slope. Here under the great vaults are two long rows of wine vats, each inscribed with the name of a " podere," or farm. The tall tubs of wood full of grapes come in stacked upon the carts, which are drawn by white oxen with red tassels dependent from heir horns. The grapes, first emptied into the vats, are then crushed by the feet or by wooden maces of the farm labourers. When fermented the wine is drawn off and transferred to an 272.— AT FLORENCE : SHELLEY 's VIEW. 26o FLORENTINE GARDENS AND VILLAS. inner cellar, where, surrounding an immense butt capable of containing two hundred barrels, are casks ranged round the walls. Similar cellars store the oil when the trees are picked in November, huge jars being used, such as would easily contain and conceal a crouching man, as in the old tale of AH Baba. Ancient stone mills, turned by oxen, are used for crushing the olives. As the focus of the life lived overhead there is the great hall in the centre, rising two storeys, with its great barrel vault. At Dei Collazzi the hall is fifty feet by thirty feet, and there still hangs from the vault the great iron star with many points, which, on the return from the chase, was lowered to be laden with the spoils of the day's hunting, mingled with lighted lamps. These Tuscan halls were the scenes of the daily life of the family ; here the lady sat and worked with her maidens, not ashamed of the reputation of being a good ' massaia." It was the sala di Pranzo, and here the men, returning in the evenings, gathered round the fire built up of huge logs and faggots in the great masonry openings of these early fireplaces. The hounds of the chase were not forgotten, as many an old fresco shows us. In close connection with the hall was the loggia for summer life, usually arcaded and vaulted, and commanding wide views of the enchanting landscape. Perhaps there is a glimpse of the Lily Tower, rising from the city which itself is hidden by the folds of the surrounding hills. Sometimes it is the sharp lines of the acutely pointed dome that is a focus point in the view, a reminder of the thought of Florence ever striving to attain to the true causes and inner springs of human life. In 1420, a date which may be taken as that of the actual beginning of Renaissance architecture in Florence, Brunelleschi (1377 — 1446) was beginning the Cupola, which was to engage his attention for fourteen years. In 1440 he began the great Pitti Palace, which, on the failure of Luca Pitti's conspiracy against Piero de Medici in 1466, remained unfinished. It was the policy of the Medici to engage their rivals in display, and palace building was responsible for the ruin of several of the older families. Scipione Ammirato writes of Nicolo Gaddi : " He is now at his villa turning it into a palace more suited to the city than the country." Early in the sixteenth century the Dini family engaged in the vast construction of Dei Collazzi, which ruined them, and yet itself remained incomplete. About 1506 Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael and Michelangelo were all engaged in work at Florence, and until Julius II and Leo X concentrated the leading spirits at Rome Florence was the artistic and intellectual centre of Italy. Benvenuto Cellini (1500 — 1570), after refusing Pietro Torrigiani's invitation to England in 1517, ran away to Rome in 1519 — 1521. He was welcomed by Firenzuola of Lombardy who, on seeing his work, said to Giannotto Giannotti, also of Florence, who had been with him in Rome several years, " This is one of the geniuses of Florence, and thou art one of its dunces." Cellini made his second visit in 1523 and took part in the siege. He went to France in 1537 and again in 1540, the latter his great time with Francis I. He returns to Florence in 1545, and casts his Perseus in 1552 — 1554, but his thoughts remained divided between Rome and France, despite the kind of net in which he was enmeshed by the Medicean Duke, who would neither adequately employ nor release him. Many artists returned after the sack of Rome in 1527, and Florence throughout, as we see in Cellini's pages, preserved the unity of her school. Cellini, " the last of the great age," as he became in the general estimation, survived until 1572. The work of Bronzino (1503 — 1572), Allessandro Allori (1535 — 1607) and Giovanni da Bologna (1524 — 1608) will be found adorning the villas and gardens of Tuscany. Few- cities in the world offer more many-sided attractions, and to them have responded many of the brightest intellects who have made of Florence a second home. A. T. B. THE GARDENS OF ITALY. 261 CHAPTER XXI. THE BOBOLI GARDENS, FLORENCE. THE public gardens of any great town are hardly ever interesting ; they have an official look ; miles of well raked gravel paths are enough to damp the most lively imagination. Yet the Boboli was always a Court garden, and all the red tape in the world cannot blot out a stately and interesting past. The garden is laid out on a steep hill at the back of that palace which Luca Pitti sold to Eleanora de Medici, the widow of Cosimo I, in 1549. Eleanora was an excellent, good woman, but she was never popular with the Florentines, who described her as of an insopportabile gravitd . Tribolo laid out the garden for her, together with Buontalenti, and Bartolomeo Ammanti helped to ornament and erect many of the buildings. Near the entrance is a grotto painted with birds and flowers and adorned with coloured stucco figures, once gay enough, but now rather forlorn and tawdry. Set into its trumpery work, incongruous and particularly out of keeping, are four half finished statues by Michelangelo, intended for the monument of Julius II, that ill starred undertaking which is described as a tragedy by Condivi, the biographer of the great Florentine. The statues were intended for captives, and, imprisoned for ever, as they are, in the marble, half struggling to light, they have a double significance. In the inner chamber is a 273. — THE FOUNTAIN ABOVE THE GROTTO IN THE CORTILE OF THE PITTI PALACE, FLORENCE. Ammanali, Architect. 262 THE < GARDENS OF ITALY. .^as^ ^r^i? ;« ^tf S-& r^---^fr &^5 V" s (A) Covlilc. (];) (Irotto. fc) Chapel. (i>) Small Court. \-:) Public entrance to gardens (F) Amphitheatre. 274. — PLAN OF THE PITTI PALACE AT FLORENCE, WITH PART OF THE BOBOLI GARDENS. From " Edifices Toscane." THE ROHOU GARI)K\S, I<'I.ORE\CK. 263 w - o W I ffi H DS O 264 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. o w H w O 03 55 O fe w a H O C/2 OH CO Q Z W 35 )-H 35 OH w 35 H fe O CO THE BOBOLI GARDENS, FLORENCE. 265 en Z § - a, w ffi w Z H - w O w W H z O O O pa - z HH Z 266 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. Venus by Gian Bologna, the principal figure of a fountain. The main road mounts up the hill to the back of the palace, which, detached and spacious as it is in front, is, at the back, sunk in a deep trench-like cutting, which has necessitated the contrivance of various expedients for filling up and bridging over. A raised plateau, with a very fine and elaborate fountain, fills the main vacuum, towards which the first floor of the palace looks straight out across a paved court (Fig. 273). The great open slope immediately at the back of the palace is given up to a really magnificent amphitheatre, one of those mises-en-scenes which bring home to us how regal were the ideas of entertainment current in the Renaissance. It is really large, and yet amusing as a faint copy of the great classic models from which the idea was taken. There are six tiers of seats in the huge semicircle of stone, and the arena is fenced round by a stone balustrade with fluted pillars, tasteful, even severe, in design. The niches which ornament the amphitheatre at intervals, filled alternately by a vase and a statue, are far removed from the florid and flippant style of the baroque, which was then just coming into vogue (Figs. 275 and 276). 278. — LOOKING UP THE GREAT AVENUE. The view from the right-hand corner of the amphitheatre is famous ; but let Shelley speak of it, for it is not altered at all since he saw it : " You see below, Florence, a smokeless city, its domes and spires occupying the vale ; and beyond, to the right, the Apennines, wrhose base extends even to the walls. The green valleys of these mountains, which gently unfold them- selves upon the plain, and the intervening hills covered with vineyards and olive orchards, are occupied by the villas, which are, as it were, another city, a Babylon of palaces and gardens. In the midst of the picture rolls the Arno, through woods and bounded by the aerial snow and summits of the Lucchese Apennines. On the left, a magnificent buttress of lofty, craggy hills juts out in many shapes over a lovely vale and approaches the walls of the city. Cascine and ville occupy the pinnacles and abutments of those hills, over which is seen at intervals the ethereal mountain line, heavy with snow. The vale below is covered with cypress groups, whose obeliskine forms of intense green pierce the grey shadow of the hill that overhangs them. The cypresses, too, of this garden form a magnificent foreground of accumulated verdure ; THE no no LI c; /A>/)/-;\.s', 267 pyramids of dark leaves and shining cones rising out of the mass, beneath which are cut, like caverns, recesses which conduct into walks. The cathedral, with its marble campanile, and the domes and spires of Florence, are at our feet." From hardly any other place does one get such a view of the marble bell-tower and of Brunelleschi's wonderful brown dome. They seem to stand out above all the surrounding houses, relieved against the sky, and flanked by the graceful tower of the Palax/o Vecchio, ' noblest symbol of civic liberty in the world," which sends the deep note of its bell across the summer air. Behind the amphitheatre the ground climbs straight up to a plateau, laid out as a sheet of water in a stone setting, in the midst of which a green bronxe Xeptune moulded by ( iian Bologna poises his trident above four crouching mermen (Fig. 277). Against the ilexes behind stands a statue of Abundance, a \\oman with a fair, expressionless face, believed to be a portrait of Joanna of Austria, wife of Francesco I. The statue was executed by Gian Bologna and Tocca, and erected in 1636 to commemorate the fact that during the general distress in Italy from wars 279. — LOOKING DOWN THE GREAT AVENUE AND ACROSS THE ISOLOTTO. Tuscany alone, under the " benevolent prince '" Ferdinand II, revelled in plenty. This part of the garden, like so many old Italian pleasure grounds, is a good deal spoilt by the planting of deciduous trees, dotted about in a manner quite alien to the conception of the whole. There ought to be a law prohibiting the planting of copper beeches, pampas grass and other ornamental foliage all of which looks so out of keeping with the close-cut, sober green of bay and ilex and the serious beauty of time-worn stone and marble. On the plateau at the top the flower garden, or giardino segreto, is laid out. In Italian gardens this is generally near the palace, unless, as in the present instance, it has a good-sized casino attached in which the guests could spend the day, lie down and rest during the hot hours, and dine if they pleased. The casino, with its gently curving cream walls, is now given up as a storehouse for lemon trees, and the garden itself is not very gay. It is formally laid out with a fountain in the middle, round the base of which climb three green bronze monkeys. Its interest lies chiefly in its position. It is situated on the remains of one of those bastions which Michelangelo constructed in 1529 when he was engineer of the 268 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. Republic, by which he helped to defend the city during an eleven months' siege. The great brown walls, with one remaining tower, look almost impregnable, and present a curious contrast to the frivolous little garden planted on them a hundred years later. Here we look over the ridge in the opposite direction to all the rest of the grounds, and very lovely the view is, the Apennines from this point taking an exquisite intense blue, like lapis-lazuli, while groups of dark cypresses stand out against the silver foam of the olive gardens. At the entrance to the garden is a belvedere, from which we overlook the town. There are few open spaces in these gardens ; the whole consists of a sort of bocage of ilexes, overarching in dense shade, in whose gloom their rich black trunks and branches look almost uncanny. Elsewhere the ilexes are clipped into long green walls in which niches are cut for seats and marble statues. A very imposing avenue of tall cypresses leads away from the flower garden to the south- west down a steep hill ; outside it, on either hand, runs a pleached alley of ilexes ; and half way down, where it is ^^^^^^ broken by groups of statuary, \ J another very wide allev branches M . off to right and left, each ending at a fountain. The effect of this avenue, with its dark senti- nels against the blue sky and the glimmering forms of god and goddess, is very grand, and must have been much more harmonious before the broad pathway was vulgarised by gravel. Formerly, of course, it had only a dark, moss-grown road, set across, every yard or so, by a low, transverse bar of grooved grey stone, like one or two which still remain. The path sweeps down, and we come to another en- closure, a break as striking as, and quite different from, any we have yet seen, illustrating the clever way in which the garden artists of the Renais- sance understood how to space out their ground and how to lead up to surprises. The avenue (Figs. 278 and 279) of approach being so stately 280. — PLAN OF THE ISOLOTTO IN THE BOBOLI GARDENS, PITTI PALACE, AT FLORENCE. From "Edifices Toscaue." some adequate goal was felt to be necessary. This is afforded by a giardino del lago, a miniature lake set in close-cut walls like all the rest, enclosing a fantastically shaped island, an isolotto, in the centre, which is reached by bridges and boats (Figs. 280 to 282). It is all balustraded about and set with pots of lemon trees, and over the whole towers Giorgio Vasari's and Gian Bologna's fountain, a great shallow basin, upon which stands a figure of Oceanus (Fig. 283). A stone pathway with seats at intervals encircles the toy lake. Publicity has well nigh obliterated the charm of the Court garden, but a little of it may still be recalled. The little meadow beyond was once called 1'Ucellaja. and snares used to be set here for catching small birds. Ghosts are not common in Italy, but this old pleasure ground is credited with one. Boboli was the name of the owner who cultivated the land and sold it to the Medici. After he had 269 w oa w O H O en »— i W O U O Q S oa w H < O H en - w oc 270 THE GARDENS OF ITALY Li- V H-. O THE nonou (;.iRi)K.\s. 271 o o J o c/j - ffi H b. O - Q < K M CO 00 272 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. 284. — GIORGIO VASARI'S AND GIAN BOLOGNA 's FOUNTAIN ON THE ISOLOTTO. THE ROnOLl GARDEXS, FLORENCE. 273 parted with it he pined for it, and so great was his love and longing that he could not eat, sleep or banish the idea of it from his mind. He was always talking of it, and his refrain was, " You will see, after death I will come to it again." Soon after his death it began to be said that the figure of an old man was often seen on moonlight nights, working in the garden. We are assured that to this day it is often In-held, and that the tap of its spade- can be heard. E. M. P. The Pitti Pal- ace was begun in 1435 by Luca Pitti in rivalry with the Medici family. Filippo Brunelles- chi was the archi- tect. Luca Fan- celli, architect of Florence, was em- ployed by him in the actual execu- tion of the work. The palace was sold in an unfinished state to Eleonora of Toledo, wife of C o s i m o I , who bought more land and laid out the garden. This Bo- boli garden was be- gun at the end of May, 1550, to the designs of Nicolo Braccini (II Tri- bolo), architect and sculptor, and con- tinued by Bernardo Buontalenti. The palace was finished to the designs of Ammanati. Sub- sequently the works were completed by the Grand Dukes of Tuscany. The Grand Court at the back, with its grotto, is particularly due to Ammanati. The two wings extending the main fa?ade were built by Alfonso and Giulio Parigi. The interior salons used as picture galleries are more remarkable for gorgeousness than refinement of decoration. The gardens are apt to be hot and dusty under the modern conditions of a public park. The fountain in the Isola Bella was designed by Giorgio Vasari, the statues being by Giovanni da Bologna. Ocean is represented at the top, with the Nile, Ganges and Euphrates below. A. T. B. 285. — THE GATES OF ISOLOTTO, BOBOLI GARDENS, FLORENCE. 274 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. CHAPTER XXII. POGGIO GAJANO, GASTELLO AND PETRAJA AND VILLA MEDICEA GAREGGI, FLORENCE. BY white and dusty roads bordered with fields set out in oblongs, by lines of pollarded trees and irrigation ditches, insets alternately cultivated, gay and bright with mustard flower and green grass or dull with brown earth where no crop has yet appeared — such is the scene through which the hurrying steam tram takes the visitor out to the pleasant retreat of Poggio Cajano. Lying ten miles out to the west of the city, the walled enclosure of the villa lies, like a Roman camp, at the head of the rising street of the little village, just where the ground falls again with a descent to the open country. The river was crossed just before the village was reached, and facing the villa at no great distance is the Alban mountain chain, so that the spot was chosen with a keen eye for all the advantages of situation. I/ o r e n z o Medici, il Magnifico, bought the castle and estate from the Cancel- lieri family of Pistoia, and employed Giuliano da San Gallo to build the new villa on the foundations of the old castle. Charles V, on the occasion of his visit in May, 1536, remarked on the fortress character of Poggio Cajano. The front curtain wall of the villa is, as it were, defended by two raised 286. — ENTRANCE TO THE GROTTO UNDER THE TERRACE PLATEAU OF end pavilions, one of THE VILLA POGGIO CAJANO. which is a chapel and the POGGIO CAJANO, CASTELLO AND PETRAJA, W.OREXCE. 275 tww* • U il'MV'f. 287.— THE GREAT HALL OF THE VILLA POGGIO CAJANO. 276 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. other the entrance lodge. In the centre is the great gateway lately restored in pietra serena stone. Entered within the walled enclosure, the visitor sees the villa lying a hundred yards back, with all the advantage of a rising foreground ; the approach roads rise on either hand in a quadrant sweep that follows the lines of a great horseshoe staircase leading up to the first floor (Fig. 288). A feature of the design is that the ground floor is encompassed on its four faces by a vaulted arcade fifteen feet wide, which forms a magnificent terrace all round at the level of the first floor. Each face is about sixty yards in length, so that the scale of the villa is considerable. -The loggia of the main front opens direct upon the terrace at the top of the great horseshoe staircase. It is finely vaulted and decorated. The Delia Robbia frieze, in blue and white, represents War and Peace. The columns are of pietra serena, fine grained and beautifully coloured in that shade of greenish grey which is such an attractive feature of the material. The strange pediment contains the shield of the Medici, with long ribbon attachments. How this inappropriate feature came to be so employed is a mystery, as it cuts the fagade like a knife and dwarfs the loggia to the scale of a window. The house is cream-washed, but the piers of the arcades are coloured as red brickwork, with a somewhat crude effect. The great eaves with triple rafters are a characteristic feature. Entering the house from the loggia at the main floor level the visitor, passing through a reception hall, finds himself in a truly magnificent saloon occupying the whole centre of the block, and lit from one end only (Fig. 287). Vaulted with a great barrel, richly decorated on sound architectural lines, this ceiling pro- claims itself as the work of Giuliano da San Gallo, who erected the villa in 1480 for Lorenzo il Magnifico. Vasari remarks of this hall that " there is no doubt that this is the largest vault ever seen till now." The walls were painted in fresco to the order of Leo X, by Andrea del Sarto, Francia Gigio and Pontormo in 1521, and finished by Alless Allori, known as Bronzino, in 1580. The dado is some six feet in height, painted in relief all round. The sides of the hall are divided into two wide and one narrower centre bay by a framework of chiaroscuro architecture with columns and entablatures. The centre compartments contain fine compositions of figures surmounted by the Medici shield with inscriptions below : ' Leo Decimus Pontifex. Max aulam hanc illustrare. E Tornare Coepisset." ' Franciscus Medices Magnus. Dux Etruriae secundus. Magnificentius perfeciendum curavit." Subjects are drawn from the four seasons and from life in the country for the ends of the hall, and for the four large side panels scenes from Roman history, as symbols of events in the lives of the Medici. Such a hall and such decorations are only possible where the window space is required, for coolness and summer use, to be reduced to such dimensions as we see here— two tall, narrow lights and a bull's-eye over --thus occupying the space of one end wall only, and leaving three walls free for the frescoes, seen, moreover, under ideal conditions of lighting. This hall is about thirty-nine feet by seventy-two feet, and it is equal to two storeys in height. The idea in derivation is, one may suppose, the hall of the mediaeval castle modernised, but that in turn is but the survival probably of the great living-room, which replaces the southern atrium as, advancing north, the climate becomes colder. 288. — THE VILLA OF POGGIO CAJANO FROM INSIDE THE ENCLOSURE. POGGIO <:.(J.l\O, C.-1STELLO .J.VO PE'l'K.I}.!, /'L(/HI-:\CE. 277 ;*»«$ V^;;Y,F, 289. -— CASTELLO— FOUNTAIN BY GIAN BOLOGNA. 278 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. In the villa there is a splendid portrait of Lorenzo the Magnificent by Bronzino ; the figure is in crimson, with black hair contrasted with laurel leaves. The background by a stroke of artistic perception is a portrayal of Florence. The portrait is interesting for the character and vigour it displays. There are four mottoes displayed in the hall — Magnanimas, Liberalitas, Fortitudo, Vigilancia— doubtless as qualities requisite to the Medici at all times. If the house is entered at the ground-floor level a convenient portico hall is met with under the arcade, and the lower hall has a curious staircase in pietra serena, apparently of Sangallo's time, bracketed off the walls. This ground floor, or basement, now contains a theatre and other rooms. Walking round the house outside, a space of some thirty yards will be found at the back, and the enclosure will be seen to be completed with two back pavilions like those in front. In the centre between them is a fine double staircase of twenty-seven steps leading down to the park. Under the landing is the grotto illustrated (Fig. 286). It is twenty feet 290. — CASTELLO — THE GARDEN BEHIND THE VILLA. across. There is a pebble mosaic floor and a plain apsidal vault over, with heavy sunk panels in the ribs. The park is of some extent, but, being " English," calls for no special remark. The stable block is on the left of the main enclosure of the villa at a lower level. On the opposite side is a garden containing a great lemonaia a hundred yards long. Twenty-six steps in a great flight lead down to this garden, but it is nowadays laid out in serpentine paths with indiscriminate planting. In the troublous times of May, 1527, the Medici retired from Florence to Poggio Cajano as a place of refuge. In July, 1539, Cosimo I and Eleonora of Toledo, his bride, spent five days here. Their son, Francesco di Medici, twenty-six years later met his bride, Joan of Austria, at this same villa. Joan died in 1578, and in October, 1587, Francesco and his second wife, the notorious Bianca Capella, a Venetian, both fell suddenly ill, and died while staying here with Cardinal Ferdinando for the seasonal shooting. Naturally poison was freely alleged on all sides as the cause of the tragedy. A year later the survivor, who had meanwhile left the POGGIO CAJAXO, CASTELLO AND PET RAJ A, FLORENCE. 279 u u H H i w o N 280 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. church and become Grand Duke, greeted his bride, Christina of Lorraine, at Poggio Cajano in April, 1589. She was only sixteen years of age, and her training was that of the French Court. The great-grandson, Cosimo III, spent much time at this villa. It has remained as a royal residence, and permission to visit is obtained at the Pitti Palace. If the site and appearance of the great enclosing walls with their four angle pavilions suggested a Roman camp, the villa in the midst in its sturdy four-squareness may be regarded as the counterpart of the Pretorium, still facing the Alban chain of hills as proudly and unchangedly as in the days of the Medici. A. T. B. In contrast to the stately Medici villas near Florence, Poggio Imperiale* and Poggio Cajano, the Royal House of Italy owns two small, almost homely, villas, seldom occupied, but thoroughly livable, and not without their own share of historic interest. Castellurn is a receptacle for water and Villant says that Marcrinus, a Roman senator, made an aqueduct on arches and brought water seven miles for Florentia. Some remains existed as late as 1750. When Montaigne visited Castello he wrote of its berceaux, or pleached walks, and of its cypress groves ; but these have been sacrificed to the fashion of modern gardening, which has spoilt so many of these old pleasaunces. Vasari writes of the villa that " it was built by Pier Francesco di Medici with much judgment." Perhaps the most interesting character whom the villa has ever received was Catherine Sforza, who lived here for the last seven years of her life. Gone, then, was that beauty which is described as glowing like the sun, as rivalling lilies and roses. Her wild and revengeful persecution of her first and second husbands' murderers had faded into the past, and, having married Giovanni de Medici, she retired to Castello, and devoted herself to the training of her little boy, that Giovanni de Medici who was to be so widely known as Giovanni delle Bande Nero, the last of the great Condottieri. It was in 1504 that he joined his mother there, and she bought him " a small and handsome horse." The mother of Cosimo I died at Castello, to which Cosimo himself returned after his secret marriage with Camilla Martelli, and it was from here that he sent that vigorous message ; " I am not the first Prince who has taken a vassal to wife, and I shall not be the last ; my wife is of gentle birth, and is to be respected as such. I do not seek for quarrels, but I shall not avoid them if they are forced upon me. When I make up my mind to do a thing, I do it regardless of consequences, trusting in God and my own right hand." A charming walk through an ilex wood and meadow leads to where Petraja hangs along the hill. Half way is an exquisite little campanile and chapel, half hidden in a group of cypresses, which the country people proudly call la meraviglia di Castello. As we approach it, Petraja stands in striking lines, the tower, which recalls that of the Palazzo Vecchio, rising from a shoulder of ilexes, the long walls sloping down into the valley, while beyond show the towers and dome of the City of the Lily. The villa of Petraja is a simple white house with broad eaves, its squareness relieved by the tower. It stands in the usual formal garden, which is well kept and full of flowers. Every day flowers are sent off from here to the Royal palace at the Quirinal. On one side of the villa stands a huge ilex tree with a rustic staircase leading into its branches, where there is a platform on which Victor Emmanuel used to dine when he and his wife " Rosina " were staying at Petraja or Castello. On the other side is a fountain, the masterpiece of Tribolo, which was brought here from Castello by the Grand Duke Pietro Leopoldo. Vasari says of it : "II Tribolo carved on the marble base a mass of marine monsters, all plump and undercut, with tails so curiously twisted together that nothing better can be done in that style. Having finished it, he took a marble basin, brought to Castello long before. ... In the throat, near to the edge of the said basin, he made a circle of dancing boys holding certain festoons of marine creatures, carved with excellent imagination out of the marble ; also the stem to go above the said basin he executed with much grace, with boys and masks for spouting out water, * Poggio Imperiale, now a school for girls, one mile outside Porta Romana, on heights of Arcetri. In 1548 confiscated by the Medici from the Salviati. Maria Maddalcna of Austria, wife of Cosimo II, employed Giulio Parigi as architect. Stable block, etc., added later. — A. T. B. POGGIO CAJ,l\(), CASTKLLO AND PETRAJA, W.ORKXCK. 2Si 282 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. of great beauty, and on the top of this stem Tribolo placed a bronze female figure a yard and a half high to represent Florence ... of which figure he made a most beautiful model wringing the water out of her hair with her hands." Many critics pronounce this figure to have been executed by Giovanni Bologna. The villa was attacked in 1364 by the Pisans with their English and German allies in the course of one of their chronic wars with the Florentines. It then belonged to the Brunelleschi, and the young sons of the house made a gallant defence and succeeded in repulsing the enemy. They were a different family to that of the great architect Filippo Brunelleschi. The Strozzi succeeded as owners, and on their exile the property came to the Medici. Cosimo I, when wishing to escape from the cares of State, passed most of his time at Petraja. A little villa on the hillside above La Topaja was lent by him ._, . ... ,. «, -, rt ,v to Varchi, the historian, who - H H PS O a H N O 290 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. 1300. Francesco Alighieri sold his newly acquired possession at once, and the purchasers were Giovanni and Accerito Portinari, nephews of that Bice who was the inspiration of the divine poet. When, by a decree of the Duca de Atene, the act of confiscation against Dante was annulled and all other possessions restored to his heirs the legal sale of this villa was allowed to stand. In 1427 Bernardo di Giovanni Portinari, nephew of Giovanni, the buyer, possessed, among his other estates, a farm called Garofano, with " a good gentleman's house " on it, situated in Camerata, in the abbey of Fiesole, and in the parish of San Bartolommeo. The boundaries have become somewhat changed, owing to deviations in the course of the torrential river Mugrone, and the property is sometimes described as in the parish of San Marco, or even in that of San Gervasio ; but this was the only piece of land owned by the Portinari in Camerata. Names of villas always change at the caprice of their owners, and later on it is denominated Como. Portinari sold the villa to his cousin Giovanni di Guatteri and his wife Francesca Strozzi, and they sold it back to the Portinari in 1454. It remained in this family till 1507, and then passed through several other hands. Duke Salviati bought it in 1738, and then again it had various owners for short periods ; but every transfer is recorded, and we have the utmost certainty that this was really Dante's house. The shield of the Portinari is carved on a wall not later than the second half of the fourteenth century. At the time Salviati bought it it is entered in the city annals as " a villa in Camerata," and must have been that of Dante, bought by the Portinari family. It is worth while tracing the history of this villa minutely, because so much of the old house still retains its original aspect. One of the bedrooms goes by the name of "Dante's room," and may, indeed, well have been that of the master of the house. Its windows lead out on to a loggia from which there is a view over Florence, and it is hardly going too far to assume that when the exile's thoughts turned back to his beloved city he must often have pictured it as it appeared from the loggia of this, his own sweet home. It is one of the most perfect views, looking off to Vallombrosa on the one hand, and towards the mountain on which stands the village of Incontro, where tradition says that St. Francis and St. Dominic met, and on the other to where the sharp shafts of the Carrara mountains stand out against the horizon. The villa now belongs to Signor Bondi. E. M. P. The Villa Bondi lies on the slopes below San Domenico di Fiesole. Originally owned by Dante about 1300, it was remodelled in the fifteenth century. The road runs up-hill between walls enlarging to a rough oval at the entrance, where two tall stone columns support iron gates. It has been carefully restored and decorated, and presents attractive features. The house is built round an open court, delightful in its quiet and sunlit brilliance. This is about fifteen yards by ten yards, having a wide brick paved balcony at the first-floor level. There is an end loggia overlooking the garden with its palm trees and modern lay-out at this same level of the first floor. This loggia has a decorated open timber roof. The fa9ade is interesting, with an end tower and a centre of two bold arches forming a loggia on the ground floor. Above is a columned belvedere of two oblong bays, now, unfortunately, built up. The right wing advances and a balanced composition is established without symmetry. A. T. B. The author of the immortal " Decameron/' the founder of who can say how many modern novels, is believed to have been born by the river Mensola, near Settignano, in 1313. The Villa Palmieri, which belonged to his father, has been identified by a contract of sale existing in the archives of Florence and dated 1336, when Giovanni Boccaccio was twenty-three years old. This villa, now called Villa Boccaccio, still lies on the hill above Villa Palmieri. Some old frescoes were found lately in restoring it. All over this fertile land, which must have been almost as thickly studded with habitations in his day as it is now, the romancer wandered marrying fiction to reality. He wrote the famous volume of stories of the patient Griselda, of Romeo and Juliet, of Isabella and her pot of Basil ; stories from which Chaucer and Shakespeare and Keats— and who shall say how many others ?— have borrowed through the centuries. And, after more than five hundred years it is still possible to identify the scenes in which he laid them. VILLA BOXDI AND VILLA PALMIER!, l-'LORKXCE. 291 o pa 3 HH 8 O CO 292 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. Boccaccio was thirty-five in the year 1348, when the great plague came to Florence, where it ravaged and destroyed and struck such terror " that the laws of God and man were no more regarded." Some lived licentiously, some temperately, some fled from the city. There was no one to nurse the sick, and numbers passed out of the world without even a witness. In the country the animals were left to roam at will, no one cared to reap the standing corn. Between March and July a hundred thousand souls perished in the city alone. ' What noble palaces were then depopulated to the last inhabitant, what families became extinct ! What vast possessions were left, and no known heir to inherit them ! ' Boccaccio frames his tales in the device of a joyous company of seven ladies, " all discreet, nobly descended, and perfectly accomplished," who met in Santa Maria Novella, where they agreed to take their maids and to retire to the country seat of one or the other of the party. They were speedily joined by three gentlemen in whom neither the adversity of the times nor the loss of friends nor even fear for themselves could stifle, or indeed cool, the passion of love. 304.— ORANGERY OF THE VILLA. " They accordingly set out next day from the city, and, after they had travelled two short miles, came to the place they had already decided upon." This first halt has been identified as Poggio Gherardo, lying above Settignano. It is an old castellated house standing high above the plain. The entrance hall is the Loggia mentioned in the " Decameron " : " The said place was on a small height removed from roads on every side, full of various trees and shrubs in full greenery and most pleasant to behold. On the brow of the hill was a palace with a fine and spacious courtyard in the middle and with loggie and halls and rooms, all and each one in itself beautiful and ornamented with jocund paintings ; surrounded with marvellous gardens and with wells of coldest water and cellars of rare wines ; a thing more suited to curious topers than to sober and virtuous women." Here one of the ladies, Pampinea, was crowned queen " with an honourable and beautiful garland of bays." Though this is a graceful fiction, Boccaccio had probably some real lady, a leader of Florentine society, in his mind. It was very usual to select some lady whose word VILLA B()\l)l .-/AY) VILLA PALMIER1, FLORENCE. 293 OS W <; OL, 'O o 294 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. for the time was law, and who settled the way in which the hours should be spent. Strolling about the countryside while engaged in philosophical discussion and gathering at some spring or charming point of view to tell tales were an important part of the proceedings. Here, then, the first series of those tales was supposed to be told ; and the Mensola flowing below is that " stream of clear water " to which the joyous company went slowly down to disport themselves at evening, barefooted and with bare arms, till they returned to the palace for supper, music and dancing. A fresh queen was chosen each day, and at the end of the second day Neifile, being crowned, said, " As you know, to-morrow is Friday, and the next day Saturday, days apt to be tedious to most people on account of the viands ordered to be eaten ; besides, Friday was the day on which He who died for our life, suffered His passion, and it is therefore worthy of reverence. For thus, I consider it to be a proper and virtuous thing that we should rather say prayers to the worship of God than invent tales. And on Saturday it is the custom for women to wash 306. — THE VILLA PALMIERI FROM THE GARDEN. their heads. . . . Being therefore unable on that day to fully carry out our established order of life, I think it would be well done to refrain from reciting tales on that day. And as we shall then have been here four days, if we are desirous to avoid being joined by others, I conceive it would be more opportune to quit this place and go elsewhere, and I have already thought of a place, and arranged everything." " So when Sunday carne, the queen, with slow steps and accompanied and followed by her ladies and by the three youths, and led by the song of maybe twenty nightingales and other birds, took her way towards the west by an unfrequented lane. . . . Gossiping, joking, and laughing with her company, she led them to a beautiful and splendid palace." The " unfrequented lane " may still be followed, and passing by it from Majano to San Dominico, we reach the Villa Palmieri, which then bore the name of Schifanoja, or " banish care," where Boccaccio's fancy pictured the remainder of the tales being told. The palace was seated on an eminence in the middle of a large plain. When they had entered and seen the great hall and the chambers most elegantly fitted up, they greatly extolled it, judging its VILLA Ii().\I)l AND VILLA PALM1L1U, 1 co 312 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. stands on a great platform some eighty yards broad, made by levelling the top of the hill and building great walls, forty feet high, on three sides. Entered from the loggia (Fig. 318) is a great vaulted hall, with a plain barrel vault ; it seems even larger and more impressive than that at Poggio Cajano (Fig. 287). The only later note is four frescoed panels of the eighteenth century by Menucci and Boti, enclosed in prominent plaster mouldings. Inner doors and linings of that later period have also been added, the original walnut doors being merely hung to iron hooks in the jambs of the thick masonry walls. The older rooms have open joisted ceilings and heavy wood main beams with painted decoration, which is 322. — VILLA DEI COLLAZZI : GENERAL VIEW. 323.— THE ENTRANCE TO THE VILLA. VILLA DEI COLLAZZI AND VILLA GAMBERAIA. 3*3 o o o w ffi H CO THE GARDENS OF ITALY. continued on the underside of the floor boards, the wood showing through the openwork patterns as the background. Under the stout main timbers are short moulded corbel beams. All the rooms are lofty ; where not beamed they have intersected lunette vaulting. The size of the old canopy beds will attract the attention of the modern visitor. An old panel of needlework hung on the walls resembles majolica pavement in its design. The staircase is of the open well type, with later iron balusters between stone newels, prepared probably for a stone balustrading. The floors are of brick, waxed, or of terrazzo, polished. The untouched character of the interior is as unique as the completeness of the chapel. This, of a later date, is in painted architecture, complex on a simple background (Fig. 316). There is a vestry complete with vestment and other presses. At the west end of the chapel, grilles in the wall make the entrance passage serve as an ante-chapel. Opposite the altar the frescoed architecture provides a throne for Faith trampling on Infidelity. These frescoes are in such a singular state of preservation, 325. — THE TERRACE OF THE VILLA GAMBERAIA. so tresh in colouring, as to show once more the value of the painter's severe technical training in those earlier days. The altar-piece represents the marriage at Cana. In the chapel is buried Filippo Dini, " Patrizio Florentine," the last of the Dini Castelli family to hold the property, who died in 1824. It was then purchased by the Bombicci, who have so carefully preserved its ancient character. The present owner, Cavaliere Guglielmo Bombicci, represents the third generation since the purchase. This grand villa, begun by the Dini family, was not destined to be finished, for at the back were to have been a pair of loggias at the first floor level, only one of which has been built as that front still lacks about half of its full extension. This loggia is of the type employed by Vasari at the Uffizi, the twin arches springing from a short architrave carried on a paii or columns (Fig. 319). The family were known as the Dini della Liberta from their being on the popular side in the fourteenth century. In Medicean days they would seem to have been aristocrats. [7/,/..l DEI COLLAZZI AND I' 1 1. LA GAMIWKA/A. 326. — VILLA GAMBERAIA : WALL OF THE LIMONAIA GARDEN. t 327. — VILLA GAMBERAIA : LIMONAIA. 316 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. Their shield is seen in prominent places in the villa. It bears a green pine tree eradicated and fructated with the motto " Libertas." Round the base of the villa runs the stone seat typical of the older Florentine palace, which of itself would mark an early date. In the house is an old architectural drawing, an elevational perspective of the main front, showing the open court as at present, except for a slight difference in the steps and for the fact that a tower or belvedere is shown rising up from the back wall of the loggia, a central feature which was never built. There are two other drawings of some kind of catacomb building, possibly Roman ; but what attracts attention is the fact that the scale is given in " Piedi Inglese." It is known, of course, that the old Roman foot was the same as the English, but it looks as if these drawings, which have always been in the house, had been made for an English patron. 328. — THE TERRACE GARDEN, FROM BOWLING GREEN GATE. The adjacent " pineta," or woods of the true Italian pine, have had much to do with preserving the perfect quiet of this hillside retreat. Despite the visible sight of Florence, the villa might be miles away in the heart of Tuscany, and it is given to few to combine city and rural life in so ideal a fashion. A. T. B. The Villa Gamberaia stands on a long, narrow piece of land ; it is not large, but the site is utilised and managed so as to give all that the mind can desire of variety, and space itself. It is a marvel of deft planning. From the short entrance alley the visitor emerges on the long bowling green of soft, rich turf, an avenue than which nothing can be more perfect (Fig. 329). On one side is set the house, a cream-washed villa, with wide eaves ; on the other, a high retaining wall, crowned with statues and old vases filled with pink geraniums ; the bowling alley stretches far beyond and far behind. In front, where the eye naturally turns, VILLA DEI COLLAZZI AM) I'll. LA VAMIWRAIA. w w OS o o 6 oa w ffi H N THE GARDENS OF ITALY. - o ta H — ffi 2 O VILLA DIU C()LL.\7//A IM) Vll.L \ C, . \ M1WR.M. \. < >• a a a: < o Z OS w H CO CO 320 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. 332. — SHELTERED BY ILEX HEDGE. the grass ends in a balustrade surmounted by one graceful statue, flanked by old fir trees, and far away the hills and valleys are seen fading into the blue distance. Turn and look towards the other end and past the masses of climbing pink blossoms. The green closes in a circular grotto of coloured pebbles and shells enclosed in an arch and crowned by a balustrade. Beyond, high against a turquoise sky, the dark, dainty finger-tips of cypresses point upwards, closing in the lines which on either hand frame the vista. The bowling green, long and very narrow, runs the whole length of the grounds. We pass through the house, cool with marble floors, and come out on the western fafade. Again there is a narrow grass strip, but not so long, and bounded by a balustrade on which stand vases and stone dogs. The house has an open arcade thrown out on either side (Fig. 330), and to the south is an oblong piece of ground, which, when the present owners took it, was nothing but a rough and neglected half- vineyard, half-kitchen garden, which had been used for many years as a sort of general utility plot. It is now the water garden (Fig. 334), set with huge tanks covered with white and pink water lilies ; fountains play in all directions, and the one old fountain which was found there still occupies the place of honour in the middle. Half effaced as it is, it shows a master's touch. A boy riding a dolphin, a common device enough ; but how this boy rides ! with what arrogant mischief the imp bestrides his aquatic mount, and balances the fountain basin on his confident head ! Thanks to all this water, there are flowers in profusion. The whole is a feast of pure colour against backgrounds of clipped dark foliage. From the bowling green we pass through the wall to a terraced wood. The wood is quite small, with stone seats under the dense boughs, and then, without warning, we come out again into a little grotto garden, with fountain, rococo statues, and balustraded flights of steps. This leads up to a lemon garden (Fig. 327), backed by the lemonaia or stanzone, a feature of every old Italian garden, in which all the half-hardy plants can be stored in the winter. Beyond this again lies the real wood, with winding walks under ilexes and cypresses. VILLA DEI COLLAZZI A\'D VILLA dAMHKRAIA. 321 x OS o 2 w X H O OS fa Q OS < o w u < OS es EC H ro 322 THE GARDENS OF ITALY z o o a z a Q O 2 as a CO III. LA DEI COLLA///I AND I'll. I. .i (,' I M HER II \. 323 2 w Q w O QS u H W H 10 co 324 VILLA DEI COLLAZZI AND VILLA GAMBERAIA. From a broken shield dug up in 1900, inscribed " Zenobius Lapius Fundavit, M.D.C.X.," it seems probable that the villa was erected for the Lapi family. The name of the architect is not forthcoming, but there are an elegance and a simplicity in the arrangement of the small courtyard, with an arcade in the centre of the house from which the vaulted rooms open, which indicate some very capable master of the late Renaissance, perhaps Ammanati, or one of his pupils. On two sides of this court are flying balconies supported on three arches. Numerous contracts and lawsuits exist connected with the water supply for the fountains. In 1619 Zenobi Lapi died, leaving the property to two nephews, Jacopo di Andrea Lapi and Andrea di Cosimo Lapi, and failing heirs from them it was to be divided between the Capponi and Cerretani families. In 1624 Jacopo died, leaving a young son. His uncle, The most illustrious Signore Cosimo Lapi, a noble Florentine," laid out the inlaid grottoes, and developed a perfect passion for making fountains and jeux d'eaux. In 1636 one poor lady, a Signora Aurelia, brings an action against him, complaining that he has cut off necessary water from her villa by the reservoirs which he has made. Not unnaturally, he left his property much in debt, and when his nephew, Andrea, died in 1688, the estate was heavily mortgaged. Andrea's son, another Jacopo, died in 1717 without heirs male, and the Capponi and Cerretani dividing the Lapi property, Garnberaia fell to the former. It is to Andrea, without doubt, that we owe the bowling green, the dark cypresses and the stone statues. The old villa has changed hands many times since then, and was even at one time let out in lodgings for the summer. Fortunately, it has never been spoilt, and it now belongs to two ladies. Both are artists, and in their hands the villa becomes every year more beautiful. E. M. P. 336, — THE WAY OUT. THE GARDENS OF ITALY. 325 CHAPTER XXVI. VILLA SALVIATJ, FLORENCE, AND VILLA GARZONI, COLLODI, NEAR PESGIA. IT is not known who built this massive and fortress-like villa, with its towers and machico- lations and its sloping bastion-like walls.* In noo it is mentioned in Florentine archives as belonging to the Montegonzi, who in 1450 sold it to Messer Alemanno Salviati. It was then described as " a strong castle with towers and battlements," and Vasari tells us that in 1529 it was besieged by the Florentine mob and burnt. That presumably ended its life as a fortress, and the massive tower, of which the main portion consists, has been transformed by a wide roof above its battlements (Fig. 339). A courtyard with Renaissance arches has risen inside the adjoining part, but there still remain the two tall corner towers, from which men-at- arms must have watched in the old days of mediaeval Florence, when a dwelling-house at a distance from the city must also be a place of refuge. Jacopo Salviati had already laid out the terraced garden in 1510, and in the eighteenth century an owner, smitten with the taste for rococo gardening brought in by Francesco di * Resembling Careggi, it may have been designed by Michelozzo Michelozzi (1396-1472). 337-- VILLA SALVIATI : SOUTH-!- AST CORNER. 326 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. Medici, built the long graceful orange-houses, frivolous, stucco-decorated erections, with a balus- traded facade and a clock tower. The combination makes a fascinating document (Figs. 340 and 341). The villa is now approached by a winding road of little interest, smothered in trees ; but from Zocchi's prints we perceive that the old approach led straight up in front by a broad, walled road. All has been turned into a garden, with roses, bamboos, pampas grasses, lawns and other adjuncts of modern gardening. The most curious feature of the old garden is a spacious grotto-house, some sixty feet square, dug out underground and supported by long rows of columns, the whole covered, in the grotesque fashion of the eighteenth century, with stalactites and shell work and ornamented with statuary and monstrous animals. There are remains of old jeux d'eaux. It is perfectly cool on the hottest day ; unfortunately, like all cool, damp, outdoor places in Italy, it is also a haunt beloved of mosquitoes. For three hundred and fifty years the villa belonged to the great Florentine family whose name it bears. We first hear of the Salviati in Florence towards the end of the thirteenth 338. — GARDEN BOUNDARY. century. A doctor, Messer Salvi, had two sons, Carnbio and Lotto, who became priors of the city, and altogether the Salviati gave to Florence sixty-three priors and twenty-three Gonfalonnieri. One worthless member there was: Giuliano, who led the mob against the Medici in 1527, and afterwards became the boon companion of the dissolute Duke Alessandro. It was he who insulted Luisa Strozzi at a masked ball and paid for it by being maimed for life by her brother, while his wife was always supposed to have poisoned the beautiful and virtuous woman who had resented his infamous behaviour. Jacopo Salviati was his cousin and married Lucrezia, daughter of Lorenzo the Magnificent and sister to Leo X. Jacopo was the one man who at the death of Leo X dared to stand forth as the advocate of the liberty of the people, and thereby forfeited the favour of Clement VII. His daughter Maria married Giovanni delle Bande Nere, the famous captain of Condottieri, and was the mother of Cosimo I. The family increased in wealth and power, and in 1628 the Jacopo of that day married Veronica, daughter of the Prince VILLA SALVIATI AND VILLA CARZOM. 327 > w S H O O 3 5 ca w I IX - I a H 328 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. VILLA S.I I, VI ATI AM) VILLA GARZOM. 329 < < _) w a H O H en O HH HH a O OS w a H w a H H U a H P O CO 330 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. of Massa, and was created Duke of Giuliano. A letter exists giving an account of the festivities and of the wedding presents, which included a picture by Raffaele d'Urhino. The letter gives a glowing description of Donna Veronica, but a contemporary declares that " Donna Veronica was endowed with but small beauty, but had a most violent and imperious temper and a jealous disposition. Her husband, poor man, had small joy of her." The Duke was handsome, gallant and accom- plished, and, as an anonymous account in the Marencel- liana library in Florence has it, ' was driven to seek for comfort elsewhere." Mrs. Ross, in her learned book on Florentine villas, to which I am indebted for many particulars, has translated this manuscript, which had never before been published, and it tells the events of the tragedy most graphically. There was an old gentleman in Florence, Giustino Canacci (to give the story shortly), who, being near seventy and having several grown-up children, took, as his second wife, Caterina, the young daughter of a dyer, who w7as popularly called " the fair Cherub," from her silken gold hair and her exquisite colour- * ing. Her husband 342.— FOUNTAIN OF JOVE. being < VILLA SALVIATI AND VILLA GARZONL 337 $ o z « w - >• o o N OS O <•< o 'o CO v"^ t' 338 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. o en M OH w z c o J J O O r; N K 0 B CO -- O < OS 2S - ffi H p C en W a H LO VILLA SALVIATI AND VILLA (1\R/A)M. 339 o % cu os § j o u o N O < o s u Z H z 1 K H 34° THE GARDENS OF ITALY. C/3 w O «tj as as w w O H 2 K O en as - o u | w w O N as < O J VILLA SALVIATI .l\D VILLA GARZONL o N OS < O — > w K H 8 O O fe w a H CO 342 THE GARDENS OF ITALY o N OS < O J > £ w Q