VIIA Alban 
ND when the Princess arrived at the palace 
she found all the doors wide open, and 
she passed through suites of magnificent 
rooms, looking out on gardens gay with 
flowers, but there was not a sign of any living 
being.” So ran the fairy tale of one’s childhood, 
and the words come back as in the hot midday 
siesta one passes under the tall portico that divides 
the busy street just outside the Porta Salaria from 
the grounds of Villa Albani. The garden is aglow 
with flowers ; ‘“‘ the halls are void, the doors are 
wide.’ We seem to have stepped into one of the 
enchanted palaces of fairyland, a place where the 
Princess might meet the Prince, where all is so 
unlike the commonplace scenes of the workaday 
world. 
Villa Albani differs from other Italian  resi- 
dences in this—that it was built entirely with a 
view to the treasures it was 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, the long terraces, are 
peopled by a world of marble men and women, 
and they have, and need, no other inhabitants. 
o 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 inestimable 
service to art and archexology. Since the time 
of Winckelmann, the distinguished German _pro- 
fessor, 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 on 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 known history. 
The Cardinal from his youth showed a wish 
to revive the love of art in Rome, and to turn 
back 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 of statues, and became so intimate with 
him that he often went to chat at his bedside. 
He threw himself enthusiastically into his patron’s 
favourite pursuit, and it seemed as if he built and 
bought for himself. 
The villa is believed to have been built from 
the Cardinal’s own designs carried out by Carlo 
Marchionni. It consists of a lofty two-storied 
palace, with an open loggia on the ground floor, 
arcades sweeping away on either hand, at the 
back of which are small apartments and alcoves, 
and on the other side of the garden a sort of 
casino with another curving loggia. ‘“ Here is 
a villa of exquisite design, planned by a profound 
antiquary. Here Cardinal Albani, having spent 
his life in collecting ancient sculpture, formed such 
porticoes and such saloons to receive it as an 
ancient Roman might have done, porticoes where 
the statues stood free upon the pavements, saloons 
which were not stocked but embellished, and 
seemed full without a crowd.” 
Winckelmann, in his letters, gives us con- 
tinual accounts of the rise and progress of this 
splendid collection, and speaks affectionately of the 
goodness and loyalty of heart of its owner. 
“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 everything 
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, 17535 he wiaitese comlhe 
palace is adorned with such a quantity of columns 
of porphyry, granite, and oriental alabaster that 
before they were put in their appointed places 
they seemed like a forest of marble.” There are, 
in fact, one hundred and forty-four. The noble 
portico is supported on thirty-six of oriental 
granite and forty small ones, beautifully polished. 
