VILLA 
only thought of it 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 less. In 
1801 it 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 shrubbery and 
garden is set in marvellous hedges of clipped box, 
above which towers the dark velvet of stone 
pines, sarcophagi serve as basins to the fountains, 
crumbling statues gleam from niches cut in the 
thick greenery, huge ancient receptacles for oil or 
wine stand on pedestals, vases and tubs of lemon 
trees are placed on richly-carved capitals of broken 
columns. In front of the garden entrance is a 
broad gravelled court, in the midst of which is 
set a fountain overgrown with arum lilies ; beyond 
it lies a formal garden, where oleanders glow rosy 
in the summer and magnolias make the air heavy 
with perfume. A charming statue of a dreaming 
Eros is placed here upon an old tomb. At the 
entrance to a long alley, between two columns, 
supporting an architrave, which once sheltered a 
famous statue of Cleopatra, is now placed an antique 
statue of Apollo, which 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 beneath the graceful canopy, 
with roses rioting all round it, and the dark ilexes 
as a background, this statue is one of the most 
striking features of the garden. Velasquez has left 
two interesting sketches, which are now in Madrid, 
of the long gallery in the garden, and a fountain 
with ilexes. 
Within the villa it is possible to descend a stair 
to the depth of 8oft., to where, beneath a heavy 
vault, flow the crystal waters of the Acqua Virga, 
which rises eight miles from Rome, and feeds many 
of the fountains. 
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 commemo- 
rates M. Suvee, the Director at whose suggestion 
the villa was bought. The Act is dated May 18th, 
1803, and is signed for France in the name of the 
First Consul of the Republic. M. Suvee writes at 
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MEDICI. 
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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 
Poussain, 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., and his statue and that of 
Louis XVIII. stand 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, and it was 
Ingres who fastened to the walls so many classic 
fragments, and who placed plaster models of the old 
statues upon the pedestals. Copies of the lions and 
of Gian Bologna’s Mercury have been placed where 
the originals formerly stood. 
During the last two years special interest has 
been reawakened in some of the bas-reliefs which 
are sunk in the facade of the villa. Three of these 
are fragments from the Ara Pacis, the celebrated 
altar of Augustus, which is now being excavated 
from beneath a palace in the Corso. Antiquarians 
are not without hopes that when the altar comes to 
be, as far as possible, reconstructed, these fragments 
may find their way back to their rightful position. 
A short stair leads up to the roof of the garden 
gallery, from which 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 dscage, which stretches away in a smooth 
green dome. The sky grows golden and scarlet and 
fades into clearest green, and before you descend the 
first lights begin to twinkle among the purple depths 
of the city lying far below, 
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