THE GARDENS OF TEA 
N this land of an old civilisation, gifted with 
so transcendent a share of natural beauty, 
the combination of art and nature is, perhaps, 
the most fascinating of all its aspects ; and 
so well have the men of the past understood how 
to combine the two, that in the villas and gardens 
of Italy it is well-nigh impossible to divorce them. 
The glades and woodland, the terraces and stone- 
work, seem so inevitably to belong to one another, 
and each to enhance the others’ charm. 
The ancient Romans thoroughly understood 
villa life, but they differentiated between the villa 
rusticana or farm and the villa urbana, a pleasure- 
house in the country or on the outskirts of the town. 
The pleasure-house, of course, varied with 
time. There is a great gap between the villa of 
Hadrian, with all its luxury, its gymnasium, its 
splendid baths, its lake for mimic fights, its wealth 
of statues, its mosaic pavements, and the simple 
villa of Scipio Africanus, as described by Seneca, 
with dark, narrow baths, its outer walls fortified 
with towers, its stone floors and bare walls. That 
simplicity passed away in the days of Metellus, 
of Lucullus and Cicero. Seneca’s descriptions 
show us the magnificence and profusion which 
obliterated all traces of the simpler life. We read 
of the sumptuous refinements, which extended 
even to the kennels and the aviary. Pliny the 
younger gives us some idea of the kind of villa 
that would be possessed by a wealthy Roman. 
The first essential was that it should have a 
southern exposure. It was generally built with 
a body and wings; a great portico led up to it, 
enclosing a garden; an inner garden or court was 
set round with seats and architectural borders ; 
galleries or loggie united several dining-halls with 
different aspects, so as to ensure being able to have 
the sun at different hours and seasons. One hall 
was warmed by a caé/orifére, another was arranged 
so as to be fresh and cool through the long, hot 
summers. The baths were a little suite, composed 
of bathing, heating, and dressing rooms, with a 
frigidorium, or cooling apartment. There would 
be a subterranean gallery, always cool, even in the 
heart of summer, and everywhere, fountains, tumbling 
into great basins, cooled the air. 
the position of the windows was chosen with the 
greatest care, so as to have lovely views, looking over 
On every hand, 
the country or distant mountains, or down into the 
gardens. In the gardens were groves of planes and 
ilexes, summer-houses, pavilions with couches, marble 
seats, more fountains, vast porticoes and terraces. 
The farm villa had an outer wall, intended 
to keep off robbers and to make it easier to guard 
the slaves. The porter’s lodge was situated at the 
entrance, or the house of the master or steward 
(villicus), so that it was easy to overlook all comings 
and goings. 
with workmen’s dwellings. 
All the outer court was built round 
There was a_ vast 
common hall, and a large kitchen, where all the 
inhabitants of the farm could meet, cook, eat, and 
divert themselves. 
Burckhardt tells us that, when the Florentines 
of the Renaissance revived the classic taste for villas, 
they spent so much on their country residences that 
their contemporaries looked on them as insane. 
Within a radius of twenty miles of the city there 
are said to have been twenty thousand estates, with 
eight hundred palaces whose walls were built of 
cut stone. There were many smaller villas too. 
Burckhardt says he loved his own little villa, though 
he had but a few fields and an orchard, and a few 
rooms where his old mother lived, and where he 
often went on horseback to attend to some matter 
of the harvest or vineyard with his own hand. 
He liked to have good vinegar in the house. 
When staying at his villa he was prepared to eat 
coarse food, and paid little attention to his dress. 
He enjoyed his olives and capers, and kept early 
hours. Another writer, who had a villa near Fiesole, 
says, of one of his neighbours, “In his villa he 
collected his friends. Without the fatigue of com- 
pany, without the noise of the chase, they found 
solace in the pages of Boethius and St. Jerome, 
