THE GARDENS OF ITALY. 
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 tor Tuscany, 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 emulation 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 intelli- 
gence, made him- 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 gaiety made him 
universally beloved. There was always room at 
his table for men of letters, who he recompensed 
generously.” He established in Rome a library 
and a printing-press for Eastern literature. He 
was one of the principal patrons of Gian Bologna, 
the famous French sculptor, who worked in Italy, 
and whose beautiful bronze Mercury used to stand 
in the vestibule of the villa. This great prince, 
who, after a happy and_ glorious reign, died in 
Florence in 1608, at the age of fifty-nine years, 
was one of the best examples of those ecclesias- 
tical lords 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, when it was probably 
much in the same state as 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, and 
which, through all changes and vicissitudes, has 
presided over the garden as it 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 speaks of 
the wood of ilexes through which you ascend to 
that height, which tradition says was once the 
Temple of the Sun; and the sixty steps are still 
there, though the fountain constructed by the Duke 
of Tuscany no longer exists. Of the splendid lions 
which stood there, and are now in Florence, one is 
an antique and one from the hand of Flaminia 
Vacca. Under the loggia stood statues and the 
famous Medici vase. The great hall contained a 
Ganymede, an Apollo, two Venuses, a table designed 
by Michael Angelo, and 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. 
SI 
Annibale Lippi seems accepted as the archi- 
has borrowed some ideas—the Ionic 
capitals of the garden loggia, the garlands, the 
gallery —from Michael Angelo. The loggia is 
upheld by six antique columns, two of granite and 
four of cipollino, of such beauty that it is difficult 
to match them, even in Rome. 
The outside of the villa, fronting the city, has 
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 Castile of St, Angelo, 
not in time of war, but 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. We can 
imagine a little what the villa was like in its great 
days by saying that what we now see are 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, he was terribly tortured at 
their hands. They then seized the Father Paoletto, 
and hung him by the hair from a tree in the 
garden. He attributed his preservation to a vow 
which he made to St. Francois de Paul. 
In 1633-34 the 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. When he discovered the satellites of 
Jupiter he had given them the name of “ Stars 
of the Medici,” and so earned the gratitude and 
powerful protection of the 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 upon the town. 
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 no longer 
owned by the Medici, and Lorraine and Austria 
were masters of Tuscany when the great House of 
Medici flickered out in 1737. 
Long before this its splendours had diminished. 
All depended on one family, and followed the 
fortunes of its destiny. Towards the end of the 
seventeenth century the splendour of the Medici 
concentrated on Florence, and as one Grand Duke 
succeeded another he thought less of the villa, or 
tect, and 
